An essay concerning human understanding

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AN

ESSAY

CONCERNING

HUMAN UNDERSTANDING,

WRITTEN

BY JOHN LOCKE, GENT.

TWENTY-SEVENTH EDITION,

WITH THE author's LAST ADDITIONS AND CORRECTIONS.

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME,

WITH

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS,

AND

AN ANALYSIS OF Mr. LOCKE'S DOCTRINE OF IDEAS.

LONDON :

PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG^ JS, CHEAPSIDE j R. GRIFFIN AND CO.,
GLASGOW ; AND J. GUMMING, DUBLIN.

18^9.

6

s;3

LONDON:

PRTKTVD BY THOMAS DAVISON, WIIITErRTAHS.

TO THE

RIGHT HONOURABLE THOMAS,

EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY,

BARON HERBERT OF CARDIFF, LORD ROSS OF KENDAL, PAR,

FITZHUGH, MARMION, ST. QUIXTIN, AND SHURLAND ; LORD

PRESIDENT OF HIS MAJESTy's MOST HONOURABLE

PRIVY-COUNCIL, AND LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE

COUNTY OF WILTS, AND OF SOUTH WALES.

MY LORD,

THIS treatise, which is grown up under your lordship^'s eye, and
has ventured into the world by your order, does now, by a natural
kind of right, come to your lordship for that protection which you
several years since promised it. It is not that I think any name,
how great soever, set at the beginning of a book, will be able to
cover the faults that are to be found in it. Things in print must
stand and fall by their own worth, or the reader's fancy. But there
being nothing more to be desired for Truth than a fair unpreju-
diced hearing, nobody is more likely to procure me that than your
lordship, who is allowed to have got so intimate an acquaintance
with her, in her more retired recesses. Your lordship is known to
have so far advanced your speculations in the most abstract and
general knowledge of things, beyond the ordinary reach, or common
methods, that your allowance and approbation of the design of this
treatise, will at least preserve it from being condemned without
reading ; and will prevail to have those parts a little weighed, which
might otherwise, perhaps, be thought to deserve no consideration,
for being somewhat out of the common road. The imputation of
novelty is a terrible charge amongst those who judge of men's heads,
as they do of their perukes, by the fashion ; and can allow none to
be right, but the received doctrines. Truth scarce ever yet carried
it by vote any where at its first appearance: new opinions are
always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason,

ag

iv EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold,
is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine. It is
trial and examination must give it price, and not any antique
fasliion : and though it be not yet current by the public stamp, yet
it may, for all that, be as old as nature, and is certainly not the less
genuine. Your lordship can give great and convincing instances of
this, whenever you please to oblige the public with some of those
large and comprehensive discoveries you have made of truths
hitherto unknown, unless to some few, from whom your lordship has
been pleased not wholly to conceal them. This alone were a sufficient
reason, were there no other, why I should dedicate this Essay to
your lordship ; and its having some little correspondence with some
parts of that nobler and vast system of the sciences your lordship
has made so new, exact, and instructive a draught of, I think it
glory enough, if your lordship permit me to boast, that here and
there I have fallen into some thoughts not wholly different from
yours. If your lordship think fit, that, by your encouragement,
this should appear in the world, I hope it may be a reason, some
time or other, to lead your lordship farther ; and you will allow me
to say, that you here give the world an earnest of something, that,
if they can bear with this, will be truly worth their expectation.
This, my lord, shows what a present I here make to your lordship :
just such as the poor man does to his rich and great neighbour, by
whom the basket of flowers, or fruit, is not ill taken, though he has
more plenty of his own growth, and in much greater perfection.
Worthless things receive a value, when they are made the offerings
of respect, esteem, and gratitude : these you have given me so
mighty and peculiar reasons to have, in the highest degree, for your
lord.ship, that if they can add a price to what they go along with,
proportionable to their own greatness, I can with confidence brag,
I here make your lordship the richest present you ever received.
This I am sure, I am under the greatest obligation to seek all occa-
sions to acknowledge a long train of favours I have received from
your lordship ; favours, though great and important in themselves,
yet made much more so by the forwardness, concern, and kind-
ness, and other obliging circumstances, that never failed to accom-
pany them. To all this you are pleased to add that which gives
yet more weight and relish to all the rest : you vouchsafe to con-
tinue me in some degrees of your esteem, and allow me a place in
your gocxl thoughts — 1 had almost said friendship. This, my lord,
your words and actions so constantly show on all occasions, even to

EPISTLE DEDICATORY. v

others when I am absent, that it is not canity in me to mention what
every body knows : but it would be want of good manners, not to
acknowledge what so many are witnesses of, and every day tell me
I am indebted to your lordship for. I wish they could as easily
assist my gratitude, as they convince me of the great and growing
engagements it has to your lordship. This I am sure, I should
write of the understanding without having any, if I were not
extremely sensible of them, and did not lay hold on this oppor-
tunity to testify to the world, how much I am obliged to be, and
how much I am.

MY LORD,

YOUR LORDSHIp''s

MOST HUMBLE, AND

MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT,

JOHN LOCKE.

Dorset Court. 24th
of May, 1689.

THE

EPISTLE TO THE READER.

READER,

I HERE put into thy hands, what has been the diversion of some
of my idle and heavy hours : if it has the good luck to prove so of
any of thine, and thou hast but half so much pleasure in reading, as
I had in writing it, thou wih as little think thy money, as I do
my pains, ill bestowed. Mistake not this for a commendation of
my work ; nor conclude, because I was pleased with the doing of it,
that therefore I am fondly taken with it now it is done. He that
hawks at larks and sparrows, has no less sport, though a much less
considerable quarry, than he that flies at nobler game : and he is
little acquainted with tlie subject of this treatise, the understand-
ing, who does not know, that as it is the most elevated faculty of
the soul, so it is employed with a greater, and more constant, delight,
than any of the other. Its searches after truth are a sort of hawk-
ing and hunting, wherein the very pursuit makes a great part of the
pleasure. Every step the mind takes in its progress towards know-
ledge, makes some discovery, which is not only new, but the best
too, for the time at least.

For the understanding, like the eye, judging of objects only by
its own sight, cannot but be pleased with what it discovers, having
less regret for what has escaped it, because it is unknown. Thus
he who has raised himself above the alms-basket, and, not content
to live lazily on scraps of begged opinions, sets his own thoughts on
work, to find and follow truth, will (whatever he lights on) not miss
the hunter's satisfaction ; every moment of his pursuit will reward
his pains with some delight, and he will have reason to think his
tim.e not ill spent, even when he cannot much boast of any great
acquisition.

This, reader, is the entertainment of those who let loose their own
thoughts, and follow them in writing; which thou ought not to
envy them, since they afford thee an opportunity of the like diver-
sion, if thou wilt make use of thy own thoughts in reading. It is
to them, if they are thy own, that I refer myself: but if they are
taken upon trust from others, it is no great matter what they are,
they not following truth, but some meaner consideration : and it is

viii EPISTLE TO THE READER.

not worth while to be concerned, what he says or thinks, who says
or thinks only as he is directed by another. If thou judgest for
thyself, I know thou wilt judge candidly; and then I shall not be
harmed or offended, whatever be thy censure. For though it be
certain, that there is nothing in this treatise, of the truth whereof I
am not fully persuaded ; yet I consider myself as liable to mistakes
as I can think thee ; and know, that this book must stand or fall
with thee, not by any opinion I have of it, but by thy own. If thou
findest little in it new or instructive to thee, thou art not to blame
me for it. It was not meant for those that had already mastered
this subject, and made a thorough acquaintance with their own
understandings ; but for my own information, and the satisfaction of
a few friends, who acknowledged themselves not to have sufficiently
considered it. Were it fit to trouble thee with the history of this
Essay, I should tell thee, that five or six friends meeting at my
chamber, and discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found
themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that rose on every
side. After we had a while puzzled ourselves, without coming any
nearer a resolution of those doubts which perplexed us, it came into
my thoughts, that we took a wrong course ; and that, before we set
ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, it was necessary to examine
our own abihties, and see what objects our understandings were, or
Mere not, fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company,
who all readily assented ; and thereupon it was agreed, that this
should be our first inquiry. Some hasty and undigested thoughts,
on a subject I had never before considered, which I set down against
our next meeting gave the first entrance into this discourse ; which
having been thus begun by chance, was continued by entreaty,
written by incoherent parcels; and after long intervals of neglect,
resumed again, as my humour or occasions permitted ; and at last,
in a retirement, where an attendance on my health gave me leisure,
it was brought into that order thou seest it.

This discontinued way of writing may have occasioned, besides
others, two contrary faults, viz., that too little and too much may be
gaid in it. If thou findest any thing wanting, I shall be glad, that
what I have writ, gives thee any desire that 1 should have gone
farther : if it seems too much to thee, thou must blame the subject ;
for when I first put pen to paper, I thought all I should have to say
on this matter, would have been contained in one sheet of paper ;
but the farther I went, the larger prospect I had : new discoveries
led me still on, and so it grew insensibly to the bulk it now appears
in. I will not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower

EPISTLE TO THE READER. ix

compass than it is ; and that some parts of it might be contracted ;
the way it has been writ in, by catches, and many long intervals of
interruption, being apt to cause some repetitions. But to confess the
truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy, to make it shorter.

I am not ignorant how little I herein consult my own reputation,
when I knowingly let it go with a fault, so apt to disgust the most
judicious, who are always the nicest readers. But they who know
sloth is apt to content itself with any excuse, will pardon me, if mine
has prevailed on me, where, I think, I have a very good one. I will
not, therefore, allege in my defence, that the same notion, having
different respects, may be convenient or necessary to prove or illus-
trate several parts of the same discourse ; and that so it has happened
in many parts of this ; but waving that, I shall frankly avow, that I
have sometimes dwelt long upon the same argument, and expressed
it different ways, with a quite different design. I pretend not to
publish this Essay for the information of men of large thoughts and
quick apprehensions ; to such masters of knowledge I profess my-
self a scholar, and therefore warn them beforehand not to expect any
thing here but what, being spun out of my own coarse thoughts, is
fitted to men of my own size ; to whom, perhaps, it will not be ac-
ceptable, that I have taken some pains to make plain and familiar to
their thoughts some truths, which established prejudice, or the ab-
stractness of the ideas themselves, might render difficult. Some ob-
jects had need be turned on every side ; and when the notion is new,
as I confess some of them are to me, or out of the ordinary road, as
I suspect they will appear to others, it is not one simple view of it
that will gain it admittance into every understanding, or fix it there
with a clear and lasting impression. There are few, I believe, who
have not observed in themselves or others, that what in one way of
proposing was very obscure, another way of expressing it has made
very clear and intelligible ; though afterwards the mind found little
difference in the phrases, and wondered why one failed to be under-
stood more than the other. But every thing does not hit alike upon^
every man's imagination. We have our understandings no less dif- (
ferent than our palates ; and he that thinks the same truth shall be
equally relished by every one in the same dress, may as well hope to
feast every one with the same sort of cookery : the meat may be the
same, and the nourishment good, yet every one not be able to receive lr>^.
it with that seasoning ; and it must be dressed another way, if you
will have it go down with some, even of strong constitutions. The^
truth is, those who advised me to publish it, advised me, for this rea-
son, to publish it as it is : and since I have been brought to let it go

X EPISTLE TO THE READER.

abroad, I desire it should be understood by whoever gives himself
the pains to read it. I have so little affectation to be in print, that if
I were not flattered this Essay might be of some use to others, as I
think it has been to me, I should have confined it to the view of some
friends, who gave the first occasion to it. My appearing therefore
in print, being on purpose to be as useful as I may, I think it neces-
sary to make what I have to say as easy and intelligible to all sorts of
readers as I can. And I had much rather the speculative and quick-
sighted should complain of my being in some parts tedious, than that
any one, not accustomed to abstract speculations, or prepossessed with
different notions, should mistake, or not comprehend, my meaning.

It will possibly be censured as a great piece of vanity or insolence
in me, to pretend to instruct this our knowing age, it amounting to
little less, when I own, that I publish this Essay with hopes it may be
useful to others. But if it may be permitted to speak freely of those,
who with a feigned modesty condemn as useless what they themselves
write, methinks it savours much more of vanity or insolence to publish
a book for any other end ; and he fails very much of that respect he
owes the public, who prints, and consequently expects men should
read, that wherein he intends not they should meet with any thing of
use to themselves or others : and should nothing else be found allow-
able in this treatise, yet my design will not cease to be so ; and the
goodness of my intention ought to be some excuse for the worthless-
ness of my present. It is that chiefly which secures me from the fear
of censure, which I expect not to escape more than better writers.
Men''s principles, notions, and relishes, are so different, that it is hard
to find a book which pleases or displeases all men. I acknowledge
the age we live in is not the least knowing, and therefore not the
most easy to be satisfied. If I have not the good luck to please, yet
nobody ought to be offended with me. I plainly tell all my readers,
except half-a-dozen, this treatise was not at first intended for them ;
and therefore they need not be at the trouble to be of that number.
But yet if any one thinks fit to be angry, and rail at it, he may do it
securely : for I shall find some better way of spending my time, than
in such kind of conversation. I shall always have the satisfaction to
have aimed sincerely at truth and usefulness, though in one of the
meanest ways. The commonwealth of learning, is not at this time
without master-builders, whose mighty designs, in advancing the
sciences, will leave lasting monuments to the admiration of posterity ;
but every one must not hope to be a Boyle, or a Sydenham ; and in
an age that prcxluces such masters, as the great Huygenius, and the
incomparable Mr. Newton, with some other of that strain, it is am-

EPISTLE TO THE READER. xi

bition enough to be employed as an under-labourer in clearing the
ground a little, and removing some of the rubbish that lies in the way
to knowledge ; which certainly had been very much more advanced
in the world, if the endeavours of ingenious and industrious men had
not been much cumbered with the learned, but frivolous, use of un-
couth, affected, or unintelligible terms, introduced into the sciences
and there made an art of to that degree ; that philosophy, which is
nothing but the true knowledge of things, was thought unfit, or in-
capable, to be brought into well-bred company, and polite conversation.
Vague and insignificant forms of speech, and abuse of language, have
so long passed for my steries'of science ; and hard or misapplied words,
with little or no meaning, have, by prescription, such a right to be
mistaken for deep learning, and height of speculation, that it will not
be easy to persuade, either those who speak, or those who hear them,
that they are but the covers of ignorance, and hinderance of true
knowledge. To break in upon^the sanctuary of vanity and ignorance,
will be, I suppose, some service to human understanding : though so
few are apt to think they deceive, or are deceived, in the use of words ;
or that the language of the sect they are of has any faults in it, which
ought to be examined or corrected ; that I hope I shall be pardoned,
if I have in the third book dwelt long on this subject, and endeavoured
to make it so plain, that neither the inveterateness of the mischief, nor
the prevalency of the fashion, shall be any excuse for those, who will
not take care about the meaning of their own words, and will not
suffer the significancy of their expressions to be inquired into.

I have been told that a short epitome of this treatise, which was
printed in 1688, was by some condemned without reading, because
innate ideas were denied in it ; they too hastily concluding, that if
innate ideas were not supposed, there would be little left, either of the
notion or proof of spirits. If any one take the like offence at the
entrance of this treatise, I shall desire him to read it through ; and
then I hope he will be convinced, that the taking away false founda-
tions is not to the prejudice, but advantage of truth ; which is never
injured or endangered so much, as when mixed with, or built on,
falsehood. In the second edition, I added as folio weth :

The bookseller will not forgive me, if I say nothing of this second
edition which he has promised, by the correctness of it, shall make
amends for the many faults committed in the former. He desires,
too, that it should he known that it has one whole new chapter con-
cerning identity, and many additions and amendments in other places.
These I must inform my reader are not all new matter, but most of
them either farther confirmation of what I had said, or explication to

xii EPISTLE TO THE READER.

prevent others being mistaken in the sense of what was formerly
])rinted, and not any variation in me from it ; I must only except
the aherations I have made in book ii. chap. 21.

What I had there writ concerning liberty and the will, I thought
deserved as accurate a review as I was capable of: those subjects
having in all ages exercised the learned part of the world, with ques-
tions and difficulties that have not a little perplexed morality and di-
vinity ; those parts of knowledge that men are most concerned to be
clear in. Upon a closer inspection into the working of men's minds,
and a stricter examination of those motives and views they are turned
by, I have found reason somewhat to alter the thoughts I formerly had
concerning that which gives the last determination to the will in all
voluntary actions. This I cannot forbear to acknowledge to the
world with as much freedom and readiness as I at first published what
then seemed to me to be right, thinking myself more concerned to
quit and renounce any opinion of my own, than oppose that of another,
when truth appears against it. For it is truth alone I seek, and that
will always be welcome to me, when or from whence soever it comes.

But what forwardness soever I have to resign any opinion 1 have,
or to recede from any thing I have writ, upon the first evidence of
any error in it ; yet this I must own, that 1 have not had the good
luck to receive any light from those exceptions I have met with in
print against any part of my book ; nor have, from any thing that has
been urged against it, found reason to alter my sense, in any of the
points that have been questioned. Whether the subject I have in
hand requires often more thought and attention than cursory readers,
at least such as are prepossessed, are willing to allow ; or whether
any obscurity in my expressions casts a cloud over it, and these no-
tions are made difficult to others'* apprehensions in my way of treating
them ; so it is, that my meaning, I find, is often mistaken, and I have
not the good luck to be everywhere rightly understood. There are
so many instances of this, that I think it justice to my reader and
myself to conclude, that either my book is plainly enough written to
be rightly understood by those who peruse it with that attention and
indifFerency, which every one who will give himself the pains to read
ought to employ in reading ; or else, that I have writ mine so ob-
scurely, that it is in vain to go about to mend it. Whichever of these
be the truth, it is myself only am affected thereby : and therefore I
shall be far from troubling my reader with what I think might be
said in answer to those several objections I have met with to passages
here and there of my lxx)k ; since I persuade myself that he who
thinkft them of moment enough to be concerned, whether they are

EPISTLE TO THE READER. xiii

true or false, will be able to see, that what is said, is either not well
founded, or else not contrary to my doctrine, when I and my op-
poser come both to be well understood.

If any, careful that none of their good thoughts should be lost,
have published their censures of my Essay, with this honour done
to it, that they will not suffer it to be an Essay, I leave it to the
public to value the obligation they have to their critical pens, and
shall not waste my reader's time in so idle or ill-natured an employ-
ment of mine, as to lessen the satisfaction any one has in himself, or
gives to others, in so hasty a confutation of what I have written.

The bookseller preparing for the fourth edition of my Essay,
gave me notice of it, that I might, if I had leisure, make any ad-
ditions or alterations I should think fit. Whereupon I thought it
convenient to advertise the reader, that besides several corrections
I had made here and there, there was one alteration which it was
necessary to mention, because it ran through the whole book, and is
of consequence to be rightly understood. What I thereupon said,
was this :

Clear and distinct ideas are terms which, though familiar and fre-
quent in men's mouths, I have reason to think every one who uses
does not perfectly understand. And possibly it is but here and
there one who gives himself the trouble to consider them so far as to
know what he himself or others precisely mean by them : I have
therefore in most places chosen to put determinate or determined, in-
stead of clear and distinct, as more likely to direct men's thoughts
to my meaning in this matter. By those denominations, I mean
some object in the mind, and consequently determined, i. e. such as
it is there seen and perceived to be. This, I think, may fitly be
called a determinate or determined idea, when such as it is at any
time objectively in the mind, and so determined there, it is annexed,
and without variation determined to a name or articulate sound,
which is to be steadily the sign of that very same object of the mind,
or determinate idea.

To explain this a little more particularly. By determinate, when
applied to a simple idea, I mean that simple appearance which the
mind has in its view, or perceives in itself, when that idea is said to
be in it : by determinate, when applied to a complex idea, I mean
such an one as consists of a determinate number of certain simple or
less complex ideas, joined in such a proportion and situation, as the
mind has before its view, and sees in itself, when that idea is present
in it, or should be present in it, when a man gives a name to it : I
say should be ; because it is not every one, nor perhaps any one, who

xiv EPISTLE TO THE READER.

is so careful of his language, as to use no word, till he views in his
mind the precise determined idea which he resolves to make it the
sign of. The want of this, is the cause of no small obscurity and
confusion in men's thoughts and discourses.

I know there are not words enough in any language, to answer all
the variety of ideas that enter into men's discourses and reasonings.
But this hinders not, but that when any one uses any term, he may
have in his mind a determined idea, which he makes it the sign of,
and to which he should keep it steadily annexed, during that present
discourse. Where he does not, or cannot, do this, he in vain pre-
tends to clear or distinct ideas ; it is plain his are not so : and there-
fore there can be expected nothing but obscurity and confusion,
where such terms are made use of, which have not such a precise
determination.

Upon this ground, I have thought determined ideas a way of
speaking less Hable to mistake than clear and distinct : and where
men have got such determined ideas of all that they reason, inquire,
or argue about, they will find a great part of their doubts and dis-
putes at an end. The greatest part of the questions and contro-
versies that perplex mankind, depending on the doubtful and uncer-
tain use of words, or (which is the same) indetermined ideas which
they are made to stand for, I have made choice of these terms to sig-
nify, 1. Some immediate object of the mind, which it perceives and
has before it, distinct from the sound it uses as a sign of it. 2. That
this idea, thus determined, i. e. which the mind has in itself, and knows
and sees there, be determined without any change to that name, and
that name determined to that precise idea. If men had such deter-
mined ideas in their inquiries and discourses, they would both discern
how far their own inquiries and discourses went, and avoid the
greatest part of the disputes and wranglings they have with others.

Besides this, the bookseller will think it necessary I should adver-
tise the reader, that there is an addition of two chapters wholly new ;
the one of the association of ideas, the other of enthusiasm. These
with some other larger additions never before printed, he has en-
gaged to print by themselves after the same manner, and for the
same purpose, as was done when this Essay had the second im-
pression.

In this sixth edition, there is very little added or altered; the
greatest part of what is new, is contained in the 21st chapter of the
second book ; which any one, if he thinks it worth while, may, with
a very litde lalxjur, transcribe into the margin of the former edition.

CONTENTS.

BOOK I.

HAP.

1. An enquiry into the under-

standing, page 1 .

2. No innate speculative principles,

p. 8.

3. No innate practical principles,

p. 21.

4. Other considerations concerning

innate principles, both specu-
lative and practical, p. 35.

_1.
2.
3.
4.

5.

6.

7.

y9.
10.
11.

12.
13.

BOOK II.

Of ideas in general, p. 50.

Of simple ideas, p. 61.

Of ideas of one sense, p. 64.

Of solidity, p. 65.

Of simple ideas of divers senses,
p. 69.

Of simple ideas of reflection,
p. 69.

Of simple ideas of both sensa-
tion and reflection, p. 70.
Some farther considerations
concerning our simple ideas,
p. 73.

Of perception, p. 81.

Of retention, p. 85.

Of discerning, and other ope-
rations of the mind, p. 90.

Of complex ideas, p. 96.

Of simple modes, and, first,
of the simple modes of space,
p. 98.

Of duration and its simple
modes, p. 109.

Of duration and expansion,
considered together, p. 121.

Of number, p. 1 27.

Of infinity, p. 131.

Of other simple modes, p. 142.

Of the modes of thinking,
p 144.

CHAP.

20. Of modes of pleasure and pain,

p. 146.

21. Of power, p. 149.

22. Of mixed modes, p. 186.

23. Of our complex ideas of sub-

stances, p. 191.

24. Of collective ideas of substances,

p. 212.

25. Of relation, p. 213.

26. Of cause and efl^ect, and other

relations, p. 217.

27. Of identity and diversity, p.

220.

28. Of other relations, p. 249.

29. Of clear and obscure, distinct

and confused, ideas, p. 259-

30. Of real and fantastical ideas,

p. 266.

31. Of adequate and inadequate

ideas, p. 268.

32. Of true and false ideas, p. 275.

33. Of the association of ideas,

p. 283.

BOOK III.

1. Of words and language in ge-

neral, p. 289.

2. Of the signification of words,

p. 291.

3. Of general terms, p. 294.

4. Of the names of simple ideas,

p. 306.

5. Of the names of mixed modes

and relations, p. 312.

6. Of the names of substances,

p. 320.

7. Of particles, p. 344.

8. Of abstract and concrete terms,

p. 346.^

9. Of the imperfection of words,

p. 348.
10. Of the abuse of words, p. 359.

CONTENTS.

CHAP.

1 1 . Of the remedies of the foregoing
imperfections and abuses^ p.
373.

1.

P-

BOOK IV.
Of knowledge in general
385.

2. Of the degrees of our knowledge,

p. 392.

3. Of the extent of human know-

ledge, p. 398.

4. Of the reality of knowledge,

p. 431.

5. Of truth in general, p. 439.

6. Of universal propositions, their

truth and certainty, p. 443.

7. Of maxims, p. 453.

8. Of trifling propositions, p. 466.

9. Of our knowledge of existence,

p. 473.

CHAP.

10. Of the knowledge of the exist-

ence of a God, p. 474.

1 1 . Of the knowledge of the exist-

ence of other things, p. 482.

12. Of the improvement of our

knowledge, p. 489.

13. Some other considerations con-

cerning our knowledge, p. 496.

14. Of judgment, p. 498.

15. Of probability, p. 500.

1 6. Of the degrees of assent, p. 502.

1 7. Of reason, p. 511.

18. Of faith and reason, and their

distinct provinces, p. 526.

19. Of enthusiasm, p. 532.

20. Of wrong assent or error, p.

539.

21. The division of the sciences,

p. 549.

i

OF

HUMAN UNDERSTANDING.

BOOK I. CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

§.1. AN inquiry into the understanding, pleasant and useful.
— Since it is the understanding that sets man above the rest of
sensible beings, and gives him all the advantage and dominion
which he has over them ; it is certainly a subject, even from its
nobleness, worth our labour to inquire into. The understanding,
like the eye, whilst it makes us see, and perceive all other things,
takes no notice of itself: and it requires art and pains to set it at a
distance, and make it its own object. But whatever be the difficul-
ties that lie in the way of this inquiry, whatever it be that keeps us so
much in the dark to ourselves, sure I am, that all the light we can
let in upon our own minds, all the acquaintance we can make with
our own understandings, will not only be very pleasant, but bring
us great advantage, in directing our thoughts in the search of other
things.

§. 2. Design. — This, therefore, being my purpose, to inquire
into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge ;
together with the grounds and degrees of belief, opinion, and
assent; I shall not at present meddle with the physical consi-
deration of the mind ; or trouble myself to examine wherein its
essence consists, or by what motions of our spirits, or alterations
of our bodies, we come to have any sensation by our organs, or
any ideas in our understandings; and whether those ideas do, in
their formation, any, or all of them, depend on matter or no: these
are speculations, which, however curious and entertaining, I shall
decline, as lying out of my way, in the design I am now upon.
It shall suffice to my present purpose, to consider the discern-
ing faculties of a man, as they are employed about the objects
which they have to do with : and I shall imagine I have not
wholly misemployed myself in the thoughts I shall have on this
occasion, if, in this historical plain method, I can give any account
of the ways whereby our understandings come to attain those
notions of things we have, and can set down any measures of the
certainty of our knowledge, or the grounds of those persuasions,
which are to be found amongst men, so various, different, and
wholly contradictory; and yet assertfed somewhere or other with

2 INTRODUCTION. book 1.

such assurance and confidence, that he that shall take a view of the
opinions of mankind, observe their opposition, and at the same
time consider the fondness and devotion wherewith they are em-
braced, the resolution and eagerness wherewith they are maintained,
may perhaps have reason to suspect, that eitlier there is no sucli
thing as truth at all ; or that mankind hath no sufficient means to
attain a certain knowledge of it.

§. 3. Method. — It is, therefore, worth while to search out the
bounds between opinion and knowledge; and examine by what mea-
sures, in things, whereof we have no certain knowledge, we ought
to regulate our assent, and moderate our persuasions. In order
whereunto, I shall pursue this following method.

First. I shall inquire into tlie original of those ideas, notions, or
whatever else you please to call them, which a man observes, and is
conscious to himself he has in his mind ; and the ways whereby the
understanding comes to be furnished with them.

Secondhj. I shall endeavour to show what knowledge the under-
standing hath by those ideas; and the certainty, evidence, and
extent of it.

Thirdly. I shall make some inquiry into the nature and grounds
of faith or opinion ; whereby I mean that assent which we give to
any proposition as true, of whose truth yet we have no certain know-
ledfge : and here we shall have occasion to examine the reasons and
degrees of assent.
^ §. 4. Uscftd to kiiozc the cxleiit of our ccmiwchenswn. — If by this
inquiry into, the nature of the understanding, I can discover the
powers thereof; how far they reach, to what things they are in any
degree proportionate, and where they fail us ; I suppose it may be
of use to prevail with the busy mind of man to be more cautious in
meddling with things exceeding its comprehension ; to stop when it
is at the utmost extent of its tether ; ana to sit down in a quiet ig-
norance of those things, which, upon examination, are found to be
beyond the reach of our capacities. We should not then, perhaps,
be so forward, out of an affectation of an universal knowledge, to
raise questions, and perplex ourselves and others with disputes about
things to which our unaerstandings are not suited ; and of which we
cannot frame in our minds any clear or distinct perceptions, or
whereof (as it has, j)erhaps, too often happened) we have not any
notions at all. If we can find out how far the understanding can
extend its views, how far it has faculties to attain certainty, and in
what cases it can only judge and guess; we may learn to content
ourselves with what is attainable by us in this state.
^ §.5. 'Our Cfipacitv suited to our state and concerns. — For though
the comprehension of our understandings comes exceeding short of
the vast extent of things, yet we shall have cause enough to magnify
the bountiful Author of our being, for that proportion and dcgi-eeof
knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of the in-
habitants of this our mansion. Men have reason to be well satisfied
with what God hath thought fit for them, since he has given them (as
St. Peter Bays) mdvra wfos i<*i^y xa) eva-iSsiav, whatsoever is necessaiV

1

CHAP. 1. INTRODUCTION. 3

for the conveniences of life, and information of virtue ; and has put
within the reach of their discovery the comfortable provision for this
life, and the way tliat leads to a better. How short soever their know-
ledge may come of an universal or perfect comprehension of what-
soever is, it yet secures their great concernments, that they have light
enough to lead them to the knowledge of their Maker, and the sight
of their own duties. Men may find matter sufficient to busy their
heads, and employ their hands with variety, delight, and satisfaction ;
if they will not boldly quarrel with their own constitution, and throw
away the blessings their hands are filled with, because they are not big
enough to grasp every thing. We shall not have much reason to
complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them
about what may be of use to us ; for of that they are very capable ;
and it will be an unpardonable, as well as childish peevishness, if we
undervalue the advantages of our knowledge, and neglect to improve
it to the ends for which it was given us, because there are some
things that are set out of the reach of it. It will be no excuse to an'
idle and untoward servant, who would not attend his business by
candle-light, to plead that he had not broad sunshine. The candle
that is set up in us, shines bright enough for all our purposes. The
discoveries we can make with this, ought to satisfy us ; and we shall
then use our understanding right, when we entertam all objects in that
way and proportion, that they are suited to our faculties ; and upon
those grounds, they are capable of being proposed to us; and not
peremptorily, or intemperately, require demonstration, and demand
certainty, where probability only is to be had, and which is sufficient
to govern all our concernments. If we will disbelieve every thing,
because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much-what
as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish,
because he had no wings to fly.

§. 6. Knowledge of our capacity a cure of scepticism and idle-
ness.— When we know our own strength, we shall the better know
what to undertake with hopes of success ; and when we have well
surveyed the powers of our own minds, and made some estimate
what we may expect from them, we shall not be inclined either to sit
still, and not set our thoughts on work at all, in despair of knowing
any thing; nor, on the other side, question every thing, and dis-
claim all knowledge, because some things are not to be understood.
It is of great use to the sailor to know the length of his line, though
he cannot with it fathom all the depths of the ocean. It is well he
knows that it is long enough to reach the bottom, at such places as
are necessary to direct his voyage, and caution him against running
upon shoals that may ruin him. Our business here is not to know
all things, but those which concern our conduct. If we can find
out those measures whereby a rational creature, put in that state
which man is in, in this world, may and ought to govern his opinions
and actions depending thereon, we need not be troubled that some
other things escape our knowledge.

§. 7. Occasion of this essay. — This was that which gave the first
rise to this essay concerning the understanding. For I thought that

4 INTRODUCTION. book 1.

the first step towards satisfying several inquiries, the mind of man
was very apt to run into, was to take a survey of our own under-
standing, examine our own powers, and see to what things they were
adapted. Till tliat was done, I suspected we began at the wrong
end, and in vain sought for satisfaction in a quiet and sure posses-
sion of truths that most concerned us, whilst we let loose our thoughts
into tlie vast ocean of being ; as if all that boundless extent were the
natural and unbounded possession of our understandings, wherein
there was nothing exempt from its decisions, or that escaped its
comprehension. Thus men, extending their inquiries beyond their
capacities, and letting their thoughts wander into those depths where
they can find no sure footing, it is no wonder that they raise ques-
tions and multiply disputes ; which never coming to any clear resolu-
tion, are proper only to continue and increase their doubts, and to
Confirm them at last in perfect scepticism. Whereas, were the capa-
cities of our understandings well considered, the extent of our know-
ledge once discovered, and the horizon found, which sets the bounds
between the enlightened and dark parts of things ; between what is,
and what is not, comprehensible by us ; men would, perhaps, with
less scruple, acquiesce in the avowed ignorance of the one, and
employ their thoughts and discourse, with more advantage and
satisfaction in the other.

§. 8. What idea stands fir. — Thus much I thought necessary
to say concerning the occasion of this Inquiry into Human Under-
standing. But, before I proceed on to what I have thought on this
subject, I must here in the entrance beg pardon of my reader for the
frequent use of the word " idea,"*' which he will find in the following
treatise. It being that term which, I think, serves best to stand for
whatsoever is the object of the understanding when a man thinks ;
I have used it to express whatever is meant by phantasm, notion,
species, or whatever it is, which the mind can be employed about in
tninking ; and I could not avoid frequently using it*.

I presume it will be easily granted me, that there are such ideas in
men'*s minds ; every one is conscious of them in himself, and men's
words and actions will satisfy him that they are in others.

Our first inquiry then shall be, how they come into the mind.

• Tlii» modest apology of our author could not procure him the free use of the word irlca :
but great offence Iras been laken at it, and it has been censured as of dangerous consequence:
to which you may see what he answers. " The world," {a) saith tlie bishop of M^orcester,
*' hath been strangely amused with ideas of late; and we have been told, that strange things
might be done by the help of ideas ; and yet these idcas^ at last, come to be only common no-
tions of things, which we mu&t make use of in our reasoning. You (i. e. the author of the
Essay concerning Human Understanding) say in that chapter about the existence of God,
you thought it most proper to express yourself in the most usual and familiar way, by common
words and expressions. I would you had done so quite through your book ; for then you had
netcr given that occasion to the enemies of our faith, to take up your new way of ideas, as an
effectual battery (as they imagined) agoinst the mysteries of the Christian faith. But you
might have enjoyed the satisfaction of your ideas long enough before I had taken notice of
them, unless I had found them employed about doing mischief.'*

To which our author (6) replies, " It is plain that that which your lordship aj^rehends in

(o) Answer to ]\fr. Locke's First Letter.

(A) In hi« Second Letter to the Bishop of AVorcester.

CHAJ>. 1. INTRODUCTION. 5

my book may be of dangerous consequence to the article whicli your lordship has endeavoured
to defend, is my introducing new terms ; and that which your lordship instances in, is that
of ideas. And the reason your lordship gives in every of these places why your lordsliip has
such an apprehension of ideas., that they may be of dangerous consequence to that article of
faith wliich your lordship has endeavoured to defend, is, because they have been applied to
such purposes. And I might (your lordship says) have enjoyed the satisfaction of my ideas
long enough, before you had taken notice of them, unless your lordship had found them em-
ployed in doing mischief. Which at last, as I humbly conceive, amounts to thus much, and
no more, viz. tliat your lordship fears ideas, i. e. the terra ideas, may, sometime or other,
prove of very dangerous consequence to what your lordship has endeavoured to defend, because
they have been made use of in arguing against it For 1 am sure your lordship does not
mean, that you appreiiend the things signified by ideas^ may be of dangerous consequence to
the article of faith your lordship endeavours to defend, because they have been made use of
against it : for (besides that your lordship mentions terms) that would be to expect that those
who oppose that article should oppose it without any thoughts ; for the things signified by ideas,
are nothing but the immediate objects of our minds in thinking : so that unless any one can
oppose the article your lordship defends, without thinking on something, he mubt use the
thing signified by ideas ; for he that thinks, must have some immediate object of his mind in
thinking ; i. e. must have ideas.

" But whether it be the name or the thing ; ideas in sound, or ideas in signification ; that
your lordship apprehends may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your
lordship endeavours to defend; it seems to me, I will not say a new way of reasoning (for that
belongs to me) but were it not your lordship's, I should lliink it a very extraordinary way of
reasoning, to write against a book, wherein j'our lordship acknowledges they are not used to
bad purposes, nor employed to do mischief; only because you find that ideas are, by those
who oppose your lordsliip, employed to do mischief; and so apprehend they may be of dan-
gerous consequence to the article your lordship has engaged in the defence of. For whether
ideas as terms, or ideas as the immediate objects of the mind, signified by those terms, may
be, in your lordship's apprehension, of dangerous consequences to that article ; 1 do not see
how your lordship's writing against the notions of ideas, as stated in my book, will at all hinder
your opposers from employing theui in doing mischief, as before.

** However, be that as it will, so it is, that your lordship apprehends these new terms, these
ideas with which the world hath, of late, been so strangely amused, (though at last they come
to be only common notions of things, as your lordship owns) may be of dangerous consequence
to that article.

" My lord, if any, in answer to your lordship's sermons, and in other pamphlets, wherein
your lordship complains they have talked so much of ideas., have bjen troublesome to your
lordship with that term ; it is not strange that your lordship should be tired with that sound ;
but how natural soever it be to our weak constitutions, to be offended with any sound, wherewith
an importunate din hath been made about our ears ; yet, my lord, I know your lordship lias a
better opinion of the articles of our faith, than to think any of them can be overturned, or so
much as shaken, with a breath formed into any sound or term whatsoever.

*' Names are but the arbitrary marks of conception ; and so they be sufficiently appropriated
to them in their use, I know no other difference any of them have in particular, but as they
are of easy or difficult pronunciation, and of a more or less pleasant sound ; and what parti-
cular antipathies there may be in men, to some of them upon that account, it is not easy to be
foreseen. This I am sure, no term whatsoever, in itself, bears one more than other, any
opposition to the truth of any kind; they are only propositions that do, or can, oppose the
truth of any article or doctrine: and thus no term is privileged from being set in opposition
to truth.

" There is no word to be found, which may not be brought into a propositioH, wherein the
most sacred and most evident truths may be opposed ; but that is not a fault in the term, but
him that uses it. And, therefore, I cannot easily persuade myself (whatever your lordship
hath said in the heat of your concern) that you have bestowed so much pains upon my book,
because the word idea is so much used there. For though upon my saying, in my chapter
about the existence of God, * that I scarce use the word idea in that chapter,' your lordship
wishes that I had done so quite through my book. Yet I must rather look upon that as a com-
pliment to me, wherein your lordship wished, that my book had been all through suited to vul-
gar readers, not iised to that and the like terms, than that your lordship has such an appre-
hension of the word idea ; or that there is any such harm in the use of it, instead of tiie word
notion, (with which your lordship seems to take it to agree in signification) that your lordship
would think it worth your while to spend any part of your valuable time and thoughts about
my book, for having the word idea so often in it; for this would be to make your lordship to
■write only against an impropriety of speech. I own to your lordship, it is a great condescen-
fiion in your lordship to have done it, if that word have such a share in what your lordship
has writ against my book, as some expressions would persuade one ; and I would, for the satis-

6 INTRODUCTION. book 1.

faction of your lordship, change the term of hlca for a better, if your .ordship, or any one,
could help me to it For, that notion will not so well stand for every immediate object of the
mind in thinking, as idea does, I have (as I guess) somewhere given a reason in my book, by
showing that the term notion is more peculiarly anpropriated to a certain sort of those objects,
which I call mixed modes ; and, 1 think, it would not sound altogether so well, to say, the
notion of red, and the notion of a horse ; as the idea of red, and the idea of a horse. But if
any one thinks it will, I contend not: for I have no fondness for, no antipathy to, any par-
ticular articulate sounds: nor do I think there is any spell or fascination in any of them.

**• But be the word idea proper or improper, 1 do not see how it is the better or the worse,
because ill men have made use of it or because it has been made use of to bad purposes ; for
if that be a reason to condemn or lay it by, we must lay by the terms, scripture^ reason^ per-
ception, distinct^ clear^ &c. Nay, the name o(God himself will not escape ; for I do not think
any one of these, or any other term, can be produced, which hath not been made use of by
such men^ and to such purposes. And, therefore, if the Unitarians, in their late pamphlets,
have talked very much of, and strangely amused the world with, ideas ; I cannot believe your
lordship will think that word one jot the worse, or the more dangerous, because tiiey use it ;
any more than, for their use of them, you will think reason or scripture terms ill or dangerous.
And, therefore, what your lordship says, in the bottom of this 93d page, that I might have
enjoyed the satisfaction of my ideas long enough before your lordship had taken notice of
them, unless you had found them employed in doing mischief, will, 1 presume, when your
lordship has considered again of this matter, prevail with your lordship to let me enjoy still
the satisfaction I take in my ideasy i. e. as much satisfaction as I can take in so small a matter,
as is the using of a proper term, notwithstanding it should be employed by others in doing
mischief.

" For, my lord, if I should leave it wholly out of my book, and substitute the word notion
every where in the room of it ; and every body else should do so too, (though your lordship
does not, I suppose, suspect that I have the vanity to think they would follow my example) my
book would, it seems, be the more to your lordship's liking : but I do not see how this would
one jot abate the mischief your lordship complains of. For the Unitarians might as much
employ notions, as they do now ideas, to do mischief; unless they are such fools to think they
can conjure with this notable word idea ; and that the force of what they say, lies in the sound,
and not in the signification of their terms.

*' This I am sure of, that the truths of the Christian religion can be no more battered by
one word than another ; nor can they be beaten down or endangered by any sound whatsoever.
And I am apt to flatter myself, that your lordship is satisfied that there is no harm in the word
ideas, because you say, you should not have taken any notice of my ideas, if the enemies of
our faith had not taken up my new way of ideas, as an eflfectual battery against the mysteries
of the Christian faith. In which place, by new way of ideas, notliin^', I think, can be con-
strued to be meant, but my expressing myself by that of ideas, and not by other more coramor>
words, and of ancienter standing in the English language.

«' As to the objection of the author's way by ideas being a new way, he thus ans^ivers :
My neiv way by ideas, or my way by ideas, which often occurs in your lordship's letter, is, I.
confess, a very large and doubtful expression ; and may, in the full latitude, comprehend my
whole essay ; because, treating in it of the understanding, which is nothing but the faculty of
thinking, 1 could not well treat of that faculty of the mind which consists in thinking, without
considering the immediate objects of the mind in thinking, which I call ideas ; and, therefore,
in treating of the understanding, I guess it will not be thought strange, that the greatest part
of my book has been taken up in considering what these objects of the mind, in thinking, are ;
whence they come; what use the mind makes of them, in its several ways of thinking; and
what are the outward marks, whereby it signifies them to others, or records them for its own
use. And this, in short, is my way by ideas, that which your lordship calls my new way by
ideas ; which, my lord, if it be new, it is but a new history of an old thing. For I think it will
not be doubled, that men always performed the actions of thinking, reasoning, believing, and
knowing, just after the same manner that they do now ; though whether the same account has
heretofore been given of the way how they performed these actions, or wherein they consisted,
1 do not know. Were I as well read as your lordship, I should have been safe from that gen-
tle reprimand of your lordship'H, for thinking my way of ideas new, for want of looking into
other men's thoughts, which appear in their books.

** Your lordship's words, as an acknowledgement of your instructions in the case, and as a
warning to others, who will be so bold adventurers as to spin any thing barely out of their
own thoughts, I «hall set down at large ; and they run thus : whether you took this way of
idcM from the modern philosopher, mentioned by you, is not at all material; but I intended
no reflection upon you in it (for that you mean by my commending you as a scholar of so
great a master). I never meant to take from you the honour of your own inventions ; and I
do believe you, when you say, that you wrote from your own thoughts, and the ideas you had
there. But many thing's may seem new to one that converses only with his own thoughts,

CHAP. I. INTRODUCTION. ' 7

which really are not so; as he may find, when he looks into the thoughts of other men, which
appear in their books. And, therefore, although I have a just esteem for the invention of such,
who can spin volumes barely out of ii)eir own thoughts ; yet I am apt to think they would oblige
the world more, if, after they have thought so much themselves, they would examine what
thoughts others have had before them, concerning the same things ; that so those may not be
thougiit their own inventions, whicli are common to themselves and others. If a man should
try all the magnetical experiments himself, and publish them as his own thoughts, he might take
himself to be the inventor of them. But he that examines and compares them with wliat
Gilbert and others have done b fore him, will not diminish ihspraise of his diligence, but may
wish he had compared his thoughts with other men's ; by wliitii the world would receive greater
advantage, although he lost the honour of being an original.

*' To alleviate my fau!t herein, I agree v.ith your lordsliip. that many things may seem new
to one that converses only with his own thoughts, which really are not so : but I must crave
leave to suggest to 3'our lordship, that if in the spinning of them out of his own thoughts,
they seem new to him, he is certainly the inventor of them ; and they may as justly be
thought his own invention, as any one's; and he is as certainly the inventor of them, as any
one who thought on them before him : the distinction of invention, or not invention, lying
not in thinking first, or not first, but in borrowing, or not borrowing, our thoughts from
another ; and he to «vhom, spinning them out of his own thoughts, they seem new, could not
certainly borrow them from another. So he truly invented printing in Europe, who, without
any communication with the Chinese, spun it out of his own thoughts ; though it was never
so true, that the Chinese had the use of printing, nay, of printing in the very same wa}',
among them, many ages before him. So that he that spins any thing out of his own thougiits,
that seems new to him, cannot cease to think it his own invention, should he examine ever so
far, what thoughts others have had before him, concerning the same thing, and should find by
examining, that they had the same thoughts too.

" But what great obligation this would be to the world, or weighty cause of turning over and
looking into books, I confess I do not see. The great end to me, in conversing with my own or
other men's thoughts, in matters of speculation, is to find truth, witliout being much concerned
whether my own spinning of it out of mine, or their spinning it out of their own thoughts, helps
me to it. And how little I affect the honour of an original, may be seen at that jilace of my
book, where, if any where, tht\t itch of vain glory was likeliest to have shown itself, had I been
so over-run with it as to need a cure. It is where I speak of certainty, in these following
words, taken notice of by your lordship, in another place : • I think I have shown 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.'

" Here, my lord, however new this seemed to me, and the more so because possibly I had
in vain hunted for it in the books of others; yet I spoke of it as new, only to myself; leav-
ing others in the undisturbed possession of what, either by invention, or reading, was theirs
before; without assuming to myself any other honour, but that of my own ignorance, until
that time, if others before had shown wherein certainty lay. And yet, my lord, if I had upon
this occasion been forward to assume to myself the honour of an original, I had been pretty
safe in it; since 1 should have had your lordship for my guarantee and vindicator in that
point, who are pleased to call it new ; and, as such, to write against it.

♦' And truly, my lord, in this respect, my book has had very unlucky stars, since it hath
had the misfortune to displease your lordship, with many things in it, for their novelty; as,
new ■way of reasoning ; new hypoihesis about reason ; new sort of certainty ; ncxv terms ;
new -way of ideas ; new method of ccrtainti/, i^c. And yet, in otiier places, your lordship
seems to think it worthy in me of your lordship's reflection, for saying, but what others iiave
said before; as where I say, ' In the different make of men's tempers, and application of their
thoughts, some arguments prevail more on one, and some on another, for the confirmation of
the same truth ;' your lordship asks, ' What is this difierent from what all men of understand-
ing have said ?' Again, I take it, your lordsliip meant not these words for a commendation
of my book, where you say, But if no more be meant by ' The simple ideas that come in by
sensation or reflection, and their being the foundation of our knowledge,' but that our notions
.of things come in, either from our senses, or the exercise of our niinds: as there is nothing
extraordinary in the discovery, so your lordship is far enough from opposing that, wherein you
think all mankind are agreed.

" And again, but what need all this great noise about ideas and certainty, true and real
certainty by ideas ; if, after all, it conies only to this, that our ideas only represent to us such
things, from whence we bring arguments to prove the truth of things ?

" But the world has been strangely amused with ideas of late ; and we have been told, that
strange things might be done by the help of ideas, and yet these ideas, at last, come to be only
common notions of things, which we must make use of in our reasoning. And to the like
purpose in other places.

" Whether, therefore, at last, your lordihip will resolve that it is new or no ; or mo.re faulty

ff NO INNATE PRINCIPLES book 1-

by its being new, must be left to your lordship. This I find by it, that my book cannot avoid
being condemned on the one side, or the other; nor do I see a possibility to help it. If there
oe readers that like only new thoughts; or, on the other side, others that can bear nothing but
what can be justified by received authorities in print ; I must desire iheni to make themselves
amends in that part which they like, for the displeasure they receive in the other : but if any
should he so exact, as to find fault with both, truly I know not what to say to them. The case
is a plain case; the book is all over naught, and there is not a sentence in it, that is not, either
from its antiquity or novelty, to be condemned ; and so there is a shoit end of it. From your
lordship, indeed, in particular, I can hope for something better ; for your lordship thinks the
general design of it so good, that this, I flatter myself, would prevail on your lordship to pre-
serve it from the fire.

" But as to the way your lordship thinks I should have taken to prevent the having it thought
my Invention, when it was common to me with others, it unluckily so fell out, in the subject of
my Essay of Human Understanding, that I could not look into the thoughts of other men to
inform myself. For my design being, as well as I could, to copy nature, and to give an ac-
count of the operations of the mind in thinking, I could look into nobody's understanding but
my own, to see how it wrought ; nor have a prospect into other men's minds, to view their
thoughts there ; and observe what steps and motions they took, and by what gradations they
proceeded in their acquainting themselves with truth, and their advance in knowledge: what
we find of their thoughts in books, is but the result of this, and not the progress and working
of their minds, in coming to the opinions and conclusions they set down and published.

" All, therefore, that I can say of my book, is, that it is a copy of my own mind, in its
several ways of operation. And all that I can say for the publishing of it, is, that I think the
intellectual faculties are made, and operate alike in most men ; and that some that I showed it
to before I published it, liked it so well, that I was confirmed in that opinion. And, therefore,
if it should happen that it should not te so, but that some men should have ways of thinking,
reasoning, or arriving at certainty, different from others, and above those that I find my mind
to use and acquiesce in, I do not see of what use my book can be to them. I can only make
it my humble request, in my own name, and in the name of those that are of my size, who
find their minds work, reason, and know in tlie same low way that mine does, that those men
of a more happy genius would show us the way of their nobler flights; and particularly would
discover to us their shorter or surer way to certainty, than by ideas, and the observing their
agreement or disagreement

*' Your lordship adds, ' But now it seems, nothing is intelligible but what suits with the new
way of idcasJ* My lord, the new way of ideas^ and the old way of speaking intelligibly (a)
was always, and ever will be, the same : and if I may take the liberty to declare my sense of
it, herein it consists, I. That a man use no words but such as he makes the sign of certain
determined objects of his mind in thinking, which be can make known to another. '2. Next,
That he use the same word steadily for the sign of the same immediate object of his mind in
thinking. 3. That he join those words together in propositions, according to the grammatical
rules of that language he speaks in. 4. That he unite those sentences into a coherent dis-
course. Thus, and thus only, I humbly conceive any one may preserve himself from the
confines and suspicion of jargon, whether he pleases to call those immediate objects of his
wind, which his words do, or should stand for, ideas or no."

(tf) Mr. Locke's Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester.

CHAPTER IL

XO INNATE PRINCIPLES IN THE MIND.

§. 1 . The way shown homo we come by any Icncnxledgey siifficient
to prove it not innate. — It is an established opinion amongst some
men, that there are in the understanding certain innate pnnciples ;
some primary notions. VioivoLi evvoiai, characters, as it were, stamped
upon the mind of man, which the soul receives in its very first
bein^ ; and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to
convmce unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if
1 should only snow (as I hojK; I shall in the following parts of this

CHAP. 2. IN THE MIND. 9

discourse) how men, barely by the use of their natural faculties, may
attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate
impressions ; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original
notions or principles. For I imagine any one will easily grant, that
it would be impertinent to suppose, the ideas of colour innate in a
creature, to whom God hath given sight and a power to receive them
by the eyes from external objects : and no less unreasonable would it
be to attribute several truths to the impressions of nature, and innate
characters, when we may observe in ourselves faculties fit to attain
as easy and certain knowledge of them, as if they were originally im-
printed on the mind.

But because a man is not permitted without censure to follow his
own thoughts in the search of truth, when they lead him ever so
little out of the common road, I shall set down the reasons that made
me doubt of the truth of that opinion, as an excuse for my mistake,
if I be in one ; which I leave to be considered by those who, with
me, dispose themselves to embrace truth, wherever they find it.

§. 2. General assent, the great argtiment. — There is nothing
more commonly taken for granted, than that there are certain prin-
ciples, both speculative and practical (for they speak of both), uni-
versally agreed upon by all mankind ; which, therefore, they argue,
must needs be 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. Universal consent proves nothing innate. — This argument,
drawn from universal 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 shown, how men may come to that universal agree-
ment, in the things they do consent in ; which I presume may be
done.

§. 4. " What is, is ;''' and " it is impossible for the same thing to
^e, and not to be,"" not universally asse7ited to. — 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 uni-
versal assent. I shall begin with the speculative, and instance in
those magnified principles of demonstration, "whatsoever is, is ;" and
" it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be,"' which, of
all others, I think have the most allowed title to innate. These have
so settled a reputation of maxims universally received, that it will,
no doubt, be thought strange if any one should seem to question it.
But yet I take liberty to say, that these prop(3sitions 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.

j:j. 5. Not on the mind naturally imprinted, because not linown
to children, idiots, ^c, — For, first, it is evident, that all children and
idiots have not the least apprehension or thought of them : and the
want of that is enough to destroy that universal assent, wliich niust
needs be the necessary concomitant of all innate truths : it seeming

10 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES book 1.

to me near a contradiction, to say, that there are truths imprinted on
the soul, which it perceives or understands not: imprinting, if it sig-
nifies any thing, being nothing else but the making certain truths to
be perceived. For to imprint any tiling on the mind, without the
mind's perceiving it, seems to me hardly intelligible. If, therefore,
children and idiots have souls, have minds, with ihose impressions
upon them, they must unavoidably perceive them, and necessarily
know and assent to these truths ; which, since tliey do not, it is evi-
dent that there are no such impressions. For if they are not notions
naturally imprinted, how can tney 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 igno-
rant of it, and never yet took notice of it, is to make this impres-
sion 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
inind, 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 igno-
rance of many truths, which his mind was capable of knowing, and
that with certainty. So that, if the capacity of knowing be the natu-
ral 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 dificrent from those who deny innate principles. For
nobody, 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
trutiis the mind is capable of knowing in respect of their original ;
they must all be innate, or all adventitious : m vain shall a man go
al)out to distinguish them. He, therefore, that talks of innate no-
tions 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 wholly ignorant of. For if these words
(to be m the understanding) have any propriety, they signify to be
understood ; so that, to be in the understanding, and not to be un-
derstood ; 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 C and, " it is im-
possible for tlie same thing to be, and not to be,"" are by nature
imprinted, children cannot be ignorant of them ; infants, and all that
liave souls, must necessarily have them in their understandings,
know the truth of them, ancl assent to it.

§. 6. T/tat men know them when thetj come to the use of reason,

CHAP. 2. IN THE MIND. - 11

answered. — To avoid this, it is usually answered, 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 simiifi cation,
^o 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 sense to our present purpose, it must sig-
nify 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
reason assists them in the discovery of these principles, and certainly
makes them known to them.

§. 8. If reason discovered them, that would Jiot prove them in-
ifote. — If they mean, that by the use 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 allowed innate; they being
all discoveries made by the use of reason, and truths that a rational
creature may certainly come to know, if he apply his thoughts rightly
that way.

§. 9. It is false that reaso?i discovers them. — But how can these
men think the use of reason necessary to discover principles that are
supposed innate, when reason (if we may believe them) is nothing-
else but the faculty of deducing unknown truths from principles or
propositions that are already known ? That certainly can never be
thought innate, which we have need of reason to discover, unless, as
I have said, we will have all the certain truths that reason ever
teaches us, to be innate. We may as well think the use of reason ne-
cessary to make our eyes discover visible objects, as that there should
be need of reason, or the exercise thereof, to make the understanding
see v/hat is originally engraven in it, and cannot be on the understand-
ing, before it be perceived by it. So that to make reason discover
those truths thus imprinted, is to say, that the use of reason discovers
to a man what he knew before ; and if men have those innate im-
pressed truths originally, and before the use of reason, and yet are
always ignorantof them, till they come to the use of i-eason, it is in
effect to say, that men know, and know them not. at the same time.

§. 10. It will perhaps be said, that mathematical demonstrations,
and other truths, that are not innate, are not assented to, as soon as
proposed, wherein they are distinguished from these maxims, and
other innate truths. I shall have occasion to speak of assent, upon
the first proposing, more particularly by and by. I shall here only,
and that very readily, allow, that these maxims, and matliematicai
demonstrations, are in this different ; that the one has need of reason^

12 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES uook 1.

using of proofs, to make them out, and to gain our assent ; but the
other, as soon as understood, are, without any the least reasoning,
embraced and assented to. But 1 withal beg leave to observe, that
it lays open the weakness of this subterfuge, which requires the use
of reason for the discovery of these general truths : since it must be
confessed, that in their discovery, there is no use made of reasoning
at all. And I think those who give tliis answer, will not be forward
to affirm, tliat the knowledge of this maxim, '* That it is impossible
for the same thing to be, and not to be," is a deduction of our rea-
son. For this would be to destroy that bounty of nature they seem
so fond of, whilst they make the knowledge of those principles to de-
pend on the labour of our thoughts. For all reasoning is search, and
casting about, and requires pains and application. And how can it
with any tolerable sense be supposed, that what was imprinted by
nature, as the foundation and guide of our reason, should need the
use of reason to discover it ?

§.11. Those who will take the pains to reflect with a little atten-
tion on the operations of the understanding, will find that this ready
assent of the mind to some truths, depends not either on native in-
scription, or the use of reason ; but on a faculty of the mind quite
distinct from both of them, as we shall see hereafter. Reason, there-
fore, having nothing to do in procuring our assent to these maxims,
if by saying, that men know and assent to them, when they come to
tlie use of reason, be meant, that the use of reason assists us in the
knowledge of these maxims, it is utterly false ; and were it true,
would prove them not to be innate.

§. 12. The coming to the use of reason, not the time we come to
know these maxims. — -If by knowing and assenting to them, when
we come to the use of reason, be meant, that this is the time when
they come to be taken notice of by the mind ; and that as soon as
children come to the use of reason, they come also to know and
assent to these maxims; this also is false and frivolous. First. It is
false, because it is evident these maxims are not in the mind so early
as the use of reason ; and, therefore, the coming to the use of reason
is falsely assigned as the time of their discovery. How many
instances of the use of reason may we observe in children, long time
before they have any knowledge of this maxim, " that it is impos-
sible for the same thing to be, and not to be ?" And a great part of
illiterate people, and savages, pass many years, even of tlieir rational
age, without ever thinking on this and the like general propositions.
I grant, men come not to the knowledge of these general and md^p
abstract truths, which are tfiou«jht innate, till they come to the use of
reason ; and 1 add, nor then neither. Wliich is so, because till after
they come to the use of reason, those general abstract ideas are not
framed in the mind, about which those general maxims are, which
are mistaken for innate principles, but are indeed discoveries made,
and verities introduced, and brought into the mind by the same way,
and discovered by the same steps, as several other propositions,
which nolxxly was ever so extravagant as to suppose innate. This I
hoj)c to make plain in the sccjuel of this discourse. 1 allow, there-

CHAP. 2. IN THE MIND. 13

fore, a necessity, tliat men should come to the use of reason, before
they get the knowledge of those general truths; but deny, thatmen"'s
coming to the use of reason, is the time of their discovery.

§. 13. By this, they are not disfniguished from other knozvahle
truths. — In the mean time it is observable, that this saying, That
men know and assent to these maxims, when they come to the use of
reason, amounts, in reality of fact, to no more but this, that they are
never known nor taken notice of, before tlie use of reason, but may
possibly be assented to sometime after, during a man's life; but
when, is uncertain ; and so may all other knowable truths, as well as
these; which, therefore, have no advantage nor distinction from
others, by this note of being known when we come to the use of rea-
son ; nor are thereby proved to be innate, but quite the contrary.

§.14. If coming to the use of reason were the time of their disco-
very, it zvould not prove them innate. — But, secondly .> were it true,
that the precise time of their being known, and assented to, were,
when men come to the use of reason, neither would that prove them
innate. This way of arguing is as frivolous, as the supposition itself
is false. For by what kind of logic will it appear, that any notion is
originally by nature imprinted in the mind in its first constitution,
because it comes first to be observed and assented to, when a faculty
of the mind, which has quite a distinct province, begins to exert it-
self.^ and, therefore, the coming to the use of speech, if it were sup-
posed the time that these maxims are first assented to (which it may
be with as much truth, as the time when men come to the use of rea-
son) would be as good a proof that they were innate, as to say, they
are innate, because men assent to them when they come to the use of
reason. I agree then with these men of innate principles, that there
is no knowledge of these general and self-evident maxims in the mind,
till it comes to the exercise of reason : but I deny that the coming to
the use of reason, is the precise time when they are first taken notice
of; and if that were the precise time, I deny that it would prove
them innate. All that can with any truth be meant by this propo-
sition, that men assent to them when they come to the use of reason,
is no more but this, that the making of general abstract ideas, and
the understanding of general names, being a concomitant of the ra-
tional faculty, and growing up with it, children commonly get not
those general ideas, nor learn the names that stand for them, till hav-
ing for a good while exercised their reason about familiar and more
particular ideas, they are, by their ordinary discourse and actions
with others, acknowledged to be capable of rational conversation.
If assenting to these maxims, when men come to the use of reason,
can be true in any other sense, I desire it may be shown ; or at least,
how in this, or any other sense, it proves them innate.

§. 15. The steps hy which the mind attains several truths, —
The senses at first let in particular ideas, and furnish the yet empty
cabinet; and the mind by degrees growing familiar with some of
them, they are lodged in the memory, and names got to them.
Afterwards the mind proceeding farther, abstracts them, and by de-
grees learns the use of general names. In this manner the mind

U NO INNATE PRINCIPLES book 1.

comes to be furnished with ideas and language, the materials about
which to exercise the discursive faculty ; and the use of reason be-
comes daily more visible, as these materials that give it employment,
increase. But though the having of general ideas, and tlie use of
general words and reason, usually grow together, yet I see not how
this any way proves them innate. The knowledge of some truths,
I confess, is very early in the mind ; but in a way that shows them
not to be innate. For if we will observe, we shall find it still to be
about ideas not innate, but acquired ; it being about those first,
which are imprinted by external things, with which infants have
earliest to do, which make the most frequent impressions on their
senses. In ideas thus got, the mind discovers, that some agree, and
others differ, probably as soon as it has any use of memory ; as soon
as it is able to retain and perceive distinct ideas. But whether it be
then or no, this is certain, it does so long before it has the use of
words, or comes to that, which we commonly call " the use of rea-
son.'" For a child knows as certainly, before it can speak, the diffe-
rence between the ideas of sweet and bitter (i. e. that sweet is not
bitter), as it knows afterwards (when it comes to speak) that worm-
wood and sugar-plums are not the same thing.

§. 16. A child knows not that three and four are equal to seven,
until he comes to be able to count to seven, and has got the name and
idea of equality; and then upon explaining those words, he presently
assents to, or rather perceives the truth of that proposition. But
neither does he then readily assent, because it is an innate truth, nor
was his assent wanting till then, because he wanted the use of reason ;
but the truth of it appears to him, as soon as he has settled in his
mind the clear and distinct ideas that these names stand for ; and
then he knows the truth of that proposition, upon the same grounds,
and by the same means, that he knew before, that a rod and a cherry
are not the same thing ; and upon the same grounds also, that he
may come_to know afterwards, " that it is impossible for the same
thing to be, and not to be,*" as shall be more fully shown hereafter.
So that the later it is before any one comes to have those general
ideas about which those maxim? are ; or to know the signification of
those general terms that stand for them ; or to put together in his
mind the ideas they stand for : the later also will it be before he
comes to assent to those maxims, whose terms, with the ideas they
stand for, being no more innate than those of a cat or a weasel, he
must stay till time and observation have acquainted him with them ;
and then he will be in a capacity to know the truth of these maxims,
upon the first occasion that shall make him put together those ideas
in his mind, and observe whether they agree or disagree, according
as is expressed in those propositions. And, therefore, it is, that a
man knows that eighteen and nineteen are equal to thirty-seven, by
the same self-evidence that he knows one and two to be equal to
three; yet a child knows this not so soon as the other ; not for want
of the use of reason ; but because the ideas the words eighteen, nine-
teen, and thirty-seven stand for, are not so soon got, as those which
are signified by one, two, and three.

CHAP. 2. IN THE MIND. • 15

§. 17. Assenting^ as soon as proposed aiid understood^ proves
them not innate. — This evasion, therefore, of general assent when
men come to the use of reason, failing as it does, and leaving no dif-
ference ])etween those supposed innate, and other truths, that are
afterwards acquired and learnt, men have endeavoured to secure an
universal assent to those they call maxims, by saying, the}^ are gene-
rally assented to as soon as proposed, and the terms they are pro-
posed in understood : seeing all men, even children, as soon as they
hear and understand the terms, assent to these propositions, they
think it is sufficient to prove them innate. For since men never fail,
after they have once understood the words, to acknowledge them for
undoubted truths, they would infer that certainly these propositions
were first lodged in the understanding, which, without any teaching,
the mind, at the very first proposal, immediately closes with and as-
sents to, and after that never doubts again.

§.18. If such an assent he a mai'h of mnaie, then " that one
and t:co are equal to three; that sweetness is not bitterness;^' and a
thousand the lih'e, must be innate. — In answer to this, I demand
whether " ready assent given to a proposition upon first hearing and
understanding the terms, be a certain mark of innate principle V
If it be not, such a general assent is in vain urged as a proof of them-:
if it be said that it is a mark of innate, they must then allow all such
propositions to be innate which are generally assented to as soon as
heard, whereby they will find themselves plentifully stored with
innate principles. For upon the same ground, viz. of assent at first
hearing and understanding the terms, that men would have those
maxims pass for innate, they must also admit several propositions
about numbers, to be innate : and thus, that one and two, are equal
to three ; that two and two are equal to four ; and a multitude of
other the like propositions in numbers, that every body assents to at
first hearing and understanding the terms, must have a place amongst
these innate axioms. Nor is this the prerogative of numbers alone,
and propositions made about several of them ; but even natural phi-
losophy, and all the other sciences, afford propositions which are
sure to meet with assent as soon as they are understood. That two
bodies cannot be in the same place, is a truth that nobody any more
sticks at, than at these maxims. " That it is impossible for the same
tiling to be, and not to be ; that white is not black ; that a square is
not a circle ; and that bitterness is not sweetness ;*" these, and a
million of such other propositions, as many, at least, as we have
distinct ideas of, every man in his wits, at first hearing and knowing
what the names stand for, must necessarily assent to. if these men
will be true to their own rule, and have assent at first hearing and
understanding the terms to be a mark of innate, they must allow not
only as many innate propositions as men have distinct ideas, but as
many as men can make propositions wherein different ideas are denied
one of another. Since every proposition, wherein one different idea
is denied of another, will as certainly find assent at first hearing and
understanding the terms, as this general one, " it is impossible for
the same thing to be, and not to be ;" or that which is the founda-

16 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES book 1.

tion of it, and is the easier understood of the two, " the same is not
different:"" by which account they will have legions of innate pro-
positions of this sort, without mentioning any other. But since no
proposition can be innate, unless the ideas about which it is, be in-
nate : this will be to suppose all our ideas of colours, sounds, tastes,
figure, &c., innate ; than which, there cannot be any thing more op-
posite to reason and experience. Universal and ready assent upon
hearing and understanciing the terms, is (I grant) a mark of self-
evidence; but self evidence, depending not on innate impressions,
but on something else, (as we shall show hereafter) belongs to
several propositions, which nobody was yet so extravagant as to pre-
tend to be mnate.

§. 19. Such less £reneral propositions known hef ore these universal
maxims. — Nor let it be said, that those more particular self-evident
propositions, which are assented to at first hearing, as, that one and
two are equal to three, that green is not red, &c., are received as the
consequence of those more universal propositions, which are looked
on as innate principles ; since any one, who will but take the pains
to observe what passes in the understanding, will certainly find that
these, and the like less general propositions, are certainly known,
and firmly assented to, by those who are utterly ignorant of those
more general maxims ; and, so, being earlier in the mind than those
(as they are called) first principles, cannot owe to them the assent
wherewith they are received at first hearing.

§. 20. One and one equal to two, 3)C., not general nor useful^
answered. — If it be said, that " these propositions, viz., two and two
are equal to four ; red is not blue, &c., are not general maxims, nor
of any great use;"* I answer, that makes nothing to the argument of
universal assent, upon hearing and understanding. For if that be
the certain mark of innate, whatever proposition can be found that
receives general assent as soon as heard and understood, that must
be admitted for an innate proposition, as well as this maxim, " that
it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be," they being,
upon this ground, equal. And as to the diff'erence of being more
general, that makes this maxim more remote from being innate;
those general and abstract ideas being more strangers to our first
apprehensions, than those of more particular self-evident proposi-
tions ; and, therefore, it is longer before they are admitted and as-
sented to by the growing understanding. And as to the usefulness
of these magnified maxims, that perhaps will not be found so great as
is generally conceived, when it comes in its due place to be more
fully considered.

§.21. These maxims not heinjr knoxvn sometimes until proposed,
proves them not intiate. — But we have not yet done with assenting to
propositions at first hearing and understanding their terms ; it is fit
we first take notice, that this, instead of being a mark that they are
innate, is a proof of the contrary ; since it supposes that several, who
understand and know other thmgs, are ignorant of these principles,
until they are proposed to them ; and that one may be unacquainted
with these truths, until he hears them from others. For if they

CHAP. 2, IN THE MIND. 17

were innate, what need they be proposed, in order to gain assent ;
when, by being in the understanding, by a natural and original im-
pression, (if there were any such) they could not but be known
before ? Or doth the proposing them, print them clearer in the mind
than nature did ? If so, then the consequence will be, that a man
knows them better after he has been thus taught them, than he did
before. Whence it will follow, that these principles may be made
more evident to us by others' teaching, than nature has made them
by impression ; which will ill agree with the opinion of innate prin-
ciples, and give but little authority to them ; but, on the contrary,
makes them unfit to be the foundations of all our other knowledge,
as they are pretended to be. This cannot be denied, that men grow
first acquainted with many of these self-evident truths, upon their
being proposed ; but it is clear, that whosoever does so, finds in him-
self that he then begins to know a proposition which he knew not
before ; and which from thenceforth he never questions ; not because
it was innate, but because the consideration of the nature of the
things contained in those words, would not suffer him to think other-
wise, how, or whensoever, he is brought to reflect on them. And if
whatever is assented to at first hearing and understanding the terms,
must pass for an innate principle, every well grounded observation,
drawn from particulars into a general rule, must be innate. When
yet it is certain, that not all, but only sagacious heads, light at first
on these observations, and reduce them into general propositions,
not innate, but collected from a preceding acquaintance and reflection
on particular instances. These when observing men have made
them, unobserving men, when they are proposed to them, cannot
refuse their assent to.

§. 22. Implicitly Jc7to7V7i be/ore proposing, Signifies that the mind
is capable of understanding them, or else signijies nothing. — If it be
said, *' the understanding hath an implicit knowledge of these prin-
ciples, but not an explicit, before this first hearing," (as they must,
who will say, " that they are in the understanding before they are
known"") it will be hard to conceive what is meant by a principle
imprinted on the understanding implicitly ; unless it be this, that
the mind is capable of understanding and assenting firmly to such
propositions. And thus all mathematical demonstrations, as well as
first principles, must be received as native impressions on the mind ;
which, I fear, they will scarce allow them to be, who find it harder
to demonstrate a proposition, than assent to it when demonstrated.
And few mathematicians will be forward to believe that all the dia-
grams they have drawn, were but copies of those innate characters
which nature had engraven upon their minds.

§. 23. The argument of assenting on first hearing, is upon a
Jhlse supposition of no precedent teaching. — There is, I fear, this
further weakness in the foregoing argument, which would persuade
us, that, therefore, those maxims are to be thought innate, which
men admit at first hearing, because they assent to propositions which
they are not taught, nor do receive from the force of any argument
or demonstration but a bare explication or understanding of the

18 - NO INNATE PRINCIPLES book 1.

terms. Under which, there seems to me to lie this fallacy ; that
men are supposed not to be taught, nor to learn any thing de novo ;
when in truth, they are taught, and do learn something they were
ignorant of before. For, Jirst, it is evident they have learned the terms
and their signification : neither of which was born with them. But
this is not all the acquired knowledge in the case ; the ideas them-
selves, about which the proposition is, are not born with them, no
more than their names, but got afterwards. So that in all proposi-
tions that are assented to at first hearing, the terms of the proposition,
tlieir standing for such ideas, and the ideas 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 ideas
were either of them innate. We, by degrees, get ideas and names,
and learn their appropriated connexion 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 ideas, when put together, is expressed, we at first hearing
assent ; though to other propositions, in themselves as certain and
evident, but which are concerning ideas not so soon or so easily got,
we are at the same time no way capable of assenting. For though a
child quickly assents to this proposition, that an " apple is not fire,"
when, by familiar acquaintance, he has got the ideas 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 easy to be learnt,
yet the signification of them being more large, comprehensivCj 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 mean-
ing, and it requires more time plainly to form in his mind those
general ideas they stand for. Until 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 ideas, and learned
their names, he forwardly closes with the one, as well as the other,
of the fore-mentioned propositions, and with both for the same rea-
son ; viz., because he finds the ideas 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 ideas he has not yet in his
mina, to such propositions, however evidently true or false in them-
selves, he affords neither assent nor dissent, but is ignorant. For words
being but empty sounds, any farther than they are signs of our
ideas, we cannot but assent to them as they correspond to those ideas
we have, but no farther than that. But the shewing by what steps
and ways knowledge comes into our minds, and the grounds of seve-
ral 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.

CHAP. 2. IN THE MIND, 19

§. 24. Not innate^ because not universally assented to. — To con-
clude this argument of universal consent, I agree with these de-
fenders 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 as-
sented to by those who vinderstand 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. These maxims not the first laiozvn. — 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 be-
fore they express it, I say next, that these two general propositions
are not the truths that first possess the minds of children, nor are an-
tecedent 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, there-
fore, they are capable of thought, of knowledge, of assent, can it ra-
tionally be supposed they can be ignorant of those notions that nature
has imprinted, were there any such ? Can it be imagined, 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 itself 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 black-
moor 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 it is plain it knows a great many other truths I
He that will say, children join in these general abstract speculations
with their sucking-bottles and their rattles, may, perhaps, with jus-
tice, be thought to have more passion and zeal for his opinion, but
less sincerity and truth, than one of that age.

c 2

20 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES, &c. book 1.

§. 26. And so not innate.— Though, therefore, there be several
general projwsitions that meet with constant and ready assent, as
soon as proposed to men grown up, who have attained the use of
more general and abstracted ideas, and names standing for them ;
yet they not being to be found in those of tender years, who never-
theless 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 thought on.
"Whereby it is evident, if there be any innate truths in the mind, they
must necessarily be the first of any thought on ; the first that appear
there.

§. 27. Not innate, because they appear least, where what is innate
shows itself clearest, — That the general maxims we are discoursing
of, are not known to children, idiots, and a great part of mankind,
we have already sufficiently proved ; whereby it is evident they have
not an universal assent, nor are general impressions. But there is
this farther argument in it against their being innate : that these
characters, if they were native and original impressions, should ap-
pear fairest and clearest in those persons, in whom yet we find no
footsteps of them : and it is, in my opinion, a strong presumption
that they are not innate, since they are least known to those, in whom,
if they were innate, they must needs exert themselves with most force
and vigour. For children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, be-
ing of all others the least corrupted by custom, or borrowed opinions,
learning and education having not cast their native thoughts into new
moulds, nor by superinducing foreign and studied doctrines, con-
founded those fair characters nature had written there ; one might
reasonably imagine, that in their minds, these innate notions should
lie open fairly to every one's view, as it is certain the thoughts of
children do. It might very well be expected that these principles
should be perfectly known to naturals, which being stamped imme-
diately on the soul (as these men suppose), can have no dependence
on the constitution or organs of the body, the only confessed differ-
ence between them and others. One would think, according to these
men's principles, that all these native beams of light (were there any
such) should, in those who have no reserves, no arts of concealment,
shine out in their full lustre, and leave us in no more doubt of their
being there, than we are of their love of pleasure, and abhorrence of
pain. But, alas ! amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly
illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? What universal
principles of knowledge ? Their notions are few and narrow, bor-
rowed only from those objects they have had most to do with, and
which have made upon their senses the frequentest and strongest im-
pressions. A child knows his nurse and his cradle, and, by degrees,
the playthings of a little more advanced age ; and a young savage
has, j)erhap8, his head filled with love and hunting, according to the
fashion of his tribe. But he that from a child untaught, or a wild

CH. 3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. n

inhabitant of the woods, will expect these abstract maxims and re-
puted principles of sciences, will, I fear, find himself mistaken. Such
kind of general propositions are seldom mentioned in the huts of In-
dians, much less are they to be found in the thoughts of children, or
any impressions of them on the minds of naturals. They are the
language and business of the schools and academies of learned na-
tions, accustomed to that sort of conversation, or learning, where dis-
putes are frequent ; these maxims being suited to artificial argumen-
tation, and useful for conviction, but not much conducing to the
discovery of truth, or the advancement of knowledge. But of their
small use for the improvement of knowledge I sliall have occasion to
speak more at large, 1. 4, c. 7.

§. 28. Recapitulation. — I know not how absurd this may seem to
the masters of demonstration ; and probably it will hardly down with
any body at first hearing. I must, therefore, beg a little truce with
prejudice, and the forbearance of censure, until I have been heard
out in the sequel of this discourse, being very willing to submit to
better judgments. And since I impartially search after truth, I shall
not be sorry to be convinced that I have been too fond of my own
notions, which, I confess, we are all apt to be, when application and
study have warmed our heads with them.

Upon the whole matter, I cannot see any ground to think these
two speculative maxims innate, since they are not universally assented
to ; and the assent they so generally find, is no other than what seve-
ral propositions, not allowed to be innate, equally partake in with
them : and since the assent that is given them is produced another
way, and comes not from natural inscription, as I doubt not but
to make appear in the following discourse. And if these first prin-
ciples of knowledge and science are found not to be innate, no other
speculative maxims can (I suppose) with better right pretend to be so.

CHAPTER III.

NO INNATE I'KAGTICAL PRINCIPLES.

§. 1 . No moral principles so dear and so generally received as
thejbrementioned speculative maxims. — If those speculative maxims,
whereof we discoursed in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual
universal assent from all mankind, as we there proved, it is much
more visible concerning practical principles, that they come short of
an universal reception: and I think it will be hard to instance any
one moral rule which can pretend to so general and ready an assent
as, " what is, is ;'** or to be so manifest a truth as this, " that it is
impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be." Whereby it is
evident, that they are farther removed from a title to be innate ; and
the doubt of their being native impressions on the mind, is stronger
against those moral principles than the other. Not that it brings
their truth at all in question ; they are equally true, though not

22 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book 1.

equally evident. Those speculative maxims carry their own evi-
dence witli them ; but moral principles require reasoning and dis-
course, and some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of
their truth. They lie not open as natural characters engraven on the
mind, which, if any such were, they must needs be visible by them-
selves, and by their own light, be certain and known to every body.
But this is no derogation to truth and certainty ; no more than it is
to the truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle being equal to
two right ones, because it is not so evident as the whple is bigger than a
part ; nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing. It may suffice, that
the?e moral rules are capable of demonstration ; and, therefore, it is
our own fault, if we come not to a certain knowledge of them. But
the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the slowness of assent
wherewith others receive them, are manifest proofs that they are not
innate, and such as offer themselves to their view without searching,
§. 2. Faith and justice not owned as principles hij all men. —
W nether there be any such moral principles, wherein all men agree,
I appeal to any wlio have been but moderately conversant in the
history of mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their
own chimneys. Where is that practical truth that is universally re-
ceived without doubt or question, as it must be, if innate ? Justice,
and keeping of contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in.
This is a principle which is thought to extend itself to the dens of
thieves, and the confederacies of the greatest villains ; and they who
have gone farthest towards the putting off of humanity itself, keep
faith and rules of justice one with another. I grant that outlaws
themselves do this one amongst another ; but it is without receiving
these as the innate laws of nature. They practise them as rules of
convenience within their own communities : but it is impossible to
conceive that he embraces justice as a practical principle who acts
fairly with his fellow highwayman, and at the same time plunders or
/ kills the next honest man he meets with. Justice and truth are the
common ties of society ; and, therefore, even outlaws and robbers,
who break with all the world besides, must keep faith and rules of
equity among themselves, or else they cannot hold together. But
will any one say, that those that live by fraud and rapine, have innate
principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to.?

§. 3, Objection, Though men deny them in thei?- practice, yet they
admit them in their thoughts, answered. — Perhaps it will be urged,
that the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice con-
tradicts. I answer,^r*/, I have always thought the actions of men
the best interpreters of their thoughts. But since it is certain, that
most men's practice, and some men's open professions, have either
questioned or denied these principles, it is impossible to estabhsh an
universal consent (though we should look for it only amongst grown
men), without which it is impossible to conclude them innate. Se-
cond/i/. It is very strange and unreasonable to suppose innate practical
principles, that terminate only in contemplation. Practical princi-
ples derived from nature, are there for operation, and must produce
conformity of action, not barely speculative assent to their truth, or

CH. 3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 23

else they are in vain distinguished from speculative maxims. Na-
ture, I confess, has put into man a desire of happiness, and an aver-
sion to misery : these, indeed, are innate practical principles,\vhich (as
practical principles ought) do continue constantly to operate and in-
fluence all our actions, without ceasing ; these may be observed in all
persons, and all ages, steady and universal ; but these are inclina-
tions of the appetite to good, not impressions of truth on the under-
standing. I deny not, that there are natural tendencies imprinted
on the minds of men ; and that from the very first instances of sense
and perception, there are some things that are grateful, and others
unwelcome to them ; some things that they incline to, and others that
they fly : but this makes nothing for innate characters on the mind,
which are to be the principles of knowledge regulating our practice.
Such natural impressions on the understanding are so far from being
confirmed hereby, that this is an argument against them ; since, if
there were certain characters imprinted by nature on the understand-
ing, as the principles of knowledge, we could not but perceive them
constantly operate in us, and influence our knowledge, as we do those
others on the will and appetite ; which never cease to be the constant
springs and motives of all our actions, to which we perpetually feel
them strongly impelling us.

§. 4. Mural 7mles need a "proof, ergo, not innate. — Another rea-
son that makes me doubt of any innate practical principles, is, that I
think there cannot any one moral rule be proposed, whereof a man
may not justly demand a reason, which would be perfectly ridicu-
lous and absurd if they were innate, or so much as self-evident;
which every innate principle must needs be, and not need any proof
to ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain it approbation.
He would be thought void of common sense, who asked on the one
side, or on the other side went to give a reason, why " it is impossible
for the same thing to be, and not to be?" It carries its own light
and evidence with it, and needs no other proof; he that understands
the terms, assents to it for its own sake, or else nothing will ever be
able to prevail with him to do it. But should that most unshaken
rule of morality, and foundation of all social virtue, " that one should
do as he would be done unto,*" be proposed to one who never heard it
before, but yet is of capacity to understand its meaning, might he
not, without any absurdity, ask a reason why .? And were not he
that proposed it bound to make out the truth and reasonableness of
it to him ? Which plainly shews it not to be innate ; for if it were, it
could neither want nor receive any proof; but must needs (at least as
soon as heard and understood) be received and assented to, as an un-
questionable truth, which a man can by no means doubt of. So that
the truth of all these moral rules plainly depends upon some other
antecedent to them, and from which they must be deduced ; which
could not be, if either they were innate, or so much as self-evident.

§. 5. Instance in keeping compacts. — That men should keep their
compacts, is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality ; but
yet, if a Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in an
another life, be asked why a man must keep his word ? he will give

24 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book 1.

this as a reason : Because God, who has the power of eternal Hfe and
death, requires it of us. But if a Hobbist be asked why, he will
answer, because the pubhc requires it, and the Leviathan will punish
you if you do not. And if one of the old philosophers had been
asked, he would have answered, because it was dishonest, below the
dignity of a man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection of
human nature, to do otherwise, ^^[tp^icjcnrcjii

§. 6. Virtue generally approved, 7ioP because innate, but because
profitable, — Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions con-
cerning moral rules, which are to be found among men, according to
the different sorts of happiness they have a prospect of, or propose to
themselves : which could not be if practical principles were innate,
and imprinted in our minds immediately by the hand of God. I
grant the existence of God is so many ways manifest, and the obedi-
en<5e we owe him so congruous to the light of reason, that a great
part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature ; but yet, I
think, it must be allowed, that several moral rules may receive from
mankind a very general approbation, without either knowing or ad-
mitting the true ground of morality ; which can only be the will and
law of a God, who sees men in tne dark, has in his hand rewards
and punishments, and power enough to call to account the proudest
offender. For God, having, by an inseparable connexion, joined
virtue and public happiness together ; and made the practice thereof
necessary to the preservation of society, and visibly Ibeneficial to all
with whom the virtuous man has to do, it is no wonder that every one
should not only allow, but recommend and magnify those rules to
others, from whose observance of them he is sure to reap advantage to
himself. He may, out of interest, as well as conviction, cry up that for
sacred, which, if once trampled on, and profaned, he himself cannot
be safe nor secure. This, though it takes nothing from the moral
and eternal obligation which these rules evidently have, yet it shews
that the outward acknowledgement men pay to them in their words,
proves not that they are innate principles ; nay, it proves not so much
as that men assent to them inwardly in their own minds, as the in.-
violable rules of their own practice, since we find that self-interest,
and the conveniences of this life, make many men own an outward
profession and approbation of them, whose actions sufficiently prove,
that they very little consider the Law-giver that prescribed these
rules, nor the hell that he has ordained for the pujiishment of those
that transgress them.

§. 7. Men's actimis convince us that the rule of virtue is not
their internal principle. — For, if we will not in civility allow too much
sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to be
the interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no
such internal veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion of
their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality, " To
do as one would be done unto," is more commended than practised.
But the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice, than to teach
others that it h no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought
madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they

CH. 3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 25

break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking
us for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment
of the rule be preserved.

§. 8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. — To which I
answer, that I doubt not, but without being written on their hearts,
many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of
other things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced
of their obligation. Others also may come to be of the same mind,
from their education, company, and customs of their country ; which
persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work, which
is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral recti-
tude or pravity of our own actions. And if conscience be a proof of
innate principles, contraries may be innate principles ; since some
men, with the same bent of conscience, prosecute what others avoid.

§. 9. Instances of enormities 'practised wit/tout remorse. — But I
cannot see how any men should ever transgress those moral rules,
with confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon
their minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see
what observation or sense of moral principles, or what touch of con-
science for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes, are
the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have
there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized people,
amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them in the
fields, to perish by want or wild beasts, has been the practice, as little
condemned or scrupled, as the begetting them ? Do they not still,
in some countries, put them into the same graves with their mothers,
if they die in child-birth ; or despatch them, if a pretended astrologer
declares them to have unhappy stars.? And are there not places
where, at a certain age, they kill, or expose their parents, without
any remorse at all? Jn a part of Asia, the sick, when their case
comes to be thought desperate, are carried out, and laid on the
earth, before they are dead ; and left there, exposed to wind and wea-
ther, to perish without assistance or pity*. It is familiar among the
Mingrelians, a people professing Christianity, to bury their children
alive without scruple*f-. There are places where they geld their chil-
dren J. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on purpose
to fat and eat them§. And Garcilasso de la Vega- tells us of a peo-
ple in Peru, which were wont to fat and eat the children they got on
their female captives, whom they kept as concubines for that pur-
pose ; and when they were past breeding, the mothers themselves
were killed, too, and eaten ||. The virtues whereby the Tououpi-
nambos believed they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating
abundance of their enemies. They have not so much as the name
for God^, and have no religion, no worship. The saints who are
canonized amongst the Turks, lead lives which one cannot with mo-
desty relate. A remarkable passage to this purpose, out of the

* Gruber apud Thevenot, part 4, p. 13. f Lambert apud Thevenot, p. 38.

* Vossius de Nili Origine, c. 18, 19- § P. Mart. Dec. I.

II Hist, des Incas, 1. I, c. 12. '% Lery, c. 16, 216, 231.

26 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book 1.

voyage of Baumgarten, which is a book not every day to be met
with, I shall set down at large, in the language it is published in.
" Ibi (sc. prope Belbesin Egypto) vidimus sanctum unum Saraceni-
cuni inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero matris prodiit, nudum
sedentem. AIos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut eos, qui amentes
et sine ratione sunt, pro Sanctis colant et venerentur. Insuper et
eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam, voluntariam demum
pocnitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos deputant. Ejus-
modi ver6' genus hominum libertatem quandam effraenem habent,
domos quas volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et quod majus est, con-
cumbendi : ex quo concubitu si proles secuta fuerit, sancta similiter
habetur. His ergo hominibus, dum vivunt, magnos exhibent ho-
nores ; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta extruunt ampUssima,
eosque contingere ac sepelere maxima* fortuna? ducunt loco. Audi-
vimus haec dicta et dicenda per interpretem k Mucrelo nostro. In-
super sanctum ilium, quem eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime com-
mendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum ac integritate proeci-
puum ; eo quod, nee fceminarum unquam esset, nee puerorum, sed
tantummodo assellarum concubitor atque mulierum." Peregr. Baum-
g'arten, 1. 2, c. 1, p. 73. More of the same kind, concerning these
precious saints among the Turks, may be seen in Pietro della
Valle, in his letter, of the 25th of January, 1616. Where then are
those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude, equity, chastity,*^
Or, where is that universal consent, that assures us there are such in-
bred rules ? Murders in duels, when fashion has made them honour-
able, are committed without remorse of conscience : nay, in many
I)laces, innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy. And if we
ook abroad, to take a view of men as they are, we shall find that they
remorse in one place, for doing or omitting that which others, in
another place, think they merit by.

§. 10. Men have contrary/ practical principles. — He that will care-
fully peru?e the history of mankind, and l(X)k abroad into the several
tribes of men, and with indifference survey their actions, will be able
to satisfy himself, that there is scarce that principle of morality to be
named, or rule of virtue to be thought on (those only excepted, that
are abst^lutely necessary to hold society together, which, commonly,
too, are neglected betwixt distinct societies) which is not, somewhere
or other, slighted and condenmed by the general fashion of whole
societies of men governed by practical opinions, and rules of living,
quite opposite to others.

§.11, Whole nations reject several moral rules. — Here, per-
haps, it will be objected, that it is no argument, that the rule is not
known, because it is broken. I grant the objection good, where
men, though they transgress, yet disown not the law ; where fear of
siiame, censure, or punishment, carries the mark of some awe it has
upon them. But it is impossible to conceive, that a whole nation of
men should all publicly reject and renounce, what every one of them,
certainly and infallibly, knew to be a law ; for so they must, who
have it naturally imprinted on their minds. It is possible men may
sumctimcs own rules of morality, which, in their private thoughts.

CH. 3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 9J^

they do not believe to be true, only to keep themselves in reputation
and esteem amongst those who are persuaded of their obHgation. But
it is not to be imagined, that a whole society of men should publicly
and professedly disown, and cast off a rule, which they could not, in
their own minds, but be infallibly certain was a law ; nor be ignorant
that all men they should have to do with, knew it to be such ; and,
therefore, must every one of them apprehend from others all the con-
tempt and abhorrence due to one who professes himself void of hu-
nianity ; and one, who confounding the known and natural measures
of right and wrong, cannot but be looked on as the professed enemy
of their peace and happiness. Whatever practical principle is innate,
cannot but be known to every one to be just and good. It is, there-
fore, little less than a contradiction, to suppose, that whole nations of
men should, both in their professions and practice, unanimously and
universally give the lie to what, by the most invincible evidence,
every one of them knew to be true, right, and good. This is enough
to satisfy us, that no practical rule, which is any where universally,
and with public approbation, or allowance, transgressed, can be sup-
posed innate. But I have something further to add, in answer to this
objection.

§. 12. The breaking of a rule, say you, is no argument that it is
unknown. I grant it : but the generally allowed breach of it any
where, I say, is a proof that it is not innate. For example, let us
take any of these rules, which being the most obvious deductions of
human reason, and conformable to the natural inclination of the
greatest part of men, fewest people have had the impudence to deny,
or inconsideration to doubt of. If any can be thought to be natu-
rally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer pretence to be innate
than this ; " parents, preserve and cherish your children." When,
therefore, you say that this is an innate rule, what do you mean ?
cither, that it is an innate principle, which, upon all occasions,
excites and directs the actions of all men ; or else, that it is a
truth which all men have imprinted on their minds, and which,
therefore, they know and assent to. But in neither of these senses
is it innate. Firsts That it is not a principle which influences all
men's actions, is what I have proved by the examples before cited :
nor need we seek so far as Mingrelia or Peru, to find instances of
such as neglect, abuse, nay, and destroy their children ; or look on it
only as the more than brutality of some savage and barbarous na-
tions, when we remember that it was a familiar and uncondemned
practice among the Greeks and Romans, to expose, without pity or
remorse, their innocent infants. S condly^ That it is an innate truth,
known to all men, is also false. For " parents preserve your chil-
dren," is so far from an innate truth, that it is no truth at all ;
it being a command, and not a proposition, and so not capable of
truth or falsehood. To make it capable of being assented to as true,
it must be reduced to some such proposition as this : " it is the duty of
parents to preserve their children." But what duty is, cannot be un-
derstood without a law ; nor a law be known or supposed, without a
law-maker, or without reward and punishment : so that it is impos-

28 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book 1.

sible that this, or any other practical principle, should be innate ; i, e^
be imprinted on the mind as a duty, without supposing the ideas of
God, of law, of obligation, of punishment, of a life after this, innate.
For that punishment follows not, in this life, the breach of this rule ;.
and, consequently, that it has not the force of a law in countries
where the generally allowed practice runs counter to it, is in itself
evident. But these ideas (which must be all of them innate, if any
thing as a duty be so) are so far from being innate, that it is not
every studious or thinking man, much less every one that is born, in
whom they are to be found clear and distinct ; and that one of them,
which, of all others, seems most likely to be innate, is not so (I mean
the idea of God) I think, in the next chapter, will appear very
evident to any considering man.

§. 13. From what has been said, I think we may safely conclude,
that whatever practical rule is, in any place, generally, and with
allowance, broken, cannot be supposed innate, it being impossible
that men should, without shame or fear, confidently and serenely
break a rule, which they could not but evidently know that God had
set up, and would certainly punish the breach (of which they must,
if it were innate,) to a degree, to make it a very ill bargain to the
transgressor. Without such a knowledge as this, a man can never
be certain that any thing is his duty. Ignorance, or doubt of the
law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker, or
the like, may make men give way to a present appetite : but let any
one see the fault, and the rod by it, ancl with the transgression, a fire
ready to punish it ; a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the
Almighty visibly held up, and prepared to take vengeance (for this
must be the case, where any duty is imprinted on the mind), and
then tell me, whether it be possible for people, with such a prospect,
such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without scruple, to
offend against a law, which they carry about them in indelible cha-
racters, and that stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it ?
Whether men, at the same time that they feel in themselves the im-
printed edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can, with assurance and
gaiety, slight and trample under foot, his most sacred injunctions?
And, lastly, whether it be possible, that whilst a man thus openly bids
defiance to this innate law, and supreme Law-giver, all the by-stan-
ders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the people, full of the
same sense, both of the law and Law-maker, should silently connive,
without testifying their dislike, or laying the least blame on it .^
Principles of actions, indeed, there are lodged in men's appetites, but
these are so far from being innate moral principles, that ii they were
left to their full swing, they would carry men to the overturning of all
morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbi-
tant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments,
that will overbalance the satisfaction any one shall propose to himself
in the breach of the law. If, therefore, anything be imprinted on
the mind of all men as a law, all men must nave a certain and un-
avoidable knowledge, that certain and unavoidable punishment will
attend the breach of it. For if men can be ignorant or doubtful of

(:h.3. no innate practical principles. 29

what is innate, innate principles are insisted on and urged to no pur-
pose ; truth and certainty (the things pretended) are not at all secured
by them ; but men are in the same uncertain, floating estate with, a»
without them. An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoid-
able punishment, great enough to make the transgression very un-
eligible, must accompany an innate law ; unless, with an innate law,
they can suppose an innate Gospel too. I would not be here mis-
taken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none
but positive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an
innate law, and a law of nature ; between something imprinted on our
minds in their very original, and something that we being ignorant of,
may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of
our natural faculties. And, I think, they equally forsake the truth,
who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or
deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, i. e. without
the help of positive revelation.

§.14. Those who maintam innate practical principles f tell us
not what they are. — The difference there is amongst men in their
practical principles, is so evident, that, I think, 1 need say no more
to evince that it will be impossible to find any innate moral rules, by
this mark of general assent ; and it is enough to make one suspect
that the supposition of such innate principles is but an opinion taken
up at pleasure ; since those who talk so confidently of them, are so
sparing to tell us which they are. This might with justice be ex-
pected from those men who lay stress upon this opinion ; and it gives
occasion to distrust either their knowledge or charity, who, declaring
that God has imprinted on the minds of men the foundations of
knowledge, and the rules of living, are yet so little favourable to the
information of their neighbours, or the quiet of mankind, as not to
point out to them which they are, in the variety men are distracted
with. But, in truth, were there any such innate principles, there
would be no need to teach them. Did men find such innate propo-
sitions stamped on their minds, they would easily be able to distin-
guish them from other truths, that they afterwards learned and de-
duce from them ; and there would be nothing more easy than to know
what, and how many, they were. There could be no more doubt
about their number, than there is about the number of our fingers;
and it is like then every system would be ready to give them us by
tale But since nobody, that I know, has ventured yet to give a ca-
talogue of them, they cannot blame those who doubt of these innate
principles ; since even they who require men to believe that there are
such innate propositions, do not tell us what they are. It is easy to
foresee, that if different men of different sects should go about to give
us a list of those innate practical principles, they would set down
only such as suited their distinct hypotheses, and were fit to support
the doctrines of their particular schools or churches : a plain evidence
that there are no such innate truths. Nay, a great part of men are
so far from finding any such innate moral principles in themselves,
that, by denying freedom to mankind, and thereby making men no
other than bare machines, they take away not onJy innate, but all

30 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book 1.

moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a possibility to believe any
such, to those wlio cannot conceive how any thing can be capable of
a law, that is not a free agent ; and upon that ground, they must ne-
cessarily reject all principles of virtue, who cannot put morality and
mechanism together, which are not very easy to be reconciled, or
made consistent.

§. 15. Lord Herherfs innate principles examined. — When I had
writ this, being informed that my Lord Herbert had, in his book De
Ve?'itate, assigned these innate principles, I presently consulted him,
hoping to find, in a man of so great parts, something that might
satisfy me in this point, and put an end to my inquiry. In his chap-
ter De Instmctu Naturally p. 72, edit. 1656, I met with these six
marks of his Notitice Communes : " 1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia.
3. Universalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Necessitas," i. e. as he explains
it, "faciunt ad hominis conservationem. 6. Modus conform ationis, i. e.
Assensus nulKi interposita mora." And at the latter end of his little
treatise De Religioin Laici, he says this of these innate principles :
'* Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis religionis confinio arctentur que ubique
vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipsa mente coelitus descripta?, nuUis-
que traditionibus, sive scriptis, sive non scriptis, obnoxia?,"" p. 3 ; and,
'* Veritates nostrae Catholicae, quae tanquam indubia Dei effata in foro
interioridescriptoe.'" Thus having given the marks of the innate prin-
ciples, or common notions, and asserted their being imprinted on the
minds of men by the hand of God, he proceeds to set them down,
and they are these : "L Esse aliquod supremum numen. 2. Nu-
men illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum pietate conjunctam optimam
esse rationem cultus divini. 4. Resipiscendum esse ^ peccatis.
5. Dari praemium vel poenam post banc vitam transactam.'"* Though
I allow these to be clear truths, and such as, if rightly explained, a
rational creature can hardly avoid giving his assent to ; yet I think
he is far from proving them innate impressions *'in foro interiori de-
scriptae.'' For I must take leave to observe,

§. 16, First, That these five propositions are either not all, or
more than all, those common notions writ on our minds by the finger
of God, if it were reasonable to believe any at all to be so written.
Since there are other propositions, which, even by his own rules,
have as just a pretence to such an original, and may be as well ad-
mitted for innate principles, as, at least, some of these five he enu-
merates, viz. " Do as thou wouldst be done unto ;" and, perhaps,
some hundreds of others, when well considered.

§. 17. Secondlij, That all his marks are not to be found in each
of his five propositions, viz. his first, second, and third marks, agree
perfectly to neither of them ; and the first, second, third, fourth, and
sixth marks, agree but ill to his third, fourth, and fifth pro|X)sitions.
For, besides that, we are assured from history, of many men, nay,
whole nations, who doubt or disbelieve some or all of them ; I cannot
see how the third, viz. " That virtue joined with piety, is the best
worship of God,'^ can be an innate principle, when the name, or
sound, virtue, is so hard to be understood ; liable to so much uncer-
tainty in its signification ; and the thing it stands for, so much con-

CH.3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. 31

tended about, and difficult to be known. And, therefore, this can be
but a very uncertain rule of human practice, and serve but very little
to the conduct of our lives, and is, therefore, very unfit to be assigned
as an innate practical principle.

§. 18. For let us consider this proposition as to its meaning (for
it is the sense, and not sound, that is, and must be, the principle or
common notion), viz. "- Virtue is the best worship of God f' i. e. is
most acceptable to him : which, if virtue be taken, as most commonly
it is, for those actions which, according to the different opinions of
several countries, are accounted laudable, will be a proposition so far
from being certain, that it will not be true. If virtue be taken for
actions conformable to God's will, or to the rule prescribed by God,
which is the true and only measure of virtue, when virtue is used to
signify what is in its nature right and good, then this proposition,
" That virtue is the best worship of God," will be most true and cer-
tain, but of very little use in human life, since it will amount to no
more than this, viz. " That God is pleased with the doing of what he
commands;"" which a man may certainly know to be true, without
knowing what it is that God doth command ; and so be as far from
any rule or principle of his actions, as he was before ; and, I think,
very few will take a proposition which amounts to no more than this,
viz. " That God is pleased with the doing of what he himself com-
mands,"" for an innate moral principle writ on the minds of all men
(however true and certain it may be), since it teaches so little. Who-
soever does so, will have reason to think hundreds of propositions in-
nate principles, since there are many, which have as good a title as
this, to be received for such, which nobody yet ever put into that
rank of innate principles.

§. 19. Nor is the fourth proposition (viz. " Men must repent of
their sins"*"*) much more instructive, till what those actions are, that
are meant by sins, be set down. For the word peccata, or sins, being^
put, as it usually is, to signify, in general, ill actions, that will draw
punishment upon the doers, what great principle of morality can that
be, to tell us we should be sorry, and cease to do that which will
bring mischief upon us, without knowing what those particular
actions are, that w ill do so ? indeed, this is a very true proposition,
and fit to be inculcated on, and received by those, who are supposed
to have been taught, what actions, in all kinds, are sins ; but neither
this, nor the former, can be imagined to be innate principles, nor to
be of any use, if they were innate, unless the particular measures and
bounds of all virtues and vices, were engraven in men's minds, and
were innate principles, also, which, I think, is very much to be
doubted. And, therefore, I imagine, it Will scarcely seem possible,
that God should engrave principles in men's minds, in words of un-
certain signification, such as virtues and sins, which, amongst different
men, stand for different things ; nay, it cannot be supposed to be in
words at all, which, being in most of these principles very general
names, cannot be understood, but by knowing the particulars com-
prehended under them. And, in the practical instances, the measures
must be taken from the knowledge of the actions themselves, and the

32 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. bookI.

rules of them abstracted from words, and antecedent to the know-
ledge of names ; which rules a man must know, what language soever
he chance to learn, whether English or Japanese ; or if he should learn
no language at all, or never should understand the use of words, as
happens in the case of dumb and deaf men. When it shall be made
out, that men, ignorant of words, or untaught by the laws and cus-
toms of their country, know that it is part of the worship of God, not
to kill another man ; not to know more women than one ; not to pro-
cure abortion ; not to expose their children ; not to take from another
what is his, though we want it ourselves, but, on the contrary, relieve
and supply his wants ; and whenever we have done the contrary, we
ought to repent, be sorry, and resolve to do so no more ; when, I say,
all men shall be proved actually to know and allow all these and a
thousand other such rules, all which come under these two ge-
neral words made use of above, viz. " virtutes et peccata," virtues and
sins, there will be more reason for admitting these and the like, for
common notions, and practical principles; yet, after all, universal
consent (were there any in moral principles) to truths, the knowledge
whereof may be attained otherwise, would scarce prove them to be
innate ; which is all I contend for.

§. 20. Object, Innate principles may he corrupted, answered. —
Nor will it be of much moment here, to offer that very ready, but not
very material answer, (viz.) That the innate principles of morality,
may, by education and custom, and the general opinion of those
amongst whom we converse, be darkened, and, at last, quite worn
out of the minds of men. Which assertion of theirs, if true, quite
takes away the argument of universal consent, by which this opinion
of innate principles is endeavoured to be proved; unless those men
will think it reasonable, that their private persuasions, or that of
their party, should pass for universal consent; a thing not unfre-
quently done, when men, presuming themselves to be the only ma-
sters of right reason, cast by the votes and opinions of the rest of
mankind, as not worthy the reckoning. And then their argument
stands thus : " The principles which all mankind allow for true, are
innate; those that men of right reason admit, are the principles
allowed by all mankind ; we, and those of our mind, are men of rea-
son ; therefore, we agreeing, our principles are innate C which is a
very pretty way of arguing, and a short cut to infallibility. For
otherwise it will be very hard to understand, how there be some
principles, which all men do acknowledge and agree in ; and yet
there are none of those principles, which are not by depraved cus-
tom, and ill education, blotted out of the minds of many men ; which
is to say, that all men admit, but yet many men do deny, and dissent
from them. And, indeed, the supposition of such first principles
will serve us to very little purpose ; and we shall be as mucn at a loss
with, as without them, if they may, by any human power, such as
is the will of our teachers, or opinions of our companions, be altered
or lost in us ; and notwithstanding all this boast of first principles,
and innate light, we shall be as much in the dark and uncertainty, as
if there were no such thing at all ; it being all one, to have no rule,

CH. 3. NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES. i]S

and one that will warp any way ; or amongst various and contrary
rules not to know which is the right. But concerning innate prin-
ciples, I desire these men to say, whether they can, or cannot, by
education and custom, be blurred and blotted out ; if they cannot,
we must find them in all mankind ahke, and they must be clear in
every body ; and if they may suffer variation from adventitious
notions, we must then find them clearest and most perspicuous
nearest the fountain, in children and illiterate people, who have
received least impression from foreign opinions. Let them take
which side they please, they will certainly find it inconsistent with
visible matter of fact, and daily observation.

§ 21. Contrary principles in the world. — I easily grant that
there are great numbers of opinions, which, by men of different
countries, educations, and tempers, are received and embraced as first
and unquestionable principles, many whereof, both for their absur-
dity, as well as oppositions to one another, it is impossible should be
true. But yet all those propositions, how remote soever from reason,
are so sacred somewhere or other, that men, even of good under-
standing in other matters, will sooner part with their lives, and
whatever is dearest to them, than suffer themselves to doubt, or
others to question, the truth of them,

§ 22. How men commonly come by their principles. — This, how-
ever strange it may seem, is that which every day's experience con-
firms ; and will not, perhaps, appear so wonderful, if we consider the
ways and steps by which it is brought about ; and how really it may
come to pass, that doctrines, that have been derived from no better
original than the superstition of a nurse, and the authority of an old
woman, may, by length of time, and consent of neighbours, grow up
to the dignity of principles in religion or morality. For such who
are careful (as they call it) to principle children well, (and few there
be who have not a set of those principles for them, which they believe
in) instil into the unwary, and, as yet, unprejudiced understanding,
(for white paper receives any characters,) those doctrines they would
have them retain and profess. These being taught them as soon as
they have any apprehension ; and still as they grow up, confirmed to
them, either by the open profession, or tacit consent, of all they have
to do with, or, at least, by those of whose wisdom, knowledge, and
piety, they have an opinion, who never suffer those propositions to
be otherwise mentioned but as the basis and foundation on which
they build their religion and manners ; come, by these means, to
have the reputation of unquestionable, self-evident, and innate
truths.

§ 23. To which w^e may add, that when men, so instructed, are
grown up, and reflect on their own minds, they cannot find any thing
more ancient there, than those opinions which were taught them be-
fore their memory began to keep a register of their actions, or date
the time when any new thing appeared to them ; and, therefore, make
no scruple to conclude, that those propositions, of whose knowledge
they can find in themselves no original, were certainly the impress of
God and nature upon their minds ; and not taught them by any one

I

34 NO INNATE PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES, book I.

else. These they entertain and submit to, as many do to their
parents, with veneration ; not because it is natural, nor do children
do it where they are not so taught, but because having been always
so educated, and having no remembrance of the beginning of this
respect, they think it is natural.

§ 524. This will appear very likely, and almost unavoidable to
come' to pass, if we consider the nature of mankind, and the constitu-
tion of human affairs, wherein most men cannot live without employ-
ing their time in the daily labours of their calling : nor be at quiet in
their minds, without some foundation or principle to rest their
thoughts on. There is scarce any one so floating and superficial in
his understanding, who hath not some reverenced propositions, which
are to him the principles on which he bottoms his reasonings, and by
which he judgeth of truth and falsehood, right and wrong; which
some wanting skill and leisure, and others the inclination, and some
being taught that they ought not to examine, there are few to be
found who are not exposed by their ignorance, laziness, education,
or precipitancy, to take them upon trust.

§ 25. This is evidently the case of all children and young folk ;
and custom, a greater power than nature, seldom failing to make
them worship for divine, what she hath inured them to bow their
minds, and submit their understandings to, it is no wonder that
grown men, either perplexed in the necessary affairs of life, or hot
in the pursuit of pleasures, should not seriously sit down to examine
their own tenets, especially when one of their principles is, that prin-
ciples ought not to be questioned. And had men leisure, parts, and
will, who is there almost that dare shake the foundations of all his
past thoughts and actions, and endure to bring upon himself the
shame of having been a long time wholly in mistake and error ?
Who is there hardy enough to contend with the reproach which is
every where prepared ^r those who dare venture to dissent from the
received opinions of their country or party ? And where is the man
to be found, that can patiently prepare himself to bear the name of
whimsical, sceptical, or atheist, which he is sure to meet with, who
does in the least scruple any of the common opinions ? And he will
be much more afraid to question those principles, when he shall
think them, as most men do, the standards set up by God in his
mind, to be the rule and touchstone of all other opinions. And what
can hinder him from thinking them sacred, when he finds them the
earliest of all his own thoughts, and the most reverenced by others?

§ 26. It is.easy to imagine how, by these means, it comes to
pass, that men worship the idols that have been set up in their
minds, grow fond of the notions they have been long acquainted with
there, and stamp the characters of divinity upon absurdities and
errors ; become zealous votaries to bulls and monkies ; and contend
too, fight and die, in defence of their o})inions : " Dum solos credit
habenuos esse deos, quos ipse colit." For since the reasoning facul-
ties of the soul, which are almost constantly, though not always
warily nor wisely employed, would not know how to move, for want
of a foundation and footing, in most men, who, through laziness or

CH. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 35

avocation, do not, or for want of time, or true helps, or for othei'
causes, cannot penetrate into the principles of knowledge, and trace
truth to its fountain and original, it is natural for them, and almost
unavoidable, to take up with some borrowed principles ; which being
reputed and presumed to be the evident proofs of other things, are
thought not to need any other proof themselves. Whoever shall
receive any of these into his mind, and entertain them there, with
the reverence usually paid to principles, never venturing to examine
them, but accustoming himself to believe them, because they are to
be believed, may take up from his education, and the fashions of his
country, any absurdity for innate principles ; and by long poring on
the same objects, so dim his sight, as to take monsters lodged in his
own brain, tor the images of the Deity, and the workmanship of his
hands.

§ 27. Principles must he examined. — By this progress, how
many there are who arrive at principles, which they believe innate,
may be easily observed, in the variety of opposite principles held and
contended for by all sorts and degrees of men. And he that shall
deny this to be the method, wherein most men proceed to the assur-
ance they have of the truth and evidence of their principles, will,
perhaps, find it a hard matter, any other way to account for the con-
trary tenets, which are firmly believed, confidently asserted, and with,
great numbers, are ready, at any time, to seal with their blood.
And, indeed, if it be the privilege of innate principles to be received
upon their own 'authority, without examination, I know not what
may not be believed, or how any one's principles can be questioned.
If they may, and ought to be examined and tried, I desire to know
how first and innate principles can be tried ; or, at least, it is reason-
able to demand the marks and characters whereby the genuine innate
principles may be distinguished from others ; that so, amidst the great
variety of pretenders, I may be kept from mistakes, in so material a
point as this. When this is done, I shall be ready to embrace such
welcome and useful propositions ; and till then, I may with modesty
doubt, since, I fear, universal consent, which is the only one pro-
duced, will scarce prove a sufficient mark to direct my choice, and
assure me of any innate principles. From what has been said, I
think it past doubt, that there are no practical principles wherein all
men agree ; and, therefore, none innate.

CHAPTER IV.

I

OTHER CONSIDERATIOXS CONCERNING INNATE PRINCIPLES,
ROTH SPECULATIVE AND PRACTICAL.

§ 1. Principles not innate, unless their ideas he innate. — Had
those, who would persuade us that there are innate principles, not taken
them together in gross, but considered separately the parts out of
which those propositions are made, they would not, perhaps, have

D 2

^!

36 ^ NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. book 1.

been so forward to believe they were innate. Since, if the ideas
which made up those truths, were not, it was impossible that the pro-
positions made up of them should be innate, or the knowledge of
them born with us. For if the ideas be not innate, there was a
time w hen the mind was without those principles, and then they will
not be innate, but be derived from some other original. For where
the ideas themselves are not, there can be no knowledge, no assent,
no mental or verbal propositions about them.

§ 2. Ideas, especiallt^ those belonging to principles ^ not born with
children. — If we will attentively consider new-born children, we shall
have little reason to think that they bring many ideas into the world
with them. For bating, perhaps, some faint ideas of hunger, and
thirst, and warmth, and some pains which they may have felt in the
womb, there is not the least appearance of any settled ideas at all in
them ; especially of ideas answering the terms which make up those
universal propositions that are esteemed innate principles. One may
perceive how, by degrees, afterwards, ideas come into their minds ;
and that they get no more, nor no other, than what experience, and
the cA)servation of things that come in their way, furnish them with,
which might be enough to satisfy us that they are not original cha-r
racters stamped on the mind.

§ 3. '* It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be,*"
is certainly (if there be any such) an innate principle. But can any
one think, or will any one say, that impossibility and identity are two
innate ideas ? Are they such as all mankind have, and bring into the
world with them .'' And are they those which are the first in children,
and antecedent to all acquired ones ? If they are innate, they must
needs be so. Hath a child an idea of impossibility and identity, before
is has of white or black, sweet or bitter ? And is it from the know-
ledge of this principle, that it concludes, that wormwood rubbed on
the nipple, hath not the same taste that it used to receive from thence ?
Is it the actual knowledge of " impossibile est idem esse, et non esse,""
that makes a child distinguish between its mother and a stranger ? or,
that makes it fond of the one, and flee the other ? Or does the mind
regulate itself, and its assent, by ideas that it never yet had ? Or the
understanding draw conclusions from principles which it never yet
knew or understood ? The names impossibility and identity stand
for two ideas, so far from being innate, or born with us, that I think
it requires great care and attention to form them right in our under-
standing. I hey are so far from being brought into the world with
us, so remote from the thoughts of infancy and childhood, that I be-
lieve, u|X)n examination, it will be found that many grown men want
them.

§ 4. Identity, an idea not innate. — If identity (to instance in that
alone) be a native impression, and consequently so clear and obvious
to us, that we must needs know it even from our cradles, I would
gladly be resolved by one of seven, or seventy years old, whether a
man, being a creature, consisting of soul and body, be the same man
when his body is changed.? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras,
having had the same soul, were the same men, though they livedseveij

^^-

cu. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 57

ral ages asunder ? Nay, whether the cock too, which had the same
soul, were not the same with both of them ? Whereby, perhaps, it
will appear, that our idea of sameness is not so settled and clear as to
deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate ideas are
not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known, and naturally
agreed on, they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths ;
but will be the unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty. For, I
suppose, every one's idea of identity will not be the same with Pytha-
goras and others of his followers have : and which then shall be true ?
Which innate ? Or are there two different ideasof identity, both innate?

§ 5. Nor let any one think that the questions I have here pro-
posed about the identity of man are bare empty speculations ; which
if they were, would be enough to show that there was in the under-
standings of men no innate idea of identity. He that shall, with a
little attention, reflect on the resurrection, and consider that divine
justice will bring to judgment, at the last day, the very same persons
to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this life,
will find it, perhaps, not easy to resolve with himself, what makes the
same man, or wherein identity consists ; and will not be forward ta
think he, and every one, even children themselves, have naturally a
clear idea of it.

§ 6. Whole and fart, not innate ideas.. — Let us examine that
principle of mathematics, viz. " that a whole is bigger than a part."
This, I take it, is reckoned amongst innate principles. I am sure it
has as good a title as any to be thought so; which, yet, nobody can
think it to be, when he considers the ideas it comprehends in it,
" whole and part,"*"* are perfectly relative ; but the positive ideas to
which they properly and immediately belong, are extension and num-
ber, of which alone, whole and part are relations. So that if whole
and part are innate ideas, extension and number must be so too, it
being impossible to have an idea of a relation, without having any at
all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded.
Now, whether the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them
the ideas of extension and number, I leave to be considered by those
who are the patrons of innate principles.

§ 7. Ideas of Worship not innate. — " That God is to be wor-
shipped,**' is, without doubt, as great a truth as any can enter into
the mind of man, and deserves the first place amongst all practical
principles. But yet it can by no means be thought innate, unless
the ideas of God and worship are innate. That the idea the term
worship stands for, is not in the understanding of children, and a
character stamped on the mind in its first original, I think, will be
easily granted by any one that considers how few there be amongst
grown men, who have a clear and distinct notion of it. And, I sup-
pose, there cannot be any thing more ridiculous, than to say, that
children have this practical principle innate, that God is to be wor-
shipped ; and yet, that they know not what that worship of God is,
which is their duty. But to pass by this :

§ 8. Idea of God not innate. — If any idea can be imagined in-
nate, the idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons, be thought

88 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. book 1.

so ; since it is hard to conceive how there should be innate moral prin-
ciples, without an innate idea of a Deity : without a notion of a law-
maker, it is impossible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation
to observe it. Besides the Atheists, taken notice of amongst the
ancients, and left branded upon the records of history, hath not navi-
gation discovered, in these later ages, whole nations at the Bay of
Soldania*, in Brazil f, Boranday:}:, and in the Caribbee Islands, &c.
amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion.
Nicholaus del Techo, in Uteris ex Paraquaria de Caaiguarum con-
versione, has tliese words § : " Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen ha-
bere, quod Deum et hominis animam significet, nulla sacra habet,
nulla idola." These are instances of nations where uncultivated
nature has been left to itself, without the help of letters and disci-
pline, and the improvements of arts and sciences. But there are
others to be found, who have enjoyed these in a very great measure,
who yet, for want of a due application of their thoughts this way,
want the idea and knowledge of God. It will, I doubt not, be a
surprise to others, as it was to me, to find the Siamites of this number.
But for this, let them consult the King of France's late envoy thi-
ther ||, who gives no better account of the Chinese themselves^. And
if we will not believe La Loubere, the missionaries of China, even the
Jesuits themselves, the great encomiasts of the Chinese, do all, to a
man, agree, and will convince us, that the sect of the literati, or
learned, keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party
there, are all of them Atheists. [Vid. Navarette, in the collection of
voyages, Vol. I. and Historia Cultus Sinensium.] And, perhaps, if
we should, with attention, mind the lives and discourses of people
npt so far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many, in
more civilized countries, have no very strong and clear impressions
of a Deity upon their minds ; and that the complaints of Atheism,
made from the pulpit, are not without reason. And though only
some profligate wretches own it too barefacedly now ; yet, perhaps,
we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear
of the magistrate''s sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up peo-
ple's tongues ; which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame
taken away, would as openly proclaim their Atheism, as their lives
do**.

• Roe apud Thevenot, p. 2. f Jo. de Lery, c. 1 6.

$ Martiniere f^^. Terry ^ and |f . Ovington ^^

§ Relatio triplex de rebus Indicis Caaiguarum M.

II La Loubere du Royaume du Siam, t. 1, c. 9. $ 15, & c. 20, § 22, & c. 22, § 6.

% lb. torn. 1, c. 20, § 4, & c. 23.

** On thi« reasoning of the author against innate ideas, great blame hath been laid, because
it seems to invalidate an argument commonly used to prove the being of a God, viz. universal
consent. To which our auth( r answers (a) : " I think that the universal consent of mankind
a« to the being of a God, amounts to thus much, that the vastly greater majority of mankind
have, in all ages of the world, actually believed a God ; that the majority of the remaining part
have not actually disbelieved it ; and, consequently, those who have actually opposed the be-
lief of a God, have truly been very few. So that comparing those that have actually disbe-
lieved, with those who have actually believed a God, their number is so inconsiderable, that in
(rt) In his Third Letter to the Bishop of Worcester.

en. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. S9

§ 9. But had all mankind, every where, a notion of a God,
(whereof yet history tells us the contrary) it would not from thence

respect of this incomparably greater majority of those who have owned the belief of a GoJ, it
may be said to be the universal consent of mankind.

" This is all the universal'consent which truth or matter of fact will allow ; and, therefore,
all that can be made use of to prove a God. But if any one would extend it farther, and speak
deceitfully for God ; if this universality should be urged in a strict sense, not for much the
majority, but for a general consent of every one, even to a man, in all ages and countries, this
would make it either no argument, or a perfectly useless and unnecessary one. For if any
one deny a God, such an universality of consent is destroyed ; and if nobody does deny a God,
what need of arguments to convince Atheists?

" I would crave leave to ask your lordship, were there ever in the world any Atheists or
no? If there were not, what need is there of raising a question about the being of a God,
when nobody questions it ? What need of provisional arguments against a fault, from which
mankind are so wholly free; and which, by an universal consent, they may be presumed to
be secure from? If you say (as I doubt not but you will) that there have been Atheists
in the world, then your lordship's universal consent reduces itself to only a great majority ;
and then make that majority as great as you will, what I have said in the place quoted by your
lordship leaves it in its full force ; and I have not said one word that does in the least invali-
date this argument for a God. The argument I was upon there was to show, that the idea of
God was not innate ; and to my purpose it was sufficient, if there were but a less number found
in the world, who had no itlea of God, than your lordship will allow there have been of pro-
fessed Atheists; for whatsoever is innate must be vmiversal in tlie strictest sense. One ex-
ception is a sufficient proof against it. So that all that I said, and which was quite to another
purpose, did not at all tend, nor can be made use of, to invalidate the argument for a Deity,
grounded on such an universal consent, as your lordship, and all that build on it, must own ;
which is only a very disproportioned majority : such an universal consent, my argument there
neither affirms nor requires to be less than you will be pleased to allow it. Your lordship,
therefore, might, without any prejudice to those declarations of good will and favour you have
for the author of the Essaj' of Human Understanding, have spared the mentioning his quot-
ing authors that are in print, for matters of fact to quite another purpose, ' as going about to
invalidate the argument for a Deity from the universal consent of mankind,' since he leaves
that universal consent as entire and as large as you yourself do, or can own, or suppose it.
But here I have no reason to be sorry that your lordship has given me this occasion for the
vindication of this passage of my book; if there shouM be any one besides your lordship, who
should so far mistake it, as to think it in the least invalidates the argument for a God, from
the universal consent of mankind.

" But because you question the credibility of those authors I have quoted, which you say
were very ill chosen, I will crave leave to say, that he whom I relied on for his testimony con-
cerning the Hottentots of Soldania was no less a man than an ambassador from the King of
England to the Great Mogul ; of whose relation, M. Thevenot, no ill judge in the case, had
so great an esteem, that he was at the pains to translate it into French, and publish it in his
(which is counted no injudicious) Collection of Travels. But to intercede with your lordship
for a little more favourable allowance of credit to Sir Thomas Roe's relation, Coore, an inha-
bitant of the country, who could speak English, assured Mr. Terry, (a) that they of Soldania
had no God. But if he, too, have the ill luck to find no credit with you, I hope you will be a
little more favourable to a divine of the church of England, now living, and admit of his testi-
mony in confirmation of Sir Thomas Roe's. This worthy gentleman, in the relation of his
voyage to Surat, printed but two years since, speaking of the same people, has these words :
(Ij) *• They are sunk even below idolatry, are destitute of both priest and temple, and saving a
little show of rejoicing which is made at the full and new moon, have lost all kind of religious
devotion. Nature has so richly provided for their convenience in this life, that they have
drowned all sense of the God of it, and are grown quite careless of the next.'

" But to provide against the clearest evidence of Atheism in these people, you say, * That
the account given of them makes them not fit to be a standard for the sense of mankind.'
This, I think, may pass for nothing, till somebody be found, that makes them to be a standard
for the sense of mankind. All the use I made of them was to show that there were men in
the world that had no innate idea of God. But to keep something like an argument going,
(for what will not that do ?) you go near denying those Cafers to be men. What else do these
words signify ? ' A people so strangely bereft of common sense, that they can hardly be rec-
koned among mankind, as appears by tiie best accounts of the Cafers of Soldania,' &c. I

(rt) Terry's Voyage, p. 17, 23. (h) Mr. Ovington, p. 489.

40 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. ojook U

follow, that the idea of Him was innate. For though no nation were
to be found without a name, and some few dark notions of Him, yet
that would not prove them to be natural impressions on the mind,
any more than the names of fire, or the sun, heat, or number, do prove
the ideas they stand for to be innate, because the names of those
things, and tile ideas of them, are so universally received and known
amongst mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is the want of such a name,
or the absence of such a notion, out of men's minds, any argument
against the being of God, any more than it would be a proof that
there was no loadstone in the world, because a great part of mankind
had neither a notion of any such thing, nor a name for it ; or be any
show of argument to prove, that there are no distinct and various
species of angels, or intelligent beings above us, because we have no
ideas of such distinct species, or names for them ; for men being fur-
nished with words by the common language of their own countries,
can scarce avoid having some kind of ideas of those things, whose
names those they converse with have occasion frequently to mention
to them. And if they carry with it the notion of excellency, great-
ness, or something extraordinary ; if apprehension and concernment
accompany it ; if the fear of absolute and irresistible power set it on
upon the mind, the idea is likely to sink the deeper, and spread the
farther ; especially if it be such an idea as is agreeable to the common
light of reason, and naturally deducible from every part of our know-
ledge, as that of a God is. For the visible marks of extraordinary
wisdom and power appear so plainly in all the works of the creation,
that a rational creature, who will but seriously reflect on them, cannot
miss the discovery of a Deity ; and the influence that the discovery
of such a being must necessarily have on the minds of all that have
but once heard of it, is so great, and carries such a weight of thought
and communication with it, that it seems stranger to me, that a whole
nation of men should be any where found so brutish as to want the
notion of a God, than that they should be without any notion of
numbers or fire.

§ 10. The name of God being once mentioned in any part of the
world, to express a superior, powerful, wise, invisible being, the suit-
ableness of such a notion to the principles of common reason, and the
interest men will always have to mention it often, must necessarily
spread it far and wide, and continue it down to all generations;
though yet the general reception of this name, and some imperfect and
unsteady notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of man-
hope if any of them were called Peter, James or John, it would be past scruple that they were
men : however, Courwee, VVewena, and Cowsheda, and those others who had names, that had
no places in your nonienclator, would liardly pass muster with your lordship.

" My lord, I should not mention this, but that what you yourself say here, may be a mo-
tive to you to consider, that what you have laid such stress on concerning the general nature
of man, as a real being, and the stibject of properties, amounts to nothing for the distinguish-
ing of species ; since you yourself own, that there may be individuals, wherein there is a com-
mon nature with a particular subsistence proper to each of them ; whereby you are so little
ibic to know of which n( the ranks or sorts they arc, into which you say God has ordered
beings, and which he hath distinguished by essential properties, that you are in doubt whether
they ought to b^ reckoned among mankind or no.**

CH. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 41

kind, prove not the idea to be innate : but only that they who made
the discovery, had made a right use of their reason, thought maturely
of the causes of things, and traced them to their original ; from whom,
other less considering people having once received so important a no-
tion, it could not easily be lost again.

§ 11. This is all could be inferred from the notion of a God,
were it to be found universally in all the tribes of mankind, and gene-
rally acknowledged by men grown to maturity in all countries. For
the generality of the acknowledging of a God, as I imagine, is ex-
tended no farther than that ; which, if it be sufficiei;t to prove the idea
of God innate, will as well prove the idea of fire innate : since, I think,
it may be truly said, that there is not a person in the world who has
a notion of a God, who has not also the idea of fire. I doubt not,
but if a colony of young children should be placed in an island where
no fire was, they would certainly have neither any notion of such a
thing, nor name for it, how generally soever it were received and
known in all the world besides ; and, perhaps, too, their apprehen-
sions would be as far removed from any name, or notion of a God,
until some one amongst them had employed his thoughts, to inquire
into the constitution and causes of things, which would easily lead
him to the notion of a God which having once taught to others,
reason, and the natural propensity of their own thoughts, would after-
wards propagate and continue amongst them.

§ 12. Suitable to God's goodness^ that all men should have an
idea of Mm, therefore naturally imprinted by him, answered. — Indeed
it is urged, that it is suitable to the goodness of God, to imprint upon
the minds of men, characters and notions of himself, and not to leave
them in the dark, and doubt, in so grand a concernment : and also by
that means, to secure to himself the homage and veneration due from
so intelligent a creature as man ; and, therefore, he has done it.

This argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than
those, who use it in this case, expect from it. For if we may con-
clude, that God hath done for men all that men shall judge is best
for them, because it is suitable to his goodness so to do, it will prove
not only that God has imprinted on the minds of men an idea of him-
self, but that he hath plainly stamped there, in fair characters, all that
men ought to know or believe of him, all that they ought to do in
obedience to his will ; and that he hath given them a will and affecr-
tions conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one will think better
for men, than that they should, in the dark, grope after knowledge,
as St. Paul tells us all nations did after God, Acts xvii. 27, than that
their wills should clash with their understandings, and their appetites
cross their duty. The Romanists say, it is best for men, and so suit-
able to the goodness of God, that there should be an infallible judge
of controversies on earth ; and, therefore, there is one : and I, by the
same reason say, it is better for men, that every man himself should
be infallible. I leave them to consider, whether, by the force of this
argument, they shall think that every man is so. I think it a very
good argument, to say, the infinitely wise God hath made it so ; and,
therefore, it is best. But it seems to me a little too much confidence

42 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. book 1.

of oiir own wisdom, to say, *' I think it best, and, therefore, God hath
made it so ;"" and in the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue
from such a topic, that God hath done so, when certain experience
shows us that he hath not. But the goodness of God hath not been
wanting to men, without such original impressions of knowledge, or
ideas, stamped on the mind ; since he hath furnished man with those
faculties which will serve for the sufficient discovery of all things re-
quisite to the end of such a Being ; and I doubt not but to show, that
a man, by the right use of his natural abilities, may, without any in-
nate principles, attain a knowledge of a God and other things that
concern him. God having endued man with those faculties of know-
ing which he hath, was no more obliged, by his goodness, to plant
those innate motions in his mind, than that, having given him reason,
hands, and materials, he should build him bridges, or houses, which
some people in the world, however of good parts, do either totally
want, or are but ill provided of, as well as others are wholly without
ideas of God, and principles of morality ; or at least, have but very
ill ones. The reason in both cases being, that they never employed
their parts, faculties, and powers industriously that way, but con-
tented themselves with the opinions, fashions, and things of their
country, as they found them, without looking any farther. Had you
or I been born at the Bay of Soldania, possibly our thoughts and
notions had not exceeded those brutish ones of the Hottentots that
inhabit there : and had the Virginia King Apochancana, been edu-
cated in England, he had been, perhaps, as knowing a divine, and as
good a mathematician, as any in it. The difference between him, and
a more improved Englishman, lying barely in this, that the exercise
of his faculties was bounded within the ways, modes, and notions of
his own country, and never directed to any other, or farther inqui-
ries ; and if he had not any idea of a God, it was only because he pur-
sued not those thoughts that would have led him to it.

§ 13. Ideas of God various In different men. — I grant, that if
there were any idea to be found imprinted on the minds of men, we
have reason to expect it should be the notion of his Maker, as a mark
God set on his own workmanship, to mind man of his dependence
and duty ; and that herein should appear the first instances of human
knowledge. But how late is it before any such notion is discoverable
in children .'* and when we find it there, how much more does it re-
semble the opinion and notion of the teacher, than represent the true
God ? he that shall observe in children the progress whereby their
minds attain the knowledge they have, will think that the objects
they do first and most familiarly converse with, are those that make
the first impressions on their understandings; nor will he find the
least footsteps of any other. It is easy to take notice how their
thoughts enlarge themselves, only as they come to be acquainted
with a greater variety of sensible objects, to retain the ideas of them
in their memories; and to get the skill to compound and enlarge
them, and several ways put them together. How by these means
they come to frame in tlicir minds an idea men have of a Deity,
I shall iiereafter show.

CH. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 4S

§ 14*. Can it be thought that the ideas men have of God, are the
characters and marks of Himself, engraven on their minds by His
own finger, when we see, that in the same country, under one and
the same name, men have far different, nay, often contrary and in-
consistent ideas, and conceptions of Hhn ? their agreeing in a name,
or sound, will scarce prove an innate notion of Him.

§ 15. What true or tolerable notion of a Deity could they have,
who acknowledged and worshipped hundreds ? every Deity that they
owned above one was an infallible evidence of their ignorance of him,
and a proof that they had no true notion of God, where unity,
infinity, and eternity, were excluded. To which, if we add their
gross conceptions of corporeity, expressed in their images, and re-
presentations of their deities; the amours, marriages, copulations,
lusts, quarrels, and other mean qualities attributed by them to their
gods ; we shall have little reason to think that the heathen world,
i. e. the greatest part of mankind, had such ideas of God in their
minds, as He himself, out of care that they should not be mistaken
about Him, was author of ; and this universality of consent, so much
argued, if it prove any native impressions, it will be only this, that
God imprinted on the minds of all men, speaking the same language,
a name for Himself, but not any idea : since those people, who agreed
in the name, at the same time, had far different apprehensions about
the thing signified. If they say, that the variety of deities worship-
ped by the heathen world, were but figurative ways of expressing the
several attributes of that incomprehensible Being, or several parts of
his providence ; I answer, what they might be in their original, I will
not here inquire ; but that they were so in the thoughts of the vul-
gar, I think nobody will afl^rm : and he that will consult the voyage
of the Bishop of Beryte, c. 13, (not to mention other testimonies,)
will find, that the theology of the Siamites professedly owns a plu-
rality of gods; or as the Abbe de Choisy more judiciously remarks,
in his Journal du Voyage de Siam, 4^7? it consists properly in ac-
knowledging no God at all.

If it be said, that wise men of all nations came to have true
conceptions of the unity and infinity of the Deity, I grant it. But
then this.

First Excludes universafity of consent in any thing but the name ;
for those wise men being very few, perhaps one of a thousand, this
universality is very narrow.

Secondly, It seems to me plainly to prove, that the truest and best
notions men had of God, were not imprinted, but acquired by thought
and meditation, and a right use of their faculties : since the wise and
considerate men of the world, by a right and careful employment of
their thoughts and reason, attained true notions in this, as well as
other things; whilst the lazy and inconsiderate part of men, making
far the greater number, took up their notions, by chance, from com-
mon tradition, and vulgar conceptions, without much beating their
heads about them. And if it be a reason to think the notion of God
innate, because all wise men had it, virtue, too, muat be innate, for
that also wise men have always had.

41 NO INNATE PKINCIPLES. uook 1.

^16. This was evidently the case of all Gentilism ; nor hath
even amongst Jews, Christians, and Mahometans, who acknowledge
but one God, this doctrine, and the care taken in those nations to
teach men to have true notions of a God, prevailed so far, as to make
jnen to have the same and the true ideas of Him. How many, even
amongst us, will be found, upon inquiry, to fancy him in the shape
of a man sitting in Heaven ; and to have many other absurd and
unfit conceptions of him. Christians, as well as Turks, have had
whole sects owning and contending earnestly for it, and that the
Deity was coporeal, and of human shape : and though we find few
among us, who profess themselves Anthropomorphites, (though some
I have met with, that own it), yet, I beheve, he that will maKe it his
business, may find amongst the ignorant and uninstructed Christians,
many of that opinion. Talk but with country-people, of almost any
age ; or young people, of almost any condition, and you shall find,
that though the name of God be frequently in their mouths, yet the
notions they apply this name to, are so odd, low, and pitiful, that
nobody can imagine they were taught by a rational man ; much less,
that they were characters written by the finger of God himself. Nor
do I see how it derogates more from the goodness of God, that he
has given us minds unfurnished with these ideas of himself, than
that he hath sent us into the world with bodies unclothed ; and that
there is no art or skill born with us. For being fitted with faculties
to attain these, it is want of industry and consideration in us, and
not of bounty in Him, if we have them not. It is as certain that
there is a God, as that the opposite angles, made by the intersection
of two straight lines, are equal. There was never any rational crea-
ture that set himself sincerely to examine the truth of these proposi-
tions, that could fail to assent to them ; though yet it be past doubt,
that there are many men, who having not applied their thoughts that
way, are ignorant both of the one and the other. If any one think
fit to call this (which is the utmost of its extent) universal consent,
such an one 1 easily allow : but such an universal consent as this,
proves not the idea of God, any more than it does the idea of such
angles, innate.

§ 17. If the idea of God be not innate, no other can he supposed
innate, — Since, then, though the knowledge of a God be the most
natural discovery of human reason, yet the idea of Him is not in-
nate, as, I think, is evident from what has been said ; I imagine there
will scarcely be another idea found, that can pretend to it : since, if
God hath set any impression, any character, on the understanding of
men, it is most reasonable to expect it should have been some clear
and uniform idea of Himself, as far as our weak capacities were ca-
pable to receive so incomprehensible and infinite an object. But our
minds being, at first, void of that idea, which we are most concerned
to have, it is a strong presumption against all other innate characters.
1 must own, as far I can observe, I can find none, and would be
glad to be informed by any other.

§ 18. Idea of substance not iimute. — I confess, there is another
idea which would be of general use for .man kind to have, as it is of

CH. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 45

general talk, as if they had it ; and that is the idea of substance, which
we neither have, nor can have, by sensation or reflection. If nature
took care to provide us any ideas, we might well expect they should
be such, as by our own faculties, we cannot procure to ourselves :
but we see, on the contrary, that since by those ways whereby our
ideas are brought into our minds, this is not, we have no such
clear idea at all, and, therefore, signify nothing, by the word sub-
stance, but only an uncertain supposition of we know not what,
i. e. of something whereof we have no particular distinct positive
idea, which we take to be the substratum, or support of those ideas
we know.

§ 1 9. No pTopositions can he innate, since no ideas are innate,
— Whatever then we talk of innate, either speculative or practical,
principles, it may, with as much probability, be said, that a man hath
100/. sterhng m his pocket, and yet denied that he hath either
penny, shilling, crown, or any other coin, out of which the sum is to
be made up ; as to think, that certain propositions are innate, when
the ideas about which they are, can by no means be supposed to be
so. The general reception and assent that is given, doth not at all
prove that the ideas expressed in them are innate: for in many
cases, however the ideas came there, the assent to words expressino*
the agreement or disagreement of such ideas, will necessarily follow.
Every one that hath a true idea of God, and worship, will assent to
this proposition, " that God is to be worshipped,'"' when expressed
in a language he understands ; and every rational man, that hath
not thought on it to-day, may be ready to assent to this proposition
to-morrow ; and yet millions of men may be well supposed to want
one, or both those ideas to-day. For if we will allow savages, and most
country people, to have ideas of God and worship, (which conver-
sation with them will not make one forward to believe,) yet, I think,
few children can be supposed to have those ideas, which, therefore,
they must begin to have some time or other ; and then, they will begin
to assent to that proposition, and make very little question of it ever
after. But such an assent upon hearing, no more proves the ideas
to be innate, than it does, that one born blind (with cataracts which
will be couched to-morrow) had the innate ideas of the sun, or hght,
or saffron, or yellow ; because, when his sight is cleared, he will
certainly assent to this proposition, " that the sun is lucid, or that
saffron is yellow ;" and, therefore, if such an assent upon hearing
cannot prove the ideas innate, it can much less the propositions made
up of those ideas. If they have any innate ideas, 1 would be glad to
be told what, and how many, they are.

§ 20. No innate ideas in the memory. — To which let me add :
if there be any innate ideas, any ideas in the mind, which the mind^
does not actually think on ; they must be lodged in the memory, and'^a^'
from thence must be brought into view by remembrance ; ^. e, must
be known, when they are remembered, to have been perceptions in
the mind before, unless remembrance can be without remembrance.
For to remember, is to perceive any thing with memory, or with a
consciousness that it was known or perceived before ; without this

46 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. book 1.

whatever idea comes into the mind, is new, and not remembered :
this consciousness of its having been in the mind before, being that
which distinguishes remembering from all other ways of thinking.
Whatever idea was never perceived by the mind, was never in the
mind. Whatever idea is in the mind, is either an actual perception,
or else having been an actual perception, is so in the mind, that
by the memory, it can be made an actual perception again. When-
ever there is the actual perception of an idea without memory, the
idea appears perfectly new and unknown before to the understand-
ing. Whenever the memory brings any idea into actual view, it is
with a consciousness that it had been there before, and was not wholly
a stranger to the mind. Whether this be not so, I appeal to every
one's observation : and then I desire an instance of an idea, pretended
to be innate, which (before any impression of it, by ways hereafter
to be mentioned) any one could revive and remember as an idea he
had formerly known ; without which consciousness of a former per-
ception, there is no remembrance ; and whatever idea comes into the
mind without that consciousness, is not remembered, or comes not
out of the memory, nor can be said to be in the mind before that
appearance. For what is not either actually in view, or in the me-
mory, is in the mind no way at all, and is all one as if it had never
been there. Suppose a child had the use of his eyes, till he knows
and distinguishes colours ; but then cataracts shut the windows, and
he is forty or fifty years perfectly in the dark ; and in that time per-
fectly loses all memory of the ideas of colours he once had. This
was the case of a bhnd man I once talked with, who lost his sight
by the small-pox, when he was a child, and had no more notion of
colours, than one born blind. I ask, whether any one can say this
man had then any ideas of colours in his mind, any more than one
born blind ? and, I think, nobody will say, that either of them had
in his mind any idea of colours at all. His cataracts are couched,
and then he has the ideas (which he remembers not) of colours, de
novo, by his restored sight, conveyed to his mind, and that without
any consciousness of a former acquaintance. And these now he can
revive, and call to mind in the dark. In this case, all these ideas of
colours, which, when out of view, can be revived with a conscious-
ness of a former acquaintance, being thus in the memory, are said to
be in the mind. The use I make of this is, that whatever idea being
not actually in view, is in the mind, is there only by being in the
memory ; and if it be not in the memory, it is not in the mind ; and
if it be in the memory, it cannot by the memory be brought into
actual view, without a perception that it comes out of the memory,
which is this, that it had been known before, and is now remembered.
If, therefore, there be any innate ideas, they must be in the
memory, or else no where in the mind ; and if they be in the me-
mory, they can be revived without any impression from without, and
whenever they are brought into the mind, they are remembered, /. e.
they bring with them a perception of their not being wholly new to
it. This being a constant and distinguishing difference between what
i-S and what is not, in the memorv, or in the mind ; that what is not

cii. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES: 47

in the memory, whenever it appears there, appears perfectly new, and
unknown before ; and what is in the memory, or in the mind, when-
ever it is suggested by the memory, appears not to be new, but the
mind finds it in itself, and knows it was there before. By this it may
be tried, whether there be any innate ideas in the mind, before im-
pression from sensation or reflection. I would fain meet with the
man, who, when he came to the use of reason, or at any other
time, remembered any one of them : and to whom, after he was born,
they were never new. If any one will say, there are ideas in the
mind, that are not in the memory, I desire him to explain himself,
and make what he says intelligible.

§ 21. Principles not innate, because of little use, or little cer-
tainty.— Besides what I have already said, there is another reason
why I doubt that neither these, nor any other principles, are innate.
I that am fully persuaded, that the infinitely wise God made all
things in perfect wisdom, cannot satisfy myself, why he should be
supposed to print upon the minds of men some universal principles ;
whereof those that are pretended innate, and concern speculation, are
of no great use ; and those that concern practice, not self-evident ;
and neither of them distinguishable from some other truths, not^
allowed to be innate. For to what purpose should characters be
graven on the mind, by the finger of God, which are not clearer there
than those which are afterwards introduced, or cannot be distin-
guished from them ? If any one thinks there are such innate ideas
and propositions, which, by their clearness and usefulness, are distin-
guishable from all that is adventitious in the mind, and acquired, it
will not be a hard matter for him to tell us which they are ; and then
every one will be a fit judge whether they be so or no. Since, if
there be such innate ideas and impressions, plainly different from all
other perceptions and knowledge, ever}^ one will find it true in him-
self. Of the evidence of these supposed innate maxims, I have
spoken already ; of their usefulness, I shall have occasion to speak
more hereafter.

§ 22. Difference of merCs discoveiies depends upon the different
application of their faculties. — To conclude : some ideas forwardly
offer themselves to all men''s understandings; some sorts of truth
result from any ideas, as soon as the mind puts them into proposi-
tions : other truths require a train of ideas placed in order, a due
comparing of them, and deductions made with attention, before they
can be discovered and assented to. Some of the first sort, because
of their general and easy reception, have been mistaken for innate ;
but the truth is, ideas and notions are no more born with us than
arts and sciences, though some of them, indeed, offer themselves to
our faculties more readily than others; and, therefore, are more
generally received ; though that, too, be according as the organs of
our bodies, and powers of our minds, happen to be employed ; God
having fitted men with faculties and means to discover, receive, and
retain truths, according as they are employed. The great difference
that is to be found in the notions of mankind, is from the different
use they put their faculties to ; whilst some (and those the most)

48 NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. look 1.

taking things upon trust, misemploy their power of assent, by lazily
enslaving their minds to the dictates and dominion of others, in doc-
trines which it is their duty carefully to examine ; and not blindly,
with an implicit faith, to swallow : others, employing their thoughts
only alx)ut some few things, grow acquainted sufficiently with them,
attain great degrees of knowledge in them, and are ignorant of all
other, having never let their thoughts loose in the search of other
inquiries. Thus, " that the three angles of a triangle are equal to
two right ones,''"* is a truth as certain as any thing can be; and I think
more evident than many of those propositions that go for principles ;
and yet there are millions, however expert in other things, who know
not this at all, because they never set their thoughts on work about
such angles ; and he that certainly knows this proposition, may yet
be utterly ignorant of the truth of other propositions in mathematics
itself, which are as clear and evident as this ; because, in his search
of those mathematical truths, he stopped his thoughts short, and
went not so far. The same may happen concerning the notions we
have of the being of a Deity ; for though there be no truth which a
man may more evidently make out to himself, than the existence of
a God, yet he that shall content himself with things as he finds them
in this world, as they minister to his pleasures and passions, and not
make inquiry a little farther into the causes, ends, and admirable con-
trivances, and pursue the thoughts thereof with diligence and atten-
tion, may live long without any notion of such a being. And if any
Eerson hath, by talk, put such a notion into his head, he may, per-
aps, believe it ; but if he hath never examined it, his knowledge of
it will be no perfecter than his, who having been told, that the three
angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, takes it upon trust,
without examining the demonstration ; and may yield his assent as a
probable opinion, but hath no knowledge of the truth of it ; which
yet his faculties, if carefully employed, were able to make clear and
evident to him. But this only by the by, to show how much our
knowledge depends upon the right use of those powers nature hath
bestowed upon us, and how little upon such innate principles, as are
in vain supposed to be in all mankind for their direction ; which all
men could not but know, if they were there, or else they would be
there to no purpose ; and which, since all men do not know, nor can
distinguish from other adventitious truths, we may well conclude
there are no such.

§ 23. Afcn must tJiinh and knoxv for themselves. — What cen-
sure, doubting thus of innate principles, may deserve from men, who
will ])€ apt to call it pulling up the old foundations of knowledge
and certainty, I cannot tell ; I persuade myself, at least, that the
way I have pursued, being conformable to truth, lays those founda-
tions surer. This, I am certain, I have not made it my business
either to quit or follow any authority in the ensuing discourse ; truth
has Ijeen my only aim ; and wherever that has appeared to lead, my
thoughts have impartially followed, without n.mding whether the
footsteps of any other lay that way or no. Not that I want a due
respect to other men's opmions ; but, after all, the greatest reverence

cH. 4. NO INNATE PRINCIPLES. 49

is due to truth ; and I hope it will not be thought arrogance to say,
that, perhaps, we should make greater progress in the discovery of
rational and contemplative knowledge, if we sought it in the foun-
tain, in the consideration of things themselves ; and made use rather
of our own thoughts, than other men's, to find it. For, I think,
we may as rationally hope to see with other men's eyes, as to know
by other men's understandings. So much as we ourselves con-
sider and comprehend of truth and reason, so much we possess
of real and true knowledge. The floating of other men's opinions
in our brains makes us not one jot the more knowing, though
they happen to be true. What in them was science, is in us but
opiniatrety ; whilst we give up our assent only to reverend names,
and do not, as they did, employ our own reason to understand
those truths which gave them reputation. Aristotle was certainly
a knowing man, but nobody ever thought him so, because he
blindly embraced, and confidently vented, the opinions of another.
And if the taking up of another's principles, without examining
them, made not him a philosopher, I suppose it will hardly make
any body else so. In the sciences, every one has so much as he
really knows and comprehends ; what he believes only, and takes
upon trust, are but shreds ; which, however well in the vvhole
piece, make no considerable addition to his stock who gathers
them. Such borrowed wealth, like fairy money, thouiih it were
gold in the hand from which he received it, will be but leaves
and dust when it comes to use.

§ 24. Whence the opinion of innate principles. — When men have
found some general propositions that could not be doubted of as
soon as understood, it was, I know, a short and easy way to con-
clude them innate. This being once received, it eased the lazy
from the pains of search, and stopped the inquiry of the doubtful,
concerning all that was once styled innate ; and it was of no small
advantage to those who affected to be masters and teachers, to
make this the principle of principles, " that principles must not be
questioned ;" for having once established this tenet, that there are
innate principles, it put their followers upon a necessity of receiving
some doctrines as such ; which was to take them off" from the use
of their own reason and judgment, and put them upon believing
and taking them upon trust, without farther examination : in which
n posture of blind credulity, they might be more easily governed by,
~ and made useful to, some sort of men, who had the skill and office
to principle and guide them. Nor is it a small power he gives one
man over another, to have the authority to be the dictator of prin-
ciples, and teacher of unquestionable truths ; and to make a man
swallow that for an innate principle, which may serve to his pur-
pose who teacheth them. Whereas, had they examined the ways
whereby men came by the knowledge of many universal truths,
they would have found them to result in the minds of men, from
the being of things themselves, when duly considered ; and that
they were discovered by the application of those faculties that were

E

50 THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEx\S. book 9.

fitted by nature to receive and judge of them, when duly employed
al)out them.

§ 25. Conchis'wii. — To show how the understanding proceeds
herein, is the design of the following discourse ; which I shall pro-
ceed to when I have first premised, that hitherto, to clear my way
to those foundations, which I conceive are the only true ones
whereon to establish those notions we can have of our own know-
ledge, it hath been necessary for me to give an account of the rea-
sons I had to doubt of innate principles : and since the arguments
wliich are against them, do some of them rise from conmion re-
ceived opinions, I have been forced to take several things for granted,
which is hardly avoidable to any one, whose task is to show the
falseh(X)d or improbability of any tenet ; it happening in contro-
versial discourses, as it does in assaulting of towns, where, if the
ground be but firm whereon the batteries are erected, there is no
farther inquiry of whom it is borrowed, nor whom it belongs to,
so it affords but a fit rise for the present purpose. But in the fu-
ture part of this discourse, designing to raise an edifice uniform
and consistent with itself, as far as my own experience and observa^
tions will assist me, I hope to erect it on such a basis, that I shall
not need to shore it up with props and buttresses, leading on bor-
rowed or begged foundations ; or at least, if mine prove a castk;
in the air, I will endeavour it shall be all of a piece, and hang to-
gether. Wherein I warn the reader not to expect undeniable
cogent demonstrations, unless I may be allowed the privilege, not
seldom assumed by others, to take my principles for granted ; and
then, I doubt not, but I can demonstrate too. All that I shall say
for the principles I proceed on, is, that I can only appeal to menu's
own unprejudiced experience and observation, whether they be
true or no ; and this is enough for a man who professes no more
than to lay down candidly and freely his own conjectures concern-
ing a subject lying somewhat in the dark, without any other design
than an unbiassed inquiry after truth.

/

BOOK II. CHAPTER I.

OF IDEAS IN GENERAL, AND THEIR ORIGINAL.

§ 1. IDEA is the object of thinJdng. — Every man being con-
scious to himself that he thinks, and that which his mind is applied
about whilst thinking, being the ideas that are there, it is past doubt,
ly that men have in their mind several ideas, such as are those ex-
pressed by the words, whiteness, hardness, sweetness, thinking,
motion, man, elephant, army, drunkenness, and others : it is in
the first place then to be enquired, how he comes by themf I
know it is a received doctrine, that men have native ideas, and
original characters, stamped upon their minds in their very first

CH. 1. THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEAS. 51

being. This opinion I have at large examined already ; and, I
suppose, what I have said in the foregoing book, will be much more
easily admitted, when I have shown whence the understanding may
get all the ideas it has, and by what ways and degrees they may
come into the mind, for which I shall appeal to every one's own
observation and experience.

§ 2. All ideas come from sensation or rejlectkm. — Let us then
suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all charac-
ters, without any ideas ; how comes it to be furnished ? Whence
comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of
man has painted on it, with an almost endless variety? Whence
has it all the materials of reason and knowledge ? To this I answer
in one word, from experience ; in that all our knowledge is founded ;
and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our oliservation em-
ployed either about external sensible objects, or about the internal
operations of our minds, perceived and reflected on by ourselves,
is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of
thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence
all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.

§ 3. The objects of sensation one source of ideas. — First, Our
senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into
the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those
various ways wherein those objects do affect them : and thus we
come by those ideas we have, of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft,
hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities,
which, when I say, the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they,
from external objects, convey into the mind what produces there
those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have,
depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the un-
derstanding, I call SENSATION.

§ 4. T/'ie operations of our minds the other source of them. —
Secondly^ The other fountain, from which experience furnisheth the
understanding with ideas, is the perception of the operations of our
own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got ;
which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on, and consider,
do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which
could not be had from things without ; and such are, perception,
thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all
the different actings of our own minds ; which we being conscious
of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our un-
derstandings as distinct ideas, as we do from bodies affecting our
senses. This source of ideas, every man has wholly in himself;
and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external
objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called
internal sense. But as I call the other sensation, so I call this
REFLECTION, the idcas it affords being such only, as the mind gets
by reflecting on its own operations, within itself. By reflection,
then, in the following part of this discourse, I would be understood

i: 2

52 THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEAS. book 2.

to mean that notice which Jthe mind takes of its own operations,
and the manner of them, by reason whereof, there come to be ideas
of these operations in the understanding. These two, I say, viz.
external material things, as the objects of sensation, and the oper-
ations of our own minds within, as the objects of reflection, are to
me the only originals from whence all our ideas take their begin-
nings. The term operations here I use in a large sense, as com-
prehending not barely the actions of the mind about its ideas, but
some sort of passions arising sometimes from them, such as is the
satisfaction or uneasiness arising from any thought.

§ 5. All our ideas are of the one or the other of these. — The un-
derstanding seems to me not to have the least glimmering of any
ideas which it doth not receive from one of these two. External
objects furnish the mind with the ideas of sensible qualities, which
are all those different perceptions they produce in us : and the
mind furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.

These, when we have taken a full survey of them and their se-
veral modes, combinations, and relations, we shall find to contain
all our whole stock of ideas ; and that we have nothing in our
minds which did not come in one of these two ways. Let any one
examine his own thoughts, and thoroughly search into his under-
standing, and then let him tell me, whether all the original ideas
he has there, are any other than of the objects of his senses, or of
the operations of his mind, considered as objects of his reflection ;
and how great a mass of knowledge soever he imagines to be lodged
there, he will, upon taking a strict view, see that he has not any
idea in his mind, but what one of these two have imprinted ; though,
perhaps, with infinite variety compounded and enlarged by the un-
derstanding, as we shall see hereafter.

§ 6. Observable in children. — He that attentively considers the
state of a child at his first coming into the world, will have little
reason to think him stored with plenty of ideas, that are to be the
matter of his future knowledge. It is by degrees he comes to be
furnished with them : and though the ideas of obvious and familiar
qualities imprint themselves before the memory begins to keep a
register of time or order, yet it is often so late before some unusual
qualities come in the way, that there are few men that cannot re-
collect the beginning of their acquaintance with them ; and if it
were worth while, no doubt a child mifrht be so ordered, as to have
but a very few, even of the ordinary ideas, till he were grown up
to a man. But all that are born into the world, being surrounded
with bodies that perpetually and diversely affect them ; variety of
ideas, whether care be taken of it or no, are imprinted on the minds
of children. Light and colours are busy at hand every where,
when the eye is but open ; sounds, and some tangible qualities, fail,
not to solicit their proper senses, and force an entrance to thffl^
mind ; but yet, I think, it will be granted easily, that if a child were!
kept in a place where he never saw any other but black and white,

GH. 1. THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEAS. m

till he were a man, he would have no more ideas of scarlet or green, /
than he that from his childhood never tasted an oyster, or a pine-
apple, has of those particular relishes.

^ 7. Me7i are dijfere7itltjj'urnished with these, according to the dif-
ferent objects they converse with. — Men then come to be furnished
with fewer or more simple ideas from without, according as the
objects they converse with afford greater or less variety ; and from
the operations of their minds within, according as they more or less
reflect on them. For though he that contemplates the operations
of his mind, cannot but have plain and clear ideas of them ; yet,
imless he turns his thoughts that way, and considers them atten-
tively, he will no more have clear and distinct ideas of all the
operations of his mind, and all that may be observed therein, than
he will have all the particular ideas of any landscape, or of the parts
and motions of a clock, who will not turn his eyes to it, and with
attention heed all the parts of it. The picture, or clock, may be
so placed, that they may come in his way every day ; but yet he
will have but a confused idea of all the parts they are made up
of, till he applies himself with attention, to consider them each
in particular.

^ 8. Ideas of reflection later, because they need attention. — And
hence we see the reason, why it is pretty late before most children
get ideas of the operations of their own minds ; and some have not
any very clear or perfect ideas of the greatest part of them all their
lives. Because, though they pass there continually, yet, like float-
ing visions, they make not deep impressions enough to leave in the
mind clear, distinct, lasting ideas, till the undestanding turns
inward upon itself, reflects on its own operations, and makes them
the objects of its own contemplation. Children, when they come
first into it, are surrounded widi a world of new things, which, by a
constant solicitation of their senses, draw the mind constantly to
them, forward to take notice of new, and apt to be delighted with
the variety of changing objects. Thus the first years are usually
employed and diverted in looking abroad. Men's business in them
is to ac(|[uaint themselves with what is to be found without ; and so
growing up in a constant attention to outward sensation, seldom make
any considerable reflection on what passes within them, till they come
to be of riper years ; and some scarce ever at all.

§ 9. The soul begins to have ideas, when it begins to perceive, —
To ask at what time a man has first any ideas ? is to ask when he
begins to perceive ? having ideas, and perception, being the same
thing. I know it is an opinion, that the soul always thinks, and
that it has the actual perception of ideas, in itself constantly, as long
as it exists ; and that actual thinking is as inseparable from the soul,
as actual extension is from the body ; which, if true, to enquire after
the beginning of a man's ideas, is the same, as to enquire after the
beginning of his soul. For, by this account, soul and its ideas, as
body and its extension, will begin to exist both at the same time.

§ 10. The sold thinks not always / for this wants proofs. — But

54 THE ORIGINAL OF OUR IDEAS. book 2.

whether the soul be supposed to exist cintecedent to, or coeval with,
or some time after, the first rudiments of organization, or the be-
ginnincrs of life in the body, I leave to be disputed by those who
have better thought of that matter. I confess myself to have one
of those dull souls, that doth not perceive itself always to contem-
plate ideas, nor can conceive it any more necessary for the soul
always to think, than for the body always to move ; the perception
of ideas being (as I conceive) to the soul, what motion is to the body,
not its essence, but one of its operations; and, therefore, though
thinking be supposed ever so much the proper action of the soul,
yet it is not necessary to suppose, that it should be always thinking,
always in action. That, perhaps, is the privilege of the infinite
Author and Preserver of things, who never slumbers nor sleeps;
but is not competent to any finite being, at least not to the soul of
man. We know certainly, by experience, that we sometimes think,
and thence draw this infallible consequence, that there is something
in us that has a power to think ; but vv^hcther that substance per-
petually thinks or no, we can be no farther assured, than experience
informs us. For to say, that actual thinking is essential to the soul,
and inseparable from it, is to beg what is in question, and not to
prove it by reason ; which is necessary to be done, if it be not a
self-evident proposition. But whether this, " that the soul always
" thinks,*" be a self-evident proposition, that every body assents to
at first hearing, I appeal to mankind. It is doubted whether I
thought at all last night, or no ; the question being about a matter of
fact, it is begging it to bring, as a proof for it, an hypothesis, which
is the very thing in dispute ; by which way one may prove any
thing, and it is but supposing that all watches, whilst the balance
beats, think, and it is sufficiently proved, and past doubt, that my
watch thought all last night. But he that would not deceive him-
self, ought to build his hypothesis on matter of fact, and make it
out by sensible experience, and not presume on matter of fact, be-
cause of his hypothesis, that is, because he supposes it to be so;
which way of proving amounts to this, that I must necessarily
think all last night, because another supposes I always think, thougn
I myself cannot perceive that I always clo so.

But men in love with their opinions, may not only suppose what
is in question, but allege wrong matter of fact. How else could any
one make it an inference of mine, " that a thing is not, because we
are not sensible of it in our sleep 'f 1 did not say there is no soul in
a man, because he is not sensible of it in his sleep ; but I do say,
he cannot think at any time, waking or sleeping, without being
sensible of it. Our being sensible of it, is not necessary to any
thing, but to our thoughts ; and to them it is, and to them it will
always lx» necessary, till we can think without being conscious of it.

§ 11. // is not always conscious of it. — I grant that the soul in a
waking man is never without thought, because it is the condition of
Ix'ing awake: but whether sleeping, without dreaming, be not an
aflection of the whole man, mind as well as body, may be worth a

cH. 1. MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. 55

waking man's consideration ; it being hard to conceive that any
thing sliould think, and not be conscious of it. If the soul doth
think in a sleeping man, without being conscious of it, I ask, whether,
during such thinking, it has any pleasure or pain, or be capable of
happiness or misery ? I am sure the man is not, any more than the
bed or earth he lies on. For to be happy or miserable, without
being conscious of it, seems to me utterly inconsistent and impos-
sible; or if it be possible that the soul can, whilst the body is sleej)-
ing, have its thinking, enjoyments, and concerns, its pleasure or
pain apart, which the man is not conscious of, nor partakes in. It
is certain, that Socrates asleep, and Socrates awake, is not the same
person : but his soul when he sleeps, and Socrates the man, con-
sisting of body and soul when he is waking, are two persons ; since
waking, Socrates has no knowledge of, or concernment for that
happiness or misery of his soul, which it enjoys alone by itself, whilst
he slee})s, without perceiving any thing of it, any more than he has
for the ha})piness or misery of a man in the Indies, whom he knows
not. For if we take wholly away all consciousness of our actions
and sensations, especially of pleasure and pain, and the concern-
ment that accompanies it, it will be hard to know wherein to place
personal identity.

§ 1 2. If a sleeping man thhiks xolthout hnoiolng it, the sleejnng" and
waking man arc izco person-'^. — The soul, during sound sleep, thinks,
say these men. Whilst it thinks and perceives, it is capable cer-
tainly of those of delight or trouble, as well as any other perceptions ;
and it must necessarily be conscious of its own perceptions. But
it has all this apart. The sleeping man, it is plain, is conscious of
nothing of all this. Let us suppose, then, that the soul of Castor,
while he is sleeping, retired from his body, which is no impossible
supposition for the men I have here to do with, who so liberally
allow life, without a thinking soul, to all other animals. These
men cannot then judge it impossible, or a contradiction, that the
body should live without the soul ; nor that the soul should subsist
and think, or have perception, even perception of happiness or
misery, without the body. Let us then, as I say, suppose the soul
of Castor separated, during his sleep, from his body, to think ajiart.
Let us suppose, too, that it chooses for its scene of thinking, the
body of another man, v. g. Pollux, who is sleeping without a soul ;
for if Castor's soul can think whilst Castor is asleep, what Castor is
never conscious of, it is no matter what place it chooses to think in.
We have here, then, the bodies of two men, with only one soul
between them, which we will suppose to sleep and wake by turns;
and the soul still thinking in the waking man, whereof the sleeping
man is never conscious, has never the least perception. I ask, then,
whether Castor and Pollux, thus, with only one soul between them,
which thinks and perceives in one, what the other is never conscious
of, nor is concerned for, are not two as distinct persons as Castor
and Hercules, or as Socrates and Plato were ? And whether one of
them might not be very happy, and the other very miserable ? Just

50 MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. uodK 2.

by the same reason, they make the soul and the man two persons,
who make the soul think apart, what the man is not conscious of.
For, I suppose, nobody will make identity of person to consist in
the souFs being united to the very same numerical particles of mat-
ter ; for if that be necessary to identity, it will be impossible, in that
constant flux of the particles of our bodies, that any man should be
the same person two days, or two moments, together.

§ 13. Impossible to convince those that sleep idthout dreaming,
that they think. — Thus, methinks, every drowsy nod shakes their
doctrine, who teach, that the soul is always thinking. Those, at
least, who do at any time sleep without dreaming can never be
convinced, that their thoughts are sometimes for four hours busy
without their knowing of it ; and if they are taken in the very act,
waked in the middle of that sleeping contemplation, can give no
manner of account of it.

8 14. That men dream mthout rememhcring it hi vain urged, —
It will, perhaps, be said, "that the soul thinks, even in the soundest
sleep, but the memory retains it not."" That the soul in a sleeping
man should be this moment busy thinking, and the next moment in
a waking man, not remember, nor be able to recollect one jot of all
those thoughts, is very hard to be conceived, and would need some
better proof than bare assertion, to make it be believed. For who
can, without any more ado, but being barely told so, imagine, that
the greatest part of men do, during all their lives, for several hours
every day, think of something, which, if they were asked, even in
the middle of these thoughts, they could remember nothing at all
of? Most men, I think, pass a great part of their sleep without
dreaming. I once knew a man that was bred a scholar, and had
no bad memory, who told me he had never dreamed in his life till
he had that fever he was then newly recovered of which was about
the five or six and twentieth year of his age. I suppose the world
affords more such instances : at least every one's acquaintance will
furnish him with examples enough of such as pass most of their
nights without dreaming.

§ 15. Upon this hypothesis^ the thoughts of a sleeping man
ought to he most rational. — To think often, and never to retain it
so much as one moment, is a very useless sort of thinking: and
the soul, in such a state of thinking, docs very little, if at all,
excel that of a l(K)king-glass, which constantly receives variety of
images, or ideas, but retains none ; they disappear and vanish, and
there remain no ftx^tsteps of them : the looking-glass is never the
!)etter for such ideas, nor the soul for such thoughts. Perhaps it
will he said, " that in a waking man, the materials of the body are
employed and made use of in thinking ; and that the memory of
thoughts is retained by the impressions that are made on the
brain, and the traces there left after such thinking ; but that in the
thinking of the soul, which is not perceived in a sleeping man,
there the soul thinks a|)art, and making no use of the organs of the
body, leaves no impressions on it, and consetjuently no memory of

cH. 1. MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. 57

such tlioiio-hts." Not to mention again the absurdity of two distinct
persons, which follows from this supposition, I answer farther, that
whatever ideas the mind can receive, and contemplate without the
help of the body, it is reasonable to conclude, it can retain without
the help of the body too, or else the soul, or any separate spirit,
will have but little advantage by thinking. If it has no memory of
its own thoughts ; if it cannot lay them up for its own use, and be
able to recal them upon occasion ; if it cannot reflect upon what is
past, and make use of its former experiences, reasonings, and
contemplations, to what purpose does it think ? They, who make
the soul a thinking thing, at this rate, will not make it a much
more noble being, than those do, whom they condemn, for allow-
ing it to be nothing but the subtilest parts of matter. Characters
drawn on dust, that the first breath of wind effaces ; or impres-
sions made on a heap of atoms, or animal spirits, are altogether as
useful, and render the subject as noble, as the thoughts of a soul
that perish in thinking; that once out of sight are gone forever,
and leave no memory of themselves behind them. Nature never
makes excellent things for mean or no uses : and it is hardly to be
conceived, that our infinite wise Creator should make so admirable
a faculty as the power of thinking, that faculty which comes nearest
the excellency of His own incomprehensible being, to be so idly
and uselessly employed, at least a fourth part of its time here, as to
think constantly, without remembering any of those thoughts, with-
out doing any good to itself or others, or being any way useful to
any other part of the creation. If we will examine it, we shall not
find, I suppose, the motion of dull and senseless matter, any where
in the universe, made so little use of, and so wholly thrown away.

§ 16. 0?t this hyfoihesis the soul must have ideas 9wt derived
from sensation or reflection, q/'which there is no ojopearance. — It is
true, we have sometimes instances of perception, whilst we are
asleep, and retain the memory of those thoughts : but how extrava-
gant and incoherent for the most part they are, how little conform-
able to the perfection and order of a rational being, those who are
acquainted with dreams, need not be told. This I would willingly
be satisfied in, whether the soul, when it thinks thus apart, and
as it were separate from body, acts less rationally than when con-
jointly with it or no: if its separate thoughts be less rational, then
these men must say, that the soul owes the perfection of rational
thinking to the body : if it does not, it is a wonder that our dreams
should be, for the most part, so frivolous and irrational ; and that
the soul should retain none of its more rational soliloquies and
meditations.

§ 17. If I thiith "mhen I h7iow it not, nobody else can Irnow it.
— Those who so confidently tell us, that " the soul always actually
thinks,'' I would they would also tell us, what those ideas are that
are in the soul of a child, before, or just at the union with the
body, before it hath received any by sensation. The dreams of
sleeping men are, as I take it, all made up of the waking man's

58 MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. book 2.

ideas, though for the most part oddly put together. It is strange
if the soul has ideas of its own, that it derived not from sensation
or reflection (as it must liave, if it thought before it received any
impressions from the body), that it should never, in its private
thinking (so private that the man himself perceives it not), retain
any of them, the very moment it Wakes out of them, and then make
the man glad with new discoveries. Who can find it reasonable
that the soul should, in its retirement, during sleep, have so
many hours' thoughts, and yet never light on any of those ideas it
lx)rrowed not from sensation or reflection ; or, at least, preserve
the memory of none but such, which being occasioned from the
body must needs be less natural to a spirit ? It is strange the soul
should never once in a man's whole life, recal over any of its pure
native thoughts, and those ideas it had before it borrowed any thing
from the body ; never bring into the waking man^s view, any other
ideas but what have a tang of the cask, and manifestly derive their
original from that union. If it always thinks, and so had ideas
before it was united, or before it received any from the body, it is
not to be supposed, but that, during sleep, it recollects its native
ideas, and during that retirement from communicating with the
Ixxly, whilst it thinks by itself, the ideas it is busied about, should be,
sometimes at least, those more natural and congenial ones which it
had in itself, underived from the body, or its own operations about
them : which, since the waking man never remembers, we must,
from this hypothesis, conclude either that the soul remembers
something that the man does not, or else that memory belongs only
to such ideas as are derived from the body, or the mind's operations
about them.

§ 18. How knows any one that the soul ahways thhiks ? For if it
be not a self-evident proposition^ it needs yroof. — I would be glad
also to learn from these men, who so confidently pronounce, that
the human soul, or which is all one, that a man always thinks, how
they come to know it ? nay, " how they come to know that they
themselves think, when they themselves do not perceive it T'' This,
I am afraid, is to be sure without proofs; and to know, without
iierceiving : it is, I suspect, a confused notion, taken up to serve an
hypothesis; and none of those clear truths, that either their own
evidence forces us to admit, or connnon experience makes it im-
pudence to deny. For the most that can be said of it is, that it is
jx)ssible the soul may always think, but not always retain it in
memory : and 1 say, it is as possible, that the soul may not always
think, and much more })robable, that it should sometimes not
think, than that it should often think, and that a long while toge-
ther, and not be conscious to itself the next moment after, that it
had thought.

§ 19. Thut a man shoidd he busy in thiriTiing^ atul yet not retain
the next moment^ very improhahle. — To suppose the soul to think,
and the man not to ])erceive it, is, as has been said, to make two
persons in one man : and if one considers well these men's way of

CH. 1. MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. 5^

speaking, one should be led into a suspicion, that they do so. For
they who tell us, that the soul always thinks, do never, that I
remember, say, that a man always thinks. Can the soul think, and
not the man ? or a man think, and not be conscious of it? This,
perhaps, would be suspected of jargon in others. If they say, the
man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it; they may as
well say, his body is extended without having parts. For it is alto-
gether as intelligible to say, that a body is extended without parts,
as that any thing thinks without being conscious of it, or perceiving
that it does so. They who talk thus, may, with as much reason, if
it be necessary to their hypothesis, say, that a man is always hun-
gry, but that he does not always feel it : whereas, hunger consists in
that very sensation, as thinking consists in being conscious that one
thinks. If they say, that a man is always conscious to himself of
thinking ; I ask, how they know it ? Consciousness is the percep-
tion of what passes in a man's own mind. Can another man per-
ceive that I am conscious of any thing, when I perceive it not
myself.? No man's knowledge here, can go beyond his experience.
Wake a man out of a sound sleep, and ask him, what he was that
moment thinking of? If he himself be conscious of nothing he
then thought on, he must be a notable diviner of thoughts, that can
assure him that he was thinking ; may he not with more reason
assure him he was not asleep ? This is something beyond philoso-
phy ; and it cannot be less than revelation, that discovers to another^
thoughts in my mind, when I can find none there myself : and they
must needs have a penetrating sight, who can certainly see that I
think, when I cannot perceive it myself, and when I declare that I
do not ; and yet can see that dogs or elephants do not think, when
they give all the demonstration of it imaginable, except only telling
us that they do so. This some may suspect to be a step beyond
the Rosicrucians ; it seeming easier to make one's self invisible to
others, than to make another's thoughts visible to me, which are not
visible to himself. But it is but defining the soul to be a substance
that always thinks, and the business is done. If such a definition
be of any authority, I know not what it can serve for, but to make
many men suspect that they have no souls at all, since they find a
good part of their lives pass away without thinking. For no defini-
tions that I know, no suppositions of any sect, are of force enough
to destroy constant experience ; and perhaps it is the affectation of
knowing beyond what we perceive, that makes so much useless
dispute and noise in the world,

§ 20. No ideas but from sensation or reflection, cxideiit, if we
observe children. — I see no reason, therefore, to believe that the soul
thinks before the senses have furnished it with ideas to think on;
and as those are increased and retained, so it comes by exercise, to
improve its faculty of thinking in the several parts of it, as well as
afterwards, by compounding those ideas, and reflecting on its own
oj)crations ; it increases its stock, as well as facility, in remembering,
imagining, reasoning, and other modes of thinking.

60 MEN THINK NOT ALWAYS. book %

% 21. He that will suffer himself to be informed by observation
and experience, and not make his own hypothesis the rule of nature,
will find few signs of a soul accustomed to much thinking
in a new-born child, and much fewer of any reasoning at all. And
yet it is hard to imagine, that the rational soul should think so
much, and not reason at all. And he that will consider, that in-
fants, newly come into the world, spend the greatest part of their
time in sleep, and are seldom awake, but when either hunger calls
for the teat, or some pain, (the most importunate of all sensations)
or some other violent impression on the body, forces the mind to
perceive and attend to it. He, I say, who considers this, will,
perhaps, find reason to imagine, that a foetus in the mother"'s womb,
differs not much from the state of a vegetable ; but passes the
greatest part of its time without perception or thought, doing very
little in a place where it needs not seek for food, and is surrounded
with liquor, always equally soft, and near of the same temper ;
where the eyes have no light, and the ears, so shut up, are not
very susceptible of sounds ; and where there is little or no variety
or change of objects to move the senses.

§ 22. Follow a child from its birth, and observe the alterations
that time makes, and you shall find, as the mind by the senses comes
more and more to be furnished with ideas, it comes to be more
and more awake ; thinks more, the more it has matter to think on.
After some time, it begins to know the objects, which being most
familiar with it, have made lasting impressions. Thus it comes,
by degrees, to know the persons it daily converses with, and dis-
tinguish them from strangers; which are instances and effects of
its coming to retain and distinguish the ideas the senses convey to
it : and so we may observe, how the mind, by degrees, improves
in these, and advances to the excercise of those other faculties of
enlarging, compounding, and abstracting its ideas, and of reason-
ing about them, and reflecting upon all these, of which I shall
have occasion to speak more hereafter.

§ 23. If it shall be demanded then, when a man begins to have
any ideas "i I think the true answer is, when he first has any sensa-
tion. For since there appear not to be any ideas in the mind,
before the senses have conveyed any in, I conceive that ideas in
the understanding are coeval with sensation : which is such an im-
pression or motion, made in some part of the body, as produces
some perception in the understanding. It is about these impres-
sions made on our senses by outward objects, that the mind seems
first to employ itself in such operations as we call perception,
rememl)ering, consideration, reasoning, &c.

§ 24. The original of all our knowledge. — In time, the mind
comes to reflect on its own operations, about the ideas got by
sensation, and thereby stores itself with a new set of ideas, which
I call ideas of reflection. These are the impressions that are made
on our senses by outward objects, that are extrinsical to the mind ;
and its own operations, proceeding from powers intrinsical and

CH. 2. OF SIMPLE IDEAS. 61

proper to itself, which when reflected on by itself, becoming also
objects of its contemplation, are, as I have said, the original of all
knowledge. Thus the first capacity of human intellect is, that the
mind is fitted to receive the impressions made on it, either through
the senses, by outward objects, or by its own operations, when it
reflects on them. This is the first step a man makes towards the
discovery of any thing, and the ground-work whereon to build all
those notions which ever he shall have naturally in this world. All
those sublime thoughts which tower above the clouds, and reach
as high as Heaven itself, take their rise and footing here: in
all that good extent wherein the mind wanders, in those remote
speculations, it may seem to be elevated with, it stirs not one jot
beyond those ideas which sense or reflection have offered for its con-
templation.

§ 25. In the reception of simple ideas, the understandings is for
the most part passive. — In this part, the understanding is merely
passive ; and wTie'tlier or no it will have these beginnings, and as it
were, materials of knowledge, is not in its own power. For the
objects of our senses do, many of them, obtrude their particular
ideas upon our minds, whether we will or no : and the operations
of our minds will not let us be without, at least, some obscure
notions of them. No man can be wholly ignorant of what he does
when he thinks. These simple ideas, when oftered to the mind,
the understanding can no more refuse to have, nor alter, when they
are imprinted, nor blot them out and make new ones itself, than a
mirror can refuse, alter, or obliterate the images or ideas which the
objects set before it do therein produce. As the bodies that sur-
round us do diversely affect our organs, the mind is forced to receive
the impressions, and cannot avoid the perception of those ideas that
are annexed to them.

I

CHAPTER II.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

§ 1. Uncompminded appearances. — The better to understand the
nature, manner, and extent of our knowledge, one thing is carefully
to be observed concerning the ideas we have ; and that is, that some
of them are simple, and some complex.

Though the qualities that affect our senses are, in the things
themselves, so united and blended, that there is no separation, no
distance between them ; yet, it is plain, the ideas they produce in
the mind, enter by the senses, simple and unmixed. For though
the sight and touch often take in from the same object, at the same
time, different ideas ; as a man sees at once motion and colour ;
the hand feels softness and warmth in the same piece of wax ; yet

62 OF SIMPLE IDEAS. book 2.

llie simple ideas thus united in the same subject are as perfectly
distinct as those that come in by different senses : the coldness and
hardness which a man feels in a piece of ice being as distinct ideas
in the mind, as the smell and whiteness of the lily, or as the taste
of sugar, and smell of a rose. And there is nothing can be plainer
to a man, than the clear and distinct perceptions he has of those
simple ideas ; which being each in itself uncompounded, contains
in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception in the mind,
and is not distinguishable into different ideas.

§ 2. The mind can neither make nor destroy them. — The simple
ideas, the materials of all our knowledge, are suggested and fur-
nished to the mind, only by those two ways above-mentioned, viz.
sensation and reflection *. When the understanding is once stored
with these simple ideas, it has the power to repeat, compare, and

• Against this, that the materials of all our knowledge are suggested and furnished to
the mind only by sensation and reflection, the Bishop of Worcester makes use of the
idea of substance in these words : " If the idea of substance be grounded upon plain
and evident reason, then we must allow an idea of substance, which comes not in by
sensation or reflection ; and so we may be certain of something which we have not by
theie ideas."

To which our author {a) answers : " These words of your lordhhip contain nothing, as I see,
in them, against me; for I never said that the general idea of substance comes in by sensation and
reflection ; or that it is a simple idea of sensation or reflection, though it be ultimately founded
in them ; for it is a complex idea, made up of the general idea of something, or being, with
the relation of a support to accidents. For general ideas come not into the mind by sensation
or reflection, but are the creatures or inventions of the understanding, as, I think, I have
shown (6) ; and also how the mind makes them from ideas which it has got by sensation and
reflection; and as to the ideas of relation, how the mind forms them, and how they are
derived from, and ultimately terminate in, ideas of sensation and reflection, I have likewise
shown.

" But that I may not be mistaken what I mean, when I speak of ideas of sensation
and reflection, as the materials of all our knowledge ; give me leave, my lord, to set down
here a place or two, out of my book, to explain myself; as I thus speak of ideas of sensation
and reflection :

" ' That tiiese, when we have taken a full survey of them, and their several modes, ami
the compositions made out of them, we shall find to contain all our whole stock of ideas,
and we have nothing in our minds which did not come in one of these two ways.' (c) This
thought, in another place, I express thus:

'* * These are the most considerable of these simple ideas which the mind has, and out of
which is made all its other knowledge ; all which it receives by the two forementioned ways of
sensation and reflection.* {d) And,

•♦ ' Thus I have in a short draught given a view of our original ideas, from whence all the
rest are derived, and of which they are made up.' {e)

" This, and the like, said in other places, is what I have thought concerning ideas of
lensation and reflection, as the foundation and materials of all our ideas, and conse-
(juently of all our knowledge : I have set down these particulars out of my book, that
the reader, having a full view of my opinion herein, may the better see what in it is
liable to your lordship's reprehension. For that your lordship is not very well satisfied
with it, appears not only by tlie words under consideration, but by these also : " But we
•re still told, that our understanding can have no other ideas, but either from sensation or
reflection.'

•* Your lordship*! argument, in the passage we are upon, stands thus:' If the general
idea of substance be grounded upon plain and evident reason, then we must allow an
idea of substance, which comes not in by sensation or reflection.' This is a consequence

{a\ In his First I^ctter to the Bishop of Worcester.

(6) B. 3. c. :\. b. 'I. c. 2b. & c. 28. § 18. (c) B. 2. c. 1. § 5.

1^0 B. '2. c. 7. § 10. ' {r.) B. 2. c. 21.'§ 73,

CH. 2. OF SIMPLE IDEAS. t)3

unite them, even to an almost infinite variety, and so can make at
pleasure new complex ideas. But it is not in the power of the
most exalted wit, or enlarged undersfamtmg^'l^y any quickness or
variety of thought, toJnv(y3Lt.^OJcJ&:aJiie. oua^new^ s^^ in the

mind, not taken in by the ways before mentioned : nor can any
force of the understanding destroy those that are there. The do-
minion of man, in this little world of his own understanding, being
much-what the same as it is in the great world of visible things ;
wherein his power, however managed by art and skill, reaches no
farther than to compound and divide the materials that are made to
his hand ; but can do nothing towards the making the least particle
of new matter, or destroying one atom of what is already in being.

which, with submission, I thiiilc will not hold, liecause it is founded upon a supposition
which I think will not hold, viz. 'That reason and ideas are inconsistent:' for if that
supposition be not true, then the general idea of substance may be grounded or plain and
evident reason ; and yet it will not follow from thence, that it is not ultimately grounded on
and derived from ideas which come in by sensation or reflection, and so cannot be said to
come in by sensation or reflection.

"To explain myself, and clear my meaning in this matter, all the ide.ns of all the sensible
qualities of a cherry, come into my mind by sensation; the ideas of perceiving, lliinking,
reasoning, knowing, &c. come into my mind by reflection. The ideas of these qualities
and actions, or powers, are perceived by the mind, to be by themselves inconsistent with
existence; or, as your lordship well expresses it, 'we find that we can have no true con-
ception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum, or subject, wherein
they are, i. e. that they cannot exist or subsist of themselves.' Hence the mind per-
ceives their necessary connexion with inherence, or being supported, which being a relative
idea, superadded to the red colour in a cherry, or to thinking in a man, the mind frames the
correlative idea of a support. For I never denied, that the mind could frame to itself
ideas of relation, but have showed the quite contrary in my chapters about relation. But be-
cause a relation cannot be founded in nothing, or be the relation of nothing, and the thing
here related as a supporter, or a support, is not represented to the mind by any clear and dis-
tinct idea ; therefore, the obscure and indistinct vague idea of thing, or something, is all
that is left to be the positive idea, which has the relation of a support, or substratum, to
modes or accidents; and that general indetermined idea of something, is, by the abstraction
of the mind, derived also from the simple ideas of sensation and reflection; and thus
the mind, from the positive simple ideas got by sensation and reflection ; comes to the
general relative idea of substance, which, without these positive simple ideas, it would never
have

" This your lordship (without giving by detail all the particular steps of the mind in this
business) lias well expressed in this more familiar way : ' We find we can have no true con-
ception of any modes or accidents, but we must conceive a substratum, or subject, wherein
they are ; since it is a repugnancy to our conceptions of things, that modes or accidents should
subsist by themselves.'

" Hence your lordship calls it the rational idea of substance. And says, ' I grant,
that by sensation and reflection we come to know the powers and properties of things ;
but our reason is satisfied that there must be something beyond these, because it is impos-
sible that they should subsist by themselves ; so that if this be what your lordship means
by rational idea of substances, I see nothing there is in it against what I have said,
that it is founded on simple ideas of sensation or reflection, and that it is a very
obscure idea.

" Your lordship's conclusion from your foregoing words, is, ' And so we may be
certain of some things which we have not by those ideas ;' which is a proposition, whose
precise meaning your lordship will forgive me, if I profess, as it stands there, I do not
understand. For it is uncertain to me, whether your lordship means, we may certainly
know the existence of something, which we have not by those ideas ; or certainly know
the distinct properties of something, which we have not by those ideas ; or certainly know
the truth of some proposition, which we have not by those ideas ; for to be certain of some-
thing, may signify either of these : but in which soever of these it be meant, I do not see how
I am concerned in it."

m . IDEAS OF ONE SENSE. book 2.

The same inability will every one find in himself, who shall go
about to fashion in his understanding any simple idea not received
in by his senses from external objects ; or by reflection from the
operations of his own mind about them. I would have any one
try to fancy any taste, which had never affected his palate ; or frame
the idea of a scent he had never smelt : and when he can do this,
I will also conclude, that a blind man hath ideas of colours, and a
deaf man true distinct notions of sounds.

S 3. This is the reason why, though we cannot believe it impos-
sible to God to make a creature with other organs, and more ways
to convey into the understanding the notice of corporeal things
than those five, as they are usually counted, which he has given to
man : yet I think it is not possible for any one to imagine any other
qualities in bodies, howsoever constituted, whereby they can be
taken notice of, besides sounds, tastes, smells, visible and tangible
qualities. And had mankind been made but with four senses, the
qualities then, which are the object of the fifth sense, had been as
far from our notice, imagination, and conception, as now any
belonging to a sixth, seventh, or eighth sense, can possibly be :
which, whether yet some other creatures, in some other parts of
this vast and stupendous universe, may not have, will be a great
presumption to deny. He that will not set himself proudly at the
top of all things, but will consider the immensity of this fabric,
and the great variety that is to be found in this little and incon-
siderable part of it, which he has to do with, may be apt to think,
that in other mansions of it, there may be other and different intel-
ligent beings, of whose faculties he has as little knowledge or
apprehension, as a worm shut up in one drawer of a cabinet hath
of the senses or understanding of a man ; such variety and excel-
lency being suitable to the wisdom and power of the Maker. I have
here followed the common opinion of man's having but five senses,
though, perhaps, there may be justly counted more ; but either
supix)sition serves equally to my present purpose.

CHAPTER HI.

OF IDEAS OF ONE SENSE.

§ 1. Division of simple ideas. — The better to conceive the
ideas we receive from sensation, it may not be amiss for us to
consider them, in reference to the different ways whereby they
make their approaches to our minds, and make themselves perceiv-
able by us.

First, Then, there are some which come into our minds by one
sense only.

Seconal?/, There are others, that convey themselves into the mind
by more senses than one.

CH. 4. OF SOLIDITY. 65

Thirdly^ Others that are had from reflection only.
Fourthly^ There are some that make themselves way, and are
suggested to the mind by all the ways of sensation and reflection.
We shall consider them apart;, under these several heads.
First, There are some ideas which have admittance only through
one sense, which is pecuharly adapted to receive them. Thus light
and colours, as white, red, yellow, blue, with their several degrees
or shades, and mixtures, as green, scarlet, purple, sea-green, and
the rest, come in only by the eyes : all kind of noises, sounds, and
tones, only by the ears : and the several tastes and smells, by the
nose and palate. And if these organs, or the nerves which are the
conduits to convey them from without to their audience in the
brain, the mind's presence-room (as I may so call it), are any of
them so disordered, as not to perform their functions, they have no
postern to be admitted by ; no other way to bring themselves into
view, and be perceived by the understanding.

The most considerable of those belonging to the touch, are heat,
and cold, and solidity ; all the rest, consisting almost wholly in
the sensible configuration, as smooth and rough ; or else more or
less firm adhesion of the parts, as hard and soft, rough and brittle,
are obvious enough.

§ ;2. I think it will be needless to enumerate all the particular
simple ideas belonging to each sense ; nor indeed is it possible, if
we would, there being a great many more of them belonging to
most of the senses than we have names for. The variety of smells,
which are as many almost, if not more, than species of bodies in the
world, do most of them want names. Sweet and stinking, com-
monly serve our turn for these ideas ; which, in eff*ect, is little more
than to call them pleasing or displeasing ; though the smell of a
rose and violet, both sweet, are certainly very distinct ideas. Nor
are the diff'erent tastes, that by our palates we receive ideas of, much
better provided with names. Sweet, bitter, sour, harsh, and salt,
are almost all the epithets we have to denominate that numberless
variety of relishes, which are to be found distinct, not only in
almost every sort of creatures, but in the different parts of the
same plant, fruit, or animal. The same may be said of colours and
sounds. I shall, therefore, in the account of simple ideas I am
here giving, content myself to set down only such as are most
material to our present purpose, or are in themselves less apt to be
taken notice of, though they are very frequently the ingredients of
our complex ideas, amongst which, I think, I may well account
solidity ; which, therefore, I shall treat of in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV.

OF SOLIDITY,

§ 1. We receive this idea from touch. — The idea of solidity we
receive by our touch ; and it arises from the resistance which we

F

66 OF SOLIDITY. book 2.

find in body, to the entrance of any other body into the place it
possesses, till it has left it. There is no idea which we receive
more constantly fix)m sensation, than solidity. Whether we move
or rest, in what posture soever we are, we always feel something
under us, that supports us, and hinders our farther sinking down-
wards ; and the bodies which we daily handle, make us perceive,
that whilst they remain between them, they do, by an insurmount-
able force, hinder the approach of the parts of our hands that press
them. That which thus hinders the approach of two bodies,
when they are moved one towards another, I call solidity. I will
not dispute, whether this acceptation of the word solid be nearer
to its original signification, than that which mathematicians use it
in : it suffices that I think the common notion of solidity will allow,
if not justify, this use of it ; but if any one think it better to call it
'' impenetrability," he has my consent : only I have thought the
term solidity the more proper to express this idea, not only because
of its vulgar use in that sense, but also because it carries something
more of positive in it than impenetrability, which is negative, and
is, perhaps, more a consequence of solidity, than solidity itself.
This, of all others, seems the idea most intimately connected with,
and essential to, body, so as nowhere else to be found or imagined,
but only in matter. And though our senses take no notice of it,
but in masses of matter, of a bulk sufficient to cause a sensation in
us; yet the mind, having once got this idea from such grosser
sensible bodies, traces it farther, and considers it, as well as figure,
in the minutest particle of matter that can exist ; and finds it inse-
parably inherent in body, wherever, or however modified.

§ 2. Solidity fills space. — This is the idea which belongs to
body, whereby we conceive it to fill space. The idea of which fill-
ing of space is, that where we imagine any space taken up by a
solid substance, we conceive it so to possess it, that it excludes
all other solid substances : and will for ever hinder any two other
bodies, that move towards one another in a straight line, from
coming to touch one another, unless it removes from between them
in a line not parallel to that which they move in. This idea of it,
the bodies which we ordinarily handle, sufficiently furnish us with.

§3. Distinct from space* — This resistance, whereby it keeps
other bodies out of the space which it possesses, is so great, that
no force, how great soever, can surmount it. All the bodies in
the world, pressing a drop of water on all sides, will never be able
to overcome the resistance which it will make, soft as it is, to their
approaching one another, till it be removed out of their way :
whereby our idea of solidity is distinguished both from pure space,
which IS capable neither of resistance nor motion; and from the
ordinary idea of hardness. For a man may conceive two bodies at
a distance, so as they may approach one another, without touching
or displacing any solid thing, till their superficies come to meet :
whereby, 1 think, we have the clear idea or space without solidity.
For (not to go so far as annihilation of any particular body) I ask,

CH. 4. OF SOLIDITY. 67

whether a man cannot have the idea of the motion of one single
body alone, without any other succeeding immediately into its
place ? I think it is evident he can : the idea of motion in one
body, no more including the idea of motion in another, than the
idea of a square figure in one body, includes the idea of a square
figure in another. I do not ask whether bodies do so exist, that
the motion of one body cannot really be without the motion of
another. To determine this either way is to beg the question for
or against a vacuum. But my question is, whether one cannot
have the idea of one body moved, whilst others are at rest ? And,
I think, this no one will deny ; if so, then the place it deserted
gives us the idea of pure space, without solidity, whereinto any other
body may enter, without either resistance or protrusion of any thing.
When the sucker in a pump is drawn, the space it filled in the
tube is certainly the same, whether any body follows the motion of
the sucker or no ; nor does it imply a contradiction, that upon the
motion of one body, another, that is only contiguous to it, should
not follow it. The necessity of such a motion is built only on the
supposition, that the world is full ; but not on tlie distinct ideas of
space and solidity ; which are as different as resistance and not
resistance, protrusion and not protrusion. And that men have
ideas of space without a body, their very disputes about a vacuum
plainly demonstrate, as is showed in another place.

§ 4. From hardness. — Solidity is hereby also differenced from
hardness, in, that solidity consists in repletion, and so an utter ex-
clusion of other bodies out of the space it possesses; but hardness,
in a firm cohesion of the parts of matter, making up masses of a
sensible bulk, so that the whole does not easily change its figure.
And, indeed, hard and soft are names that we give to things, only
in relation to the constitutions of our own bodies ; that being gene-
rally called hard by us, which will put us to pain, sooner than
change figure by the pressure of any part of our bodies ; and that,
on the contrary, soft, which changes the situation of its parts upon
an easy and unpainful touch.

But this difficulty of changing the situation of the sensible parts
amongst themselves, or of the figure of the whole, gives no more
solidity to the hardest body in the world, than to the softest ; nor
is an adamant one jot more solid than water. For though the two
flat sides of two pieces of marble, will more easily approach each
other, between which there is nothing but water or air, than if there
be a diamond between them ; yet it is not, that the parts of the
diamond are more solid than those of water, or resist more ; but
because the parts of water being more easily separable from each
other, they will, by a side motion, be more easily removed, and
give way to the approach of the two pieces of marble : but if they
could be kept from making place by that side motion, they would
eternally hinder the approach of these two pieces of marble, as
much as the diamond ; and it would be as impossible, by any force,
to surmount their resistance, as to surmount the resistance of the

F 2

68 OF SOLIDITY. book 2.

parts of a diamond. The softest body in the world will as invin-
cibly resist the coming together of any other two bodies, if it be not
put out of the way, but remain between them, as the hardest that
can be found or imagined. He that shall fill a yielding soft body
well with air or water, will quickly find its resistance ; and he that
thinks that nothing but bodies that are hard can keep his hands
from approaching one another, may be pleased to make a trial with
the air inclosed in a foot-ball. The experiment, I have been told,
was made at Florence, with a hollow globe of gold filled with
water, and exactly closed, which farther shows the solidity of so
soft a body as water; for the golden globe thus filled, bemg put
into a press, which was driven by the extreme force of screws, the
water made itself way through the pores of that very close metal,
and finding no room for a nearer approach of its particles within,
got to the outside, where it rose like a dew, and so fell in drops,
before the sides of the globe could be made to yield to the violent
compression of the engine that squeezed it.

§ 5. 0?i solidity depend impulse, resistance, and protrusion . — By
this idea of solidity, is the extension of body distinguished from the
extension of space. The extension of body being nothing but the
cohesion or continuity of solid, separable, moveable parts ; and
the extension of space, the continuity of unsolid, inseparable, and
immoveable parts. Upon the solidity of bodies also depends their
mutual impulse, resistance, and protrusion. Of pure space then,
and solidity, there are several (amongst which I confess myself one)
who persuade themselves they have clear and distinct ideas; and
that they can think on space without any thing in it that resists, or
is protruded by body. This is the idea of pure space, which they
think they have as clear as any idea they can have of the extension
of body ; the idea of the distance between the opposite parts
of a concave superficies being equally as clear without, as with the
idea of any solid parts between ; andl on the other side, they per-
suade themselves, that they have, distinct from that of pure space,
the idea of something that fills space, that can be protruded by the
impulse of other bodies, or resist their motion. If there be others
that have not these two ideas distinct, but confound them, and make
but one of them, I know not how men, who have the same idea,
under different names, or different ideas under the same name, can,
in that case, talk with one another ; any more than a man, who, not
being blind or deaf, has distinct ideas of the colour of scarlet, and
the sound of a trumpet, could discourse concerning scarlet colour
with the blind man I mention in another place, who fancied that
the idea of scarlet was like the sound of a trumpet.

§ G. fVhat it is. — If any one asks me what this solidity is ? I
send him to his senses to inform him : let him put a flint or a foot-
ball between his hands, and then endeavour to join them, and he
will know. If he thinks this not a sufficient explication of solidity ,.>
what it is, and wherein it consists, I promise to tell him what it is,
and wherein it consists, when he tells me what thinking is, or

CH. 6. ^^^ IDEAS OF REFLECTION. 69

wherein it consists, or explains to me what extension or motion is
which, perhaps, seems much easier. The simple ideas we have, are
such as experience teaches them us ; but if, beyond that, we endea-
vour, by words, to make them clearer in the mind, we shall succeed
no better than if we went about to clear up the darkness of a blind
man's mind by talking, and to discourse into him the ideas of light
and colours. The reason of this I shall show in another place.

CHAPTER V.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF DIVERS SENSES.

The ideas we get by more than one sense, are of space or ex-
tension, figure, rest, and motion ; for these make perceivable im-
pressions both on the eyes and touch ; and we can receive and
convey into our minds the ideas of the extension, figure, motion,
and rest of bodies, both by seeing and feeling. But having occasion
to speak more at large of these in another place, I here only enu-
merate them.

CHAPTER VI.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF REFLECTION.

§ 1. Simple ideas are the operations of the mind about its other
ideas. — The mind receiving the ideas, mentioned in the foregoing
chapters, from without, when it turns its view inward upon itself,
and observes its own actions about those ideas it has, takes from
thence other ideas, which are as capable to be the objects of its con-
templation, as any of those it received from foreign things.

§ 2. The idea of perception, and idea of willing^ we have from
reflection. — The two great and principal actions of the mind, which
are most frequently considered, and which are so frequent, that
every one that pleases, may take notice of them in himself, are these
two : perception, or thinking ; and volition, or willing. The power
of thinking is called the understanding, and the power of volition is
called the will : and these two powers or abilities in the mind, are
denominated faculties. Of some of the modes of these simple ideas
of reflection, such as are remembrance, discerning, reasoning,
judging, knowledge, faith, &c., I shall have occasion to spake here-
after.

70 IDEAS OF BOOK %

CHAPTER VII.

OF SIMPLE IDEAS OF BOTH SENSATION AND REFLECTION.

§ 1. Pleasure and pain, — There be other simple ideas, which
convey themselves into the mind, by all the ways of sensation and
reflection, viz. pleasure or delight ; and its opposite, pain or uneasi-
ness ; power ; existence ; unity,

§ 2. Delight, or uneasiness, one or other of them join them-
selves to almost all our ideas, both of sensation and reflection ; and
there is scarce any affection of our senses from without, any retired
thought of our mind within, which is not able to produce in us
pleasure or pain. By pleasure and pain, I would be understood to
signify whatsoever delights or molests us most, whether it arises
from the thoughts of our minds, or any thing operating on our
bodies. For whether we call it satisfaction, delight, pleasure, hap-
piness, &c. on the one side ; or uneasiness, trouble, pain, torment,
anguish, misery, &c. on the other, they are still but different de-
grees of the same thing, and belong to the ideas of pleasure and
pain, delight or uneasiness ; which are the names I shall most com-
monly use for those two sorts of ideas.

§ 3. The infinitely wise Author of our being, having given us
the power over several parts of our bodies, to move or keep them at
rest, as we think fit ; and also, by the motion of them, to move our-
selves and our contiguous bodies, in which consists all the actions
of our body ; having also given a power to our minds, in several
instances, to choose, amongst its ideas, which it will think on, and
to pursue the inquiry of this or that subject, with consideration and
attention, to excite us to these actions of thinking and motion, that
we are capable of, has been pleased to join to several thoughts, and
several sensations, a perception of delight. If this were wholly se-
parated from all our outward sensations, and inward thoughts, we
should have no reason to prefer one thought or action to another ;
negligence to attention, or motion to rest. And so we should
neither stir our bodies, nor employ our minds ; but let our thoughts
(if I may so call it) run adrift without any direction or design ; and
suffer the ideas of our minds, like unregarded shadows, to make
their appearances there, as it happened, without attending to them.
In which state, man, however furnished with the faculties of under-
standing and will, would be a very idle inactive creature, and pass
his time only in a lazy lethargic dream. It has, therefore, pleased
our wise Creator, to annex to several objects, and the ideas which
we receive from them, as also to several of our thoughts, a conco-
mitant pleasure, and that in several objects, to several degrees ; that
those faculties which he had endowed us with, might not remain
wholly idle and unemployed by us.

CH. 7. SENSATION AND REFLECTION. 71

§ 4. Pain has the same efficacy and use to set us on work, that
pleasure has, we being as ready to employ our faculties to avoid
that, as to pursue this ; only this is worth our consideration, " that
pain is often produced by the same objects and ideas that produce
pleasure in us." This, their near conjunction, which makes us
often feel pain in the sensations where we expected pleasure, gives
us new occasion of admiring the wisdom and goodness of our
Maker, who, designing the preservation of our being', has annexed
pain to the application of many things to our bodies, to warn us of
the harm that they will do, and as advices to withdraw from them.
But He, not designing our preservation barely, but the preservation
of every part and organ in its perfection, hath, in many cases,
annexed pain to those very ideas which delight us. Thus, heat,
that is very agreeable to us in one degree, by a little greater increase
of it, proves no ordinary torment ; and the most pleasant of all
sensible objects, light itself, if there be too much of it, if increased
beyond a due proportion to our eyes, causes a very painful sensa-
tion ; which is wisely and favourably so ordered by nature, that
when any object does, by the vehemency of its operation, disorder
the instruments of sensation, whose structures cannot but be very
nice and delicate, we might, by the pain, be warned to withdraw,
before the organ be quite put out of order, and so be unfitted for
its proper function for the future. The consideration of those
objects that produce it, may well persuade us, that this is the end
or use of pain. For though great light be insufferable to our eyes,
yet the highest degree of darkness does not at all disease them ;
because that causing no disorderly motion in it, leaves that curious
organ unarmed, in its natural state. But yet excess of cold, as
well as heat, pains us ; because it is equally destructive to that
temper, which is necessary to the preservation of life, and the exer-
cise of the several functions of the body, and which consists in a
moderate degree of warmth, or, if you please, a motion of the insen-
sible parts of our bodies, confined within certain bounds.

§ 5. Beyond all this, we may find another reason why God
hath scattered up and down several degrees of pleasure and pain
in all the things that environ and aifect us, and blended them to-
gether in almost all that our thoughts and senses have to do with ;
that we finding imperfection, dissatisfaction, and want of complete
happiness, in all the enjoyments which the creatures can afford us,
might be led to seek it in the enjoyment of Him, " with whom
there is fullness of joy, and at whose right hand are pleasures for
evermore.""

§ 6. Pleasure and pain. — Though what I have here said may
not, perhaps, make the ideas of pleasure and pain clearer to us
than our own experience does, which is the only way that we are
capable of having them ; yet the consideration of the reason why
they are annexed to so many other ideas, serving to give us due
sentiments of the wisdom and goodness of the Sovereign Disposer
of all things, may not be unsuitable to the main end of these

72 IDEAS OF SENSATION AND REFLECTION, book 2.

inquiries ; the knowledge and veneration of Him, being the chief
end of all our thoughts, and the proper business of all understand-
ings.

§ 7. Existence and unity. — Existence and unity are two other
ideas, that are suggested to the understanding by every object
without, and every idea within. When ideas are in our minds, we
consider them as being actually there, as well as we consider things
to be actually without us ; which is, that they exist, or have exist-
ence ; and whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real
being, or idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity.

§ 8. Power. — Power also is another of those simple ideas
which we receive from sensation and reflection. For observing in
ourselves, that we can, at pleasure, move several parts of our bodies
which were at rest ; the effects, also, that natural bodies are able to
produce in one another, occurring every moment to our senses, we
both these ways get the idea of power.

§ 9. Succession. — Besides these, there is another idea, which
though suggested by our senses, yet is more constantly offered to
us, by what passes in our minds ; and that is the idea of succession.
For if we look immediately into ourselves, and reflect on what is
observable there, we shall find our ideas always whilst we are
awake, or have any thought, passing in train, one going, and an-
other coming, without intermission.

§ 10. Simple ideas the materials of all our Tcnowledg'e, — These,
if they are not all, are, at least, (as I think) the most considerable
of those simple ideas which the mind has, and out of which is made
all its other Knowledge ; all which it receives only by the two fore-
mentioned ways of sensation and reflection.

Nor let any one think these too narrow bounds for the capacious
mind of man to expatiate in, which takes its flight farther than the
stars, and cannot be confined by the limits of the world ; that ex-
tends its thoughts often, even beyond the utmost expansion of
matter ; and makes excursions into that incomprehensible inane.
I grant all this, but desire any one to assign any simple idea, which
is not received from one of those inlets before-mentioned, or any
complex idea not made out of those simple ones. Nor will it be
so strange to think these few simple ideas sufficient to employ the
quickest thought, or largest capacity ; and to furnish the materials
of all that various knowledge, and more various fancies and opinions
of all mankind, if we consider how many words may be made out
of the various composition of twenty-four letters ; or if, going one
step farther, we will but reflect on the variety of combinations that
may be made with barely one of the abovementioned ideas, viz.
number, whose stock is inexhaustible, and truly infinite : and what
a larj^e and immense field doth extension alone afford the mathe-
maticians ?

CH. 8. SIMPLE IDEAS. ^3

CHAPTER VIII.

SOME FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR SIMPLE IDEAS.

§ 1. Positive ideas from privative causes. — Concerning the
simple idea of sensation, it is to be considered, that whatsoever is
SO constituted in nature, as to be able, by affecting our senses, to
cause any perception in the mind, doth hereby produce in the under-
standing a simple idea ; which, whatever be the external cause of it,
when it comes to be taken notice of by our discerning faculty, it is
by the mind looked on and considered there, to be a real positive
idea in the understanding, as much as any other whatsoever ; though,
perhaps, the cause of it be but a privation of the subject.

§ 2. Thus the ideas of heat and cold, light and darkness, white
and black, motion and rest, are equally clear and positive ideas in
the mind; though, perhaps, some of the causes which produce
them, are barely privations in those subjects from whence our
senses derive those ideas. These the understanding, in its view of
them, considers all as distinct positive ideas, without taking notice
of the causes that produce them ; which is an inquiry not belonging
to the idea, as it is in the understanding, but to the nature of the
things existing without us. These are two very different things,
and carefully to be distinguished ; it being one thing to perceive
and know the idea of white or black ; and quite another to examine
what kind of particles they must be, and how ranged in the super-
ficies, to make any object appear white or black.

§ 3. A painter, or dyer, who never inquired into their causes,
hath the ideas of white and black, and other colours, as clearly,
perfectly, and distinctly in his understanding, and, perhaps, more
distinctly, than the philosopher, who had busied himself in consi-
dering their natures, and thinks he knows how far either of them
is in its cause positive, or privative ; and the idea of black is no less
positive in his mind, than that of white, however the cause of that
colour, in the external object, may be only a privation.

§ 4 If it were the design of my present undertaking to inquire
into the natural causes and manner of perception, I should offer
this as a reason, why a privative cause might, in some cases at least,
produce a positive idea : viz., that all sensation being produced in
us, only by different degrees and modes of motion in our animal
spirits, variously agitated by external objects, the abatement of any
former motion must as necessarily produce a new sensation, as the
variation or increase of it ; and so introduce a new idea, which de-
pends only on a different motion of the animal spirits in that organ.

§ 5. But whether this be so, or no, I will not here determine,
but appeal to every one's own experience, whether the shadow of a

74 SIMPLE IDEAS. book 2.

man, though it consists of nothing but the absence of Hght (and the
more the absence of light is, the more discernible is the shadow),
does not, when a man looks on it, cause as clear and positive idea in
his mind, as a man himself, though covered over with a clear sun-
shine ? and the picture of a shadow is a positive thing. Indeed, we
have negative names, which stand not directly for positive ideas, but
for their absence, such as insipid, silence, nihil, &c., which words
denote positive ideas ; v. g. taste, sound, being, with a signification
of their absence.

§ 6. Positive ideas from privative cazcses. — And thus one may
truly be said to see darkness. For supposing a hole, perfectly dark,
from whence no light is reflected, it is certain one may see the figure
of it, or it may be painted : or whether the ink I write with makes
any other idea, is a question. The privative causes I have here as-
signed of positive ideas, are according to the common opinion ; but,
in truth, it will be hard to determine, whether there be really any
ideas from a privative cause? till it be determined, " whether rest be
any more a privation than motion ?*"

§ 7. Ideas in the mind, qualities in bodies. — To discover the
nature of our ideas the better, and to discourse of them intelligibly,
it will be convenient to distinguish them, as they are ideas or per-
ceptions in our minds ; and as they are modifications of matter in
the bodies that cause such perceptions in us ; that so we may not
think (as perhaps usually is done) that they are exactly the images
and resemblances of something inherent in the subject ; most of those
of sensation being in the mind no more the likeness of something
existing without us, than the names that stand for them are the like-
ness of our ideas, which yet, upon hearing, they are apt to excite
in us.

§ 8. Whatsoever the mind perceives in itself, or is the immediate
object of perception, thought, or understanding, that I call idea;
and the power to produce any idea in our mind, 1 call quality of the
subject wherein that power is. Thus a snow-ball having the power
to produce in us the idea of white, cold, and round, the powers to
produce those ideas in us, as they are in the snow-ball, I call qua-
lities ; and as they are sensations or perceptions in our understandings,
I call them ideas ; which ideas, if I speak of them sometimes, as in
the things themselves, I would be understood to mean those qualities
in the objects which produce them in us.

§ 9. Primary qualities. — Qualities thus considered in bodies, are,
First, such as are utterly inseparable from the body, in what estate
soever it be ; such as, in all the alterations and changes it suffers, all
the force can be used upon it, it constantly keeps ; and such as sense
constantly finds in every particle of matter, which has bulk enough
to ])c perceived, and the mind finds inseparable from every particle
of matter, though less than to make itself singly be perceived by our
senses, v. g. take a grain of wheat, divide it into two parts, each
part has still solidity, extension, figure, and mobility; divide it
again, and it retains still the same qualities ; and so divide it on, till

k

CH. 8. WHAT IDEAS RESEMBLANCES. 75

the parts become insensible, they must retain still each of them all
those qualities. For division (which is all that a mill, or pestle, or
any other body, does upon another, in reducing it to insensible
parts) can never take away either solidity, extension, figure, or
mobility, from any body, but only makes two or more distinct,
separate masses of matter, of that which was but one before; all
which distinct masses, reckoned as so many distinct bodies, after
division, make a certain number. These I call original or primary
qualities of body, which, I think, we may observe to produce simple
ideas in us, viz. solidity, extension, figure, motion or rest, and
number.

§ 10. Secondary qualities. — Secondly, Such qualities, which, in
truth, are notliing'm the^bbjects themselves, but powers to produce
various sensations in us by their primary qualities, i. e. by the bulk,
figure, texture, and motion of their insensible parts, as colours,
sounds, tastes, &c., these I call secondary qualities. To these might
be added a third sort, which are allowed to be barely powers,
though they are as much real qualities in the subject, as those which
I, to comply with the common way of speaking, call qualities, but
for distinction, secondary qualities. For the power in fire to pro-
duce a new colour or consistency in wax, or clay, by its primary
qualities, is as much a quality in fire, as the power it has to produce
in me a new idea or sensation of warmth or burning, which I felt
not before, by the same primary qualities, viz. the bulk, texture, and
motion of its insensible parts.

§ 11. How primary qualities produce their ideas.-^l^he next
thing to be considered is, how bodies produce ideas in us ; and that
is manifestly by impulse, the only way which we can conceive bodies
to operate in.

§ 12. If then external objects be not united to our minds, when
they produce ideas therein, and yet we perceive these original qua-
lities in such of them as singly fall under our senses, it is evident
that some motion must be thence continued by our nerves or animal
spirits, by some parts of our bodies, to the brain, or the seat of sen-
sation, there to produce in our minds the particular ideas we have
of them. And since the extension, figure, number, and motion of
bodies of an observable bigness, may be perceived at a distance by
the sight, it is evident some singly imperceptible bodies must come
from them to the eyes, and thereby convey to the brain some motion,
which produces these ideas which we have of them in us.

§ 13. How secondary. — After the same manner that the ideas of
these original qualities are produced in us, we may conceive that
the ideas of secondary qualities, are also produced, viz. by the
operation of insensible particles on our senses. For it being manifest
that there are bodies, and good store of bodies, each whereof are so
small, that we cannot, by any of our senses, discover either their
bulk, figure, or motion, as is evident in the particles of the air and
water, and others extremely smaller than those, perhaps as much
smaller than the particles of air and water, as the particles of air and

76 PRIMARY QUALITIES. book 2.

water are smaller than peas or hail-stones. Let us suppose at
present, that the different motions and figures, bulk and number, of
such particles, affecting the several organs of our senses, produce in
us those different sensations, which we have from the colours and
smells of bodies, v. g. that a violet, by the impulse of such insensible
particles of matter of peculiar figures and bulks, and in different
degrees and modifications of their motions, causes the ideas of the
blue colour, and sweet scent, of that flower, to be produced in our
minds; it being no more impossible to conceive that God should
annex such ideas to such motions, with which they have no simili-
tude, than that he should annex the idea of pain to the motion of a
piece of steel dividing our flesh, with which that idea hath no
resemblance.

§ 14. What I have said concerning colours and smells, ma3r be
understood also of tastes and sounds, and other the like sensible
qualities ; which, whatever reality we, by mistake, attribute to them,
are, in truth, nothing in the objects themselves, but powers to pro-
duce various sensations in us, and depend on those primary qualities,
viz. bulk, figure, texture, and motion of parts ; as I have said.

§ 15. Ideas of primary qualities are resemblances ; of secondary,
not. — From whence I think it is easy to draw this observation,
that the ideas of primary qualities of bodies, are resemblances of
them, and their patterns do really exist in the bodies themselves ;
but the ideas produced in us by these secondary qualities, have no
resemblance of them at all. There is nothing like our ideas existing
in the bodies themselves. They are in the bodies we denominate
from them, only a power to produce those sensations in us: and
what is sweet, blue, or warm, in idea, is but the certain bulk, figure,
and motion of the insensible parts in the bodies themselves, which
we call so.

§ 16. Flame is denominated hot and light; snow, white and
cold ; and manna, white and sweet, from the ideas they produce in
us; which qualities are commonly thought to be the same in those
bodies, that those ideas are in us, the one the perfect resemblance of
the other, as they are in a mirror; and it would by most men be
judged very extravagant, if one should say otherwise. And yet he
that will consider, that the same fire, that at one distance produces
in us the sensation of warmth, does, at a nearer approach, produce
in us the far different sensation of pain, ought to bethink himself,
what reason he has to say, that his idea of warmth, which was pro-
duced in him by the fire, is actually in the fire ; and his idea of
pain, which the same fire produced in him the same way, is not in
the fire. Why are whiteness and coldness in snow, and pain not,
when it produces the one and the other idea in us ; and can do
neither, but by the bulk, figure, number, and motion of its solid
parts ?

§ 17. The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the
parts of fire, or snow, are really in them, whether any one'*s senses
perceive them or no ; and, therefore, they may be called real qua-

CH. 8. SECONDARY QUALITIES. 77

lities, because they really exist in those bodies. But light, heat,
whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them, than sickness
or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them ; let not the
eyes see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds ; let the palate
not taste, nor the nose smell; and all colours, tastes, odours, and
sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease, and are
reduced to their causes, i. e. bulk, figure, and motion of parts.

§ 18. A piece of manna of a sensible bulk, is able to produce in
us the idea of a round or square figure; and by being removed
from one place to another, the idea of motion. This idea of motion
represents it, as it really is, in the manna moving : a circle or square
are the same, whether in idea or existence, in the mind, or in the
manna : and this, both motion and figure, are really in the manna,
whether we take notice of them, or no : this every body is ready to
agree to. Besides, manna, by the bulk, figure, texture, and motion
of its parts, has a power to produce the sensations of sickness, and
sometimes of acute pains or gripings in us. That these ideas of
sickness and pain are not in the manna, but effects of its operations
on us, and are nowhere when we feel them not : this also every one
readily agrees to. And yet men are hardly to be brought to think,
that sweetness and whiteness are not really in manna ; which are
but the effects of the operations of manna, by the motion, size,
and figure of its particles on the eyes and palate ; as the pain and
sickness caused by manna, are confessedly nothing but the effects
of its operations on the stomach and guts, by the size, motion, and
figure of its insensible parts ; (for by nothing else can a body operate,
as has been proved) as if it could not operate on the eyes and palate,
and thereby produce in the mind particular distinct ideas, which in
itself it has not, as well as we allow it can operate on the guts and
stomach, and thereby produce distinct ideas, which in itself it has
not. These ideas being all effects of the operations of manna, on
several parts of our bodies, by the size, figure, number, and motion
of its parts, why those produced by the eyes and palate, should
rather be thought to be really in the manna, than those produced
by the stomach and guts ; or why the pain and sickness, ideas that
are the effect of manna, should be thought to be nowhere, when
they are not felt ; and yet the sweetness and whiteness, effects of the
same manna, on other parts of the body, by ways equally as un-
known, should be thought to exist in the 'manna, when they are not
seen nor tasted, would need some reason to explain.

§ 19. Ideas of 'primary qualities^ are resemblances ; of secondary,
not. — Let us consider the red and white colours in porphyry :
hinder light but from striking on it, and its colours vanish ; it no
longer produces any such ideas in us. Upon the return of light, it
produces these appearances on us again. Can any one think any
real alterations are made in the porphyry, by the presence or ab-
sence of light ; and that those ideas of whiteness and redness, are
really in porphyry in the hght, when it is plain it has no colour in
the dark ? It has, indeed, such a configuration of particles, both

78 SECONDARY QUALITIES. book 2.

night and day, as are apt, by the rays of light rebounding from
some parts of that liard stone, to produce in us the idea of redness,
and from others, the idea of whiteness : but whiteness or redness
are not in it at any time, but such a texture that hath the power to
produce such a sensation in us.

§ 20. Pound an almond, and the clear white colour will be altered
into a dirty one, and the sweet taste, into an oily one. What real
alteration can the beating of the pestle make in any body, but an
alteration of the texture of it ?

§ 21 . Ideas being thus distinguished and understood, we may be
able to give an account how the same water, at the same time, may
produce the idea of cold by one hand, and of heat by the other :
whereas it is impossible, that the same water, if those ideas were
really in it, should, at the same time, be both hot and cold. For
if we imagine warmth, as it is in our hands, to be nothing but a
certain sort and degree of motion in the minute particles of our
nerves, or animal spirits, we may understand how it is possible, that
the same water may, at the same time, produce the sensations of
heat in one hand, and cold in the other ; which yet figure never
does, that never producing the idea of a square by one hand, which
has produced the idea of a globe by another. But if the sensation
of heat and cold be nothing but the increase or diminution of the
motion of the minute parts of our bodies, caused by the corpuscles
of any other body, it is easy to be understood, that if that motion
be greater in one hand than in the other ; if a body be applied to
the two hands, which has in its minute particles a greater motion
than in those of one of the hands, and a less than in those of the
other, it will increase the motion of the one hand, and lessen it in
the other, and so cause the different sensations of heat and cold
that depend thereon.

§ 22. I have, in what just goes before, been engaged in physical
inquiries a little farther than perhaps I intended. But it being
necessary to make the nature of sensation a little understood, and
to make the difference between the qualities in bodies, and the ideas
produced by them in the mind, to be distinctly conceived, without
which it were impossible to discourse intelligibly of them ; I hope
I shall be pardoned this little excursion into natural philosophy, it
being necessary in our present inquiry, to distinguish the primary
and real qualities of bodies, which are always in them, (viz. solidity,
extension, figure, number, and motion or rest ; and are sometimes
perceived by us, viz. when the bodies they are in, are big enough
singly to be discerned from those secondary and imputed qualities,
which are but the powers of several combinations of those primary J
ones, when they operate without being distinctly discerned) whereby a
we also may come to know what ideas are, and what are not resem-
blances of something really existing in the bodies we denominate
from them.

§ 23. Three sorts of qualities in bodies. — The qualities, then,
that arc in bodies, rightly considered, arc of three sorts.

I

cH. 8. SECONDARY QUALITIES. 79

Firsty The bulk, figure, number, situation, and motion or rest
of their solid parts ; those are in them, whether we perceive them
or no ; and when they are of that size, that we can discover them,
we have by these an idea of the thing, as it is in itself ; as is plain
in artificial things. These I call primary qualities.

Secondly^ The power that is in any body, by reason of its insen-
sible primary qualities, to operate after a peculiar manner on any
of our senses, and thereby produce in us the different ideas of
several colours, sounds, smells, tastes, &c. These are usually
called sensible qualities.

Thirdly^ The power that is in any body, by reason of the par-
ticular constitution of its primary qualities, to make such a change
in the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of another body, as to make
it operate on our senses, differently from what it did before. Thus
the sun has a power to make wax white; and fire, to make lead
fluid. These are usually called powers.

The first of these, as has been said, I think, may be properly
called real, original, or primary qualities, because they are in the
things themselves, whether they are perceived or no; and upon
their different modifications it is that the secondary qualities de-
pend.

The other two are only powers to act differently upon other
things, which powers result from the different modifications of those
primary qualities.

§ 24. The first are resemblances. The second thought resem-
blances, but are not. The third neither are, nor are thought so. —
But though the two latter sorts of qualities are powers barely, and
nothing but powers, relating to several other bodies, and resulting
from the different modifications of the original qualities ; yet they
are generally otherwise thought of. For the second sort, viz. the
powers to produce several ideas in us by our senses, are looked
upon as real quahties in the things thus affecting us : but the third
sort are called and esteemed barely powers, v. g. the idea of heat
or Hght, which we receive by our eyes, or touch, from the sun, are
commonly thought real qualities, existing in the sun, and something
more than mere powers in it. But when we consider the sun, in
reference to wax, which it melts or blanches, we look upon the
whiteness and softness produced in the wax, not as qualities in the
sun, but effects produced by powers in it : whereas, if rightly con-
sidered, these qualities of light and warmth, which are perceptions
in me when I am warmed or enhghtened by the sun, are no other-
wise in the sun, than the changes made in the wax, when it is
blanched or melted, are in the sun : they are all of them equally
powers in the sun, depending on its primary qualities ; whereby it
is able, in the one case, so to alter the bulk, figure, texture, or
motion of some of the insensible parts of my eyes or hands, as
thereby to produce in me the idea of light or heat ; and in the
other, it is able so to alter the bulk, figure, texture, or motion of

80 SECONDARY QUALITIES. book 2.

tlie insensible parts of the wax, as to make them fit to produce in
me the distinct ideas of white and fluid.

§ 25. The reason, ** why the one are ordinarily taken for real

aualities, and the other only for bare powers,*" seems to be, because
le ideas we have of distinct colours, sounds, &c. containing nothing
at all in them of bulk, figure, or motion, we are not apt to think
them the effects of these primary qualities, which appear not to our
senses, to operate in their production ; and with which they have
not any apparent congruity, or conceivable connexion. Hence it
is, tliat we are so forward to imagine, that tlwse ideas are the
resemblances of something really existing in the objects themselves :
since sensation discovers nothing of bidk, figure, or motion of parts
in their production ; nor can reason show how bodies, by their
bulk, figure, and motion, should produce in the mind the ideas of
blue or yellow, &c. But in the other case, in the operations of
bodies changing the qualities one of another, we plainly discover
that the quality produced hath commonly no resemblance with any
thing in the thing producing it ; wherefore we look on it as bare
effect of power. For though receiving the idea of heat or light
from the sun, we are apt to think it is a perception and resemblance 1
of such a quality in the sun ; yet when we see wax, or a fair face, '
receive change of colour fix>m the sun, we cannot imagine that to
be the reception or resemblance of any thing in the sun, because J
we find not those different colours in the sun itself. For our \
senses being able to observe a likeness or unlikeness of sensible
qualities in two different external objects, we forwardly enough
conclude the production of any sensible quality in any subject, to
be an effect of bare power, and not the communication of any quality
which was really in the efficient, when we find no such sensible
quality in the thing that produced it. But our senses not being
able to discover any unhkeness between the idea produced in us,
and the quality of the object producing it, we are apt to imagine
that our ideas are resemblances of something in the objects, and not
the effects of certain powers, placed in the modification of their
primary qualities, with which primary qualities the ideas produced
m us have no resemblance.

§ 26, Secondary qualities two-fold ; first., immediately perceivable ;
secondly^ mediat^ perceivable, — To conclude : beside those before-
mentioned primary qualities in bodies, viz. bulk, figure, extension,
number, and motion of their soUd parts ; all the rest, whereby we
take notice of bodies, and distinguish them one from another, are
nothing else but several powers in them, depending on those primary
qualities ; whereby they are fitted, either by immediately operating
on oar bodies, to produce several different ideas in us ; or else by
operatii^ oo otho' bodies, so to change their primary qualities, as to
render them capable of producing ideas in us, different from what
before they did. The former of these, I think, may be called
seooodary quahties, immediately perceivable : the latter, secondary
qualities^ mediately perceivable.

cii. a PERCEPTION. 81

CHAPTER IX.

OF PERCEPTION.

§ 1. It is the first simple idea of reflection. — Pcrcq^tion, as it is
the first faculty of the mind, exercised a])out our ideas ; so it is tlie
first and simplest idea we have from reflection, and is by some
called thinking in general. Though thinking, in the propriety of
the English tongue, signifies that sort of operation in the mind
about its ideas, wherein the mind is active; where it, with some
degree of voluntary attention, considers any thing. For in bare
naked perception, the mind is, for the most part, only passive; and
what it perceives, it cannot avoid perceiving.

^ 2. Perception is only "jjhen the mind receives tlie impression. —
What perception is, every one will know better by reflecting on
what he does himself, what he sees, hears, feels, &c., or thinks, than
by any discourse of mine. Whoever reflects on what passes in his
own mind, cannot miss it : and if he does not reflect, all the words
in the world cannot make him have any notion of it.

§ 3. This is certain, that whatever alterations are made in the
body, if they reach not the mind ; whatever impressions are made
on the outward parts, if they are not taken notice of within, there is
no perception. Fire may bum our bodies with no other effect than
it does a billet, unless the motion be continued to the brain, and
there the sense of heat, or idea of pain, be produced in the mind,
wherein consists actual j^erception.

§ 4. How often may a man observe in himself, that whilst his
mind is intently employed in the contemplation of some objects,
and curiously surveying some ideas that are there, it takes no notice
of impressions of sounding bodies, made upon the organ of hearing,
with the same alteration that uses to be for the producing the idea
of sound ? A sufficient impulse there may be on the organ ; but
it not reaching the observation of the mind, there follows no per-
ception : and though the motion that uses to produce the idea of
sound, be made in the ear, yet no sound is heard. Want of sensa-
tion, in this case, is not through any defect in the organ, or that
the man^^s ears are less affected than at other times, w^hen he does
hear : but that which uses to produce the idea, though conveyed in
by the usual organ, not being taken notice of in the understanding,
and so imprinting no idea in the mind, there follows no sensation.
So that wherever there is sense, or perception, there some idea is
actually produced, and present, in the understanding.

§ 5. Children^ though they have ideas in the zvomb, have none
innate. — Therefore, 1 doubt not but children, by the exercise of
their senses about objects that affect them in the womb, receive
some few ideas before they are born, as the unavoidable effects

82 PERCEPTION. book 2.

either of the bodies that environ them, or else of those wants or J
diseases they saflcr; amongst wliich (if one may conjecture con- 1
cerning things not very capable of examination) I think the ideas
of hunger and warmth, are two; which, probably, are some of
the first that children have, and which they scarce ever part with
again.

§ 6. But though it be reasonable to imagine that children receive
some ideas before they come into the world, yet those simple ideas
are far from those innate principles which some contend for, and
we, above, have rejected. These, here mentioned, being the
effects of sensation, are only from some affections of the body,
which happen to them there, and so depend on something exterior
to the mind ; no otherwise differing in their manner of production
from other ideas derived from sense, l)ut only in the precedency
of time; whereas, those innate principles arc supposed to be quite
of another nature ; not coming into the mind by any accidental
alterations in, or operations on, the body ; but, as it were, original
characters impressed upon it in the very first moment of its being
and constitution. I

§ 7. H/iich ideas first, is not evident. — As there are some ideas, ■
which we may reasonably suppose may be introduced into the
minds of children in the womb, subservient to the necessities of
their life and being there ; so, after they are born, those ideas are
the earliest imprinted, which happen to be the sensible qualities
which first occur to tliem ; amongst which, light is not the least
considerable, nor of the weakest efficacy. And how covetous the
mind is, to be furnished with all such ideas as have no pain accom-
panying them, may be a little guessed, by what is observable in
children new born, who always turn their eyes to that part from
whence the light comes, lay them how you please. But the ideas
that are most familiar at first, being various, according to the
divers circumstances of children's first entertainment in the world,
the order wherein the several ideas come at first into the mind,
is very various, and uncertain also ; neither is it much material
to know it.

§ 8. Ideas of sensation often changed by the judgement, — We are
farther to consider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive
by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment,
without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a
round globe, of any uniform colour, v. g., gold, alabaster, or jet,
it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted in our mind, is of a
flat circle, variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and
l)rightness coming to our eyes. But we having, by use, been
accustomed to perceive what Cind of appearance convex bodies are
wont to make m us ; what alteralions are made in the reflections of
light, by the difference of the sensible figures of bodies, the judg-
ment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into
their causes; so that from that, which is truly variety of shadow ox
colour, collecting the figure, it makes it pass for a mark or figui '

I

CH. 9. PERCEPTION. ^B

and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure, and an uni-
form colour ; when the idea we receive from thence, is only a plane,
variously coloured ; as is evident in painting. To which purpose
I shall here insert a problem of that very ingenious and studious
promoter of real knowledge, the learned and worthy Mr. Molineux,
which he was pleased to send me in a letter some months since ;
and it is this : " Suppose a man born blind, and now adult, and
taught by his touch to distinguish between a cube and a sphere of
the same metal, and nighly of the same bigness, so as to tell, when
he felt one and the other, which is the cube which the sphere.
Suppose then the cube and sphere placed on a table, and the
blind man made to see ; qusere. Whether by his sight, before he
touched them, he could now distinguish, and tell, which is the globe,
which the cube ?" To which the acute and judicious proposer
answers : " Not. For though he has obtained the experience of,
how a globe, how a cube, affects his touch ; yet he has not yet
attained the experience, that what affects his touch so or so, must
affect his sight so or so ; or that a protuberant angle in the cube,
that pressed his hand unequally, shall appear to his eye as it does
in the cube." I agree with this thinking gentleman, whom I am
proud to call my friend, in his answer to this his problem ; and am
of opinion, that the blind man, at first sight, would not be able,
with certainty, to say, which was the globe, which the cube, whilst
he only saw them ; though he could, unerringly, name them by
his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their
figures felt. This I have set down, and leave with my reader, as
an occasion for him to consider, how much he may be beholding to
experience, improvement, and acquired notions, where he thinks
he had not the least use of, or help from, them : and the rather,
because this observing gentleman farther adds, that having, upon
the occasion of my book, proposed this to divers very ingenious
men, he hardly ever met with one, that at first gave the answer to
it, which he thinks true, till, by hearing his reasons, they were con-
vinced.

§ 9. But this is not, I think, usual in any of our ideas, but
those received by sight ; because sight, the most comprehensive of
all our senses, conveying to our minds the ideas of light and colours,
which are peculiar only to that sense ; and also the far different
ideas of space, figure, or motion, the several varieties whereof
change the appearances of its proper object, viz. light and colours ;
we bring ourselves, by use, to judge of the one by the other. This,
in many cases, by a settled habit in things, whereof we have fre-
quent experience, is performed so constantly, and so quick, that we
take that for the perception of our sensation, which is an idea formed,
by our judgment ; so that one, viz. that of sensation, serves only to
excite the other, and is scarce taken notice of itself ; as a man who
reads or hears with attention and understanding, takes little notice of
the characters or sounds, but of the ideas, that are excited in him
by them,

g9.

84 PERCEPTION. book 2

§ 10. Nor need we wonder that this is done with so little notice,
if we consider how very quick the actions of the mind are per-
formed; for as itself is thought to take up no space, to have no
extension ; so its actions seem to require no time, but many of them
seem to be crowded into an instant. I speak this in comparison to
the actions of the body. Any one may easily observe tnis in his
own thoughts, who will take the pains to reflect on them. How, as
it were in an instant, do our minds, with one glance, see all the
parts of a demonstration, which may very well be called a long one,
if we consider the time it will require to put it into words, and step
by step shew it another ? Secondly, we shall not be so much sur-
prised that this is done in us with so little notice, if we consider how
the facility which we get of doing things, by a custom of doing,
makes them often pass in us without our notice. Habits, especially
such as are begun very early, come, at last, to produce actions in us,
which often escape our observation. How frequently do we, in a
day, cover our eyes with our eye-lids, without perceiving that we
are at all in the dark ? Men, that by custom have got the use of a
by-word, do almost in every sentence pronounce sounds, which
though taken notice of by others, they themselves neither hear nor
observe. And, therefore, it is not so strange that our mind should
often change the idea of its sensation into that of its judgment^ and
make one serve only to e^^cite the other, without our taking notice
of it.

§ 11. Perception puts the difference between animals and hif en
?'ior being's. — This faculty of perception seems to me to be thi '
which puts the distinction betwixt the animal kingdom, and the in-1
ferior parts of nature. For however vegetables have, many of them,
some degrees of motion, and upon the difterent application of oth<
bodies to them, do very briskly alter their figures and motions, an<
so have obtained the name of sensitive plants, from a motion, whicl
has some resemblance to that which in animals follows upon sensa-
tion ; yet, I suppose, it is all bare mechanism ; and no otherwise
produced than trie turning of a wild oat beard, by the insinuation
the particles of moisture ; or the shortening of a rope, by the afFu
sion of water. All which is done without any sensation in the sul
ject, or the having or receiving any ideas.

§ 12. Perception, I believe, is, in some degree, in all sorts
animals ; thougn in some, possibly, the avenues provided by natui
for the reception of sensations, are so few, and the perception thej
are received with, so obscure and dull, that it comes extremely short*
of the quickness and variety of sensation which are in other animals ;
but yet it is sufficient for, and wisely adapted to, the state and con-
dition of that sort of animals who are thus made : so that the wis-
dom and gootlness of the Maker plainly appears in all the parts of
this stupendous fabric, and all the several degrees and ranks of crea-
tures in it.

§ 13. We may, I think, from the make of an oyster or cockle,
reasonably conclude that it has not st) many, nor so cjuick, senses

CH. 10. RETENTION. 85

as a man, or several other animals; nor if it had, would it, in that
state and incapacity of transferring itself from one jjlace to another,
be bettered by them. What good would sight and liearing do to
a creature, that cannot move itself to or from the objects, wherein,
at a distance, it perceives good or evil ? And would not quickness
of sensation be an inconvenience to an animal that must lie still -
where chance has once placed it; and there receive the afflux of
colder or warmer, clean or foul, water, as it happens to come to it ?

§ 14. But yet I cannot but think, there is some small dull per-
ception, whereby they are distinguished from perfect insensibility.
And that this may be so, we have plain instances, even in mankind
itself. Take one in whom decrepit old age has blotted out the me-
mory of his past knowledge, and clearly wiped out the ideas his
mind was formerly stored with ; and has, by destroying his sight,
hearing, and smell quite, and his taste to a great degree, stopped up
almost all the passages for new ones to enter ; or, if there be some of
the inlets yet half open, the impressions made are scarce perceived,
or not at all retained. How far such an one (notwithstanding all
that is boasted of innate {M'inciples) is in his knowledge and intellec-
tual faculties, above the condition of a cockle, or an oyster, I leave
to be considered. And if a man passed sixty years in such a state,
as it is possible he might, as well as three days, I wonder what dif-
ference there would have been in any intellectual perfections, be-
tween him and the lowest degree of animals.

§ 15. Perception the inlet of knowledge. — Perception then being
the first step and degree towards knowledge, and the inlet of all the
materials of it, the fewer senses any man, as well as any other crea-
ture, hath ; and the fewer and duller the impressions are, that are
made by them, and the duller faculties are, that are employed about
them, the more remote are they from that knowledge which is to be
found in some men. But this being in great variety of degrees, (as
may be perceived amongst men,) cannot certainly be discovered in
the several species of animals, much less in their particular indivi-
duals. It suffices me only to have remarked here, that perception is
the first operation of all our intellectual faculties, and the inlet of all
knowledge in our minds. And I am apt too, to imagine, that it is
perception, in the lowest degree of it, which puts the boundaries be-
tween animals and the inferior ranks of creatures. But this I men-
tion only as my conjecture, by the by, it being indifferent to the
matter in hand, which way the learned shall determine of it.

CHAPTER X.

OF RETENTION.

§ 1. Contemplation, — The next faculty of the mind, whereby
\i makes a farther progress towards knowledge, is that which 1 call

g3

86 RETENTION. book 2.

retention, or the keeping of those simple ideas, which, from sensation
or reflection, it hath received. This is done two ways : first, by
keeping the idea, which is brought into it, for some time actually in
view, which is called contemplation.

§ 2. Memory. — The other way of retention, is the power to re-
vive again in our minds those ideas, which, after imprinting, have
disappeared, or have been, as it were, laid aside out of sight ; and
that we do, when we conceive heat or light, yellow or sweet, the ob-
ject being removed. This is memory, which is, as it were, the store-
house of our ideas. For the narrow mind of man, not being capable
of having many ideas under view and consideration at once, it was
necessary to have a repository, to lay up those ideas, which, at an-
other time, it might have use of. But our ideas being nothing but
actual perceptions in the mind, which cease to be any thing, when
there is no perception of them, this laying up of our ideas in the re-
iH)sitory of the memory, signifies no more than this, that the mind
lias a power, in many cases, to revive perceptions which it has once
had, with tliis additional perception annexed to them, that it has had
them before. And in this sense it is, that our ideas are said to be
in our memories, when, indeed, they are actually nowhere, but only
there is an ability in the mind, when it will, to revive them again,
and, as it were, paint them anew on itself, though some with more,
some with less difficulty ; some more lively, and others more ob-
scurely. And thus it is, by the assistance of this faculty, that we
are to have all those ideas in our understandings, which though we
do not actually contemplate, yet we can bring in sight, and make
appear again, and be the objects of our thoughts, without the help
of those sensible qualities which first imprinted theni there.

§ 3, Attention, repetition, pleasure, and pam,Jix ideas. — Atten-
tion and repetition help much to the fixing any ideas in the memory ;
but those which naturally at first make the deepest and most lasting
impressions, are those which are accompanied with pleasure or pain.
The great business of the senses being to make us take notice of
what nurts or advantages the body, it is wisely ordered by nature
(as has been shown) that pain should accompany the reception of
several ideas ; which, supplying the place of consideration and rea-
soning in children, and acting quicker than consideration in grown
men, makes both the young and old avoid painful objects with that
haste which is necessary for their preservation ; and, in both, settles
in the memory, a caution for the future.

§ 4. Ideas fade in the memory, — Concerning the several degrees
of lasting, wherewith ideas are imprinted on the memory, we may
observe, that some of them have been produced in the understand-
ing, by an object affecting tlie senses once only, and no more than
once ; others, that have more than once offered themselves to the
senses, have yet been little taken notice of; the mind, either heed-
less as in children, or otherwise employed, os in men, intent only
on one thing, not setting the stamp deep into itself. And in some,
>vhcre they arc set on with care and repeated impressions, either

CH. 10. RETExNTION. 87

through the temper of the body, or some other fault, tlie memory is
very weak ; in all these cases, ideas in the mind quickly fade, and
often vanish quite out of the understanding, leaving no more foot-
steps, or remaining characters of themselves, than shadows do flying
over fields of corn ; and the mind is as void of them, as if they had
never been there.

§ 5. Thus, many of those ideas which were produced in the
minds of children, in the beginning of their sensation, (some of
which, perhaps, as of some pleasures and pains, were before they
were born, and others in their infancy,) if, in the future course of
their lives, they are not repeated again, are quite lost, without the
least glimpse remaining of them. This may be observed in those,
who, by some mischance, have lost their sight when they were very
young, in whom the ideas of colours, having been but slightly taken
notice of, and ceasing to be repeated, do quite wear out ; so that
some years after, there is no more notion nor memory of colours left
in their minds, than in those of people born blind, The memory of
some men, it is true, is very tenacious, even to a miracle; but yet
there seems to be a constant decay of all our ideas, even of those
which are struck deepest, and in minds the most retentive ; so that
if they be not sometimes renewed by repeated exercise of the senses,
or reflection on those kind of objects which, at first, occasioned
them, the print wears out, and, at last, there remains nothing to be
seen. Thus the ideas, as well as children of our youth, often die
before us : and our minds represent to us those tombs to which we
are approaching ; where, though the brass and marble remain, yet
the inscriptions are efi'aced by time, and the imagery moulders away.
The pictures drawn in our minds are laid in fading colours ; and if
not sometimes refreshed, vanish and disappear. How much the
constitution of our bodies, and the make of our animal spirits, are
concerned in this, and whether the temper of the brain make this
difference, that in some it retains the characters drawn on it like
marble ; in others like freestone ; and in others, little better than
sand, I shall not here enquire : though it may seem probable, that
the constitution of the body does sometimes influence the memory ;
since we oftentimes find a disease quite strip the mind of all its ideas,
and the flames of a fever, in a few days, calcine all those images to
I dust and confusion, which seemed to be as lasting, as if graved in
I marble.

I § 6. Constantly repeated ideas can scarce he lost. — But concern-

; ing the ideas themselves, it is easy to remark, that those that are

oftenest refreshed (amongst which are those that are conveyed into

the mind by more ways than one) by a frequent return of the objects

j or actions that produced them, fix themselves best in the memory, ,

; and remain clearest and longest there ; and, therefore, those which

are of the original qualities of bodies, viz., solidity, extension,

figure, motion, and rest ; and those that almost constantly affect oui

bodies, as heat and cold ; and those which are the affections of all

kinds of beings, as existence, duration, and number, which almo&t

88 RETENTION. book 2.

every object that affects our senses, every thought which employs
our minds, bring along with them ; these, I say, and the like ideas,
are seldom quite lost, while the mind retains any ideas at all.

§ 7. In rememberings the mind is oflen active, — In this secondary

i;)erception, as I may so call it, or viewing again the ideas that are
odged in the memory, the mind is oftentimes more than barely
passive, the appearance of those dormant pictures depending some-
times on the will. The mind very often sets itself on work in search
of some hidden idea, and turns, as it were, the eye of the soul upon
it ; though sometimes too they start up in our minds of their own
accord, and off*er themselves to the understanding ; and very often
are roused and tumbled out of their dark cells, into open day-light,
by turbulent and tempestuous passion ; our affections bringing ideas
to our memory, which had otherwise lain quiet and unregarded.
This farther is to be observed, concerning ideas lodged in the me-
mory, and upon occasion revived by the mind, that they are not
only (as the word revive imports) none of them new ones; but also
that the mind takes notice of them, as of a former impression, and
renews its acquaintance with them, as with ideas it had known be-
fore. So that though ideas formerly imprinted, are not all con-
stantly in view, yet in remembrance they are constantly known to
be such as have been formerly imprinted, i. e. in view, and taken
notice of before by the understanding.

§ 8. Two dejects in the memory ^ oblivion and slowness. — Me-
mory, in an intellectual creature, is necessary in the next degree to:
perception. It is of so great moment, that where it is wanting, alli
the rest of our faculties are in a great measure useless; and we, in'
our thoughts, reasonings, and knowledge, could not proceed beyond
present objects, were it not for the assistance of our memories,
wherein there may be two defects.

First, That it loses the idea quite, and so far it produces perfect
ignorance. For since we can know nothing farther than we have
the idea of it, when that is gone we are in perfect ignorance.

Secondli/s That it moves slowly, and retrieves not the ideas that
it has, and are laid up in store, quick enough to serve the mind
upon occasion. 1 his, if it be to a great degree, is stupidity : and
he, who through this default in his memory, has not the ideas that
are really preserved there ready at hand, when need and occasion
calls for them, were almost as good be without them quite, since
they serve him to little purpose. The dull man, who loses the
opportunity, while he is seekmg in his mind for those ideas that
should serve his turn, is not much more happy in his knowledge
than one that is perfectly ignorant. It is the business, therefore, of
the memory to furnish the mind with those dormant ideas which it
has present occasion for : in the having them ready at hand, on al I
occasions, consists that which we call invention, fancy, and quickness
of parts.

§ 9. These are defects we may observe in the memory of one
man compared witii another. There is another defect which w(

en. 10. RETENTION. 89

may conceive to be in the memory of man in general, compared
witli some superior created intellectual beings, which in this faculty
may so far excel man, that they may have constantly in view the
whole scene of all their former actions, wherein no one of the
thoughts they have ever had, may slip out of their sight. The
Omniscience of God, who knows all things, past, present, and to
come, and to whom the thoughts of men's hearts always lie open,
may satisfy us of the possibility of this. For who can doubt, but
God may communicate to those glorious spirits, his immediate
attendants, any of his perfections, in what proportion he pleases, as
far as created finite beings can be capable .? It is reported of that

Erodigy of parts, Monsieur Pascal, that till the decay of his health
ad impaired his memory, he forgot nothing of what he had done,
read, or thought, in any part of his rational age. This is a privi-
lege so little known to most men, that it seems almost incredible to
those, who, after the ordinary way, measure all others by themselves :
but yet, when considered, may help us to enlarge our thoughts
towards greater perfection of it in superior ranks of spirits. For
this of M. Pascal, was still with the narrowness that human minds
are confined to here, of having great variety of ideas only by suc-
cession, not all at once : whereas the several degrees of angels may
probably have larger views, and some of them be endowed with
capacities able to retain together, and constantly set before them,
as in one picture, all their past knowledge at once. This, we may
conceive, would be no small advantage to the knowledge of a
thinking man; if all his past thoughts and reasonings could be
always present to him. And, therefore, we may suppose it one of
those ways, wherein the knowledge of separate spirits may exceed-
ingly surpass ours.

§ 10. Brutes have memory. — This faculty of laying up and re-
taining the ideas that are brought into the mind, several other
animals seem to have to a great degree, as well as man. For to pass
by other instances, birds learning of tunes, and the endeavours one
may observe in them, to hit the notes right, put it past doubt with
me, that they have perception, and retain ideas in their memories,
and use them for patterns. For it seems to me impossible, that
they should endeavour to conform their voices to notes (as it is plain
they do) of which they had no ideas. For though I should grant,
sound may mechanically cause a certain motion of the animal spirits
in the brains of those birds, whilst the tune is actually playing ; and
that motion may be continued on to the muscles of the wings, and
so the bird mechanically be driven away by certain noises, because
this may tend to the bird's preservation ; yet that can never be sup-
posed a reason, why it should cause mechanically, either whilst the
tune is playing, much less after it has ceased, such a motion in the
organs of the bird's voice, as should conform it to the notes of a
foreign sound, which intimation can be of no use to the bird's pre-
servation : but, which is more, it cannot with any appearance of
reason be supposed (much less proved) that birds, without sense

90 DISCERNING. book 2.

and memory, can approach tlicir notes, nearer and nearer by de-
grees, to a tune played yesterday ; which if they have no idea of in
their memory, is nowhere, nor can be a pattern for them to imitate,
or whicli any repeated essays can bring them nearer to. Since there
is no reason why the sound of a pipe should leave traces in their
brains, which, not at first, but by their after-endeavours, should
produce the like sounds ; and why the sounds they make them-
selves, should not make traces which they should follow, as well as
those of the pipe, is impossible to conceive.

CHAPTER XI.

OF DISCERNING, AND OTHER OPERATIONS OF THE MIND.

§ 1. No Jcnozcledge without discernment, — Another faculty we
may take notice of in our minds, is that of discerning and distin-
guishing between the several ideas it has. It is not enough to have
a confused perception of something in general : unless the mind
had a distinct perception of different objects, and their qualities, it
would be capable of very little knowledge ; though the bodies that
affect us, were as busy about us as they are now, and the mind were
continually employed in thinking. On this faculty of distinguishing
one thing from another, depends the evidence and certainty of several,
even very general propositions, which have passed for innate truths ;
because men overlooking the true cause, why those propositions
find universal assent, impute it wholly to native uniform impres-
sions ; whereas it, in truth, depends upon this clear discerning fa-
culty of the mind, whereby it perceives two ideas to be the same, or
different. But of this, more hereafter.

§ 2. The difference of zcit and judgment. — How much the im-
perfection of accurately discriminatmg ideas one from another lies,
cither in the dulness, or faults of the organs of sense ; or want of
acuteness, exercise, or attention in the understanding ; or hastiness
and precipitancy, natural to some tempers, I will not here examine :
it suffices to take notice, that this is one of the operations that the
mind may reflect on, and observe in itself. It is of that consequence
to its other knowledge that so far as this faculty is in itself dull,
or not rightly made use of, for the distinguishing one thine from
another, so far our notions are confused, and our reason and judg-
ment disturbed or misled. If in having our ideas in the memory
ready at hand, consists quickness of parts ; in this of having them
unconfused, and being able nicely to distinguish one thing from
another, where there is but the least difterence, consists, m a great
measure, the exactness of judgment, and clearness of reason, which
is to Ix? observed in one man above another. And hence, ixrhaps,
may be given some reason of that common observation, that men

CH. 11. DISCERNING. 91

who have a great deal of wit, and prompt memories, have not always
the clearest judgment, or deepest reason. For wit lying most in
the assemblage of ideas, and putting those together with quickness
and variety, wherein can be found any resemblance or congruity,
thereby to make up pleasant pictures, and agreeable visions, in the
^iicy: judgment, on tlie contrary, lies quite on the other side, in
separating carefully, one from another, ideas wherein can be found
the least difFerence, thereby to avoid being misled by similitude,
and, by affinity, to take one thing for another. This is a way of
proceeding quite contrary to metaphor and allusion, wherein, for the
most part, lies that entertainment and pleasantry of wit, which strikes
so lively on the fancy, and, therefore, is so acceptable to all people ;
because its beauty appears at first sight, and there is required no
labour of thought to examine what truth or reason there is in it.
The mind, without looking any farther, rests satisfied with the
agreeableness of the picture, and the gaiety of the fancy : and it is
a kind of an affront to go about to examine it by the severe rules
of truth and good reason ; whereby it appears, that it consists in
something that is not perfectly conformable to them.

§ i3. Clearness alone liinders confusion. — To the well distinguish-
ing our ideas, it chiefly contributes, that they be clear and deter-
minate : and where they are so, it will not breed any confusion or
mistake about them, though the senses should (as sometimes they
do) convey them from the same object differently, on different
occasions, and so seem to err. For though a man in a fever should
from sugar have a bitter taste, which at another time would produce
a sweet one ; yet the idea of bitter in that man's mind would be as
clear and distinct from the idea of sweet, as if he had tasted only
gall. Nor does it make any more confusion between the two ideas
of sweet and bitter, that the same sort of body produces at one time
one, and at another time another, idea, by the taste, than it makes
a confusion in two ideas of white and sweet, or white and round,
that the same piece of sugar produces them both in the mind at the
same time. And the ideas of orange colour and azure, that are
produced in the mind by the same parcel of the infusion of lignum
nephriticum, are no less distinct ideas, than those of the same colours,
taken from two very different bodies.

§ 4. Comparing. — The comparing them one with another, in
respect of extent, degrees, time, place, or any other circumstances,
is another operation of the mind about its ideas, and is that upon
which depends all that large tribe of ideas comprehended under
relations ; which of how vast an extent it is, I shall have occasion to
consider hereafter.

§ 5. Brides compare, hut irn perfectly, — How far brutes partake
in this faculty, is not easy to determine ; I imagine they have it not
in any great degree; for though they probably have several ideas
distinct enough, yet it seems to me to be the prerogative of human
understanding, when it has sufficiently distinguished any ideas, so
as to perceive them to be perfectly different, and so consequently

92 DISCERNING. bdok 2.

too, to cast about and consider in what circmn stances they are
capable to be compared. And, therefore, I think, beasts compare
not their ideas, farther than some sensible circumstances annexed
to the objects themselves. The other power of comparing, which
may be observed in men, belonging to general ideas, and useful
only to abstract reasonings, we may probably conjecture beasts
have not.

§ 6. Compounding. — The next operation we may observe in
the mind about its ideas, is composition ; whereby it puts together
several of those simple ones it has received from sensation and
reflection, and combines them into complex ones. Under this of
composition, may be reckoned also that of enlarging ; wherein,
though the composition does not so much appear as in more com-
plex ones, yet is nevertheless a putting several ideas together, though
of the same kind. Thus, by adding several units together, we make
the idea of a dozen ; and putting together the repeated ideas of
several perches, we frame that of a furlong.

§ 7. Brutes compound hut III tie. — In this, also, I suppose, brutes
come far short of men. For though they take in, and retain to-
gether, several combinations of simple ideas, as possibly the shape,
smell, and voice of his master, make up the complex idea a dog has
of him, or rather are so many distinct marks whereby he knows
him ; yet I do not think they do of themselves ever compound
them, and make complex ideas. And perhaps, even where we
think they have complex ideas, it is only one simple one that directs
them in the knowledge of several things, which possibly they dis-
tinguish less by their sight than we imagine. For I have been
credibly informed, that a bitch will nurse, play with, and be fond
of young foxes, as much as, and in place of, her puppies ; if you
can but get them once to suck her so long, that her milk may go
through them. And those animals which have a numerous brood
of young ones at once, appear not to have any knowledge of their
number ; for though they are mightily concerned for any one of their
young, that are taken from them whilst they are in sight or hearing,
yet it one or two of them be stolen from them in their absence, or
without noise, they appear not to miss them, or to have any sense
that their number is lessened.

§ 8. Namhig. — When children have, by repeated sensations,
got ideas fixed in their memories, they begin, by degrees, to learn
the use of signs. And when they have got the skill to apply the j
organs of speech to the framing of articulate sounds, they begin to ]
make use of words to signify their ideas to others ; these verbal j
signs they sometimes borrow from others, and sometimes make^
themselves, as one may observe among the new and unusual names ^
children often give to things in the first use of language.

§ 9. Abstraction. — The use of words then being to stand as
outward marks of our internal ideas, and those ideas being taken
from particular tilings, if every particular idea that we take in,
shoula have a distinct name, names must be endless. To prevent

cH. 11. DISCERNING. 93'

this, the mind makes the particular ideas received from particular
objects, to become general ; which is done by considering them as
they are in the mind, such appearances, separate from all other
existences, and the circumstances of real existence, as time, place,
or any other concomitant ideas. This is called abstraction, whereby
ideas, taken from particular beings, become general representatives \
of all of the same kind ; and their names, general names, applicable )
to whatever exists conformable to such abstract ideas. Such pre-
cise naked appearances in the mind, without considering how,
whence, or with what others they came there, the understanding
lays up (with names commonly annexed to them) as the standard
to rank real existences into sorts, as they agree with these patterns,
and to denominate them accordingly. Thus the same colour being
observed to day in chalk or snow, which the mind yesterday re-
ceived from milk, it considers that appearance alone makes it a
representative of all of that kind ; and having given it the name, .
whiteness, it by that sound signifies the same quality, wheresoever^ j
to be imagined or met with ; and thus universals, whether ideas or y
terms, are made.

§ 10. Brutes abstract not. — If it may be doubted, whether
beasts compound and enlarge their ideas, that way, to any degree ;
this, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is
not at all in them ; and that the having of general ideas, is that which
puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excel-
lency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to. For,
it is evident, we observe no footsteps in them, of making use of
general signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to
imagine, that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or making
general ideas, since they have no use of words, or any other general
signs.

§ 11. Nor can it be imputed to their want of fit organs to frame
articulate sounds, that they have no use or knowledge of general
words ; since many of them, we find, can fashion such sounds, and
pronounce words distinctly enough, but never with any such appli-
cation. And, on the other side, men, who, through some defect
in the organs, want words, yet fail not to express their universal
ideas by signs, which serve them instead of general words; a
faculty which we see beasts come short in. And, therefore, I
think, we may suppose, that it is in this that the species of brutes
are discriminated from man ; and it is that proper difference
wherein they are wholly separated, and which, at last, widens to
so vast a distance. For if they have any ideas at all, and are not
bare machines (as some would have them), we cannot deny them to
have some reason. It seems as evident to me, that they do some of
them, in certain instances, reason, as that they have sense ; but it is
only in particular ideas, just as they received them from their senses.
They are the best of them tied up within those narrow bounds, and
have not (as I think) the faculty to enlarge them by any kind of
abstraction.

94 DISCERNING. book 2.

§ 12. Tdioh' and madmen. — How far idiots are concerned in
tlie want or weakness of any, or all, of the foregoing faculties, an
exact observation of their several ways of faltering, would no doubt
discover. For those who either perceive but dully, or retain the
ideas that come into their minds but ill, who cannot readily excite
or compound them, will have little matter to think on. Those who
cannot distinguish, compare, and abstract, would hardly be able to
understand, and make use of language, or judge, or reason, to any
tolerable degree; but only a little, and imperfectly, about things
present, and veiy familiar to their senses. And, indeed, any of the
fore-mentioned faculties, if wanting, or out of order, produce suita-
ble defects in men's understandings and knowledge.

§ 13. In fine, the defect in naturals seems to proceed from want
of quickness, activity, and motion in the intellectual faculties,
whereby they are deprived of reason : whereas o^dmen, on the
other side, seem to suffer by the other extreme. For they do not
appear to me to have lost the faculty of reasoning; but having
joined together some ideas very wrongly, they mistake them for
trutBs ; and they err as men do that argue right from wrong prin-
ciples : for by the violence of their imaginations, having taken their
fancies for reahties, they make right deductions from them. Thus
you shall find a distracted man fancying himself a king, with a right
inference require suitable attendance, respect, and obedience : others
who have thought themselves made of glass, have used the caution
necessary to preserve such brittle bodies. Hence it comes to pass,
that a man, who is very sober, and of a right understanding in all
other things, may, in one particular, be as frantic as any in Bedlam ;
if either by any sudden very strong impression, or long fixing his
fancy upon one sort of thoughts, incoherent ideas have been ce-
mented together so powerfully, as to remain united. But there are
degrees of madness, as of folly : the disorderly jumbling ideas toge-
ther, as in some more, some less. In short, herein seems to lie the
difference between idiots and madmen, that madmen put wrong ideas
together, and so make wrong propositions, but argue and reason
right from them : but idiots make very few or no propositions, and
reason scarce at all.

§ 14. Method. — These, I think, are the first faculties and ope-
rations of the mind, which it makes use of in understanding ; and
though they are exercised about all its ideas in general, yet the
instances I have hitherto given, have been chiefly in simple ideas ;
and I have subjoined the explication of these faculties of the mind,
to that of simple ideas, before I come to what I have to say concern-
ing complex ones, for these following reasons :

First, Because several of these faculties being exercised at first
principally about simple ideas, we might, by following nature in its
ordinary method, trace and discover them in their rise, progress,
and gradual improvements.

Secondly, Because observing the faculties of the mind, how they
operate about simple ideas, which are usually in most men*'s minds

cii. II. DISCERNING. 95

much more clear, precise, and distinct, than complex ones, we may
the better examine and learn how the mind abstracts, denominates,
compares, and exercises its other operations about those which are
complex, wherein we are much more liable to mistake.

Thirdlif, Because these very operations of the mind about ideas
received from sensations are themselves, when reflected on, another
set of ideas, derived from that other source of our knowledge, which
I call reflection ; and, therefore, fit to be considered in this place,
after the simple ideas of sensation. Of compounding, comparing,
abstracting, &c. I have but just spoken, having occasion to treat of
them more at large in other places.

§ 15. These are the beginnings of human knowledge. — And thus
I have given a short, and, I think, true history of the first beginnings
of human knowledge ; whence the mind has its first objects, and by
what steps it makes its progress to the laying in, and storing up,
those ideas, out of which is to be framed all the knowledge it is ca-
pable of; wherein I must appeal to experience and observation, whe-
ther I am in the right : the best way to come to truth being to exa-
mine things as really they are, and not to conclude they are, as we
fancy ourselves, or have been taught by others to imagine.

§ 16. Appeal to experience. — To deal truly, this is the only
way that I can discover, whereby the ideas of things are brought
into the understanding. If other men have either innate ideas, or
infused principles, they have reason to enjoy them ; and if they are
sure of it, it is impossible for others to deny them the privilege that
they have above their neighbours. I can speak but of what I find
in myself, and is agreeable to those notions; which, if we will
examine the whole course of men in their several ages, countries,
and education, seem to depend on those foundations which I have
laid, and to correspond with this method, in all the parts and de-
grees thereof.

§ 17. Dark room.— I pretend not to teach, but to enquire; and
therefore, cannot but confess, here again, that external and internal
sensation are the only passages, that I can find, of knowledge to the
understanding. These alone, as far as I can discover, are the win-
dows by which light is let into this dark room : for, methinks, the
understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly shut from light,
with only some little opening left, to let in external visible resem-
blances, or ideas of things without : would the pictures coming into
such a dark room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found
upon occasion, it would very much resemble the understanding of a
man, in reference to all objects of sight, and the ideas of them.

These are my guesses concerning the means whereby the under-
standing comes to have, and retain, simple ideas ; and the modes of
them, with some other operations about them. I proceed now to
examine some of these simple ideas, and their modes, a little more
particularly.

9G COMPLEX IDEAS. book 2.

CHAPTER XII.

OF COMPLEX IDEAS.

§ 1. Made hu the mind out of simple ones. — We have hitherto
considered those ideas, in the reception whereof the mind is only
passive, whicli are those simple ones received from sensation and
reflection before mentioned, whereof the mind cannot make one to
itself, nor have any idea which does not wholly consist of them.
But as the mind is wholly passive in the reception of all its simple
ideas, so it exerts several acts of its own, whereby out of its simple
ideas, as the materials and foundations of the rest, the others are
framed. The acts of the mind wherein it exerts its power over its
simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple
ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made.
2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex,
together ; and setting them by one another, so as to take a view of
them at once, without uniting them into one : by which way it gets
all ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all
other ideas that accompany them in their real existence ; this is
called abstraction ; and thus all its general ideas are made. This
shows man's power, and its way of operation, to be much the same
in the material and intellectual world ; for the material in both be-
ing such as he has no power over, either to make or destroy, all that
man can do, is either to unite them together, or to set them by one
another, or wholly separate them. I shall here begin with the first
of these, in the consideration of complex ideas, and come to the
other two, in their due places. As simple ideas are observed to
exist in several combinations united together; so the mind has a
power to consider several of them united together, as one idea ; and
that not only as they are united in external objects, but as itself has
joined them. Ideas thus made up of several simple ones put toge-
ther, I call complex ; such as are beauty, gratitude, a man, an army,
the universe ; which, though complicated of various simple ideas, or
complex ideas made up of simple ones, yet are, when the mind

E leases, considered each by itself, as one entire thing, and signified
y one name.
§ 2. Made voluntarily. — In this faculty of repeating and joining
together its ideas, the mind has great power in varying and multi-
plying the objects of its thoughts, infinitely beyond what sensation
or reflection furnishes it with ; but all this still confined to those
simple ideas which it received from those two sources, which arc
the ultimate materials of all its compositions. For simple ideas
are all from things themselves ; and of these the mind can have no
more, nor other, than what are suggested to it. It can have no
other ideas of sensible qualities, than what come from without, by
the senses; nor any ideas of other kind of operations of a thinking

( H. 12. COMPLEX IDEAS. 97

substance, than what it finds in itself; but when it has once got
these simple ideas, it is not confined barely to observation, and what
offers itself from without it : it can, by its own power, put together
those ideas it has, and make new complex ones, which it never re-
ceived so united.

§ 3. Are either viodes, substances ^ or relations. — Complex ideas,
however compounded and decompounded, though their number be
infinite, and the variety endless, wherewith they fill and entertain
the thoughts of men ; yet, I think, they may be all reduced under
these three heads : 1. Modes. 2. Substances. 3. Relations.

§ 4. Modes, —First i Modes I call such complex ideas, which,
however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of sub-
sisting by themselves, but are considered as dependences on, or af-
fections of, substances; such are ideas signified by the words triangle^
gratitude, myrder, &c. And if in this I use the word mode in
somewhat a different sense from its ordinary signification, I beg
pardon ; it being unavoidable in discourses differing from the ordi-
nary received notions, either to make new words, or to use old
words in somewhat a new signification ; the latter whereof, in our
present case, is perhaps the most tolerable of the two.

§ 5. Simple and mixed modes. — Of these modes there are two
sorts, which deserve distinct consideration. First, There are some
which are only variations, or different combinations of the same
simple idea, without the mixture of any other, as a dozen, or score ;
which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added
together, and these I call simple modes, as being contained within
the bounds of one simple idea. Secondly, There are others com-
pounded of simple ideas of several kinds, put together to make one
complex one ; v. g. beauty, consisting of a certain composition of
colour and figure, causing delight in the beholder; theft, which
being the concealed change of the possession of any thin^, without
the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is visible, a combination
of several ideas of several kinds : and these 1 call mixed modes.

§ 6. Substances, single or collective. — Secondly, The ideas of
substances are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to
represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves ; in
which the supposed, or confused, idea of substance, such as it is, is
always the first and chief. Thus, if to substance be joined the
simple idea of a certain dull whitish colour, with certain degrees of
weight, hardness, ductility, and fusibility, we have the idea of lead ;
and a combination of the ideas of a certain sort of figure, with the
powers of motion, thought, and reasoning, joined to substance;
make the ordinary idea of a man. Now, of substances also, there
are two sorts of ideas; one of single substances, as they exist se-
parately, as of a man, or a sheep ; the other of several of those put
together, as an army of men, or flock of sheep ; which collective
ideas of several substances thus put together, are as much each of
them one single idea, as that of a man, or an unit.

^

98 SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. book 2.

§ 7. Relation. ^^Th'irdly^ The last sort of complex ideas is, that
we call relation, which consists in the consideration and comparing
one idea with another ; of these several kinds we shall treat in their
order.

§ 8. The ahstrusest ideas from the two sources.~^lf we trace the
progress of our minds, and with attention observe how it repeats,
adds together, and unites its simple ideas received from sensation or
reflection, it will lead us farther than at first, perhaps, we should
have imagined. And, I believe, we shall find, if we warily observe
the originals of our notions, that even the most abstruse ideas, how
remote soever they may seem from sense, or from any operations of
our own minds, are yet only such as the understanding frames to
itself, by repeating and joining together ideas, that it had, either
from objects of sense, or from its own operations about them ; so
that even those lai'ge and abstract ideas, are derived from sensation or
reflection, being no other than what the mind, by the ordinary use
of its own faculties, employed about ideas received from objects of
sense, or from the operations it observes itself about them, may, and
does, attain unto. This I shall endeavour to show in the ideas we
have of space, time, and infinity, and some few others that seem
the most remote from those originals.

CHAPTER XIII.

OF SIMPLE MODES ; AND FIRST, OF THE SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE.

§ 1. Simple Modes, — Though, in the foregoing part, I have often
mentioned simple ideas, which are truly the materials of all our
knowledge; yet having treated of them there, rather in the way
that they come into the mind, than as distinguished from others
more compounded, it will not be, perhaps, araiss to take a view of
some of them again under this consideration, and examine those
different modifications of the same idea, which the mind either finds
in things existing, or is able to make within itself, without the help
of any extrinsical object, or any foreign suggestion. h

Those modifications of any one simple idea (which, as has beei^
said, I call simple modes) are as perfectly diff'erent and distinct ideas
in the mind, as those of the greatest distance or contrariety. For
the idea of two, is as distinct from that of one, as blueness from heat,
or either of them from an^^ number : and yet it is made up only of
that simple idea of an unit repeated ; and repetitions of this kind
joined together, make those distinct simple modes, of a dozen, a gross,
a million.

§ 2. Idea of space — I shall begin with the simple idea of space.
I have showed above, c. 4., that we get the idea of space, both by

CH. 13. SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. 99

our sight and touch ; which, I think, is so evident, that it would be
as needless to go to prove, that men perceive, by their sight, a dis-
tance between bodies of different colours, or between the parts of the
same body, as that they see colours themselves; nor is it less
obvious, that they can do so in the dark by feeling and touch.

§ 3. Space and eoctensioyi. — This space, considered barely in length
between any two beings, without considering any thing else between
them, is called distance; if considered in length, breadth, and thick-
ness, I think it may be called capacity; the term extension is usually
applied to it in what manner soever considered.

§ 4. Immensity. — Each different distance, is a different modifi-
cation of space ; and each idea of any different distance, or space, is
a simple mode of this idea. Men, for the use, and by the custom
of measuring, settle in their minds the ideas of certain stated lengths,
such as are an inch, foot, yard, fathom, mile, diameter of the earth,
&c., which are so many distinct ideas made up only of space. When
any such stated lengths or measures of space are made familiar tq
men's thoughts, they can, in their minds, repeat them as often af^
they will, without mixing or joining to them the idea of body, or
any thing else ; and frame to themselves the idea of long, square, or
cubic feet, yards, or fathoms, here amongst the bodies of the uni-
verse, or else beyond the utmost bounds of all bodies ; and by adding
these still one to another^ enlarge their ideas of space as much as
they please. The power of repeating or doubling any idea we
have of any distance, and adding it to the former as often as we
will, without being ever able to come to any stop or stint, let us
enlarge it as much as we will, is that which gives us the idea of
immensity.

§ 5. Figure. — There is another modification of this idea, which
is nothing but the relation which the parts of the termination of ex-
tension, or circumscribed space, have amongst themselves. This
the touch discovers in sensible bodies, whose extremities come within
our reach ; and the eye takes both from bodies and colours, whose
boundaries are within its view ; where observing how the extremities
terminate either in straight lines, which meet at discernible angles ;
or in crooked lines, wherein no angles can be perceived, by consi-
dering these as they relate to one another, in all parts of the extre-r
mities of any body or space, it has that idea we call figure, which,
! affords to the mind infinite variety. For besides the vast number of
I different figures that do really exist in the coherent masses of matter,
; the stock that the mind has in its power, by varying the idea of space,
! and thereby making still new compositions, by repeating its own
I ideas, and joining them as it pleases, is perfectly inexhaustible; and
i so it can multiply figures in infinitum.

1 § 6. Figure. — For the mind having a power to repeat the idea

of any length directly stretched out, and join it to another in the

' same direction, which is to double the length of that straight line,

or else join another with what inclination it thinks fit, and so make

H 9.

100 SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. book 2.

what sort of angle it pleases ; and being able also to shorten any line
it imagines, by taking from it one half, or one fourth, or what part
it pleases, without being able to come to an end of any such divisions,
it can make an angle of any bigness ; so also the lines that are its
sides, of what length it pleases, which joining again to other lines of
different lengths, and at different angles, until it has wholly inclosed
any space, it is evident that it can multiply figures, both in their shape
and capacity, in infinitum ; all which are but so many different simple
modes of space.

The same that it can do with straight lines, it can also do with
crooked, or crooked and straight together; and the same it can do
in lines, it can also in superficies; by which we may be led into
farther thoughts of the endless variety of figures that the mind
has a power to make, and thereby to multiply the simple modes of
space.

§ 7. Place. — Another idea coming under this head, and belonging
to this tribe, is that we call place. As in simple space we consider
the relation of distance between any two bodies or points; so in our
idea of place, we consider the relation of distance betwixt any thing,
and any two or more points, which are considered as keeping the
same distance one with another, and so considered as at rest : for
when we find any thing at the same distance now, which it was yes-
terday, from any two or more points, which have not since changed
their distance one with another, and with which we then compared
it, we say it hath kept the same place : but if it hath sensibly altered
its distance with either of those points, we say it hath changed its
place : though vulgarly speaking, in the common notion of place,
we do not always exactly observe the distance from these precise
points; but from larger portions of sensible objects, to which we
consider the thing placed to bear relation, and distance from which
we have some reason to observe.

§ 8. Thus, a company of chess-men, standing on the same
squares of the chess-board where we left them, we say, they are all
in the same place, or unmoved ; though perhaps, the chess-board
hath been in the mean time carried out of one room into another,
because we compared them only to the parts of the chess-board,
which keep the same distance one with another. The chess-board,
we also say, is in the same place it was, if it remain in the same
part of the cabin, though, perhaps the ship which it is in, sails all
the while : and the ship is said to be in the same place, supposing
it kept the same distance with the parts of the neighbouring land ;
though, perhaps, the earth has turned round; and so both chess-
men, ana board, and ship, have every one changed place, in respect
of remoter bodies, which have kept the same distance one with
another. But yet the distance from certain parts of the board,
being that which determines the place of the chess-men ; and the
distance from the fixed parts of the cabin (with which we made the
comparison) being that which determines the place of the chess-

CH. 13. SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. 101

board ; and the fixed parts of the earth, that by which we determined
the place of the ship, these things may be said to be in the same
place, in those respects : though their distance from some other
things, which, in this matter, we did not consider, being varied,
they have undoubtedly changed place in that respect ; and we our-
selves shall think so, when we have occasion to compare them with
those other.

§ 9. But this modification of distance we call place, being made
by men for their common use, that by it they might be able to
design the particular position of things; where they had occasion
for such designation, men consider and determine of this place, by
reference to those adjacent things which best served to their present
purpose, without considering other things, which, to answer another
purpose, would better determine the place of the same thing.
Thus, in the chess-board, the use of the designation of the place
of each chess-man being determined only within that chequered
piece of wood, it would cross that purpose, to measure it by any
thing else : but when these very chess-men are put up in a bag, if
any one should ask where the black king is, it would be proper to
determine the place by the parts of the room it was in, and not by
the chess-board ; there being another use of designing the place it
is now in, than when in play it was on the chess-board, and so
must be determined by other bod'es. So if any one should ask in
what place are the verses which report the story of Nisus and
Euryalus, it would be very improper to determine this place, by
saying, they were in such a part of the earth, or in Bodley^s
library; but the right designation of the place would be by the
parts of Virgil's works; and the proper answer would be, that
these verses were about the middle of the ninth book of his JEneid ;
and that they have been always constantly in the same place ever
since Virgil was printed : which is true, though the book itself
hath moved a thousand times ; the use of the idea of place, here,
being to know in what part of the book that story is, that so, upon
occasion, we may know where to find it, and have recourse to it for
use.

§ 10. Place. — That our idea of place is nothing else but such
a relative position of any thing, as I have before mentioned, I
think is plain, and will be easily admitted, when we consider that
we can have no idea of the place of the universe, though we can
of all the parts of it ; because, beyond that, we have not the idea of
any fixed, distinct, particular beings, in reference to which we can
imagine it to have any relation of distance : but all beyond it is one
imiform space or expansion, wherein the mind finds no variety, no
marks. For to say that the world is somewhere, means no more
than that it does exist : this, though a phrase borrowed from place,
signifying only its existence, not location; and when one can find
out and frame in his mind, clearly and distinctly, the place of the
universe, he will be able to tell us, whether it moves or stands still in

tm SIMPLE MODES OF SrACE. book 2.

the undistinguishable inane of infinite space ; though it be true, that
the word place has sometimes a more confuseicl sense, and stands for
that space whicli any body takes up; and so the universe is in a place.
The idea, therefore, of place, we have by the same means that we
get the idea of space (whereof this is but a particular consideration),
viz. by our sight and touch ; by either of which we receive into our
minds the ideas of extension or distance.

§ 11. Extens'ion and body not the same, — There are some that
would persuade us, that body and extension are the same thing;
who either change the signification of words, which I would nOt
suspect them of, they having so severely condemned the philosophy
of others, because it hath been too much placed in the uncertain
meaning, or deceitful obscurity, of doubtful or insignificant terms.
If, therefore, they niean by body and extension, the same that
other people do, viz., by body, something that is solid and extended,
whose parts are separable and moveable different ways; and by
extension, only the space that lies between the extremities of those
solid coherent parts, and which is possessed by them, they confound
very different ideas one with another. For I appeal to eveiy man'*s
own thoughts, whether the idea of space be not as distinct from
that of solidity, as it is from the idea of scarlet colour ? It is true,
solidity cannot exist without extension, neither can scarlet colour
exist without extension ; but this hinders not but that they are
distinct ideas. Many ideas require others as necessary to their
existence or conception, which yet are very distinct ideas, Motioft
can neither be, nor be conceived, without space ; and yet motion i«
not space, nor space, motion : space can exist witliout it, and they
are very distinct ideas; and so, I think, are those of space and
solidity. Solidity is so inseparable an idea from body, that upoft
that dep^ids its filling of space, its contact, impulse and communi-
cation of motion upon impulse. And if it be a reason to prove^
that spirit is different from body, because thinking includes not th* j
idea of extension in it ; the same reason will he as valid, I suppos
lo prove, tha;t space is not body, because it includes not the idea
*iolidity in it ; space and solidity being as distinct ideas, as thinking"
and extension, and as wholly separable in the mind one from ano-
ther. Body then, and extension, it is evident, are two distinct
ideas. For,

^12. Firsts Extension indud-es no solidity, nor resistance to the
motion of body, as body does.

^13. Sixotidh/, The parts of pui^ space are inseparable one
from the other; so that the continuity cannot be separated, neither
really nor mentally. For I demand of any one to remove any
part of it from another, with whi<;h it is continued, even so much as
in thought. '1 o divide and separate actually, is, as I think, by re-
moving the parts one from another, to make two superficies, where
before there was a continuity : and to divide mentally, is to make
in the mind two superficies, where Wore there was a continuity;

cH. 13. SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. 103

and consider them as removed one from the other ; which can only
be done in things considered by the mind as capable of being sepa-
rated; and by separation of acquiring new distinct superficies,
which they then have not, but are capable of: but neither of these
ways of separation, whether real or mental, is, as I think, compatible
to pure space.

Jt is true, a man may consider so much of such a space as is answer-
able or commensurate to a foot, without considering the rest, which
isj indeed, a partial consideration, but not so much as mental sepa-
ration or division : since a man can no more mentally divide, with-
out considering two superficies, separate one from the other, than
he can actually divide without making two superficies disjoined one
from the other: but a partial consideration is not separating. A
man may consider light in the sun, without its heat ; or mobility
in body, without its extension, without thinking of their separation.
One is only a partial consideration, terminating in one alone ; and
the other is a consideration of both, as existing separately.

§ 14, Tliirdly, the parts of pure space are immoveable, which
follows from their inseparability ; motion being nothing but change
of distance between any two things; but this cannot be between
parts that are inseparable ; which, therefore, must needs be at per-
petual rest one amongst another.

Thus the determined idea of simple space, distinguishes it plainly
and sufficiently from body ; since its parts are inseparable, immove-
able, and without resistance to the motion of body.

§ 15. The definition of extension eocplains it not. — If any one
ask me, what this space I speak of, is ? I will tell him, when he
tells me what his extension is. For to say, as is usually done,
that extension is to have partes extra partes, is to say only, that
extension is extension : for what am I the better informed in the
nature of extension, when I am told, that extension is to have parts
that are extended, exterior to parts that are extended, 1. e. extension
consists of extended parts? As if one, asking what a fibre was?
I should answer him, that it was a thing made up of several fibres :
would he thereby be enabled to understand what a fibre was, better
than he did before ? Or rather, would he not have reason to think
that my design was to make sport with him, rather than seriously to
instruct him ?

§ 16- Division qfheings into bodies and spirits, pi-oves Jiot space
end body the same. — Those who contend that space and body are
the same, bring this dilemma : either this space is something or
nothing; if nothing be between two bodies, they must necessarily
touch ; if it be allowed to be something, they ask, whether it be
body or spirit ? To which I answer, by another question, who told
them that there was or could be nothing but solid beings which could
not think, and thinking beings that were not extended ? Which is all
they mean by the terms body and spirit.

§ 17. Substance y which we kfiow not, no proof against space with-
out body. — If it be demanded (as usually it is) whether this space,

104 SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. book 2.

void of body, be substance or accident ? I shall readily answer, I
know not : nor shall be ashamed to own my ignorance, till they that
ask, show me a clear distinct idea of substance.

§ 18. I endeavour, as much as I can, to deliver myself from
those fallacies which we are apt to put upon ourselves, by taking
words for things. It helps not our ignorance to feign a knowledge
wiiere we have none, by making a noise with sounds, without clear
and distinct significations. Names made at pleasure, neither alter
the nature of things, nor make us understand them, but as they are
signs of, and stand for, determined ideas. And I desire those who
lay so much stress on the sound of these two syllables, substance, to
consider whether applying it, as they do, to the infinite incompre-
hensible God, to finite spirit, and to body, it be in the same sense ;
and whether it stands for the same idea, when each of those three
so different beings are called substances? If so, whether it will
thence follow, that God, spirits, and body, agreeing in the same
common nature of substance, differ not any otherwise than in a bare
different modification of that substance; as a tree and a pebble,
being in the same sense, body, and agreeing in the common nature
of body, differ only in a bare modification of that common matter ;
which will be a very harsh doctrine. If they say, that they apply
it to God, finite spirits, and matter, in three different significations,
and that it stands for one idea when God is said to be a substance ;
for another, when the soul is called substance ; and for a third,
when a body is called so ; if the name substance stands for three
several distinct ideas, they would do well to make known those
distinct ideas, or at least to give three distinct names to them, to
prevent, in so important a notion, the confusion and errors that will
naturally follow from the promiscuous use of so doubtful a term ;
which is so far from lieing suspected to have three distinct, that in
ordinary use it has scarce one clear distinct signification : and if they
can thus make three distinct ideas of substance, what hinders why
another may not make a fourth ?

§ 19. Substance and accidents of little use in philosophi/. — They
who first ran into the notion of accidents, as a sort of real beings,
that needed something to inhere in, were forced to find out the
word substance, to support them. Had the poor Indian philosopher
(who imagined that the earth also wanted something to bear it up)
but thought of this word substance, he needed not to have been at
the trouble to find an elephant to support it, and a tortoise to sup-
port his elephant ; the word substance would liave done it effectually.
And he that inquired, might have taken it for as good an answer
from an Indian philosopher, that substance, without knowing what it
is, is that which supports the earth, as we take it for a sufiicient
answer, and good doctrine, from our European philosophers, that
substance, without knowing what it is, is that which supports acci-
dents. So that of substance we have no idea of what it is, but only
a confused obscure one of what it does.

CH. 13. SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. 105

§ 20. Whatever a learned nian may do here, an intelligent
American, who inquired into the nature of things, would scarce
take it for a satisfactory account, if desiring to learn our archi-
tecture, he should be tola, that a pillar was a thing supported by a
basis, and a basis something that supported a pillar. Would he
not think himself mocked, instead of taught, with such an account
as this ? and a stranger to them would be very liberally instructed
in the nature of books, and the things they contained, if he should
be told, that all learned books consisted of paper and letters, and
that letters were things inhering in paper, and paper a thing that
held forth letters ; a notable way of having clear ideas of letters and
papers ! but were the Latin words, inhaerentia and substantia put
into the plain English ones that answer them, and were called
sticking on, and underpropping, they would better discover to us
the very great clearness there is in the doctrine of substance and
accidents, and show of what use they are in deciding of questions in
philosophy.

§ 21. A vacuum beyond the utmost hounds of body. — But to re-
turn to our idea of space. If body be not supposed infinite, which,
I think, no one will affirm, I would ask, whether, if God placed a
man at the extremity of corporeal beings, he could not stretch his
hand beyond his body .? If he could, then he would put his arm
where there was before space without body ; and if there he spread
his fingers, there would still be space between them without body.
If he could not stretch out his hand, it must be because of some
external hindrance (for we suppose him alive, with such a power of
moving the parts of his body that he hath now, which is not in itself
impossible, if God so pleased to have it ; or, at least, it is not im-
possible for God so to move him) ; and then I ask, whether that which
hinders his hand from moving outwards, be substance or accident,
something or nothing } and when they have resolved that, they will
be able to resolve themselves what that is, which is or may be
between two bodies at a distance, that is not body, and has no
solidity. In the mean time, the argument is at least as good, that
where nothing hinders (as beyond the utmost bounds of all bodies),
a body put in motion may move on, as where there is nothing
between, there two bodies must necessarily touch : for pure space
between, is sufficient to take away the necessity of mutual contact ;
but bare space in the way, is not sufficient to stop motion. The
truth is, these men must either own, that they think body infinite,
though they are loth to speak it out ; or else affirm, that space is
not body. For I would fain meet with that thinking man, that can,
in his thoughts, set any bounds to space, more than he can to dura-
tion ; or, by thinking, hope to arrive at the end of either : and,
therefore, if his idea of eternity be infinite, so is his idea of immen-
sity ; they are both finite or infinite alike.

§ 22. The pozoer of an?iihilation proves a vacuum. — Farther, those
who assert the impossibility of space existing without matter, must

106 SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. book %

not only make body infinite, but must also deny a power in God to
annihilate any part of matter. No one, I suppose, will deny, that
God can put an end to all motion that is in matter, and fix all the
bodies of the universe in a perfect quiet and rest, and continue them
so long as he pleases. Whoever then will allow, that God can,
during such a general rest, annihilate either this book, or the body
of him that reads it, must necessarily admit the possibility of a
vacuum : for it is evident, that the space that was filled by the parts
of the annihilated body, will still remain, and be a space without
body. For circumambient bodies being in perfect rest, are a wall
of adamant, and, in that state, make it a perfect impossibility for
any other body to get into that space. And, indeed, the necessary
motion of one particle of matter, into the place from whence ano-
ther particle of matter is removed, is but a consequence from the
supposition of plenitude, which will, therefore, need some better
proof than a supposed matter of fact, which experiment can never
make out ; our own clear and distinct ideas plainly satisfying us, that
there is no necessary connexion between space and solidity, since
we can conceive the one without the other. And those who dispute
for or against a vacuum, do thereby confess they have distinct ideas
of vacuum and plenum, i. e. that they have an idea of extension
void of solidity, though they deny its existence, or eke they dispute
about nothing at all. For they who so much alter the signification
of words, as to call extension, body, and consequently make the
whole essence of body to be nothing but pure extension, without
solidity, must talk absurdly whenever they speak of vacuum, since
it is impossible for extension to be without extension : for vacuum,
whether we affirm or deny its existence, signifies space without
body, whose very existence no one can deny to be possible, who
will not make matter infinite, and take from God a power to
annihilate any particle of it.

§ 23. Motion proves a vacuum. — But not to go so far as beyond
the utmost bounds of body in the universe, nor appeal to God's
Omnipotency to find a vacuum, the motion of bodies that are in our
view and neighbourhood, seems to me plainly to evince it. For I
desire any one so to divide a solid body of any dimension he
pleases, as to make it possible for the soHd parts to move up and
down freely every way within the bounds of that superficies, if there
be not left in it a void space, as big as the least part into which
he has divided the said solid body. And if where the least particle
of the body divided is as big as a mustard seed, a void space equal
to the bulk of a mustard-seed be requisite to make room for the free
motion of the parts of the divided body within the bounds of its
superficies, where the particles of matter are 100,000,000 less than
a mustard-seed ; there must also be a space void of solid matter,
as big as 100,000,000 part of a mustard-seed ; for if it hold good in
one. It will hold in the other, and so on in infinitum. And let this
void space be as little as it will, it destroys the hypothesis of

CH. 13. SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. 107

plenitude. For if there can be a space void of body, equal to th«
smallest separate particle of matter now existing in nature, it is still
space without body, and makes as great a difference between space
and body, as if it were y^iycc x^^l^^^ a distance as wide as any in
nature. And, therefore, if we suppose not the void space necessary
to motion, equal to the least parcel of the divided solid matter, but
to -^5^ or T-oW of it, the same consequence will always follow of space
without matter.

§ 24. The ideas of space and body distincL-^^xxl the question
being here, " Whetlier the idea of space or extension be the same
with the idea of body,*" it is not necessary to prove the real exist-
ence of a vacuum, but the idea of it ; which it is plain men have,
when they enquire and dispute whether there be a vacuum or no ?
for if they had not the idea of space without body, they could not
make a question about its existence : ahd if their idea of body did
not inchtde in it something more than the bare idea of space, they
could have no doubt about the plenitude of the word ; and it would
be as absurd to demand, whether there were space without body, as
whether there were space without space, or body without body,
since these were but different names of the same idea,

^ 25. Ewtens'ion being inseparable from body, pro'ves it not the
same,-^-lt is true, that the idea of extension joins itself so insepar-
ably with all visible, and most tangible, qualities, that it suffers us
to see no one, or feel very few external objects, without taking in
impressions of extension too. This readiness of extension to make
itself be taken notice of so constantly with other ideas, has been
the occasion, I guess, that some have made the whole essence of
body to consist in extension ; which is not so much to be wondered,
at, since some have had their minds, by their eyes and touch (th^e
busiest of all our senses), so filled with the idea of extension, and,
as it were, wholly possessed with it, that they allowed no existence
to any thing that had not extension. I shall not now argue with
those men, who take the measure and possibility of all being, only
from their narrow and gix>ss imaginations ; but having here to do
only with those who conclude the essence of body to be extension,
because, they say, they cannot imagine any sensible quality of any
body without extension, I shall desire them to consider, that had
they reflected on their ideas of tastes and smells, as much as on
tltose of sight and touch, nay, had they examined their ideas of
hunger and thirst, and several other pains, they would have found
that they included in them no idea of extension at all, which is
but an affection of body, as well as the rest, discoverable by out
■senses, which are scarce acute enough to look into the pure
•essences of things.

^ 26. If those ideas, which are constantly joined to all others,
must, therefore, be concluded to be the essence of those things
xvhich have constantly those ideas joined to them, and are insepar-
able from them ; then unity is, without doubt, the essenc^3 of every

108 SIMPLE MODES OF SPACE. book 2.

thing. For there is not any object of sensation or reflection, which
does not carry with it the idea of one ; but the weakness of this
kind of argument we have already shown sufficiently.

§ 27. Ideas of space and solidity distinct. — To conclude : what-
ever men shall think concerning the existence of vacuum, this is
plain to me, that we have as clear an idea of space, distinct from
solidity, as we have of solidity, distinct from motion, or motion from
space. We have not any two more distinct ideas ; and we can as
easily conceive space without solidity, as we can conceive body or
space without motion, though it be never so certain, that neither
body nor motion can exist without space. But whether any one
will take space to be only a relation resulting from the existence of
other beings at a distance, or whether they will think the words of
the most knowing King Solomon, " The heaven, and the heaven
of heavens, cannot contain thee;" or those more emphatical ones
of the inspired philosopher, St. Paul, " In him we live, move,
and have our being," are to be understood in a literal sense, I
leave every one to consider; only our idea of space is, I think,
such as I have mentioned, and distinct from that of body. For
whether we consider, in matter itself, the distance of its coherent
solid parts, and call it, in respect of those solid parts, extension ;
or, whether considering it as lying between the extremities of any
body in its several dimensions, we call it length, breadth, and
thickness ; or else considering it as lying between any two bodies,
or positive beings, without any consideration whether there be any
matter or no between, we call it distance. However named or con-
sidered, it is always the same uniform simple idea of space, taken
from objects about which our senses have been conversant, whereof
having settled ideas in our minds, we can revive, repeat, and add
them one to another, as often as we will, and consider the space or
distance so imagined, either as filled with solid parts, so that another
body cannot come there without displacing and thrusting out the
body that was there before ; or else as void of solidity, so that a
body of equal dimensions to that empty or pure space, may be
placed in it without the removing or expulsion of any thing that
was there. But to avoid confusion in discourses concerning this
matter, it were possibly to be wished, that the name extension
were applied only to matter, or the distance of the extremities of
particular bodies ; and the term expansion to space in general, with
or without solid matter possessing it, so as to say, space is expanded,
and body extended. But in this every one has liberty ; I propose
it only for the more clear and distinct way of speaking.

§ J^8. Men differ little in clear simple ideas. — Thg^knowing^re-
cisely what our words stand for, would, I imagine, in this, as well
as a great many other cases, quickly end the dispute. For I am
apt to think, that men, when they come to examine them, find
their simple ideas all generally to agree, though, in discourse with
one another, they, perhaps, confound one another with different

CH.14. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. 109

names. I imagine that men who abstract their thoughts, and do
well examine the ideas of their own minds, cannot much differ
in thinking; however they may perplex themselves with words,
according to the way of speaking of the several schools or sects
they have been bred up in ; though, amongst unthinking men, who
examine not scrupulously and carefully their own ideas, and strip
them not from the marks men use for them, but confound them
with words, there must be endless dispute, wrangling, and jargon,
especially if they be learned bookish men, devoted to some sect,
and accustomed to the language of it; and have learned to talk
after others. But if it should happen, that any two thinking men
should really have different ideas, I do not see how they could dis-
course or argue one with another. Here I must not be mistaken
to think that every floating imagination in men's brains, is pre-
sently of that sort of ideas I speak of. It is not easy for the mind
to put off those confused notions and prejudices it has imbibed
from custom, inadvertency, and common conversation ; it requires
pains and assiduity to examine its ideas, until it resolves them into
those clear and distinct simple ones out of which they are com-
pounded : and to see which, amongst its simple ones, have, or have
not, a necessary connexion and dependence one upon another.
Until a man doth this in the primary and original notion of things,
he builds upon floating and uncertain principles, and will often find
himself at a loss.

CHAPTER XIV.

OF DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES.

§ 1. Duration is fleeting extension. — There is another sort of
distance, or length, the idea whereof we get, not from the permanent
parts of space, but from the fleeting and perpetually perishing parts
of succession. This we call duration, the simple modes whereof are
any different lengths of it, whereof we have distinct ideas, as hours,
days, years, &c., time and eternity.

§ 2. Its ideas from reflection on the traiii of our ideas. — The
answer of a great man, to one who asked what time was. Si non
rogas intelligo (which amounts to this; the more I set myself to
thmk of it, the less I understand it), might, perhaps, persuade
one, that time, which reveals all other things, is itself not to be
discovered. Duration, time, and eternity, are not, without reason,
thought to have something very abstruse in their nature. But
however remote these may seem from our comprehension, yet if we
trace them right to their originals, I doubt not but one of those
sources of all our knowledge, viz. sensation and reflection, will be
able to furnish us with these ideas, as clear and distinct as many
others which are thought much less obscure; and we shall find,

no DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

that the idea of eternity itself, is derived from the same common
original with the rest of our ideas,

§ 3. To understand time and eternity aright, we ought, with
attention, to consider what idea it is we have of duration, and how
we came by it. It is evident to any one who will but observe what
passes in liis own mind, that there is a train of ideas which con-^
stantly succeed one another in his understanding, as long as he is
awake. Reflection on these appearances of several ideas, one after
another, in our minds, is that which furnishes us with the idea of
succession ; and the distance between any parts of that succession, or
between the appearance of any two ideas in our minds, is that we
call duration. For whilst we are thinking, or whilst we receive
successively several ideas in our minds, we know that we do exist ;
and so we call the existence, or the continuation of the existence of
ourselves, or any thing else, commensurate to the succession of any
ideas in our minds, the duration of ourselves, or any such other
thing co-existent with our thinking.

§ 4. That we have our notion of succession and duration, from
this original, viz. from reflection on the train of ideas which we
find to appear, one after another, in our own minds, seems plain to
me, in that we have no perception of duration, but by considering
the train of ideas that take their turns in our understandings. When
that succession of ideas ceases, our perception of duration ceases
with it: which every one clearly experiments in himself, whil&t
he sleeps soundly, whether an hour or a day, a month or a year ;
of which duration of things, while he sleeps, or thinks not, he
has no perception at all, but it is quite lost to him ; and the
moment wherein he leaves off" to think, until the moment he begins
to think again, seems to him to h^ve no distance. And so I doubt
not but it would be to a waking man, if it were possible for him to
keep only one idea in his mind, without variation, and the succes-
sion of others ; and we see, that one who fixes his thoughts very in-
tently on one thing, so as to take but little notice of the succes-
sion of ideas that pass in his mind, whilst he is taken up with that
earnest contemplation, lets slip out of his account a good part of
that duration, and thinks that time shorter than it is. But if sleep
commonly unites the distant parts of duration, it is because, during
that time, we have no succession of ideas in our minds. For,
if a man, during his sleep, dreams, and variety of ideas make
themselves perceptible in his mind one after another, he hath, then,
during such a dreaming, a sense of duration, and of the length of
it. By which it is to me very clear, that men derive their ideas of
duration from their reflections on the train of the ideas they observe
to succeed one another in their own understandings ; without which
observation, they can have no notion of duration, whatever may
happen in the world.

§ 5. The idea of duration applicable to things whilst we sleep. —
In(iee<l, a man having, from reflecting on the succession and num-

cii. 14. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. Ill

ber of his own thoughts, got the notion or idea of duration, he
can apply that notion to things which exist while he does not think ;
as he that has got the idea of extension from bodies by his sight or
touch, can apply it to distances, where no body is seen or felt.
And, therefore though a man has no perception of the length of
duration, which passed whilst he slept or thought not, yet having
observed the revolution of days and nights, and found the length of
their duration to be, in appearance, regular and constant, he can,
upon the supposition that that revolution has proceeded, after
the same manner, whilst he was asleep, or thought not, as it used to
do at other times ; he can, I say, imagine and make allowance
for the length of duration, whilst he slept. But if Adam and Eve
(when they were alone in the world) instead of their ordinary
night^s sleep, had passed the whole twenty-four hours in one con-
tinued sleep, the duration of that twenty-four hours had been
irrecoverably lost to them, and been for ever left out of their account
of time.

§ 6. The idea of succession not from wo^iow.— Thus by reflecting
on the appearing of various ideas one after another in our un-
derstandings, we get the notion of succession ; which if any one
would think we did rather get from our observation of motion
by our senses, he will, perhaps, be of my mind, when he considers,
that even motion produces in his mind an idea of succession
no otherwise than as it produces there a continued train of distin^
guishable ideas. For a man looking upon a body really moving,
perceives yet no motion at all, unless that motion produces a con^
stant train of successive ideas, v. g. a man becalmed at sea, out of
sight of land, in a fair day, may look on the sun, or sea, or ship, a
whole hour together, and perceive no motion at all in either;
though it be certain that two, and perhaps all of them, have moved,
during that time, a great way ; but as soon as he perceives either
of them to have changed distance with some other body, as soon as
this motion produces any new idea in him, then he perceives that
there has been motion. But wherever a man is, with all things at
rest about him, without perceiving any motion at all ; if during this
hour of quiet he has been thinking, he will perceive the various
ideas of his own thoughts, in his own mind, appearing one after
another, and thereby observe and find succession, where he could
observe no motion.

§ 7. And this, I think, is the reason why motions very slow,
though they are constant, are not perceived by us ; because, in their
remove from one sensible part towards another, their change of
distance is so slow, that it causes no new ideas in us, but a good
while one after another ; and so not causing a constant train of new
ideas to follow one another immediately in our minds, we have no
perception of motion, which consisting in a constant succession, we
cannot perceive that succession, without a constant succession of
varying ideas arising from it.

112 DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

§ 8. On the contrary, things that move so swift, as not to affect
the senses distinctly with several distinguishable distances of their
motion, and so cause not any train of ideas in the mind, are not
also perceived to move. For any thing that moves round about in
a circle, in less time than our ideas are wont to succeed one another
in our minds, is not perceived to move ; but seems to be a perfect
entire circle of that matter or colour, and not a part of a circle in
motion.

^ 9. The train of ideas has a certain degree of quickness. — Hence
I leave it to others to judge, whether it be not probable, that our
ideas do, whilst we are awake, succeed one another in our minds
at certain distances, not much unlike the images in the inside of a
lanthorn, turned round by the heat of a candle. This appearance
of theirs in train, though, perhaps, it may be sometimes faster, and
sometimes slower ; yet, I guess, varies not very much in a waking
man : there seem to be certain bounds to the quickness and slow-
ness of the succession of those ideas one to another in our minds,
beyond which they can neither delay nor hasten.

§ 10. The reason I have for this odd conjecture is, from observ-
ing, that in the impressions made upon any of our senses, we can,
but to a certain degree, perceive any succession ; which if exceed-
ing quick, the sense of succession is lost, even in cases where it is
evident that there is a real succession. Let a cannon bullet pass
through a room, and in its way take with it any limb, or fleshy
parts of a man ; it is as clear as any demonstration can be, that it
must strike successively the two sides of the room. It is also evi-
dent, that it must touch one part of the flesh first, and another after,
and so in succession : and yet, I believe, nobody, who ever felt the
pain of such a shot, or heard the blow against the two distant walls,
could perceive any succession, either in the pain or sound of so
swift a stroke. Such a part of duration as this, wherein we perceive
no succession, is that which we call an instant ; and is that which
takes up the time of only one idea in our minds, without the suc-
cession of another, wherein, therefore, we perceive no succession
at all.

§ II. This also happens where the motion is i;o slow, as not to
supply a constant train of fresh ideas to the senses, as fast as the
mind is capable of receiving new ones into it ; and so other ideas
of our own thoughts, having room to come into our minds, between
those offered to our senses by the moving body, there the sense of
motion is lost ; and the body, though it really moves, yet not chang-
ing perceivable distance with some other bodies, as fast as the ideas
of our own minds do naturally follow one another in train, the thing
seems to stand still, as is evident in the hands of clocks, and shadows
of sun-dials, and other constant, but slow, motions, where, though
after certain intervals, we perceive, by the change of distance, that
it hath moved, yet the motion itself we perceive not.

512. This train^ the measure of other successions. — So that to
me it 8cemR, that the constant and regular successions of ideas in

CH. 14. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. US

a waking man is, as it were, the measure and standard of all other
successions, whereof, if any one either exceeds the pace of our ideas,
as where two sounds or pains, &c. take up in their succession the
duration of but one idea, or else where any motion or succession is
so slow, as that it keeps not pace with the ideas in our minds, or
the quickness in which they take their turns ; as when any one or
more ideas, in their ordinary course, come into our mind between
those which are offered to the sight by the different perceptible dis-
tances of a body in motion, or between sounds or smells following
one another ; there, also, the sense of a constant continued succes-
sion is lost, and we perceive it not, but with certain gaps of rest
between.

§ 13. The mind cannot Jix long on one invariable idea.-^li it
be so, that the ideas of our minds, whilst we have any there, do
constantly change and shift in a continual succession, it would be
impossible, may any one say, for a man to think long of any one
thing ; by which, if it be meant, that a man may have one self-same
single idea a long time alone in his mind, without any variation at
all, I think, in matter of fact, it is not possible, for which (not know-
ing how the ideas of our minds are framed, of what materials they
are made, whence they have their light, and how they come to make
their appearances) I can give no other reason but experience ; and
I would have any one try whether he can keep one unvaried single
idea in his mind, without any other, for any considerable time to-
gether,

§ 14. For trial, let him take any figure, any degree of light, or
whiteness, or what other he pleases ; and he will, I suppose, find it
difficult to keep all other ideas out of his mind ; but that some,
either of another kind, or various considerations of that idea (each
of which considerations is a new idea), will constantly succeed one
another in his thoughts, let him be as wary as he can.

§ 15. All that is in a man's power in this case, I think, is only

to mind and observe what the ideas are, that take their turns in his

\ understanding ; or else to direct the sort, and call in such as he

I hath a desire or use of : but hinder the constant succession of fresh

lones, I think he cannot, though he may commonly choose, whether

he will heedfully observe and consider them.

§ 16. Ideas, however made, include no sense of motion. — Whether

I these several ideas in a man's mind be made by certain motions, I

iwill not here dispute ; but this I am sure, that they include no idea

of motion in their appearance ; and if a man had not the idea of

motion otherwise, I think he would have none at all, which is enough

to my present purpose, and sufficiently shows, that the notice we

take of the ideas of our minds appearing there one after another,

!is that which gives us the idea of succession and duration, without

which, we should have no such ideas at all. It is not then motion,

but the constant train of ideas in our minds whilst we are waking,

hat furnishes us with the idea of duration, whereof motion no

lU DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

otherwise gives us any perception, than as it causes in our minds a
constant succession of ideas, as I liave before shown : and we have
as clear an idea of succession and duration, by tlie train of other
ideas succeeding one another in our minds, without the idea of any
motion, as by the train of ideas caused by the uninterrupted sensible
change of distance between two bodies, which we have from motion ;
and, therefore, we should as well have the idea of duration, were
there no sense of motion at all.

§ 17. Time is duration set out by measures. — Having thus got
the idea of duration, the next thing natural for the mind to do, is,
to get some n^easure of this common duration, wiiereby it might
judge of its different lengths, and consider the distinct order wherein
several things exist, without which, a great part of oiu* knowledge
would be confused, and a great part of history be rendered ver>
useless. This consideration of duration, as set out by certain periods,
and marked by certain measures or epochs, is that, I think, which
most properly we call time.

§ 18. A good measure of lime must divide its zvhole duration into
equal periods. — In the measuring of extension, there is nothing more
required but the application of the standard or measure we make
use of, to the thing of whose extension we would be informed. But
in the measuring of duration, this cannot be done, because no two
different parts of succession can be put together to measure one
another ; and nothing being a measure of duration, but duration, as
nothing is of extension but extension, we cannot keep by us any
standing unvarying measure of duration, which consists in a con-
stant fleeting succession, as we can of certain lengths of extensions,
as inches, feet, yards, &c., marked out in permanent parcels of
matter. Nothing then could serve well for a convenient measure
of time, but what has divided the whole length of its duration into
apparently equal portions, by constantly repeated periods. What
portions of duration are not distinguished, or considered as dis-
tinguished and measured by such periods, come not so properlj
under the notion of time, as appears by sucli phrases as these, vi
" Ikfore all time,*" and '« when time shall be no more.""

§ 19. The revoluticms of the sun and moon the p'operest measia
of time. — The diurnal and annual revolutions of the sun, as havii
been, from the beginning of nature, constant, regular, and univej
sally observable by all mankind, and supposed equal to one anothei"
have been with reason made use of for the measure of duration.
But the distinction of days and years, having depended on the
motion of the sun, it has brought this mistake "with it, that it has
been tliought that motion and duration were the measure one of
another ; for men, in the measuring of the length of time, having
been accustomed to the ideas of minutes, hours, days, months,
years, &c. which they found themselves, upon any mention of time
or duration, presently to think on, all which portions of time were
measured out by the motion of those heavenly bodies : they wen

CH. U. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. 115

apt to confound time and motion, or at least to think that they had
a necessary connexion one with another : whereas any constant
periodical appearance or alteration of ideas in seemingly equidistant
spaces of duration, if constantly and universally observable, would
liave as well distinguished the intervals of time, as those that have
been made use of. For, supposing the sun, which some have taken
to be a fire, had been lighted up at the same distance of time that
it now every day comes about to the same meridian, and then gone
out again about twelve hours after, and that in the space of an an-
nual revolution, it had sensibly increased in brightness and heat,
and so decreased again ; would not such regular appearances serve
to measure out the distances of duration to all that could observe it,
as well without, as with, motion ? for if the appearances were
constant, universally observable, and in equidistant periods, they
would serve mankind for measure of time as well, were the motion
away.

§ 20. But not by their motion, but periodical appearance'^. — For
the freezing of water, or the blowing of a plant, returning at equi-
distant periods in all parts of the earth, would as well serve men to
reckon their years by, as the motions of the sun. And, in effect,
we see that some people in America counted their years by the
coming of certain birds amongst them at their certain seasons, and
leaving them at others. For a fit of an ague, the sense of hunger
or thirst, a smell, or a taste, or any other idea, returning constantly
at equidistant periods, and making itself universally be taken notice
of, would not fail to measure out the course of succession, and dis-
tinguish the distances of time. Thus we see, that men, born blind,
count time well enough by years, whose revolutions yet they cannot
distinguish by motions that they perceive not. And I ask, whether
a blind man, who distinguished his years either by heat of summer,
or cold of winter ; by the smell of any flower of the spring, or taste
of any fruit of the autumn, would not have a better measure of time
than the Romans had before the reformation of their calendar by
Julius Caesar ; or many other people, whose years, notwithstanding
the motion of the sun, which they pretend to make use of, are very
irregular ? And it adds no small difficulty to chronology, that the
exact regular lengths of the years that several nations counted by,
are hard to be known, they differing very much one from another,
and I think I may say all of them from the precise motion of the
sun. And if the sun moved from the creation to the flood, con-
stantly in the equator, and so equally dispersed its light and heat
to all the habitable parts of the earth, in days all of the same length,
without its aimual variations to the tropics, as a late ingenious au-
thor supposes*, I do not think it very easy to imagine, that (not-
withstanding the motion of the sun) men should, in the antediluvian

Dr. Burnet's Theorv of the Earth.

I 2

116 DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

world, from the beginning, count by years, or measure their time by
periods, that had no sensible marks very obvious to distinguish
them by.

§ 21.* No lico parts of duration can he certainly known to he equal.
— But perhaps it will be said, without a regular motion, such as of
the sun, or some other, how could it ever be known that such pe-
riods were equal ? To which I answer : The equality of any other
returning appearances might be known by the same way that that
of davs was known, or presumed to be so at first ; which was only
by judging of them by the train of ideas which had passed in men's
minds in the intervals, by which train of ideas discovering inequality
in the natural days, but none in the artificial days, the artificial
days, or vup^Qyj'juof^a, were guessed to be equal, which was sufficient
to make them serve for a measure : though exacter search has since
discovered inequality in the diurnal revolutions of the sun, and we
know not whether the annual also be not unequal ; these yet, by
their presumed and apparent equality, serve as well to reckon time
by (though not to measure the parts of duration exactly), as if they
could be proved to be exactly equal. We must, therefore, care-
fully distinguish betwixt duration itself, and the measures we make
use of to judge of its length. Duration in itself, is to be considered
as going on in one constant, equal, uniform course : but none of
the measures of it, which we make use of, can be known to do so ;
nor can we be assured, that their assigned parts or periods are
equal in duration one to another ; for two successive lengths of
duration, however measured, can never be demonstrated to be
equal. The motion of the sun which the world used so long, and
so confidently, for an exact measure of duration, has, as I said,
been found in its several parts unequal : and though men have of
late made use of a pendulum, as a more steady and regular motion
than that of the sun, or (to speak more truly) of the earth ; yet if
any one should be asked how he certainly knows that the two suc-
cessive swings of a pendulum are eciual, it would be very hard to
satisfy himself, that they are infallibly so. Since we cannot be sure
that the cause of that motion, which is unknown to us, shall always
operate equally ; and we are sure that the medium in which the
pendulum moves, is not constantly the same : either of which vary-
mg, may alter the equality of such periods, and thereby destroy
the certainty and exactness of the measure by motion, as well as
any other periods of other appearances ; the notion of duration still
remaining clear, though our measures of it cannot any of them be
demonstrated to be exact Since, then, no two portions of succes-
sion can be brought together, it is impossible ever certainly to know
their equality. All that we can do for a measure of time, is to take
such as have continual successive appearances at seenu'ng equidis-
tant periods ; of which seeming equahty, we have no other measure,
but such as the train of our own ideas have lodged in our memories,
with the concurrence of other probable reasons, to persuade us of
their equality.

CH. 11. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. 117

§ 22. Time not the measure of motion, — One thing seems strano-e
to mc, that whilst all men manifestly measured time by the motion
of the great and visible bodies of the world, time yet should be de-
fined to be the measure of motion : whereas it is obvious to every
one who reflects ever so little on it, that to measure motion, space
is as necessary to be considered as time; and those who look a
little farther, will find also the bulk of the thing moved, necessary
to be taken into the computation by any one who will estimate or
measure motion, so as to judge right of it. Nor, indeed, does mo-
tion any otherwise conduce to the measuring of duration, than as it
constantly brings about the return of certain sensible ideas, in seem-
ing equidistant periods. For if the motion of the sun were as un-
equal as of a ship driven by unsteady winds, sometimes very slow,
and at others irregularly very swift ; or if being equally swift, it
yet was not circular, and produced not the same appearances, it
would not at all help us to measure time, any more than the seeming
unequal motion of a comet does.

§ 23. Minutes, hours, days, and years, not necessary measures of
duration. — Minutes, hours, days, and years, are then no more ne-
cessary to time or duration, than inches, feet, yards, and miles,
marked out in any matter, are to extension. For though we, in
this part of the universe, by the constant use of them, as of periods
set out by the revolutions of the sun, or as known parts of such
periods, have fixed the ideas of such lengths of duration in our minds,
which we apply to all parts of time, whose lengths we should con-
sider ; yet there may be other parts of the universe, where they no
more use these measures of ours, than in Japan they do our inches,
feet, or miles. But yet something analogous to them, there must
be; for without some regular periodical returns, we could not
measure ourselves, or signify to others the length of any duration,
though, at the same time, the world were as full of motion as it is
now, but no part of it disposed into regular and apparently equi-
distant revolutions. But the different measures that may be made use
of for the account of time, do not at all alter the notion of duration,
which is the thing to be measured, no more than the different
standards of a foot and a cubit, alter the notion of extension to those
who make use of those different measures.
; § 24. Our measure of time applicable to duration before time. —
1 The mind having once got such a measure of time, as the annual
! revolution of the sun, can apply that measure to duration, wherein
that measure itself did not exist, and with which, in the reality of
; its being, it had nothing to do : for should one say, that Abraham
; was born in the 2712 year of the Julian period, it is altogether as
i intelligible, as reckoning from the beginning of the world, though
' there were so far back no motion of the sun, nor any motion at all.
I For though the Julian period be supposed to begin several hundred
' years before there were really either days, nights, or years, marked
out by any revolutions of the sun, yet we reckon as right, and

118 DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

thereby measure durations as well, as if really at that time the suii
had existed, and kept the same ordinary motion it doth now. The
idea of duration equal to an annual revolution of the sun, is as easily
applicable in our thoughts to duration, where no sun nor motion
was, as the idea of a foot or yard taken from bodies here, can be
applied in our thoughts to distances beyond the confines of the
world, where are no bodies at all.

§ 25. For supposing it were 5639 miles, or millions of miles,
from this place to the remotest body of the universe (for being finite,
it must be at a certain distance), as we suppose it to be 5Go9 years
from this time to the first existence of any body in the beginning
of the world, we can, in our thoughts, apply this measure of a year
to duration before the creation, or beyond the duration of bodies or
motion, as we can this measure of a mile to space beyond the
utmost bodies ; and by the one, measure duration, where there was
no motion ; as well as by the other, measure space in our thoughts,
where there is no body.

§ 26. If it be objected to me here, that in this way of explaining
of time, I have begged what I should not, viz. that the world is
neither eternal nor infinite ; I answer, that to my present purpose,
it is not needful, in this place, to make use of arguments to evince
the world to be finite, both in duration and extension ; but it being,
at least, as conceivable as the contrary, I have certainly the liberty
to suppose it, as well as any one hath to suppose the contrary ; and
I doubt not but that every one that will go about it, may easily
conceive in his mind the beginning of motion, though not of all
duration ; and so may come to a stop, and non ultra, in his con-
sideration of motion ; so, also, in his thoughts, he may set limits to
body, and the extension belonging to it ; but not to space, where
no body is, the utmost bounds of space and duration being beyond
the reach of thought, as well as the utmost bounds of numbei* are
beyond the largest comprehension of the mind, and all for the same
reason, as we shall see in another place.

§ 27. Elernity. — By the same means, therefore, and from the
same original that we come to have the idea of time, we have also
that idea which we call eternity, viz , having got the idea of succes-
sion and duration, by reflectmg on the train of our own ideflM
caused in us either by the natural appearances of those id^P
coming constantly of themselves into our waking thoughts, or else !
caused by external objects successively affecting our senses ; and
having, from the revolutions of the sun, got the ideas of certain
lengths of duration, we can, in our thoughts, add such lengths of
duration to one another, as often as we please, and apply them, so
added, to durations past or to come : and this we can continue to
do on, without bounds or limits, and proceed in infinitum, and
apply thus the length of the annual motion of the sun to duration.
supposed before the sun's, or any other, motion had its bein^
which is no more difficult or absurd, than to apply the notioni

1

cii. 14. DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES. 119

have of the moving of a shadow, one hour to-day upon the sun-
dial, to the duration of something last night ; v. g. the burning of a
candle, which is now absolutely separate from all actual motion;
and it is as impossible for the duration of that flame for an hour
last night, to co-exist with any motion that now is, or for ever shall
be, as for any part of duration, that was before the beginning of the
world, to co-exist with the motion of the sun now. But yet this
hinders not, but that having the idea of the length of the motion of
the shadow on a dial between tlie marks of two hours, I can as
distinctly measure in my thoughts the duration of that candle-light
last night, as I can the duration of any thing that does now exist.
And it is no more than to think, that had the sun shone then on the
dial, and moved after the same rate it doth now, the shadow on the
dial would have passed from one hour line to another, whilst that
flame of the candle lasted.

§ 28. The notion of an hour, day, or year, being only the idea
I have of the length of certain periodical regular motions, neither
of which motions do ever all at once exist, but only in the ideas I
have of them in my memory, derived from my senses or reflection,
I can with the same ease, and foi* the same reason, apply it in my
thoughts to duration antecedent to all manner of motion, as well as
to any thing that is but a minute or a day antecedent to the motion
that at this very moment the sun is in. All things past, are equally
and perfectly at rest ; and to this way of consideration of them are
all one, whether they were before the beginning of the world, or
but yesterday ; the measuring of any duration by some motion, de-
pending not at all on the real co-existence of that thing to that
motion, or any other periods of revolution, but the having a clear
idea of the length of some periodical known motion, or other inter-
vals of duration in my mind, and applying that to the duration of
the thing I would measure.

§ 29. Hence we see, that some men imagine the duration of the
world from its first existence, to this present year 1689, to have
been 5039 years, or equal to 5639 annual revolutions of the sun ;
and others a great deal more, as the Egyptians of old, who, in the
time of Alexander, counted 23,000 years from the reign of the
sun ; and the Chinese now, who account the world 3,209,000 years
old, or more; which longer duration of the world, according to
their computation, though I should not believe it to be true, yet I
can equally imagine it with them, and as truly understand and say
one is longer than the other, as I understand that Methusalem'*s
life was longer than Enoch's : and if the common reckoning of
5639 should be true (as it may be, as well as any other assigned),
it hinders not at all my imagining what others mean, when they
make the world 1000 years older, since every one may, with the same
facility, imagine (I do not say believe) the world to be 50,000 years
old, as 5639 ; and may as well conceive the duration of 50,000
years, as 5639- Whereby it appears, that to the rneasuring the

/

120 DURATION, AND ITS SIMPLE MODES, book 2.

duration of any thing by time, it is not requisite that that thing
should be co-existent to the motion we measure by, or any other
periodical revolution ; but it suffices to this purpose, that we have
the idea of the length of any regular periodical appearance, which
we can in our minds apply to duration, with which the motion or ap-
>«r pearance never co-existed.
/| \ § 30. For as in the history of the creation delivered by Moses,
' I can imagine that light existed three days before the sun was, or
had any motion, barely by thinking that the duration of light
before the sun was created, was so long as (if the sun had moved
then as it doth now) would have been equal to three of his diurnal
revolutions ; so, by the same way, I can have an idea of the chaos
or angels being created before there was either light or any con-
tinued motion, a minute, an hour, a day, a year, or 1000 years.
For if I can but consider duration equal to one minute, before
either the being or motion of any body, I can add one minute
more till I come to CO : and by the same way of adding minutes,
hours, or years (i. e. such or such parts of the sun^s revolutions, or
any other period, whereof I have the idea), proceed in InflnHum,
and suppose a duration exceeding as many such periods as I can
reckon, let me add whilst I will, which I think is the notion we
have of eternity, of whose infinity we have no other notion than we
have of the infinity of number, to which we can add for ever without
end.

§ 31. And thus I think it is plain, that from those two fountains
of all knowledge before mentioned, viz., reflection and sensation, we
get the ideas of duration, and the measures of it.

For, Firsts By observing what passes in our minds, how our ideas
there in train constantly some vanish, and others begin to appear, we
come by the idea of succession.

Secondly, By observing a distance in the parts of this succession,
we get the idea of duration.

Thirdlij, By sensation, observing certain appearances at cer-
tain regular and seeming equidistant periods, we get the ideas of
certain lengths or measures of duration, as minutes, hours, days,
years, &c.

Fourthly, By being able to repeat those measures of time, or
ideas of stated length of duration in our minds, as often as we will,
we can come to imagine duration, where nothing does really endure
or exist ; and thus we imagine to-morrow, next year, or seven years
hence.

Fifthly^ By being able to repeat ideas of any length of time, as of
a minute, a year, or an age, as often as we will in our own thoughts,
and adding them one to another, without ever coming to the end of
such addition, any nearer than we can to the end of number, to
which we can always add, we come by the idea of eternity, as the
future eternal duration of our souls, as well as the eternity of that
infinite Being, which must necessarily have always existed.

CH. 15. DURATION AND EXPANSION. 121

Sixthly^ By considering any part of infinite duration, as set out
by periodical measures, we come by the idea of what we call time in
general.

CHAPTER XV.

OF DURATION AND EXPANSION, CONSIDERED TOGETHER.

§ 1. Both capable of greater and less. — Though we have in the
precedent chapters dwelt pretty long on the considerations of space
and duration ; yet they being ideas of general concernment, that
have something very abstruse and peculiar in their nature, the
comparing them one with another, may, perhaps, be of use for their
illustration ; and we may have the more clear and distinct concep-
tion of them, by taking a view of them together. Distance or space,
in its simple abstract conception, to avoid confusion, I call expan-
sion, to distinguish it from extension, which by some is used to
express this distance only as it is in the solid parts of matter, and
so includes, or at least intimates, the idea of body : whereas the idea
of pure distance includes no such thing. I prefer also the word ex-
pansion to space, because space is often applied to distance of fleeting
successive parts, which never exist together, as well as to those
which are permanent. In both these (viz. expansion and duration),
the mind has this common idea of continued lengths, capable of
greater or less quantities: for a man has as clear an idea of the
difference of the length of an hour and a day, as of an inch and a
foot.

§ 2. Expansion not bounded by matter. — The mind, having got
the idea of the length of any part of expansion, let it be a span, or
a pace, or what length you will, can, as has been said, repeat that
idea; and so adding it to the former, enlarge its idea of length,
and make it equal to two spans, or two paces, and so, as often as it
will, till it equals the distance of any parts of the earth one from
another, and increase thus, until it amounts to the distance of the
sun, or remotest star. By such a progression as this, setting out
from the place where it is, or any other place, it can proceed and
pass beyond all those lengths, and find nothing to stop its going on,
either in or without body. It is true, we can easily, in our
thoughts, come to the end of solid extension ; the extremity and
bounds of all body, we have no difficulty to arrive at ; but when the
mind is there, it finds nothing to hinder its progress into this endless
expansion ; of that it can neither find nor conceive any end. Nor
let any one say, that beyond the bounds of body there is nothing at
all, unless he will confine God within the limits of matter. Solomon,
whose understanding was filled and enlarged with wisdom, seems to
have other thoughts, when he says, " Heaven, and the heaven of

122 DURATION AND EXPANSION, book 2.

heavens, cannot contain thee ;" and he, I think, very much magnifies
to himself the capacity of his own understanding, who persuades
himself, that he can extend his thoughts farther than God exists, or
imagine any expansion where he is not.

§ 3. Nor duiatlon bij motion. — Just so it is in duration ; the mind
having got the idea of any length of duration, can double, multiply,
and enlarge it, not only beyond its own, but beyond the existence
of all corporeal beings, ancf all the measures of time taken from the
great bodies of the world, and their motions. But yet every one
easily admits, that though we make duration boundless, as certainly
it is, we cannot yet extend it beyond all being. God, every one
easily allows, fills eternity, and it is hard to find a reason, why any
one should doubt that he likewise fills immensity. His infinite being
is certainly as boundless one way as another; and methinks it
ascribes a little too much to matter, to say, where there is no body,
there is nothing.

§ 4. Why men more easily admit irifinite duration, than infinite
expansion. — Hence, I think, we may learn the reason why every
one familiarly, and without the least hesitation, speaks of, and sup-
poses, eternity, and sticks not to ascribe infinity to duration ; but it
is with more doubting and reserve, that many admit, or suppose,
the infinity of space. The reason whereof seems to me to be this;
that duration and extension being used as names of affections be-
longing to other beings, we easily conceive in God infinite duration,
and we cannot avoid doing so ; but not attributing to him extension,
but only to matter, which is finite, we are apter to doubt of the
existence of expansion without matter, of which alone we commonly
suppose it an attribute. And, therefore, when men pursue their
thoughts of space, they are apt to stop at the confines of body, as if
space were there at an end too, and reached no farther. Or if their
ideas, upon consideration, carry them farther, yet they term what
is beyond the limits of the universe, imaginary space ; as if it were
nothing, because there is no body existing in it. Whereas, duration,
antecedent to all body, and to the motions which it is measured by,
they never term imaginary ; because it is never supposed void of
some other real existence. And if the names of things may at all
direct our thoughts towards the originals of men''s ideas (as I am apt
to think they may very much), one may have occasion to think,
by the name duration, that tne continuation of existence, with a
kind of resistance to any destructive force, and the continuation of
solidity (which is apt to be confounded with, and if we will look
into the minute anatomical parts of matter, is little different from
hardness), were thought to have some analogy, and gave occasion
to words so near of kin, as durare and durum esse. And that durare
is applied to the idea of hardness, as well as that of existence, we
see in Horace, epod. IG.Jerro duravit secida. But be that as it
will, this is ccrtam, that whoever pursues his own thoughts, will find
them sometimes launch out beyond the extent of body, into the

cii. 15. CONSIDERED TOGETHER. 125

infinity of space or expansion ; the idea whereof is distinct and se-
parate from body, and all other things : which may (to those who
please) be a subject of farther meditation.

§ 5. Time to duration, is as place to expansion. — Time in general
is to duration, as place to expansion. They are so much of those
boundless oceans of eternity and immensity, as is set out and dis-
tinguished from the rest, as it were, by land-marks ; and so are made
use of, to denote the position of finite real beings, in respect one to
another, in those uniform infinite oceans of duration and space.
These rightly considered, are only ideas of determinate distances
from certain known points fixed in distinguishable sensible things,
and supposed to keep the same distance one from another. From
such points, fixed in sensible beings, we reckon, and from them we
measure our portions of those infinite quantities ; which so considered,
are that which we call time and place. For duration and space being
in themselves uniform and boundless, the order and position of things,
without such known settled points, would be lost in them ; and all
things would lie jumbled in an incurable confusion.

§ 6. Time and place are tahenjhr so much of either, as are set out
by the existence and motion of bodies. — Time and place taken thus
for determinate distinguishable portions of those infinite abysses of
space and duration, set out or supposed to be distinguished from the
rest by marks and known boundaries, have each of them a twofold
acceptation.

Firsts Time in general is commonly taken for so much of infinite
duration, as is measured by, and co-existent with, the existence and
motions of the great bodies of the universe, as far as we know any
thing of them : and in this sense, time begins and ends with the
frame of this sensible world, as in these phrases before-mentioned,
" before all time," or " when time shall be no more.'" Place likewise is
taken sometimes for that portion of infinite space, which is possessed
by, and comprehended within, the material world ; and is thereby
distinguished from the rest of expansion, though this may more
properly be called extension than place. Within these two are con-
fined, and by the observable parts of them are measured and deter-
mined, the particular time or duration, and the particular extension
and place, of all corporeal beings.

§ 7. Sometimes Jbr so miicli of either, as we design by measures
taken from the bulk or motion of bodies. — Secondly, Sometimes the
word time is used in a larger sense, and is applied to parts of that
infinite duration, not that were really distinguished and measured
out by this real existence, and periodical motions of bodies, that
were appointed from the beginning to be for signs and for seasons,
and for days and years, and are accordingly our measures of time ;
but such other portions too of that infinite uniform duration, which
we, upon any occasion, do suppose equal to certain lengths of mea-
sured time ; and so consider them as bounded and determined. For
if we should suppose the creation, or fall, of the angels, was at the
beginning of the Julian period, we should speak properly enough ;

124 DURATION AND EXPANSION, book 2.

and should be understood, if we said, it is a longer time since the
creation of angels, than the creation of the world, by seven thou-
sand, six hundred, and forty years: whereby we would mark out
so much of that undistinguished duration, as we suppose equal to,
and would have admitted, seven thousand, six hundred, and forty
annual revolutions of the sun, moving at the rate it now does.
And thus likewise we sometimes speak of place, distance, or bulk,
in the great inane beyond the confines of the world, when we con-
sider so much of that space as is equal to, or capable to, receive a
body of any assigned dimensions, as a cubic foot ; or do suppose a
point in it, at such a certain distance from any part of the universe.

§ 8. The?/ belong to all beings, — Where and when are questions
belonging to all finite existences, and are by us always reckoned
from some known parts of this sensible world, and from some cer-
tain epochs marked out to us by the motions observable in it.
Without some such fixed parts or periods, the order of things
would be lost to our finite understandings, in the boundless inva-
riable oceans of duration and expansion ; which comprehend in
them all finite beings, and, in their full extent, belong only to the
Deity. And, therefore, we are not to wonder, that we comprehend
them not, and do so often find our thoughts at a loss, when we
would consider them, either abstractly in themselves, or as any way
attributed to the first incomprehensible being. But when applied
to any particular finite beings, the extension of any body is so much
of that infinite space, as the bulk of the body takes up. And place
is the position of any body, when considered at a certain distance
from some other. As the idea of the particular duration of any
thing, is an idea of that portion of infinite duration, which passes
during the existence of that thing; so the time when the thing ex-
isted, is the idea of that space of duration, which passed between
some known and fixed period of duration, and the being of that
thing. One shows the aistance of the extremities of the bulk, or
existence of the same thing, as that it is a foot square, or lasted two
years ; the other shows the distance of it in place, or existence, from
other fixed points of space or duration ; as that it was in the middle
of Lincoln's Inn Fields, or the first degree of Taurus, and in the
year of our Lord 1671, or the 1000 year of the Julian period : all
which distances we measure by preconceived ideas of certain lengths
of space and duration, as inches, feet, miles, and degrees ; and in the
other, minutes, days, and years.

§ 9. Ml the parts of extension, are extension ,- a7id all the parts
of duration^ are duraticm. — There is one thing more, wherein space
and duration have a great conformity, and that is ; though they are
justly reckoned amongst our simple ideas; yet none of the distinct
ideas we have of either, is without all manner of composition * ;

• It iia« been objected to Mr. Locke, that if space consUts of parts, as it is confessed
in this place, he should not liave reckoned it in the number of sirnjile ideas; because it
Kems to be inconiistent wiih what he says elsewhere, that a simple idea is uncompounded,

CH. 15. CONSIDERED TOGETHER. 1^5

it is the very nature of both of them to consist of parts : but their
parts being all of the same kind, and without the mixture of any
other idea, hinder them not from having a place amongst simple
ideas. Could the mind, as in number, come to so small a part of
extension or duration, as excluded divisibility, that would be, as it
were, the indivisible unit, or idea ; by repetition of which, it would
make its more enlarged ideas of extension and duration. But since
the mind is not able to frame an idea of any space without parts,
instead thereof it makes use of the common measures, which, by
familiar use, in each country, have imprinted themselves on the
memory (as inches and feet ; or cubits and parasangs ; and so se-
conds, minutes, hours, days, and years in duration) : the mind
makes use, I say, of such ideas as these, as simple ones ; and these
are the component parts of larger ideas, which the mind, upon
occasion, makes by the addition of such known lengths, which it is
acquainted with. On the other side, the ordinary smallest measure
we have of either, is looked on as an unit in number, when the
mind, by division, would reduce them into less fractions. Though

and contains in it nothing but one uniform appearance or conception of the mind, and is not
distinguishable into different ideas. It is farther objected, that Mr. Locke has not given in
the eleventh chapter of the second book, where he begins to speak of simple ideas, an
exact definition of what he understands by the word simple ideas. To these difficulties, Mr.
Locke answers thus: To begin with the last, he declares, that he has not treated his
subject in an order p2rfectly scholastic, having not had much familiarity with those sort
of books during the writing of his, and not remembering at all the method in which they
are written; and, therefore, his readers ought not to expect definitions regularly placed at the
beginning of each new subject. Mr. Locke contents himself to employ the principal terms
that he uses, so that from his use of them, the reader may easily comprehend what he means
by them. But with respect to the term simple idea, he has had the good luck to define
that in the place cited in the objection; and, therefore, there is no reason to supply that de-
fect. The question then is to know, whether the idea of extension agrees with this definition?
vyhich will effectually agree to it, if it be understood in the sense which Mr. Locke had prin-
cip;illy in his view: for that composition which he designed to exclude in that definition, was
a composition of different ideas in the mind, and not a composition of the same kind in a
thing whose essence consists in having parts of the same kind, where you can never come to a
part entirely exempted from this composition. So that if the idea of extension consists in
having partes extra partes (as the schools speak), it is always, in the sense of Mr. Locke, a
simple idea ; because the idea of having partes extra partes, cannot be resolved into two other
ideas. For the remainder of the objection made to Mr. Locke, with respect to the nature of
extension, Mr. Locke was aware of it, as may be seen in § 9. chap. 15. of the second book,
where he says, that " the least portion of space or extension, whereof we have a clear and
distinct idea, may perhaps be the fittest to be considered by us as a simple idea of that kind,
out of v/hich our complex modes of space and extension are made up." So that, according
to Mr. Locke, it may very fitly be called a simple idea, since it is the least idea of space that
the mind can form to itself, and that cannot be divided by the mind into any less, whereof it
has in itself any determined perception. From whence it follows, that it is to the mind one
simple idea ; and that is sufficient to take away this objection : for it is not the design of Mr.
Locke, in this place, to discourse of any thing but concerning the idea of the mind. But if
this is not sufficient to clear the difficulty, Mr. Locke hath nothing more to add, but that the
idea of extension is so peculiar, that it cannot exactly agree with the definition that he has given
of those simple ideas, so that it differs in some manner from all others of that kind, he thinks
it is better to leave it there exposed to this difficulty, than to make a new division in his
favour. It is enough for Mr. Locke, that his meaning can be understood. It is very com-
mon to observe intelligible discourses spoiled by too much subtilty in nice divisions. We
ought to put things together as well as we can, doctrinoc causa ; but after all, several
things will not be bundled up together under our terms and ways of speaking.

126 DURATION AND EXPANSION. book 2.

on both sides, both in addition and division, either of space or dura-
tion, when the idea under consideration becomes very big, or very
small, its precise bulk becomes very obscure and confused ; and it
is the number of its repeated additions, or divisions, that alone
remains clear and distinct, as will easily appear to any one, who
will let his thoughts loose in the vast expansion of space, or divi-
sibility of matter. Every part of duration, is duration too; and
every part of extension, is extension, both of them capable of ad-
dition or division in iujimtum. But the least portions of either of
them, whereof we have clear and distinct ideas, may perhaps be fit-
test to be considered by us, as the simple ideas of that kind, out of
which our complex modes of space, extension, and duration, are
made up, and into which they can again be distinctly resolved.
Such a small part of duration, may be called a moment, and is the
time of one idea in our minds, in the train of their ordinary suc-
cession there. The other, wanting a proper name, I know not
whether I may be allowed to call a sensible point, meaning thereby
the least particle of matter or space we can discern, which is or-
dinarily about a minute, and to the sharpest eyes, seldom less than
thirty seconds of a circle, whereof the eye is the centre.

§ 10. Their parts inseparable. — Expansion and duration have
this farther agreement, that though they are both considered by us
as having parts, yet their parts are not separable one from another,
no not even in thought; though the parts of bodies, from whence
we take our measure of the one, and the parts of motion, or rather
a succession of ideas in our minds, from whence we take the mea-
sure of the other, may be interrupted and separated ; as the one is
often by rest, and the other is by sleep, which we call rest too.

§ 11. Duration is as a line, expansion as a solid. — But yet
there is this manifest difference between them, that the ideas of
length, which we have of expansion, are turned every way, and so
make figure, and breadth, and thickness; but duration is but as it
were the length of one straight line, extended in infinitum^ not ca-
pable of multiplicity, variation, or figure ; but is one common mea-
sure of all existence whatsoever, wherein all things, whilst they
exist, equally partake. For this present moment is common to all
things that are now in being, and equally comprehends that part
of their existence, as much as if they were all but one single being ;
and we may truly say, they all exist in the same moment of time.
Whether angels and spirits have any analogy to this, in respect to
expansion, is beyond my comprehension ; and, perhaps, for us,
who have understandings and comprehensions suited to our own
preservation, and the ends of our own being, but not to the reality
and extent of all other beings, it is near as hard to conceive any
existence, or to have an idea of any real being, with a perfect ne-
gation of all manner of expansion ; as it is to have the idea of any
real existence, with a perfect negation of all manner of duration.
And, therefore, what spirits have to do with space, or how they
communicate in it, we know not. All that we know is, that bodies do

I

cii. 16. NUMBER. 127

each singly possess its proper portion of it, according to the extent
of soHd parts ; and thereby exclude all other bodies from having any
share in that particular portion of space, whilst it remains there.

§ 12. Duration has jiever tico parts together, expansion altogether.
— Duration, and time, which is a part of it, is the idea we have of
perishhig distance, of which no two parts exist together, but follow
each other in succession ; as expansion is the idea of lasting dis-
tance, all whose parts exist together, and are not capable of succes-
sion. And, therefore, though we cannot conceive any duration
without succession, nor can put it together in our thoughts, that
any being does now exist to-morrow, or possess at once more than
the present moment of duration ; yet we can conceive the eternal
duration of the Almighty far different from that of man, or any
other finite being. Because man comprehends not in his know-
ledge or power, all past and future things ; his thoughts are but of
yesterday, and he knows not what to-morrow will bring forth.
What is once passed, he can never recal ; and what is yet to come,
he cannot make present. What I say of man, I say of all finite
beings, who, though they may far exceed man in knowledge and!
power, yet are no more than the meanest creature, in comparison
with God himself. Finite, of any magnitude, holds not any pro-
portion to infinite. God's infinite duration being accompanied
with infinite knowledge and infinite power, he sees all things past
and to come ; and they are no more distant from his knowledge,
no farther removed from his sight, than the present; they all lie
under the same view ; and there is nothing which he cannot make
exist each moment he pleases. For the existence of all things de-
pending upon his good pleasure, all things exist every moment
that he thinks fit to have them exist. To conclude: expansion
and duration do mutually embrace and comprehend each other;
every part of space being in every part of duration ; and every part
of duration in every part of expansion. Such a combination of
two distinct ideas, is, I suppose, scarce to be found in all that great
variety we do or can conceive, and may afford matter to farther
speculation.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF NUMBER.

§ 1. Number, the simplest and most universal idea. — Amongst
all the ideas we have, as there is none suggested to the mind by
more ways, so there is none more simple, than that of unity, or
one. It has no shadow of variety or composition in it; every
object our senses are employed about ; every idea in our under-
standings ; every thought of our minds, brings this idea along with
it. And, therefore, it is the most intimate to our thoughts, as
well as it is in its agreement to all other things, the most universal
idea we have. For number applies itself to men, angels, actions,
thoughts, every thing that either doth exist, or can be imagined.

128 NUMBER. book 2.

§ 2. Its modes made by addition. — By repeating this idea in our
minds, and adding the repetitions togetner, we come by the cqm-

}:)lex ideas of the modes of it. Thus by adding one to one, we
lave the complex idea of a couple ; but putting twelve units together,
we have the complex idea of a dozen ; and so of a score, or a mil-
lion, or any other number.

§ 3. Each mode distinct. — The simple modes of numbers are of
air other the most distinct; every the least variation, which is an
imit, making each combination as clearly different from that which
approacheth nearest to it, as the most remote; two being as dis-
tinct from one, as two hundred ; and the idea of two, as distinct
from the idea of three, as the magnitude of the whole earth, is
from that of a mite. This is not so in other simple modes, in
which it is not so easy, nor perhaps possible, for us to distinguish
betwixt two approaching ideas, which yet are really different. For
who will undertake to find a difference between the white of this
paper, and that of the next degree to \t? Or can form distinct
ideas of every the least excess in extension ?

§ 4. Therefore demonstrations in numbers the most precise. —
The clearness and distinctness of each mode of number from all
others, even those that approach nearest, makes me apt to think,
that demonstrations in numbers, if they are not more evident and
exact than in extension, yet they are more general in their use,
and more determinate in their application. Because the ideas
of numbers are more precise and distinguishable than in ex-
tension, where every equality and excess are not so easy to be
observed or measured ; because our thoughts cannot in space
arrive at any determined smallness, beyond which it cannot go,
as an unit ; and, therefore the quantity or proportion of any the
least excess cannot be discovered : which is clear otherwise in
number ; where, as has been said, ninety-one is as distinguishable
from ninety, as from nine thousand, though ninety-one be the next
immediate excess to ninety. But it is not so in extension, where
whatsoever is more than just a foot, or an inch, is not distinguish-
able from the standard of a foot, or an inch ; and in lines, which
appear of an equal length, one may be longer than the other by
innumerable parts ; nor can any one assign an angle, which shall be
the next biggest to a right one.

§ 5. Names necessary to numbers. — By the repeating, as has
been said, of the idea of an unit, and joining it to another unit,
we make thereof one collective idea, marked by the name two.
And whosoever can do this, and proceed on, still adding one more
to the last collective idea which he had of any number, and give a
name to it, may count, or have ideas for, several collections of
units, distinguished one from another, as far as he hath a series of
names for following numbers, and a memory to retain that series,
with their several names ; all numeration being but still the add-
ing of one unit more, and giving to the whole together, as compre-
hended in one idea, a new or distinct name or sign, whereby to

I

CH. IG. NUMBER. 129

know it from those before and after, and distinguish it from every
smaller or greater multitude of units. So that he that can add one
to one, and so to two, and so go on with his tale, taking still with
him the distinct names belonging to every progression ; and so
again, by subtracting an unit from each collection, retreat and lessen
them, is capable of all the ideas of numbers within the compass of
his language, or for which he hath names, though not, perhaps, of
more. For the several simple modes of numbers, being in our minds
but so many combinations of units, which have no variety, nor are
capable of any other difference but more or less, names or marks for
each distinct combination seem more necessary than in any other sort
of ideas. For without such names or marks, we can hardly well
make use of numbers in reckoning, especially where the combination
is made up of any great multitude of units ; which put together
without a name or mark, to distinguish that precise collection, will
hardly be kept from being a heap in confusion.

§ 6. This I think to be the reason why some Americans I have
spoken with (who were otherwise of quick and rational parts enough),
could not, as we do, by any means, count to one thousand ; nor
had any distinct idea of that number, though they could reckon
very well to twenty. Because their language being scanty, and
accommodated only to the few necessaries of a needy simple life,
unacquainted either with trade or mathematics, had no words in it
to stand for one thousand ; so that when they were discoursed with
of those great numbers, they would show the hairs of their head,
to express a great multitude, which they could not number ; which
inability, I suppose, proceeded from their want of names. The
Tououpinambos had no names for numbers above five ; any number
beyond that, they made out by showing their fingers, and the fin-
gers of others who were present. * And I doubt not but we our-
selves might distinctly number in words, a great deal farther than
we usually do, would we find out but some fit denominations to
signify them by ; whereas in the way we take now to name them,
. by millions of millions of millions, &c., it is hard to go beyond
j eighteen, or at most four-and-twenty, decimal progressions, without
I confusion. But to show how much distinct names conduce to our
well reckoning, or having useful ideas of numbers, let us set all
these following figures in one continued line, as the marks of one
; number : v. g.

Nonillions. Octillions. Septillions. Sextillions. Quint'illions.

8573^4. 162486. 345896. 437918. 423147.

QuatrilUons. Trillions. Billions. Millions, Units.

248106. 235421. 261734. 368149. 623137.

The ordinary way of naming this number in English, will be
the often repeating of millions, of millions of millions, of mil-

",* Histoire d'uti Voyage, fait en la terre du Brasil, par Jean de Lery, c. 20.f§J.

K

130 NUMBER. book S.

lions, of millions, of millions, of millions, of millions (which is
the denomination of the second six figures). In which way, it
will be very hard to have any distinguishing notions of this num-
ber : but whether, by giving every six figures a new and orderly
denomination, these, and perhaps a great many more, figures, in
progression, might not easily be counted distinctly, and ideas of
them l)oth got more easily to ourselves, and more plainly signified
to others, I leave it to be considered. This I mention only to show
how necessary distinct names are to numbering, without pretending
to introduce new ones of my invention.

§ 7. fihi/ children mmiber not earlier. — Thus children, either
for want of names to mark the several progressions of numbers, or
not having yet the faculty to collect scattered ideas into complex
ones, and range them in a regular order, and so retain them in their
memories, as is necessary to reckoning, do not begin to number
very early, nor proceed in it very far or steadily, until a good
while after they are well furnished with good store of other ideas ;
and one may often observe them discourse and reason pretty well,
and have very clear conceptions of several other things, before they
can tell twenty. And some, through the default of their memories,
who cannot retain the several combinations of numbers, with
their names annexed in their distinct orders, and the dependence
of so long a train of numeral progressions, and their relation
to one another, are not able, all their life-time, to reckon, or
regularly go over, any moderate series of numbers. For he that
will count twenty, or have any idea of that number, must know,
that nineteen went before, with the distinct name or sign of every
one of them, as they stand marked in their order ; for wherever
this fails, a gap is made, the chain breaks, and the progress in num-
bering can go no farther. So that to reckon right, it is required,
1, That the mind distinguishes carefully two ideas, which are
different one from another, only by the addition or subtraction of
one unit. 2, That it retain in memory the names or marks of the
several combinations from an unit to that number; and that not
confusedly, and at random, but in that exact order, that the num-
bers follow one another ; in either of which, if it trips, the whole
business of numbering will be disturbed, and there will remain only
the confused idea of multitude ; but the ideas necessary to disti
numeration will not be attained to.

rv-j

§ 8. Number measures all measurahlcs. — This farther is observ-
able in number, that it is that which the mind makes use of in
measuring all things that by us are measurable, which principally
are expansion and duration ; and our idea of infinity, even when
applied to those, seems to be nothing but the infinity of number.
For what else are our ideas of eternity and immensity, but the
repeated additions of certain ideas of imagined parts of duration
and expansion, with the infinity of number, in which we can come
to no end of addition ? For such an inexhaustible stock, numbti
(of all other ideas) most clearly furnishes us with, as is obvious to

en. 17. INFINITY. 131

every one. For let a man collect into one sum, as great a number
as he pleases, this multitude, how great soever, lessens not one jot
tlie power of adding to it, or brings him any nearer the end of the
inexhaustible stock of number, where still there remains as much
to be added, as if none were taken out. And this endless addition,
or addibility (if any one like the word better) of numbers, so
apparent to the mind, is that, I think, which gives us the clearest
and most distinct idea of infinity : of which, more in the follow-
ing chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF INFINITY.

§ 1 . Injintty^ in its original iiitention, attributed to space, duration,
and number, — He that would know what kind of idea it is to which
we give the name of infinity, cannot do it better than by considering
to what infinity is by the mind more immediately attributed, and
thenipw the mind comes to frame it.

Finh^ and infinite, seem to me to be looked upon by the mind,
as the modes of quantity ; and to be attributed primarily, in their
first designation, only to those things which have parts, and are
capable of increase or diminution, by the addition or subtraction
of any the least part ; and such are the ideas of space, duration,
and number, which we have considered in the foregoing chapters.
It is true, that we cannot but be assured, that the great God, of
whom, and from whom, are all things, is incomprehensibly infinite.
But yet, when we apply to that first and supreme Being, our idea
of infinite, in our weak and narrow thoughts, we do it primarily in
respect to his duration and ubiquity ; and, I think, more figuratively
to his power, wisdom, and goodness, and other attributes, which
are properly inexhaustible and incomprehensible, &c. For when
we call them infinite, we have no other idea of this infinity, but what
carries with it some reflection on, and intimation of, that number
or extent of the acts or objects of God's power, wisdom, and good-
ness, which can never be supposed so great, or so many, which
these attributes will not always surmount and exceed, let us mul-
tiply them in our thoughts as far as we can, with all the infinity of
endless number. I do not pretend to say how these attributes are
in God, who is infinitely beyond the reach of our narrow capacities :
they do, without doubt, contain in them all possible perfection : but
this, I say, is our way of conceiving them, and these our ideas of
their infinity.

§ 2. The idea of finite easily found. — Finite, then, and infinite,
being by the mind looked on as modifications of expansion and
duration, the next thing to be considered, is, how the mind comes
by them. As for the idea of finite, there is no great difficulty.

132 INFINITY. BOOK 2.

The obvious portions of extension that affect our senses, carry with
them into the mind the idea of finite: and the ordinary periods of
succession, whereby we measure time and duration, as hours, days,
and years, are bounded lengths. The difficulty is, how we come
by those boundless ideas of eternity and immensity, since the objects
we converse with comes so much short of any approach or propor-
tion to that largeness.

§ 3. How we come hy the idea of iiijimty. — Every one that has
any idea of any stated lengths of space, as a foot, finds that he can
repeat the idea ; and joining it to the former, make the idea of two
feet ; and by the addition of a third, three feet ; and so on, without
ever coming to an end of his addition, whether of the same idea of
a foot, or if he pleases of doubling it, or any other idea he has of
any length, as a mile, or diameter of the earth, or of the orhis ma^~
nus ; for whichsoever of these he takes, and how often soever he
doubles, or any otherwise multiplies it, he finds, that after he has
continued this doubling in his thoughts, aud enlarged his idea as
much as he pleases, he has no more reason to stop, nor is one jot
nearer the end of such addition, than he was at first setting out ; the
power of enlarging his idea of space by farther additions, remaining
still the same, he hence takes the idea of infinite space.

§ 4. Our idea of space, boundless. — This, I think, is the way
whereby the mind gets the idea of infinite space. It is a quite dif-
ferent consideration to examine, whether the mind has the idea of
such a boundless space actually existing, since our ideas are not
always proof of the existence of things ; but yet, since this comes
here in our way, I suppose I may say, that we are apt to think that
space in itself is actually boundless ; to which imagination, the idea
of space or expansion of itself naturally leads us. For it being
considered by us either as the extension of body, or as existing by
itself, without any solid matter taking it up (for of such a void space
we have not only the idea, but I have proved, as I think, from the
motion of body, its necessary existence), it is impossible the mind
should be ever able to find or suppose any end of it, or be stopped
any where in its progress in this space, now far soever it extends
its thoughts. Any bounds made with body, even adamantine walh
are so far from putting a stop to the mind in its farther progress i^
space and extension, that it *rather facilitates than enlarges it ; fo!
so far as that body reaches, so far no one can doubt of extensions
and when we are come to the utmost extremity of body, what
there that can there put a stop, and satisfy the mind that it is al
the end of space, when it perceives it is not; nay, when it is satij
fied that Ixxlv itself can move into it.? For if it be necessary foJ
the motion of the body that there should be an empty space, though
ever so little, here amongst bodies; and it be possible for body
to move in or through that empty space ; nay, it is impossible for
any particle of matter to move but into an empty space ; the same
Dossibility of a Uxly's moving into a void space, beyond the utmost
bounds of body, as well as into a void space interspersed amongst

CH. 17. infinity; ii3sr

bodies, will always remain clear and evident, the idea of empty
pure space, whether within, or beyond the confines of all bodies,
being exactly the same, differing not in nature, though in bulk ;
and there being nothing to hinder body from moving into it. So
that wherever the mind places itself by any thought, either amongst,
or remote from all bodies, it can, in this uniform idea of space, no
where find any bounds, any end ; and so must necessarily conclude
it, by the very nature and idea of each part of it, to be actually
infinite.

§ 5. And so of duration. — As by the power we find in ourselves
of repeating, as often as we will, any idea of space, we get the idea
of immensity ; so, by being able to repeat the idea of any length of
duration we have in our minds, with all the endless addition of num-
ber, we come by the idea of eternity. For we find in ourselves, we
can no more come to the end of such repeated ideas, than we can
come to the end of number, which every one perceives, he cannot.
But here again it is another question, quite different from our having
an idea of eternity, to know whether there were any real being,
whose duration has been eternal. And as to this, I say, he that con-
siders something now existing, must necessarily come to sometliing
eternal. But having spoke of this in another place, I shall here say
no more of it, but proceed on to some other considerations of our
idea of infinity.

§ 6. W7w/ other ideas are not capable of injinity. — If it be so,
that our idea of infinity be got from the power we observe in our-
selves, of repeating without end our own ideas, it may be demanded,
" Why we do not attribute infinity to other ideas, as well as those
of space and duration ; since they may be as easily, and as often,
repeated in our minds as the other ; and yet nobody ever thinks of
infinite sweetness or infinite whiteness, though he can repeat the
idea of sweet or white, as frequently as those of a yard or a day .?"
To which I answer, all the ideas that are considered as having
parts, and are capable of increase by the addition of any equal or
less parts, afford us, by their repetition, the idea of infinity ; be-
cause, with this endless repetition, there is continued an enlarge-
ment, of which there can be no end. But in other ideas it is not
so ; for to the largest idea of extension or duration, that I at present
have, the addition of any of the least part, makes an increase ; but
to the perfectest idea I have of the whitest whiteness, if I add another
of a less or equal whiteness (and of a whiter than I have, I cannot
add the idea), it makes no increase, and enlarges not my idea at all ;
and, therefore, the different ideas of whiteness, &c., are called de-
grees. For those ideas that consist of parts, are capable of being
augmented by every addition of the least part ; but if you take the
idea of white, which one parcel of snow yielded yesterday to youi
sight, and another idea of white, from another parcel of snow you
see to day, and put them together in your mind, they embody, as it
were, and run into one, and the idea of whiteness is not at all in-
creased ; and if wc add a less degree of whiteness to a greater.

134 INFINITY. book 2.

we are so far from increasing, that we diminisli it. Those ideas
that consist not of parts cannot be augmented to what proportion
men please, or be stretched beyond what the^^ have received by their
senses ; but space, duration, and number, being capable of increase
by rejKjtition, leave in the mind an idea of an endless room for more ;
nor can we conceive any where a stop to a farther addition or pro-
gression, and so those ideas alone lead our minds towards the
thought of infinity.

8 7. Difference between infinitif of space, and space infinite, —
Though our idea of infinity arise from the contemplation of quan-
tity, and the endless increase the mind is able to make in quantity,
by the repeated additions of what portions thereof it pleases ; yet
I guess we cause great confusion in our thoughts, when we join
infinity to any supposed idea of quantity the mind can be thought
to have, and so discourse or reason about an infinite quantity, viz.,
an infinite space, or an infinite duration. For our idea of mfinity
being, as I think, an endless growing idea, by the idea of any quan-
tity the mind has, being at that time terminated in that idea (for
be it as great as it will, it can be no greater than it is), to join infi-
nity to it, is to adjust a standing measure to a growing bulk ; and,
therefore, I think it is not an insignificant subtilty, if I say, that we
are carefully to distinguish between the idea of the infinity of space,
and the idea of a space infinite. The first is nothing but a supposed
endless progression of the mind, over what repeated ideas of space it
pleases ; but to have actually in the mind the idea of a space in-
finite, is to suppose the mind already passed over, and actually to
have a view of all those repeated ideas of space which an end.less
repetition can never totally represent to it ; which carries in it a
plain contradiction.

§ 8. We have no idea of infinite space, — This perhaps will be a
little plainer if we consider it in numbers. The infinity of numbers,
to the end of whose addition every one perceives there is no ap-
proach, easily appears to any one that reflects on it ; but how
clear soever this idea of the infinity of number be, there is nothing
yet more evident, than the absurdity of the actual idea of an infinite
number. Whatsoever positive ideas we have in our minds of any
space, duration, or number, let them be ever so great, they are
still finite; but when we suppose an inexhaustible remainder, from
which we remove all bounds, and wherein we allow the mind anl
endless progression of thought, without ever completing the idea,!
there we have our idea of infinity ; which though it seems to bej
pretty clear, when we consider nothing else in it but the negation oi
an end, yet when we would frame in our minds the idea of an infi-
nite space or duration, that idea is very obscure and confused, be
cause it is made up of two parts, very different, if not inconsistent.
For let a man frame in his mind an idea of any space or number,
as grout as he will ; it is plain, the mind rests and terminates in that
idea, which is contrary to the idea of infinity, which consists in a
supposed Endless progression. And, therefore, I think it is, that

CH. 17. INFINITY. 135

we are so easily confounded, when we come to argue and reason
about infinite space or duration, &c. : because the parts of such an
idea, not being perceived to be, as they are inconsistent, the one
side or other always perplexes, whatever consequences we draw
from the other, as an idea of motion not passing on, would perplex
any one who should argue from such an idea, which is not better
than an idea of motion at rest ; and such another seems to me to be
the idea of a space, or (which is the same thing) a number infinite,
i. e. of a space or number, which the mind actually has, and so
views and terminates in ; and of a space or number, which in a con-
stant and endless enlarging and progression, it can in thought never
attain to. For how large soever an idea of space I have in my mind,
it is no larger than it is that instant that I have it, though I be ca-
pable, the next instant, to double it ; and so on in injinitum ; for that
alone is infinite, which has no bounds ; and that the idea of infinity,
in which our thoughts can find none.

§ 9. Number affords us the clearest idea of infinity. — But of all
other ideas it is number, as I have said, which, I think, furnishes
us with the clearest and most distinct idea of infinity we are capa-
ble of. For even in space and duration, when the mind pursues the
idea of infinity, it there makes use of the ideas and repetitions of
numbers, as of millions and millions of miles, or years, which are so
many distinct ideas kept best by number from running into a con-
fused heap, wherein the mind loses itself; and when it has added
together as many millions, &c. as it pleases, of known lengths of
space or duration, the clearest idea it can get of infinity, is the con-
fused incomprehensible remainder of endless addible numbers,
which affords no prospect of stop or boundary.

§ 10. Our different conception of the itifiniti/ of number, dura-
iiony and expansion. — It will, perhaps, give us a little farther light
into the idea we have of infinity, and discover to us, that it is no-
thing but the infinity of number applied to determinate parts, of
which we have in our minds the distinct ideas, if we consider that
number is not generally thought by us infinite, whereas duration
and extension are apt to be so ; which arises from hence, that in
number we are at one end as it were; for their being in number
nothing less than an unit, we there stop, and are at an end ; but in
addition, or increase of number, we can set no bounds ; and so it is
like a line, whereof one end terminating with us, the other is ex-
tended still forwards, beyond all that we can conceive ; but in space
and duration it is otherwise. For in duration, we consider it as if
this line of number were extended both ways to an unconceivable,
undeterminate, and infinite length ; which is evident to any one that
will but reflect on what consideration he hath of eternity ; which, I
suppose, he will find to be nothing else but the turning this infinity
of number both ways, a parte ante^ and a parte post^ as they speak.
For when we would consider eternity a parte ante^ what do we but,
beginning from ourselves, and the present time we arc in, repeat in
our minds the ideas of years, or ages, or any other assignable por-

136 INFINITY. book 2.

tion of duration past, with a prospect of proceeding, in Buch addi-
tion, with all the infinity of number ? and when we would consider
eternity, h parte post, we iust after the same rate begin from our-
selves, and reckon by mult'iplied periods yet to come, still extending
that line of number as before : and these two being put together,
are that infinite duration we call eternity ; which, as we turn our
view either way, forwards or backwards, appears infinite, because we
still turn that way the infinite end of number, i. e. the power still of
adding more.

§ 11. The same happens also in space, wherein conceiving our-
selves to be as it were in the centre, we do on all sides pursue those
indeterminable lines of number ; and reckoning any way from our-
selves, a yard, mile, diameter of the earth, or orbh magmis, by the
infinity of number, we add others to them as often we will ; and
having no more reason to set bounds to those repeated ideas, than
we have to set bounds to number, we have that indeterminable idea
of immensity.

§ 12. hifimte divisihiUty, — And since, in any bulk of matter,
our thoughts can never arrive at the utmost divisibility, therefore
there is an apparent infinity to us also in that, which has the in-
finity also of number ; but with this difference, that in the former
considerations of the infinity of space and duration, we only use
addition of numbers ; whereas this is like the division of an unit
into its fractions, wherein the mind also can proceed in itijinitum,
as well as in the former additions, it being indeed but the addition
still of new numbers : though, in the addition of the one, we can
have no more the positive idea of a space infinitely great ; than in
the division of the other, we can have the idea of a body infinitely
little ; our idea of infinity being, as I may say, a growing or
fugitive idea, still in a boundless progression, that can stop no
where.

§ 13. No positive idea of infinite/. — Though it be hard, I think,
to find any one so absurd as to say, he has the positive idea of an
actual infinite number ; the infinity whereof lies only in a power
still of adding any combination of units to any former number, and
that as long, and as much, as one will ; the like also being in the
infinity of space and duration, which power leaves always to the
mind room for endless additions ; yet there be those who imagine
they have positive ideas of infinite duration and space. It would, I
think, be enough to destroy any such positive idea of infinite, to
ask him that has it, whether he could add to it or no ; which would
easily show the mistake of such a positive idea. We can, I think,
have no positive idea of any space or duration, which is not made
up of, and commensurate to, repeated numbers of feet or yards, or
days and ^ears, which are the connnon measures whereof we have
the ideas m our minds, and whereby we judge of the greatness of
this sort of quantities. And, therefore, since an idea of infinite
Bpaceor duration must needs be made up of infinite parts, it can have
no other infinity than that of number, capable still of farther addi-

CH. 17. INFINITY. 137

tion ; but not an actual positive idea of a number infinite. For, I
think, it is evident, that the addition of finite things together (as are
all lengtlis, whereof we have the positive ideas), can never otherwise
produce the idea of infinity, than as number does; which consisting
of additions of infinite units one to another, suggests the idea of in-
finite, only by a power we find we have of still increasing the sum,
and adding more of the same kind, without coming one jot nearer
the end of such progression.

§ 14. They who would prove their idea of infinite to be positive,
seem to me to do it by a pleasant argument, taken from the nega-
tion of an end, which being negative, the negation of it is positive.
He that considers that the end is, in body, but the extremity or
superficies of that body, will not, perhaps, be forward to grant,
that the end is a bare negative : and he that perceives the end of
his pen is black or white, will be apt to think, that the end is some-
thing more than a pure negation. Nor is it, when applied to
duration, the bare negation of existence, but more properly the last
moment of it. But if they will have the end to be nothing but the
bare negation of existence, I am sure they cannot deny but the be-
ginning is the first instant of being, and is not by any body con-
ceived to be a bare negation ; and, therefore, by their own argument,
the idea of eternal, a parte ante^ or of a duration without a beginning,
is but a negative idea.

§ 15. What is positive^ what negative, in our idea of infinite, —
The idea of infinite has, I confess, something of positive in all those
things we apply to it. When we would think of infinite space or
duration, we, at first step, usually make some very large idea, as,
perhaps, of millions of ages or miles, which possibly we double
and multiply several times. All that we thus amass together in our
thoughts, is positive, and the assemblage of a great number of po-
sitive ideas of space or duration. But what still remains beyond
this, we have no more a positive distinct notion of, than a ma-
riner has of the depth of the sea, where having let down a large
portion of his sounding-line, he reaches no bottom: whereby he
knows the depth to be so many fathoms and more ; but how much
that more is, he hath no distinct notion at all : and could he always
supply new line, and find the plummet always sink, without ever
stopping, he would be something in the posture of the mind
reaching after a complete and positive idea of infinity. In which
case, let this line be ten, or ten thousand, fathoms long, it equally
discovers what is beyond it ; and gives only this confused and com-
parative idea, that this is not all, but one may yet go farther. So
much as the mind comprehends of any space, it has a positive idea
of: but in endeavouring to make it infinite, it being always en-
larging, always advancing, the idea is still imperfect and incomplete.
So much space as the mind takes a view of in its contemplation of
greatness, is a clear picture, and positive in the understanding:
but infinite is still greater. 1. Then the idea of so much, is posi-
tive and clear. 2. The idea of greater, is also clear, but it is but

138 INFINITY. book 2.

a comparative idea, viz.^the idea of so much greater as cannot be
comprehended ; and this is plainly negative, not positive. For lie
has no positive clear idea of the largeness of any extension (which
is that sought for in the idea of infinite), that has not a comprehen-
sive idea of the dimensions of it ; and such, nobody, I think, pre-
tends to in what is infinite. For to say a man has a positive clear
idea of any quantity, without knowing how great it is, is as rea-
sonable as to say, he has the positive clear idea of the number of
the sands on the sea-shore, who knows not how many there be;
but only that they are more than twenty. For just such a perfect
and positive idea has he of an infinite space or duration, who says,
it is larger than the extent or duration of ten, one hundred, one
thousand, or any other number of miles or years, whereof he has,
or can have, a positive idea ; which is all the idea, I think, we have
of infinite. So that what lies beyond our positive idea towards in-
finity, lies in obscurity ; and has the indeterminate confusion of a
negative idea, wherein I know I neither do nor can comprehend all
I would, it being too large for a finite and narrow capacity : and
that cannot but be very far from a positive complete idea, wherein
the greatest part of what I would comprehend, is left out, under
the indeterminate intimation of being still greater. For to say, that
having in any quantity measured so much, or gone so far, you are
not yet at the end, is only to say, that that quantity is greater. So
that the negation of an end, in any quantity, is, in other words,
only to say, that it is bigger : and a total negation of an end, is
but carrying this bigger still with you, in all the progressions your
thoughts shall make in quantity; and adding tnis idea of still
greater, to all the ideas you have, or can be supposed to have, of
quantity. Now, whether such an idea as that be positive, I leave
any one to consider.

§ 16. fVe have no positive idea of an infinite duration, —
I ask those who say they have a positive idea of eteniity,
whether their idea of duration includes in it succession or not?
If it does not, they ought to show the difference of their notion
of duration, when applied to an eternal being, and to a finite:
since, perhaps, there may be others, as well as I, who will own
to them their weakness of understanding in this point; and ac-
knowledjje that the notion they have of duration, forces them
to conceive, that whatever has duration, is of a longer conti-
nuance to-day than it was yesterday. If to avoid succession in
external existence, they recur to the punctum stans of the schools,
I suppose they will thereby very little mend the matter, or help
us to a more clear and positive idea of infinite duration, there
being nothing more inconceivable to me, than duration without
succession. Besides, that punctum stans, if it signify any thing,
Ix'ing non quantum, finite or infinite, cannot belong to it. But
if our weak apprehensions cannot separate succession from any
duration whatsoever, our idea of eternity can be nothing but of
infinite succession of moments of duration, wherein any thing

CH. 17. INFINITY. 139

does exist ; and whether any one has, or can have, a positive
idea of an actual infinite number, I leave him to consider, till
his infinite number be so great, that he himseli' can add no more
to it; and as long as he can increase it, I doubt he himself will
think the idea he hath of it, a little too scanty for positive
infinity,

§ 17. I think it unavoidable for every considering rational
creature, that will but examine his own, or any other, existence,
to have the notion of an eternal wise Being, who had no beginning :
and such an idea of infinite duration, I am sure I have. But
this negation of a beginning, being but the negation of a posi-
tive thing, scarce gives me a positive idea of infinity; which
whenever I endeavour to extend my thoughts to, I confess my-
self at a loss, and I find I cannot attain any clear comprehension
of it.

§ 18. No positive idea of infinite space. — He that thinks he
has a positive idea of infinite space, will, when he considers it,
find that he can no more have a positive idea of the greatest,
than he has of the least, space: for in this latter, which seems
the easier of the two, and more within our comprehension, we
are capable only of a comparative idea of smallness, which will
always be less than any one, whereof we have the positive idea.
All our positive ideas of any quantity, whether great or little,
have always bounds ; though our comparative idea, whereby
we can always add to the one, and take from the other, hath
no bounds. For that which remains either great or little, not
being comprehended in that positive idea which we have, lies in
obscurity ; and we have no other idea of it, but of the power
of enlarging the one, and diminishing the other, without ceasing.
A pestle and mortar will as soon bring any particle of matter to
indivisibility, as the acutest thought of a mathematician ; and
a surveyor may as soon, with his chain, measure out infinite space,
as a philosopher, by the quickest flight of mind, reach it ; or by
thinking, comprehend it; which is to have a positive idea of it.
He that thinks on a cube of an inch diameter, has a clear and
positive idea of it in his mind, and so can frame one of a i Jr \y
and so on, until he has the ideas in his thoughts of something
very little; but yet reaches not the idea of that incomprehen-
sible littleness which division can produce. What remains of
smallness, is as far from his thoughts, as when he first began ;
and, therefore, he never comes at all to have a clear and po-
sitive idea of that smallness which is consequent to infinite di-
visibility.

§ 19. What is positive^ what negative, in our idea of infinite, —
Every one that looks towards infinity, does, as I have said, at
first glance, make some very large idea of that which he applies
it to, let it be space or duration; and possibly he wearies his
thoughts, by multiplying in his mind that first large idea; but
yet by that he comes no nearer to the having a positive clear idea

140 INFINITY. BOOK 2.

of what remains to make up a positive infinite, than the country-
fellow had of the water, which was yet to come, and pass the
channel of the river where he stood :

*' Rusticus expecat dum transeat amnis, at ille
Labiiur, et labeiur in omne volubilis avuin."

^ 20. Some think they have a positive idea of eternity^ and not
of infinite space. — There are some I have met with, that put so
much difference between infinite duration, and infinite space, that
they persuade themselves, that they have a positive idea of eternity ;
but that they have not, nor can have, any idea of infinite space.
The reason of which mistake, I suppose to be this : that finding
by a due contemplation of causes and effects, that it is necessary
to admit some eternal being, and so to consider the real existence
of that being, as taken up, and commensurate to, their idea of
eternity ; but on the other side, not finding it necessary, but, on
the contrary, apparently absurd, that body should be infinite,
they forwardly conclude, that they have no idea of infinite space,
because they can have no idea of infinite matter. Which conse-
quence, I conceive, is very ill collected ; because the existence
of matter is no ways necessary to the existence of space, no
more than the existence of motion, or the sun, is necessary to
duration, though duration uses to be measured by it : and I doubt
not but that a man may have the idea of 10,000 miles square,
without any body so big, as well as the idea of 10,000 years,
without any body so old. It seems as easy to me to have the
idea of space empty of body? as to think of the capacity of a
bushel without corn, or the hollow of a nutshell without a kernel
in it : it being no more necessary that there should be existing a
solid body infinitely extended, because we have an idea of the
infinity of space, than it is necessary that the world should be
eternal, because we have an idea of infinite duration. And why
should we think our idea of infinite space requires the real
existence of matter to support it, when we find, that we have as
clear an idea of an infinite duration to come, as we have of infi-
nite duration past.'' Though, I suppose, nobody thinks it con-
ceivable, that any thing does, or has existed in that future dura-
tion. Nor is it possible to join our idea of future duration with
present or past existence, any more than it is possible to make the
ideas of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, to be the same; or
bring ages past and future together, and make them contem-
porary. But if these men are of the mind that they have
clearer ideas of infinite duration, than of infinite space, because
it is past doubt, that God has existed from all eternity, but there
is no real matter co-extended with infinite space; yet those phi-
Josonhers who are of opinion, that infinite space is possessed hy
Goa"*s infinite omnipresence, as well as infinite duration, by his
eternal cxibtcncc, must be allowed to have as clear an idea of in

I

CH. 17. INFINITY. 141

finite Bpace, as of infinite duration ; though neither of them, I think,
has any positive idea of infinity in either case : for whatsoever po-
sitive idea a man has in his mind of any quantity, he can repeat it,
and add it to tlie former, as easy as he can add together the ideas of
two days or two paces, which are positive ideas of lengths he has in
his mind, and so on, as long as he pleases : whereby, if a man had a
positive idea of infinite, either duration or space, he could add two
infinites together ; nay, make one infinite infinitely bigger than an-
other : absurdities too gross to be confuted.

§ 21. Supposed positive ideas of infinity^ cause of mistaJces.
— But yet, if after all this, there be men who persuade themselves
that they have clear positive comprehensive ideas of infinity, it is fit
they enjoy their privilege: and I should be very glad (with some
others that I know, who acknowledge they have none such) to be
better informed by their communication. For I have been hitherto
apt to think, that the great and inextricable difficulties which per-
petually involve all discourses concerning infinity, whether of space,
duration, or divisibility, have been the certain marks of a defect in
our ideas of infinity, and the disproportion the nature thereof has to
the comprehension of our narrow capacities. For whilst men talk
and dispute of infinite space or duration, as if they had as complete
and positive ideas of them as they have of the names they use for
them, or as they have of a yard or an hour, or any other determinate
quantity, it is no wonder if the incomprehensible nature of the thing
they discourse of, or reason about, leads them into perplexities and
contradictions ; and their minds be overlaid by an object too large
and mighty to be surveyed and managed by them.

§ 22. A/ 1 these ideas from sensation and refection. — If I have
dwelt pretty long on the consideration of duration, space, and
number ; and what arises from the contemplation of them, infinity ;
it is possibly no more than the matter requires, there being few
simple ideas, whose modes give more exercise to the thoughts of
men than these do. I pretend not to treat of them in their full lati-
tude : it suffices to my design, to show how the mind receives them,
such as they are, from sensation and reflection ; and how even the
idea we have of infinity, how remote soever it may seem to be from
any object of sense, or operation of our mind, has nevertheless, as all
our other ideas, its original there. Some mathematicians, perhaps,
of advanced speculations, may have other ways to introduce into
their minds ideas of infinity : but this hinders not, but that they
themselves, as well as all other men, got the first ideas which they
had of infinity, from sensation and reflection, in the method we have
here set down.

U2 OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES. book 2.

CHAPTER XVni.

OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES.

§ 1. Modes of motion. — Though I have, in the foregoing chap-
ters, shown how from simple ideas taken in by sensation, the mind
comes to extend itself even to infinity ; which, however, it may,
of all others, seem most remote from any sensible perception,
yet at last hath nothing in it, but what is made out of simple
ideas, received into the mind by the senses, and afterwards there
put together by. the faculty the mind has to repeat its own ideas:
though, I say, these might be instances enough of simple modes
of the simple ideas of sensation, and suffice to show how the mind
comes by them : yet I shall, for method''s sake, though briefly, give
an account of some \few more, and then proceed to more complex
ideas.

§ 2. To slide, roll, tumble, walk, creep, run, dance, leap,
skip, and abundance of others that might be named, are words
which are no sooner heard, but every one who understands
English, has presently in his mind distinct ideas, which are all
but the different modifications of motion. Modes of motion answer
those of extension : swift and slow, are two different ideas of motion,
the measures whereof are made of the distances of time and space
put together; so they are complex ideas comprehending time and
space with motion.

§ 3. Modes of sounds. — The like variety have we in sounds.
Every articulate word is a different modification of sound : by
which we see, that from the sense of hearing by such modifications,
the mind may be furnished with distinct ideas, to almost an infinite
number. Sounds also, besides the distinct cries of birds and beasts,
are modified by diversity of notes of diff*erent length put together,
which make that complex idea called a tune, whicn a musician may
have in his mind, when he hears or makes no sounds at all, by
reflecting on the ideas of those sounds, so put together, silently in his
own fancy.

§ 4. Modes of colours, — Those of colours are also very various :
some we take notice of as the different degrees, or as they are
termed, shades of the same colour. But since we very seldom make]
assemblages of colours, either for use or delight, but figure is taken^
in also, and has its part in it, as in painting, weaving, needle-works,
&c., those which are taken notice of, do most commonly belong toi
mixed modes, as l)eing made up of ideas of divers kinds, viz., figure]
and colour, such as beauty, rainbow, &c.

§ 5. Modes of taste. — All compounded tastes and smells, arej
also modes made up of the simple ideas of those senses. But

i>

CH. 18. OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES. 143

they being such as generally we have no names for, are less taken
notice of, and cannot be set down in writing ; and therefore, must
be left without enumeration, to the thoughts and experience of my
reader.

§ 6. Some simple modes have no names, — In general it may be
observed, that those simple modes which are considered but as
different degrees of the same simple idea, though they are in
themselves many of them very distinct ideas ; yet have ordinarily
no distinct names, nor are much taken notice of, as distinct ideas,
where the difference is but very small between them. Whether
men have neglected these modes, and given no names to them, as
wanting measures nicely to distinguish them ; or because when they
were so distinguished, that knowledge would not be of general or
necessary use, I leave it to the thoughts of others ; it is sufficient
to my purpose to show, that all our simple ideas come to our
minds only by sensation and reflection ; and that when the mind
has them, it can variously repeat and compound them, and so
make new complex ideas. But though white, red, or sweet, &c.,
have not been modified, or made into complex idea's, by several
combinations, so as to be named, and thereby ranked into species ;
yet some others of the simple ideas, viz. those of unity, duration,
motion, &c. above instanced in, as also power and thinking, have
been thus modified to a great variety of complex ideas, with names
belonging to them.

§ 7. f'Vhy some modes have^ and others have not, names. — The
reason whereof, I suppose, has been this, that the great concern-
ment of men being with men one amongst another, the knowledge
of men and their actions, and the signifying of them to one
another, was most necessary ; and, therefore, they made ideas of
actions very nicely modified, and gave those complex ideas
names, that they might the more easily record and discourse of
those things they were daily conversant in, without long ambages
and circumlocutions ; and that the things they were continually
to give and receive information about, might be the easier and
quicker understood. That this is so, and that men in framing
different complex ideas, and giving them names, have been much
governed by the end of speech in general, (which is a very short
and expedite way of conveying their thoughts one to another) is
evident in the names, which in several arts have been found out,
and applied to several complex ideas of modified actions, belonging
to their several trades, for despatch sake, in their direction or dis-
courses about them. Which ideas are not generally framed in
the minds of men not conversant about these operations. And
thence the words that stand for them, by the greatest part of men
of the same language, are not understood : v. g. colshire, drilling,
filtration, cohobation, are words standing for certain complex
ideas, which being seldom in the minds of any but those few, whose
particular employments do at every turn suggest them to their
thoughts, those names of them are not generally understood but by

144 OF THE MODES OF THINKING. book 2.

smiths and chymists, who having framed the complex ideas which
tliese words stand for, and Iiaving given names to them, or received
them from others, upon hearing of these names in communication,
readily conceive those ideas in their minds; as by cohobation. all
the simple ideas of distilling, and the pouring the liquor distilled
from any thing, back upon the remaining matter, and distilling it
again. Thus we see, that there are great varieties of simple ideas, ,
as of tastes and smells, which have no names, and of modes many
more : which either not having been generally enough observed, or
else not being of any great use to be taken notice of, in the affairs
and converse of men, they have not had names given to them, and
so pass not for species. This we shall have occasion hereafter to
consider more at large, when we come to speak of words.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF THE MODES OF THINKING.

§ 1. Sensation, remembrance, contemplation, <SfC. — When the
mind turns its view inwards upon itself, and contemplates its own
actions, thinking is the first that occurs. In it the mind observes a
great variety of modifications, and from thence receives distinct
ideas. Thus the perception which actually accompanies, and is an-
nexed to, any impression on the body, made by an external object,
being distinct from all other modifications of thmking, furnishes the
mind with a distinct idea, which we call sensation ; which is, as it
were, the actual entrance of any idea into the understanding by the
senses. The same idea, when it again recurs without the operation
of the like object on the external sensory, is remembrance ; if it be
sought after by the mind, and with pain and endeavour found, and
brought again in view, it is recollection : if it be held there long,
under attentive consideration, it is contemplation : when ideas float
in our mind, without any reflection or regard of the understanding,
it is that which the French call reverie,- our language has scarce a
name for it. When the ideas that offer themselves (for, as I have
observed in another place, whilst we are awake, there will always be
a train of ideas succeeding one another in our minds), are taken
notice of, and, as it were, registered in the memory, it is attention :
when the mind, with great earnestness, and of great choice, fixes its
view on any idea, considers it on all sides, and will not be called off
by the ordmary solicitation of other ideas, it is that we call intention,
or study; sleep, without dreaming, is rest from all these; and
dreaming itself, is the having of ideas (whilst the outward senses are
stopped, so that they receive not outward objects with their usual
quicKness) in the mind, not suggested by any external objects, or
known occasion, nor under any choice or conduct of the under-
standing at all ; and whether that, which we call ecstacy, be not
dreaming with the eyes open, I leave to be examined.

CH. 19. . OF THE MODES OF THINKING. 145

§ 2. These are some few instances of those various modes of
thinking, which the mind may observe in itseif, and so have as di-
stinct ideas of, as it hath of white and red, a square or a circle. I
do not pretend to enumerate them all, nor to treat at large of this
set of ideas, which are got from reflection : that would be to make
a volume. It suffices to my present purpose, to have shown here,
by some few examples, of what sort these ideas are, and how the
mind comes by them ; especially since I shall have occasion here-
after to treat more at large of reasoning, judging, volition, and
knowledge, which are some of the most considerable operations of
the mind, and modes of thinking.

§ 3. The various attention of tJie mind in tldnhing. — But, per-
haps, it may not be an unpardonable digression, nor wholly imper-
tinent to our present design, if we reflect here upon the different
state of the mind in thinking, which those instances of attention,
reverie, and dreaming, &c. before-mentioned, naturally enough sug-
gest. That there are ideas, some or other, always present in the
mind of a waking man, every one's experience convinces him ; though
the mind employs itself about them with several degrees of atten-
tion. Sometimes the mind fixes itself with so much earnestness on
the contemplation of some objects, that it turns their ideas on all
sides, remarks their relations and circumstances, and views every
part so nicely, and with such intention, that it shuts out all other
thoughts, and takes no notice of the ordinary impressions made then
on the senses, which at another season would produce very sensible
perceptions : at other times, it barely observes the train of ideas that
succeed in the understanding, without directing and pursuing any
of them ; and at other times, it lets them pass almost quite unre-
garded, as faint shadows that make no impression.

§ 4. Hence it is probable that thinking" is the actiofi, not essence^
of the soul. — This difference of intention and remission of the mind
in thinking, with a great variety of degrees, between earnest study,
and very near minding nothing at all, every one, I think, has expe-
rimented in himself. Trace it a little farther, and you find the mind
in sleep retired as it were from the senses, and out of the reach of
those motions made on the organs of sense, which at other times
produce very vivid and sensible ideas. I need not, for this, instance
in those who sleep out whole stormy nights, without hearing the
thunder, or seeing the lightning, or feeling the shaking of the house,
which are sensible enough to those who are waking. But in this
retirement of the mind from the senses, it often retains a yet more
loose and incoherent manner of thinking, which we call dreaming;
and last of all, sound sleep closes the scene quite, and puts an end to
all appearances. This, I think, almost every one has experience of
in himself, and his own observation without difficulty leads him thus
far. That which I would farther conclude from hence, is, that since
the mind can sensibly put on, at several times, several degrees of
thinking ; and be sometimes even in a waking man so remiss, as to
have thoughts dim and obscure to that degree, that they are very

146 MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. book 2.

little removed from none at all ; and at last, in the dark retirements
cff sound sleep, loses the sight perfectly of all ideas whatsoever;
since, I say, this is evidently so in matter of fact, and constant expe-
rience, I ask, whether it be not probable, that thinking is the action,
and not the essence, of the soul ? Since the operations of agents
will easily admit of intention and remission ; but the essences of
things are not conceived capable of any such variation. But this
by the by.

CHAPTER XX.

OF MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN.

§ 1 . Pleasure and pain simple ideas. — Amongst the simple ideas
which we receive both from sensation and reflection, pain and plea-
sure are two very considerable ones. For as in the body, there is
sensation barely in itself, or accompanied with pain or pleasure; so
the thought, or perception of the mind, is simply so, or else accom-
panied also with pleasure or pain, delight or trouble, call it how you
please. These, like other simple ideas, cannot be described, nor
their names defined ; the way of knowing them is, as of the simple
ideas of the senses, only by experience. For to define them by the
presence of good or evil, is no otherwise to make them known to us,
than by making us reflect on what we feel in ourselves, upon the se-
veral and various operations of good and evil upon our minds, as
they are differently applied to, or considered by us.

§ 2. Good and evil y what. — Things then are good or evil, only
in reference to pleasure or pain. That we call good, which is apt
to cause or increase pleasure, or diminish pain in us ; or else to pro-
cure, or preserve, us the possession of any other good, or absence of
any evil. And, on the contrary, we name that evil, which is apt to
produce or increase any pain, or diminish any pleasure in us ; or
else to procure us any evil, or deprive us of any good. By pleasure
and pam, I must be understood to mean of body or mind, as the
are commonly distinguished ; though, in truth, they be only differei
constitutions of the mind, sometimes occasioned by disorder in tl
body, sometimes by thoughts of the mind.

^ 3. Oii7' passions moved hy good and evil, — Pleasure and paij
and that which causes them, good and evil, are the hinges on whic
our passions turn ; and if we reflect on ourselves, and observe ho
these, under various considerations, operate in us; what modifi<
lions or tempers of mind, what internal sensations (if I may so
them), thejr produce in us, we may thence form to ourselves the id<
of our passions.

§ 4. Lore. — Thus any one reflecting upon the thought he h<
of the delight which any present or absent thing is apt to produce in
him, has the idea we call love. For when a man declares in autumnal
when he is eating them, or in spring, when there arc none, that h«i
loves grapes, it is no more but that the taste of grapes delights him;

CH. SO. MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. 147

let an alteration of health or constitution destroy the delight of their
taste, and he then can be said to love grapes no longer.

§ 5. Hatred. — On the contrary, the thought of the pain which
any thing present or absent is apt to produce in us, is what we call
hatred. Were it my business here to inquire any farther than into
the bare ideas of our passions, as they depend on different modifica-
tions of pleasure and pain, I should remark, that our love and hatred
of inanimate insensible beings is commonly founded on that pleasure
and pain which we receive from their use and application any way
to our senses, though with their destruction : but hatred or love, to
beings capable of happiness or misery, is often the uneasiness or de-
light which we find in ourselves, arising from a consideration of their
very being or happiness. Thus the being and welfare of a man's
children or friends producing constant delight in him, he is said con-
stantly to love them. But it suffices to note, that our ideas of love
and hatred are but the dispositions of the mind, in respect of pleasure
and pain in general, however caused in us.

§ 6. Desire. — The uneasiness a man finds in himself upon the
absence of any thing, whose present enjoyment carries the idea of
delight with it, is that we call desire, which is greater or less, as that
uneasiness is more or less vehement. Where, by the by, it may per-
haps be of some use to remark, that the chief, if not only spur to
human industry and action, is uneasiness. For whatsoever good is
proposed, if its absence carries no displeasure or pain with it ; if
a man be easy and content without it, there is no desire of it, nor
endeavour after it ; there is no more but a bare velleity, the term
used to signify the lowest degree of desire, and that which is next to
none at all, when there is so little uneasiness in the absence of any
thing, that it carries a man no farther than some faint wishes for it,
without any more effectual or vigorous use of the means to attain it.
Desire also is stopped or abated by the opinion of the impossibility
or unattainableness of the good proposed, as far as the uneasiness is
cured or allayed by that consideration. This might carry our
thoughts farther, were it seasonable in this place.

§ 7. Joy. — Joy is a delight of the mind, from the consideration
of the present or assured approaching possession of a good ; and we
are then possessed of any good when we have it so in our power, that
we can use it when we please. Thus a man almost starved, has joy
at the arrival of relief, even before he has the pleasure of using it :
and a father, in whom the very well-being of his children causes
delight, is always, as long as his children are in such a state, in the
possession of that good ; for he needs but to reflect on it, to have
that pleasure.

§ 8. Sorrow. — Sorrow is uneasiness in the mind, upon the
thought of a good lost, which might have been enjoyed longer ; or
the sense of a present evil.

§ 9. Hope. — Hope is that pleasure in the mind which every one
finds in himself, upon the thought of a profitable future enjoyment
of a thing which is apt to delight him.

L 2

148 MODES OF PLEASURE AND PAIN. book 2.

^10. Fear. — Fear is an uneasiness of the mind, njxjn the
thouglit of future evil likely to befall us.

§ 1 1. Despah'. — Despair is the thought of the unattainableness
of any good, which works differently in men''s minds, sometimes
producing uneasiness or pain, sometimes rest and indolency.

§ 12. j4ngei\ — Anger is uneasiness or discomposure of the mind,
uiK)n the receipt of any injury, with a present purpose of revenge.

§ 13. Envy, — Envy is an uneasiness of the mind, caused by the
consideration of a good we desire, obtained by one we think should
not have had it l>efore us.

§ 14. What passions all men have. — These two last, envy and
anger, not being caused by pain and pleasure simply in themselves,
but having in them some mixed considerations of ourselves and
others, are not, therefore, to be found in all men, because those other
parts of valuing their merits, or intending revenge, are wanting in
them : but all the rest terminating purely in pain and pleasure, are,
I think, to be found in all men. For we love, desire, rejoice, and
hope, only in respect of pleasure ; we hate, fear, and grieve, only in
respect of pain ultimately : in fine, all these passions are moved by
things, only as they appear to be the causes of pleasure and pain, or
to have pleasure or pain some way or other annexed to them.
Thus we extend our hatred usually to the subject (at least if a
sensible or voluntary agent) which has produced pain in us, because
the fear it leaves is a constant pain : but we do not so constantly
love what has done us good, because pleasure operates not so strongly
on us as pain, and because we are not so ready to have hope it will
do- so again. But this by the by.

§ 15. Pleasure and pai7i, whal. — By pleasure and pain, delight
and uneasiness, I must all along be understood (as I have above,
intimated) to mean, not only bodily pain and pleasure, but whatso-
ever delight or uneasiness is felt by us, whether arising from any
grateful or unacceptable sensation or reflection.

§ 16. It is farther to be considered, that in reference to the pas-
sions, the removal or lessening of a pain is considered, and operates,
as a pleasure ; and the loss or diminishing of a pleasure, as a pain.

§ 17. Shame. — The passions, too, have most of them in most]
persons operations on the body, and cause various changes in it
which not being always sensible, do not make a necessary part of thel
idea of each passion. For shame, which is an uneasiness of the mind^i
upon the thought of having done something which is indecent, or willj
lessen the valued esteem wliich others have for us, has not always
blushing accompanying it.

^18, These instances to show how ofiir ideas of the; passions ah
got from sensation and refection. — I would not be mistaken here, as
if I meant this as a discourse of the passions ; they are many more
than those I have here named : and those I have taken notice of,
would each of them recjuire a much larger and more accurate dis-
course. I have only mentioned these here, as so many instances of
modes of pleasure and pain resulting in our minds from various
considerations of good and evil. I might, perhaps, have iiislanced

CH. 21. OF POWER. 149

in other modes of pleasure and pain more simple than these, as the
pain of hunger and thirst, and the pleasure of eating and drinking
to remove them ; the pain of tender eyes, and the pleasure of mu-
sic ; pain from captious uninstructive wrangling, and the pleasure of
rational conversation with a friend, or of well directed study in the
search and discovery of truth. But the passions being of much
more concernment to us, I rather made choice to instance in them,
and show how the ideas we have of them are derived from sensa-
tion and reflection.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF POWEU,

§ 1. lids idea how p'ot. — The mind being every day informed
by tlie senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes
in things without, and taking notice how one comes to an end
and ceases to be, and another begins to exist, which was not be-
fore ; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a
constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of out-
ward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination
of its own choice ; and concluding from what it has so constantly
observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future
be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways ;
considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its sim-
ple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that
change ; and so comes by that idea which we call power. Thus
we say, fire has a power to melt gold, i. e. to destroy the con-
sistency of its insensible parts, and consequently its hardness, and
make it fluid ; and gold has a power to be melted : that the sun
has a power to blanch wax, and wax a power to be blanched by
the sun, whereby the yellowness is destroyed, and whiteness made
to exist in its room. In which, and the like cases, the power we
consider, is in reference to the change of perceivable ideas. For
we cannot observe any alteration to be made in, or operation upon^
any thing, but by the observable change of its sensible ideas; nor
conceive any alteration to be made, but by conceiving a change of
some of its ideas.

§ 2. Power active and passive. — Power, thus considered, is
two-fold, viz., as able to make, or able to receive, any change ;
the one may be called active, and the other passive, power. Whe-
ther matter be not wholly destitute of active power, as its author,
God, is truly above all passive power ; and whether the interme-
diate state of created spirits be not that alone which is capable of
both active and passive power, may be worth consideration. I
shall not now enter into that inquiry, my present business being
not to search into the original of power, but how we come by the
idea of it. But since active powers make so great a part of our

hi

150 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

complex ideas of natural substances (as we shall see hereafter), and
I mention them as such, according to common apprehension ; yet
they being not, perhaps, so truly active powers, as our hasty
thoughts are apt to represent them, I judge it not amiss, by this
intimation, to direct our minds to the consideration of God and
spirits, for the clearest idea of active powers.

§ 3. Power includes relation. — I confess, power includes in it
some kind of relation (a relation to action or change), as, indeed,
which of our ideas, of what kind soever, when attentively consi-
dered, does not? For our ideas of extension, duration, and number,
do they not all contain in them a secret relation of the parts?
Figure and motion have something relative in them much more
visibly : and sensible qualities, as colours and smells, &c., what
are they but the powers of different bodies, in relation to our per-
ception ? &c. And if considered in the things themselves, do they
not depend on the bulk, figure, texture, and motion of the parts ?
All which include some kind of relation in them. Our idea, there-
fore, of power, I think, may well have a place amongst other simple
ideas, and be considered as one of them, being one of those that
make a principal ingredient in our complex ideas of substances, as
we shall hereafter have occasion to observe.

§ 4. The clearest idea of active power hadfi^om spirit. — We are
abundantly furnished with the idea of passive power, by almost all
sorts of sensible things. In most of them we cannot avoid observ-
ing their sensible quahties, nay, their very substances, to be in a
continual flux: and, therefore, with reason we look on them as
liable still to the same change. Nor have we of active power
(which is the more proper signification of the word power) feww
instances. Since whatever change is observed, the mind must col-
lect a power somewhere able to make that change, as well as a pos-
sibility in the thing itself to receive it. But yet, if we will consi-
der it attentively, bodies, by our senses, do not afford us so clear
and distinct an idea of active power, as we have from reflection on
the operations of our minds. For all power relating to action, and
there being but two sorts of action whereof we have any idea, viz.,
thinking and motion, let us consider whence we have the clearest
ideas of the powers which produce these actions. 1. Of thinking,
body affords us no idea at all; it is only from reflection that we
have that. 2. Neither have we from body any idea of the begin-
ning of motion. A body at rest, affords us no idea of any active
power to move ; and when it is set in motion itself, that motion is
rather a passion, than an action in it. For when the ball obeys
the stroke of a billiard-stick, it is not any action of the ball, but
bare passion : also when by impulse it sets another ball in motion,
that lay in its way, it only communicates the motion it had received
from another, and loses in itself so much as the other received ;
which gives us but a very obscure idea of an active power of
moving in body, whilst we observe it only to transfer, but not prcH
duce, any motion. For it is but a very obscure idea of power,

1

CH. 21. OF POWER. 151

which reaches not the production of the action, but the conti-
nuation of the passion. For so is motion in a body impelled by
another ; the continuation of the alteration made in it from rest to
motion being little more an action, than the continuation of the
alteration of its figure by the same blow, is an action. The idea
of the beginning of motion, we have only from reflection on what
passes in ourselves, where we find by experience, that barely by
willing it, barely by a thought of the mind, we can move the parts
of our bodies which were before at rest. So that it seems to me,
we have, from the observation of the operation of bodies by our
senses, but a very imperfect, obscure idea of active power, since
they afford us not any idea in themselves of the power to begin
any action, either motion or thought. But if from the impulse bo-
dies are observed to make one upon another, any one thinks he has
a clear idea of power, it serves as well to my purpose, sensation
being one of those ways whereby the mind comes by its ideas : only
I thought it worth while to consider here by the way, whether the
mind doth not receive its idea of active power clearer from reflection
on its own operations, than it doth from any external sensation.

§ 5. Will and understanding, two powers. — This at least I think
evident, that we find in ourselves a power to begin or forbear, con-
tinue or end, several actions of our minds, and motions of our
bodies, barely by a thought or preference of the mind ordering, or,
as it were, commanding the doing or not doing, such or such a
particular action. This power which the mind has thus to order
the consideration of any idea, or the forbearing to consider it ; or
to prefer the motion of any part of the body to its rest, and vice
versa, in any particular instance, is that which we call the will.
The actual exercise of that power, by directing any particular ac-
tion, or its forbearance, is that which we call volition or willing.
The forbearance of that action, consequent to such order or com-
mand of the mind, is called voluntary. And whatsoever action is
performed without such a thought of the mind, is called involuntary.
The power of perception is that which we call the understanding.
Perception, which we make the act of the understanding, is of
three sorts: 1. The perception of ideas in our minds. *Z. The
perception of signification of signs. 3. The perception of the
connexion or repugnancy, agreement or disagreement, that there
is between any of our ideas. All these are attributed to the under-
standing, or perceptive power, though it be the two latter only that
use allows us to say we understand.

§ 6. Faculties. — These powers of the mind, viz., of perceiving,
and of preferring, are usually called by another name ; and the ordi-
nary way of speaking is, that the understanding and will are two
faculties of the mind: a word proper enough, if it be used as all
words should be, so as not to breed any confusion in men's thoughts,
by being supposed (as I suspect it has been) to stand for some real
beings in the soul, that performed those actions of understanding
and volition. For when we say, the will is the commanding and

im OF POWER. BOOK 2.

superior faculty of the soul, that it is, or is riot, free ; that it deter-
mines the inferior faculties ; that it follows the dictates of the under-
standing, &c. ; though these and the like expressions, by those that
carefully attend to their own ideas, and conduct their thoughts more
by the evidence of things, than the sound of words, may be under-
stood in a clear and distinct sense ; yet I suspect, I say, that this
way of speaking of faculties has misled many into a confused notion
of so many distmct agents in us, which had their several provinces
and authorities, and did command, obey, and perform several ac-
tions, as so many distinct beings, which has been no small occasion
of wrangling, obscurity, and uncertainty in questions relating to them.

§ 7. W/u'7ice the ideas of liberty and necessity, — Every one, I
think, finds in himself a power to begin or forbear, continue or put
an end to several actions in himself. From the consideration of
the extent of this power of the mind over the action of the man,
which every one finds in himself, arises the ideas of liberty and
necessity.

§ 8. Liberty, what. — All the actions that we have any idea of,
reducing themselves, as has been said, to these two, viz., thinking
and motion ; so far as a man has power to think, or not to think ; to
move, or not to move, according to the preference or direction of
his own mind ; so far is a man free. Wherever any performance
or forbearance are not equally in a man's power ; wherever doing,
or not doing, will not equally follow upon the preference of his
mind directing it, there he is not free, though, perhaps, the action
may be voluntary. So that the idea of liberty, is the idea of a
power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according
to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of
them is preferred to the other ; where either of them is not in the
power of the agent to be produced by him, according to his vo-
lition, there he is not at liberty ; that agent is under necessity. So
that liberty cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no
will ; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may be vo--
lition, where there is no liberty. A little consideration of an obr
vious instance or two may make this clear.

§ 9. Supposes the understanding and will. — A tennis-ball, whether
in motion by the stroke of a racket, or lying still at rest, is not^
by any one, taken to be a free agent. If we inquire into the rea-
son, we shall find it is because we conceive not a tennis-ball to
think, and consequently not to have any volition, preference of mo-
tion to rest, or vice versa ; and, therefore, has not liberty, is not s^
free agent ; but all its both motion and rest, come under our idea of
necessary, and are so called. Likewise, a man falling into the water
(a bridge breaking under him), has not herein liberty, is not a free
agent. For though he has volition, though he prefers his not falling
to falling; yet the forbearance of that motion not being in his power,
the stop or cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition ;
and, tlicreforc, therein he is not free. So a man striking himself, or
liis friend, by a convulsive motion of his aim, which it is not in his

CH. 21. OF POWER. 153

power, by volition, or the direction of his mind, to stop, or forbear;
nobody thinks he has, in this, liberty ; every one pities him, as
acting by necessity and constraint.

§ 10. Belongs not to volition. — Again, suppose a man be carried,
whilst fast asleep, into a room, where is a person he longs to see and
speak with ; and be there locked fast in, beyond his power to get
out ; he awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable company,
which he stays willingly in, i. e. prefers his stay to going away. I
ask, is not this stay voluntary .? I think nobody will doubt it; and
yet, being locked fast in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to stay,
he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea be-
longing to volition, or preferring, but to the person having the
power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall
choose or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power,
and no farther. For wherever restraint comes to check that power,. ,**%
or compulsion takes away that indifferency of ability on either side, ^
to act, or to forbear acting, there liberty, and our notion of it, pre-
sently ceases.

§ 1 1. Voluntary opposed to involuntary^ not to necessary, — We
have instances enough, and often more than enough, in our own
bodies. A man's heart beats, and the blood circulates, which it is
not in his power, by any thought or volition, to stop ; and, there-
fore, in respect to these motions, where rest depends not on his
choice, nor would follow the determination of his mind, if it should
prefer it, he is not a free agent. Convulsive motions agitate his legs,
so that though he wills it ever so much, he cannot, by any power
of his mind, stop their motion (as in that odd disease called chorea
Sancti Viti), but he is perpetually dancing ; he is not at liberty in
this action, but under as much necessity of moving, as a stone that
falls, or a tennis-ball struck with a racket. On the other side, a
palsy or the stocks hinder his legs from obeying the determination
of his mind, if it would, thereby, transfer his body to another place.
In all these there is want of freedom, though the sitting still even of
a paralytic, whilst he prefers it to a removal, is truly voluntary.
Voluntary then is not opposed to necessary; but to involuntary.
For a man may prefer what he can do, to what he cannot do ; the
state he is in, to its absence or change ; though necessity has made it
in itself unalterable.

§ VZ. Liberty, zvliat. — As it is in the motions of the body, so it
is in the thoughts of our minds ; where any one is such, that we
have power to take it up, or lay it by, according to the preference
of the mind, there we are at liberty. A waking man being under
the necessity of having some ideas constantly in his mind, is not at
liberty to think, or not to think, no more than he is at liberty whe-
ther his body shall touch any other or no ; but whether he will re-
move his contemplation from one idea to another, is many times
in his choice ; and then he is, in respect of his ideas, as much at
liberty, as he is in respect of bodies he rests on : he can, at plea-
sure, remove himself from one to another. But yet some ideas to

154 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

the mind, like some motions to the body, are such, as in certain
circumstances it cannot avoid, nor obtain their absence by the
utmost effort it can use. A man on the rack is not at hberty to lay
by the idea of pain, and divert himself with other contemplations ;
and sometimes a boisterous passion hurries our thoughts, as a hur-
ricane does our bodies, without leaving us the liberty of thinking on
other things, which we would rather choose. But as soon as the
mind regains the power to stop or continue, begin or forbear, any
of these motions oi the body without, or thoughts within, according
as it thinks fit to prefer either to the other, we then consider the man
as a free agent again.

§ 13. Necessity^ what — Wherever thought is only wanting, or
the power to act or forbear, according to the direction of thought,
there necessity takes place. This, in an agent capable of volition,
when the beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that
preference of his mind, is called compulsion ; when the hindering or
stopping any action is contrary to his volition, it is called restraint.
Agents that have no thought, no volition at all, are, in every thing,
necessary agents.

§ 14. Liberty belongs not to the will. — If this be so (as I imagine
it is), I leave it to be considered, whether it may not help to put an
end to that long agitated, and I think, unreasonable, because unin-
telligible question, viz., whether man's will be free or no ? For if I
mistake not, it follows, from what I have said, that the question itself
is altogether improper ; and it is as insignificant to ask whether man's
will be free, as to ask, whether his sleep be swift, or his virtue square;
liberty being as little applicable to the will, as swiftness of motion is
to sleep, or squareness to virtue. Every one would laugh at the
absurdity of such a question as either of these ; because it is obvious,
that the modifications of motion belong not to sleep, nor the dif-
ference of figure to virtue ; and when any one well considers it, I
think he will as plainly perceive, that liberty, which is but a power,
belongs only to agents, and cannot be an attribute or modification of
the will, which is also but a power.

§ 15. Volition. — Such is the difficulty of explaining and giving
clear notions of internal actions by sounds, that I must here warn
my reader, that ordering, directing, choosing, preferring, &c. which
I have made use of, will not distinctly enough express volition, unless
he will reflect on what he himself does, when he wills. For example,

f)referring, which seems perhaps best to express the act of vo-
ition, does it not precisely. For though a man would prefer flying
to walking, vet wno can say he ever wills it ? Volition, it is plain,
is an act of the mind, knowmgly exerting that dominion it takes it-
self to have over any part of the man, by employing it in, or with-
holding it from, an^ particular action. And what is the will, but
the faculty to do this? And is that faculty any thing more in effect
than a power, the power of the mind to determine its thoughts, to
the producing, cx>ntinuing, or stopping any action, as far as it de-
peuus on us ? For can it be denied, that whatever agent has a jx)wer

CH. 21. OF POWER. 155

to think on its own actions, and to prefer their doing or omission
either to other, has that faculty called will ? Will, then, is nothing but
such a power. Liberty, on the other side, is the power a man has to
do or forbear doing any particular action, according as its doing or
forbearance has the actual preference in the mind, which is the same
thing as to say, according as he himself wills it.

§ 16. Powers belonging to agents, — It is plain, then, that the will
is nothing but one power or ability, and freedom another power or
ability; so that to ask, whether the will has freedom? is to ask,
whether one power has another power, one ability another ability ?
a question at first sight too grossly absurd to make a dispute, or
need an answer. For who is it that sees not that powers belong only
to agents, and are attributes only of substances, and not of powers
themselves ? so that this way of putting the question, viz., whether
the will be free ? is, in effect, to ask. whether the will be a substance,
an agent ? or at least, to suppose it, since freedom can properly be
attributed to nothing else. If freedom can, with any propriety of
speech, be applied to power, it may be attributed to the power that
is in a man to produce, or forbear producing, motion in parts of his
body, by choice or preference ; which is that which denominates him
free, and is freedom itself. But if any one should ask, whether free-
dom were free, he would be suspected not to understand well what
he said ; and he would be thought to deserve Midas's ears, who
knowing that rich was a denomination for the possession of riches,
should demand whether riches themselves were rich.

§ 17. However, the name faculty, which men have given to this
power called the will, and whereby they have been led into a way
of talking of the will as acting, may, by an appropriation that dis-
guises its true sense, serve a little to palliate the absurdity ; yet the
will, in truth, signifies nothing but a power or ability to prefer or
choose ; and when the will, under the name of a faculty, is con-
sidered, as it is, barely as an ability to do something, the absurdity
in saying it is free, or not free, will easily discover itself. For if it
be reasonable to suppose and talk of faculties, as distinct beings, that
can act (as we do, when we say the will orders, and the will is free),
it is fit that we should make a speaking faculty, and a walking fa-
culty, and a dancing faculty, by which those actions are produced,
which are but several modes of motion ; as well as we make the will
and understanding to be faculties, by which the actions of choosing
and perceiving are produced, which are but several modes of think-
ing ; and we may as properly say, that it is the singing faculty sings,
and the dancing faculty dances, as that the will chooses, or that the
understanding conceives : or, as is usual, that the will directs the
understanding, or the understanding obeys, or obeys not, the will ;
it being altogether as proper and intelligible to say, that the power
of speaking directs the power of singing, or the power of singing
obeys, or disobeys, the power of speaking.

§ 18. This way of talking, nevertheless, has prevailed, and, as I
guess, produced great confusion. For these being all different powers

156 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

in the mind, or in the man, to do several actions, he exerts them as
he thinks fit ; but the power to do one action is not operated on by
the power of doing another action. For the power of thinking ope-
rates not on the power of choosing ; nor the power of choosing on
the power of thinking ; no more than the power of dancing operates
on the power of singmg ; or the power of singing on the jx)wer of
dancing, as any one who reflects on it will easily perceive ; and yet
this is it, which we say, when we thus speak that the will operates on
the understanding, or the understanding on the will.

§ 1 9. I grant, that this or that actual thought may be the occasion
of volition, or exercising the power a man has to choose ; or the
actual choice of the mind, the cause of actual thinking on this or
tliat thing ; as the actual singing of such a tune may be the cause
of dancing such a dance ; and the actual dancing of such a dance
the occasion of singing such a tune. But in all these, it is not one
power that operates on another ; but it is the mind that operates and^^
exerts these powers ; it is the man that does the action, it is the
agent that has power, or is able, to do. For powers are relations,
not agents ; and that which has the power, or not the power to ope-
rate, is that alone which is, or is not free, and not the power itself;
for freedom, or not freedom, can belong to nothing but what has, or
has not, a power to act.

§ ^0. Liberty belongs not to the zcill. — The attributing to faculties ■
that which belonged not to them, has given occasion to this way of I
talking ; but the introducing into discourses concerning the mmd,
with the name of faculties, a notion of their operating, has, I sup-
pose, as little advanced our knowledge in that part of ourselves, as
the great use and mention of the like invention of faculties, in the
operations of the body, has helped us in the knowledge of physic.
Not that I deny there are faculties, both in the body and mind ;
they both of them have their powers of operating, else neither the
one nor the other could operate. For nothing can operate tliat
is not able to operate ; and that is not able to operate, that has no
power to operate. Nor do I deny, that those words, and the like,
are to have their place in the common use of languages that have
made them current. It looks like too much affectation wholly to
lay them by ; and philosophy itself, though it Hkes not a gaudy
dress, yet, when it appears in public, must have so much compla-
cency, as to be clothed in the ordinary fashion and language of the
country, so far as it can consist with truth and perspicuity. But thoj
fault has been, that faculties have been spoken of, and representedjj
as so many distinct agents. For, it being asked, what it was that
digested the meat in our stomachs ? It was a ready and very satis
factory answer, to say, that it was the digestive faculty. What wa
it that made any thmg come out of the body ? Th(j expulsive fa-
culty. What moved? The motive faculty; and so in the mind,
the intellectual faculty, or the understanding understood ; and the
clc^ctive faculty, or the will, willed or commanded. This is, in short,''
to say, that the ability to digest, digested ; and the ability to move,

CH. 21. OF POWER. 157

moved ; and the ability to understand, understood. For faculty,
ability, and power, I think, are but difl'erent names of the same
things; which ways of speaking, when put into more intelligible
Avords, will, I think, amount to this much ; that digestion is per-
formed by something that is able to digest ; motion, by something
able to move ; and understanding, by something able to understand.
And, in truth, it would be very strange, if it should be otherwise ;
as strange as it would be for a man to be free, without being able to
be free.

§ 21. But to the agent or man. — To return then to the inquiry
about liberty, I think the question is not proper, whether the will be
free, but whether a man be free. Thus I think :

First, That so far as any one can, by the direction or choice of
his mind, preferring the existence of any action to the non-existence
of that action, and lice versa, make it to exist, or not exist, so far he
is fi'ee. For if I can, by a thought, directing the motion of my
finger, make it move when it was at rest, or vice vrsd, it is evident,
that in respect of that, I am free; and if I can, by a light thought of
my mind, preferring one to the other, produce either words or
silence, I am at liberty to speak, or hold my peace; and as far as
this power reaches, of acting, or not acting, by the determination of
his own thought preferring either, so far is a man free. For how can
we think any one freer, than to have the power to do what he will ?
And so far as any one can, by preferring any action to its not being,
or rest to any action, produce that action or rest, so far can he do
what he will. For such a preferring of action to its absence is the
willing of it ; and we can scarce tell how to imagine any being freer,
than to be able to do what he wills. So that in respect of actions,
within the reach of such a power in him, a man seems as free as it is
possible for freedom to make him.

§ 22. In 7esject of willing, a man is not free. — But the inquisitive
mind of man, willing to shift off from himself, as far as he can, all
thoughts of guilt, though it be by putting himself into a worse state
than that of fatal necessity, is not content with this : freedom, unless
it reaches farther than this, will not serve the turn ; and it passes for
a good plea, that a man is not free at all, if he be not as free to will,
as he is to act what he wills. Concerning a man's liberty, there yet,
therefore, is raised this farther question, whether a man be free to
will? which, I think, is what is mtcant when it is disputed, whether
the will be free. And as to that I imagine,

§ 23. Secondly, That willing, or volition, being an action, and
freedom consisting in a power of acting or not acting, a man in re-
spect of willing, or the act of volition, when any action in his power
is once proposed to his thoughts, as presently to be done, cannot
be free. The reason whereof is very manifest ; for it being un-
avoidable that the action depending on his will, should exist, or not
exist ; and its existence, or not existence, following perfectly the de-
termination and preference of his will, he cannot avoid wilhng the

158 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

existence, or not-existence, of that action ; it is absolutely necessary
that he will the one, or the other, i. e. prefer the one to the other,
since one of them must necessarily follow ; and that which does follow,
follows by the choice and determination of his mind, that is, by his
willing it ; for if he did not will it, it would not be. So that in respect
of the act of willing, a man, in such a case, is not free ; liberty con-
sisting in a power to act, or not to act, which, in regard of volition, a
man, ujwn such a proposal, has not. For it is unavoidably necessary
to prefer the doing or forbearance of an action in a man's power,
which is once so proposed to his thoughts ; a man must necessarily
will the one or the other of them, upon which preference or volition,
the action, or its forbearance, certainly follows, and is truly volun-
tary ; but the act of voHtion, or prefernng one of the two, being that
which he cannot avoid, a man, in respect of that act of willing, is
under a necessity, and so cannot be free ; unless necessity and freedom
can consist together, and a man can be free and bound at once.

§ 24. This then is evident, that in all proposals of present action,
a man is not at liberty to will, or not to will, because he cannot for-
bear willing; liberty consisting in a power to act, or to forbear
acting, and in that only. For a man that sits still, is said yet to be
at liberty, because he can walk if he wills it. But if a man sitting
still, has not a power to remove himself, he is not at liberty ; so like-
wise, a man's falling down a precipice, though in motion, is not at
liberty, because he cannot stop that motion if he would. This being
so, it is plain that a man that is walking, to whom it is proposed to
give off walking, is not at liberty, whether he will determine himself
to walk, or give off walking, or no: he must necessarily prefer one
or the other of them, walking, or not walking ; and so it is in regard
of all other actions in our power so proposed, which are the far greater
number. For considering the vast number of voluntary actions that
succeed one another every moment that we are awake, in the course
of our lives, there are but few of them that are thought on, or pro-
posed to the will, until the time they are to be done : and in all such
actions, as I have shown, the mind, in respect of willing, has not a
power to act, or not to act, wherein consists liberty ; the mind, in
that case, has not a power to forbear willing ; it cannot avoid some-
determination concerning them, let the consideration be as short, the
thought as quick, as it will ; it either leaves the man in the state he
was before tninking, or changes it ; continues the action, or puts an
end to it. Whereby it is manifest, that it orders and directs one in
preference to, or with neglect of, the other, and thereby either the
continuation or change becomes unavoidably voluntary.

§ 25. The will determined by something without it. — Since then
it is plain that in most cases a man is not at liberty, whether he will
will, or no ; the next thing demanded is, whether a man be at hberty
to will which of the two he pleases, motion or rest ? This question
carries the absurdity of it so manifestly in itself, that one might'
thereby sufficiently be convinced, that liberty concerns not the will.

CH. 21. OF POWER. 159

For to ask, whether a man be at liberty to will either motion or rest,
speaking or silence, which he pleases, is to ask, whether a man can
will what he wills, or be pleased with what he is pleased with ? A
question which I think needs no answer; and they who can make a
question of it, must suppose one will to determine the acts of another,
and another to determine that ; and so on in infinitum.

§ 26. To avoid these and the like absurdities, nothing can be
of greater use, than to establish in our minds determined ideas of
the things under consideration. If the ideas of hberty and volition
were well fixed in our understandings, and carried along with us in
our minds, as the}^ ought, through all the questions that are raised
about them, I suppose a great part of the difficulties that perplex
men's thoughts, and entangle their understandings, would be much
easier resolved ; and we should perceive where the confused signifi-
cation of terms, or where the nature of the thing, caused the
obscurity.

§ 27. Freedom. — Firsts then, it is carefully to be remembered,
that freedom consists in the dependence of the existence, or not ex-
istence, of any action, upon our volition of it ; and not in the de-
pendence of any action, or its contrary, on our preference. A man
standing on a cliff, is at liberty to leap twenty yards downwards into
the sea ; not because he has a power to do the contrary action, which
is to leap twenty yards upwards, for that he cannot do : but he is
therefore free, because he has a power to leap, or not to leap. But
if a greater force than his, either holds him fast, or tumbles him
down, he is no longer free in that case : because the doing, or for-
bearance of that particular action, is no longer in his power. He
that is a close prisoner in a room twenty feet square, being at the
north side of his chamber, is at liberty to walk twenty feet south-
ward, because he can walk, or not walk it ; but is not at the same time
at liberty to do the contrary, i. e. to walk twenty feet northward.

In this then consists freedom, viz., in our being able to act, or not
to act, according as we shall choose or will.

§ 28. Fo!ilio7i, ichat. — Secondly., We must remember, that voli-
tion, or willing, is an act of the mind directing its thought to the
production of any action, and thereby exerting its power to produce
it. To avoid multiplying of words, I would crave leave here, under
the word action, to comprehend the forbearance too of any action
proposed; sitting still, or holding one's peace, when walking or
speaking are proposed, though mere forbearances requiring as much
the determination of the will, and being as often weighty in their
consequences, as the contrary actions, may, on that consideration,
well enough pass for actions too : but this I say, that I may not be
mistaken, if, for brevity's sake, I speak thus.

§ 29. What determines the uill. — Thirdly, The will being nothing
but a power in the mind to direct the operative faculties of man to
motion or rest, as far as they depend on such direction : to the
question, what is it determines the will ? the true and proper
answer is, the mind. For that which determines the general power

160 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

of directing to this or that particular direction, is nothing but the
agent itself exercising the ]X)wer it has that particular way. If this
answer satisfies not, it is plain the meaning of the question, what de-
termines the will ? is this, what moves the mind in every particular
instance, to determine its general power of directing to this or that
particular motion or rest ? And to this, I answer, the motive for con-
tinuing in the same state or action, is only the present satisfaction in
it: the motive to change, is always some uneasiness: nothing setting
us u|X)n the change of state, or upon any new action, but some un-
easiness. This is the great motive that works on the mind, to put it
upon action, which, for shortness"* sake, we will call determining of
the will, which I shall more at large explain.

§ 80. Will and desire must not be confounded. — But in the way
to it, it will be necessary to premise, that though I have above en-
deavoured to express the act of volition, by choosing, preferring,
and the like terms, that signify desire, as well as volition, for want
of other words to mark that act of the mind, whose proper name is
willing, or volition ; yet it being a very simple act, whosoever de-
sires to understand what it is, will better find it, by reflecting on his
own mind, and observing what it does when it wills, than by any
variety of articulate sounds whatsoever. This caution of being care-
ful not to be misled by expressions that do not enough keep up the
difference between the will and several acts of the mind that are quite
distinct from it, I think the more necessary ; because I find the will
often confounded with several of the aflcctions, especially desire ;
and one put for the other, and that by men who would not willingly
be thought not to have had very distinct notions of things, and not
to have writ very clearly about them. This, I imagine, has been no
small occasion of obscurity and mistake in this matter, and therefore
is, as much as may be, to be avoided. For he that shall turn his
thoughts inwards upon what passes in his mind when he wills, shall
see that the will or power of volition is conversant about nothing
but that particular determination of the mind, whereby, barely by
a thought, the mind endeavours to give rise, continuation, or stop,
to any action which it takes to be in its power. This, well con-
sidered, plainly shows that the will is perfectly distinguished from
desire, which, in the very same action, may have a quite contrary
tendency from that which our wills set us upon. A man, whom
I cannot deny, may oblige me to use persuasions to another, wliich,
at the same time I am speaking, I may wish may not prevail on him.
In this case, it is plain, the will and desire run counter. I will the ac-
tion that tends one way, whilst mv desire tends another, and that the
direct contrary way. A man, who, by a violent fit of the gout in
his limbs, finds a doziness in his heacl, or a want of appetite in his
stomach, removed, desires to be eased too of the pain of his feet or
hands (for wherever there is pain, there is a desire to be rid of it),
though yet, whilst he apprehends that the removal of the pain may
translate the noxious humour to a more vital part, his will is never
determined to any one action that may serve to remove this pain..

CH. 21. OF POWER. 161

Whence it is evident, that desiring and willing are two distinct acts
of the mind ; and consequently that the will, which is but the power
of volition, is much more distinct from desire.

§ 31. Uiieasiness determines the will. — To return then to
inquiry, what is it that determines the will in regard to our actions ?
And that, upon second thoughts, I am apt to imagine is not, as is
generally supposed, the greater good in view ; but some (and for
the most part, the most pressing) uneasiness a man is at present
under. This is that which successively determines the will, and sets
us upon those actions we perform. This uneasiness we may call, as
it is, desire, which is an uneasiness of the mind, for want of some
absent good. All pain of the body, of what sort soever, and dis-
quiet of the mind, is uneasiness : and with this is always joined de-
sire, equal to the pain or uneasiness felt ; and is scarce distinguishable
from it. For desire being nothing but an uneasiness in the want of
an absent good, in reference to any pain felt, ease is that absent
good ; and until that ease can be attained, we may call it desire, no-
body feeling pain, that he wishes not to be eased of, with a desire
equal to that pain, and inseparable from it. Besides this desire of
ease from pain, there is another, of absent positive good, and here
also the desire and uneasiness are equal. As much as we desire any
absent good, so much are we in pain for it. But here all absent
good does not, according to the greatness it has, or is acknowledged
to have, cause pain equal to that greatness ; as all pain causes desire
equal to itself; because the absence of good is not always a pain, as
the presence of pain is. And, therefore, absent good may be looked
on, and considered, without desire. But so much as there is any
where of desire, so much there is of uneasiness.

§ 32. Desire is utieasiness. — That desire is a state of uneasi-
ness, every one who reflects on himself will quickly find. Who
is there that has not felt in desire, what the wise man says of hope
(which is not much different from it), that '' it being deferred,
makes the heart sick ;" and that still proportionable to the greatness
of the desire, which sometimes raises the uneasiness to that pitch,
that it makes people cry out, give me children, give me the thing de-
sired, or I die ! Life itself, and all its enjoyments, is a burden that
cannot be borne under the lasting and unremoved pressure of such
an uneasiness.

§ 33. The uneasiness of' desire determiiies the zmll. — Good and
evil, present and absent, it is true, work upon the mind; but
that which immediately determines the will, from time to time,
to every voluntary action, is the uneasiness of desire, fixed on

j some absent good, either negative, as indolency to one in pain ;
or positive, as enjoyment of pleasure. That it is this uneasiness

j that determines the will to the successive voluntary actions, whereof
the greatest part of our lives is made up, and by which we are
conducted through different courses to different ends, 1 shall
endeavour to show both from experience and the reason of the
thing.

I M

162 OF POWER.

BOOK

§ 31'. This is the spiing of action, — When a man is perfectly con-
tent with the state he is in, which is, when he is perfectly without
any uneasiness, what industry, what action, what will, is there left,
but to continue in it ? Of this every man's observation will satisfy
him. And thus we see our all-wise Maker, suitable to our consti-
tution and frame, and knowing what it is that determines the will,
has put into man the uneasiness of hunger and thirst, and other na-
tural desires, that return at their seasons, to move and determine^
their wills, for the preservation of themselves, and the continuation
of their sj^ecies. For I think we may conclude, that if the bare
contemplation of these good ends, to which we arc carried by these
several uneasinesses, had been sufficient to determine the will, and set
lis on work, we should have had none of these natural pains, and
perhaps, in this world, little or no pain at all. " It is better to
marry than to burn,'"' says St. Paul ; where we may see what it is
that chiefly drives men into the enjoyments of a conjugal life. A
little burning felt, pushes us more powerfully, than greater pleasures
in prospect draw or allure.

^ 35. 7'he greatest posilive gond deter mmes not the xv'Il, hut
iweastNe.ss. — It seems so established and settled a maxim by the
general consent of all mankind, that good, the greater good,
determines the will, that I do not at all wonder, that when 1 first
published my thoughts on this subject, I took it for granted ;
and I imagine, that by a great many I shall be thought more ex-
cusable, for having then done so, than that now I have ventured to
reced(> from so received an opinion. Put yet, upon a stricter in-
quiry, 1 am forced to conclude, that good, the greater good, though
apprehended and acknowledged to l)e so, does not determine the
will, until our desire, raised proportionably to it, makes us uneasy
in the want of it. Convince a man ever so much, that plenty has an
advantage over poverty ; make him see and own, that the handsome
conveniences of life are better than nasty penury ; yet as long as he
is content with the latter, and finds no uneasiness in it, he moves not;
liis will never is determined to any action that shall bring him out
of it. Let a man be ever so well persuaded of the advantages of
virtue, that it is as necessary to a man who has any great aims
in this world, or hopes in the next, as food to life ; yet until he
hungers and thirsts after righteousness, until he feels an uneasiness
in the want of it, his will will not be determined to any action in
pursuit of this confessed greater good ; but any other uneasiness
he feels in himself, shall take place, and carry his will to other ac-
tions. On the other side, let a drunkard see that his health decays,
his estate wastes; discredit and diseases, and the want of all things,
even of his beloved drink, attends him in the course he follows;
yet the returns of uneasiness to miss his companions, the habitual
thirst after his cups at the usual time, drives him to the tavern,
tliough he has in his view the loss of health and plenty, and per-
haps of the joys of another life : the least of which is no incon-
siderable good, but such, as he confesses, is far greater than the tick-

CH. 21. OF POWER. 163

ling of his palate with a glass of wine, or the idle chat of a soaking
club. It is not want of viewing the greater good ; for he sees, and
acknowledges, it, and in the intervals of his drinking hours, will take
resolution to pursue the greater good ; but when the uneasiness to
miss his accustomed delight returns, the greater acknowledged good
loses its hold, and the present uneasiness determines the will to the
accustomed action ; which thereby gets stronger footing to prevail
against the next occasion, though he, at the same time, makes secret
promises to himself, that he will do so no more; this is tlie last time
he will act against the attainment of those greater goods. And thus
he is, from time to time, in the state of that unhappy complainer,
Video meliora proboque, deterioj-a sequo?' : which sentence, allowed
for true, and made good by constant experience, may this, and pos-
sibly no other, way be easily made intelligible.

§ 36. Because the 7'emoval of u?ieasiness is the Jit st step to happi-
ness.— If we inquire into the reason of what experience makes so
evident in fact, and examine why it is uneasiness alone operates on
the will, and determines it in his choice, we shall find, that we being
capable but of one determination of the will to one action at once, the
present uneasiness that we are under does naturally determine the
will, in order to that happiness which we all aim at in all our actions ;
forasmuch, as whilst we are under any uneasiness, we cannot appre-
hend ourselves happy, or in the way to it : pain and uneasiness being,
by every one, concluded, and felt to be inconsistent with happiness ;
spoiling the relish even of those good things which we have : a little
pain serving to mar all the pleasure we rejoiced in. And, therefore,
that which of course determines the choice of our will to the next
action, will always be the removing of pain, as long as we have any
left, as the first and necessary step towards happiness.

§ 37. Because uneasiness alone is present. — Another reason why
it is uneasiness alone determines the will, may be this : because that
alone is present, and it is against the nature of things, that what
is absent should operate where it is not. It may be said, that absent
good may, by contemplation, be brought home to the mind, and
made present. The idea of it indeed may be in the mind, and
viewed as present there : but nothing will be in the mind as a pre-
sent good, able to counterbalance the removal of any uneasiness
which we are under, till it raises our desire, and the uneasiness of
that has the prevalency in determining the will. Till then, the idea
in the mind of whatever good, is there only, like other ideas, the ob-
ject of bare inactive speculation; but operates not on the will, nor
sets us on work : the reason whereof I shall show by and by. How
many are to be found, that have had lively representations set be-
fore their minds of the unspeakable joys of heaven, which they
acknowledge both possible and probable too, who yet would be con-
tent to take up with their happiness here ? and so the prevailing
imeasiness of their desires, let loose after the enjoyments of this life,
take their turns in the determining their wills, and all that while they

M 2

164 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

take not one step, arc not one jot moved, towards the good things of
another Ufe, considered as ever so great.

§ 38. Ikcause all icJio allozv the joys of heaven possible, pursue
them not. — Were the will determined by the views of good, as it
appears in contem))lation greater or less to the understanding, which
is the state of all absent good, and that which In the received opinion
the will is supposed to move to, and to be moved by, I do not see
how it could ever get loo!>e from the infinite eternal joys of heaven,
once proposed and considered as possible. For all absent good, by
which alone barely proposed, and coming in view, the will is thought
to be determined, and so to set us on action, being only possible, but
not infallibly certain, it is unavoidable, that the infinitely greater
possible good should regularly and constantly determine the will in
all the successive actions it directs ; and then we should keep con-
stantly and steadily in our course towards heaven, without ever
standnig still, or directing our actions to any other end: the
eternal condition of a future state, infinitely outweighing the expec-
tation of riches or honour, or any other worldly pleasure, which we
can propose to ourselves, though we should grant these the more
probable to be attained : for nothing future is yet in possession, and
so the expectation even of these may deceive us. If it were so, that
the greater good in view determines the will, so great a good once
proposed could not but seize the will, and hold it fast to the pursuit
of this infinitely greatest good, without ever letting it go again ; for
the will having a power over, and directing, the thoughts as well as
other actions, would, if it were so, hold the contemplation of the
mind fixed to that good.

But any great uneasiness is never neglected. — This would be the
state of the mind, and regular tendency of the will in all its determi-
nations, were it determined by that which is considered, and in view,
the greater good ; but that it is not so, is visible in experience.
The infinitely greatest confessed good being often neglected to
satisfy the successive uneasiness of our desires pursuing trifles. But
though the greatest allowed, even everlasting unspeakable good,
which has sometimes moved and affected the mind, does not stead-
fastly hold the will, yet we see any very great and prevailing uneasi-
ness, having once laid hold on the will, lets it not go; by which we
may be convinced, what it is that determines the will. Thus any
vehement pain of the body ; the ungovernable passion of a man vio-
lently in love; or the impatient desire of revenge, keeps the will
steady and intent, and the will thus determined, never lets the un-
derstanding lay by the object, but all the thoughts of the mind, and
powers of the Ixjdy, are uninterruptedly employed that way, by the
determination of the will, influenced by that topping uneasiness, as
long as it lasts; whereby it seems to me evident, that the will, or
power, of setting us upon one action in preference to all otheis, is
determined in us by uneasiness : and whether this be not so, I desire
every one to observe iri himself.

( H. 21. OF POWER. 165

§ 39. Desire accompanies all uneasiness. — I have hitherto
chiefly instanced in tlie uneasiness of desire, as that which deter-
mines the will ; because that is the chief, and most sensible ; and
the will seldom orders any action, nor is there any voluntary action
performed, without some desire accompanying it ; which, I think, is
the reason why the will and desire are so often confounded.
But yet we are not to look upon the uneasiness which makes
up, or at least accompanies, most of the other passions, as wholly
excluded in the case. Aversion, fear, anger, envy, shame, Sec,
have each their uneasiness too, and thereby influence the will.
These passions are scarce any of them in life and practice, simple
and alone, and wholly unmixed with others ; though usually in dis-
course and contemplation, that carries the name, which operates
strongest, and appears most in the present state of the mind. Nay,
there is, I think, scarce any of the passions to be found without
desire joined with it. I am sure, wherever there is uneasiness,
there is desire: for we constantly desire happiness; and whatever
we feel of uneasiness, so much, it is certain, we want of happiness,
even in our own opinion, let our state and condition otherwise
be what it will. Besides, the present moment not being our eternity,
whatever our enjoyment be, we look beyond the present, and desire
goes with our foresight, and that still carries the will with it.
8o that even in joy itself, that which keeps up the action, whereon
the enjoyment depends, is the desire to continue it, and fear to lose
it ; and whenever a greater uneasiness than that takes place in the
mind, the will presently is by that determined to some new action,
and the present delight neglected.

§ 40. JVie most pressing uneasiness naturally determines the will.
— But we being in this world beset with sundry uneasinesses, dis-
tracted with different desires, the next inquiry naturally will be,
which of them has the precedency in determining the will to the
next action ? and to that the answer is, that, ordinarily, which is
the most pressing of those that are judged capable of being then
removed. For the will being the power of directing our operative
faculties to some action, for some end, cannot, at any time, be
I moved towards what is judged, at that time, unattainable; that
[ would be to suppose an intelligent being designedly to act for an
end, only to lose its labour ; for so it is to act for what is judged
not attainable ; and, therefore, very great uneasinesses move not the
will, when they are judged not capable of a cure; they, in that
case, put us not upon endeavours. But, these set apart, the most
important and urgent uneasiness we at that time feel, is that which
ordinarily determines the will, successively, in that train of volun-
tary actions which make up our lives. The greatest present un-
easiness is the spur to action that is constantly felt, and, for the
i most part, determines the will in its choice of the next action. For
! this we must carry along with us, that the proper and only object
of the will is some action of ours, and nothing else. For we pro-

166 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

dace nothing by our willing it, but some action in our power, it is
there tlie will terniinatetl, and reaches no farther.

§ 41. All desire happiness. — If it be farther asked, what it is
moves desire? I answer, happiness, and that alone. Happiness and
misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost bounds whereof
we know not ; it is what " eye hath not seen, ear not heard, nor
hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive." But of some
degrees of both, we have very lively impressions made by several in-
stances of delight and joy on the one side, and torment and sorrow
on the other ; which, for shortness' sake, I shall comprehend under
the names of pleasure and pain, there being pleasure and pain of the
mind as well as the body; " with Him is fulness of joy, and pleasure
for evermore." Or, to speak truly, they are all of the mind ; though
some have their rise in the mind from thought, others in the body,
from certain modifications of motion.

§ 42. Happiness^ what. — Happiness then in its full extent, is the
utmost pleasure we are capable of; and misery the utmost pain : and
the lowest degree of what can be called happiness, is so much ease
from all pain, and so much present pleasure, as without which,
any one cannot be content. Now because pleasure and pain are
produced in us by the operation of certain objects, either on our
minds or our bodies, and in different degrees ; therefore what has an
aptness to produce pleasure in us, is that we call good ; and what
is apt to produce pain in us, we call evil, for no other reason,
but for its aptness to produce pleasure and pain in us, wherein
consists our happiness and misery. Farther, though what is apt to
produce any degree of pleasure be in itself good ; and what is apt
to produce any degree of pain, be evil ; yet it often happens, that
we do not call it so, when it comes in competition with a greater
of its sort ; because when they come in competition, the degrees
also of pleasure and pain have justly a preference. So that if we
will rightly estimate what we call good and evil, we shall find it lies
much m comparison : for the cause of every less degree of pain, as
well as every greater degree of pleasure, has the nature of good, and
vice versa.

§ 43. What good is desired, what not. — Though this be that
which is called good and evil ; and all good be the proper object of
desire in general ; yet all good, even seen and confessed to be so,
does not necessarily move every particular man'*s desire ; but only
that part, or so much of it, as is considered, and taken to make, a
necessary part of his happiness. All other good, however great in
reality or appearance, excites not a man''s desires who looks not
on it to make a part of that happiness wherewith he, in his present
thoughts, can satisfy himself. Happiness, under tliis view, every
one constantly pursues, and desires what makes any part of it:
other things, acknowledged to be good, he can look upon without a
desire, pass by, and be content without. There is nobody, I
think, 8o senseless, us to deny that there is [)leasure in knowledge:

cji. 2U OF rOWER. 167

and for the pleasures of sense, they have too many followers to let it
be questioned whether men are taken with them or no. Now let one
man place his satisfaction in sensual pleasures, another in the delight
of knowledge: though each of them cannot but confess, there is
great pleasure in what the other pursues ; yet neither of them
making the other's delight a part of his happiness, their desires are
not moved, but each is satisfied without what the other enjoys, and
so his will is not determined to the pursuit of it. But yet as soon as
the studious man's hunger and thirst makes him uneasy, he whose
will was never determined to any pursuit of good cheer, poignant
sauces, delicious wines, by the pleasant taste he has found in them,
is, by the uneasiness of hunger and thirst, presently determined to
eating and drinking ; though possibly with great indilferency what
wholesome food comes in his way. And on the other side, the
epicure buckles to study, when shame, or the desire to recommend
himself to his mistress, shall make him uneasy in the want of any sort
of knowledge. 'J'lius, how mucli soever men are in earnest, and con-
stant in pursuit of happiness ; yet they may have a clear view of
good, great and confessed good, without being concerned for it, or
moved by it, if they think they can make up their happiness without
it. Though as to pain, that they are always concerned for; they can
feel no uneasiness without being moved. And, therefore, being
uneasy in the want of whatever is judged necessary to their happi-
ness, as soon as any good appears to make a part of their portion
of happiness, they begin to desire it.

§ 44. IVh/j the greatest good is not always desired. — This, I
think, any one may observe in himself and others, that the greater
visible good does not always raise men's desires in proportion to the
greatness it appears, and is acknowledged to have : though every
little trouble moves us, and sets us on work to get rid of it. The
reason whereof is evident from the nature of our happiness and
misery itself. All present pain, whatever it be, makes a part of
our present misery : but all absent good does not at any time make
a necessary part of our present happiness, nor the absence of it
make a part of our misery : if it did, we should be constantly and
I infinitely miserable; there being infinite degrees of happiness,
I which are not in our possession. All uneasiness, therefore, being
removed, a moderate portion of good serves at present to content
[ men ; and some few degrees of pleasure in a succession of ordinary
I enjoyments, make up a happiness wherein they can be satisfied.
If this were not so, there could be no room for those indifferent
and visible trifling actions, to which our wills are so often deter-
mined ; and wherein we voluntarily waste so much of our lives;
which remissness could by no means consist with a constant deter-
mination of will or desire to the greatest apparent good. That this
is so, I think few people need go far from home to be convinced.
And indeed, in this life, there ai'e not many, whose happiness
reaches so far, as to afford them a constant train of moderate

168 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

mean pleasures, without any mixture of uneasiness; and yet they
could be content to stay here for ever : though they cannot deny,
but that it is possible there may be a state of eternal durable
joys after this life, far surpassing all the good that is to be found
here. Nay, they cannot but see, that it is more possible than the
attainment and continuation of that pittance of honour, riches, or
pleasure, which they pursue, and for which they neglect that
eternal state: but yet in full view of this difference, satisfied of
the possibility of a perfect, secure, and lasting happiness in a future
state, and under a clear conviction, that it is not to be had here
whilst they bound their happiness within some little enjoyment or
aim of this life, and exclude the joys of heaven from making any
necessary part of it, their desires are not moved by this greater ap-
parent good, nor their wills determined to any action, or endeavour,
for its attainment.

§ 45. Whu not being desired, it moves not the will. — The ordinary
necessities of our lives fill a great part of them with the uneasiness of
hunger, thirst, heat, cold, weariness with labour, and sleepiness in
their constant returns, &c. To which, if, besides accidental harms,
we add the fantastical uneasiness (as itch after honour, power, or
riches, &c.) which acquired habits, by fashion, example, and educa-
tion, have settled in us, and a thousand other irregular desires,
which custom has made natural to us, we shall find, that a very little
part of our life is so vacant from these uneasinesses, as to leave us free
to the attraction of remoter absent good. We are seldom at ease,
and free enough from the solicitation of our natural or adopted de-
sires ; but a constant succession of uneasinesses out of that stock which
natural wants, or acquired habits, have heaped up, take the will in
their turns ; and no sooner is one action despatched, which by such a
determination of the will we are set upon, but another uneasiness is
ready to set us on work. For the removing of the pains we feel,
and are at present pressed with, being the getting out of misery, and
consequently the first thing to be done in order to happiness, absent
good, though thought on, confessed, and appearing to be good, not
making any part of this unhappiness in its absence, is jostled out, to
make way for the removal of^ those uneasinesses we feel; until due*
and repeated contemplation has brought it nearer to our mindt
given some relish of it, and raised in us some desire ; which then b
ginning to make a part of our present uneasiness, stands upon fa
terms with the rest, to be satisfied, and so according to its greatnc
and pressure, comes in its turn to determine the will.

§46. Dii^, consideration raises desire. — And thus, by a due cor
sideration, and examining any good proposed, it is in our power t
raise our desires in a due proportion to the value of that goo(
wherel)y, in its turn and place, it may come to work u])on the will
and be pursued. For good, though appearing, and allowed ever a{
great, yet till it has raised desires in our minds, and thereby madj
us uneasy in its want, it reaches not our wills; we are not within

CH. 21. OF POWER. 169

the sphere of its activity ; our wills being under the determination
only of those uneasinesses which are present to us, which (whilst
we have any) are always soliciting, and ready at hand, to give the
will its next determination. The balancing, when there is any in
the mind, being only which desire shall be next satisfied, which
uneasiness first removed. Whereby comes to pass, that as long as
any uneasiness, any desire remains on our mind, there is no room
for good, barely as such, to come at the will, or at all to determine
it. Because, as has been said, the first step in our endeavours after
happiness being to get wholly out of the confines of misery, and to
feel no part of it, the will can be at leisure for nothing* else, till
every uneasiness we feel be perfectly removed : which, in the multi-
tude of wants and desires we are beset with in this imperfect state,
we are not like to be ever free from in this world.

§ 47. The poxver to suspend the prosecution of any desire, makes
*mayfor consideration. — There being in us a great many uneasinesses
always soliciting, and ready to determine, the will, it is natural, as
I have said, that the greatest and most pressing should determine
the will to the next action ; and so it does for the most part, but not
always. For the mind having in most cases, as is evident in expe-
rience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of
its desires, and so all, one after another, is at liberty to consider
the objects of them, examine them on all sides, and weigh them with
others. In this lies the liberty man has ; and from the not using of
it right, comes all that variety of mistakes, errors, and faults which
we run into in the conduct of our lives, and our endeavours after
happiness, whilst we precipitate the determination of our wills, and
engage too soon before due examination. To prevent this, we have
a power to suspend the prosecution of this or that desire, as every
one may daily experiment in himself. This seems to me the source
of all liberty ; in this seems to consist that which is (as I think im-
properly) called free will. For during this suspension of any de-
sire, before the will be determined to action, and the action (which
follows that determination) done, we have opportunity to examine,
view, and judge of the good or evil of what we are going to do; and
when, upon due examination, we have judged, we have done our
duty, all that we can or ought to do, in pursuit of our happiness ;
and it is not a fault, but a perfection of our nature, to desire, will,
and act, according to the last result of a fair examination.

§ 48. To he determined by our own judgment, is no restraint to
liberty. — This is so far from being a restraint or diminution of free-
dom, that it is the very improvement and benefit of it ; it is not an
abridgment, it is the end and use of our liberty ; and the farther
we are removed from such a determination, the nearer we are to mi-
sery and slavery. A perfect indiff'erency in the mind, not deter-
minable by its last judgment of the good or evil that is thought to
attend its choice, would be so far from being an advantage and ex-
cellency of an intellectual nature, that it would be as great an imper-
fection, as the want of indifiercncy to act, or not to act, until deter-

170 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

mined by the will, would be an imperfection on the other side. A
man is at liberty to lift up his hand to his head, or let it rest quiet ;
he is perfectly indifferent in either ; and it would be an imperfection
in him, if he wanted that power, if he were deprived of that indif-
ferency. But it would be as great an imperfection, if he had the
same indifFerency, whether he would prefer the lifting up his hand,
or its remaining in rest, when it would save his head or eyes from
a blow he sees coming: it is as much a perfection, that desire, or
tlie power of preferring, should be determined by good, as that tlie
power of acting should be determined by the will ; and the more
certain such determination is, the greater is the perfection. Nay,
were we determined by any thing but the last result of our own
minds, judging of the good or evil of any action, we were not free.
The very end of our freedom being, that we may attain the good we
choose. And, therefore, every man is put under a necessity, by his
constitution, as an intelligent being, to be determined in willing by
his own thought and judgment, what is best for him to do; else he
would be under the determination of some other than himself,
which is want of liberty. And to deny, that a man's will, in every
determination, follows his own judgment, is to say, that a man wills
and acts for an end that he would not have at the time that he wills
and acts for it. For if he prefers it in his present thoughts before
any other, it is plain, he then thinks better of it, and would have
it before any other, unless he can have and not have it, will and
not will it, at the same time; a contradiction too manifest to be
admitted.

§ 49. The freest agents are so determined. — If we look upon
those superior beings above us, who enjoy perfect happiness, we
shall have reason to judge, that they are more steadily determined
in their choice of good, than we; and yet we have no reason to
think they are less happy, or less free, than we are. And if it were
fit for such jx)or finite creatures as we are, to pronounce what infinite
wisdom and goodness could do, I think we might say, that God him-
self cannot choose what is not good ; the freedom of the Ahnighty
hinders not his being determined by what is best.

§ 50. A constant determination to a pnrsuitof hamnness, no
abridgment of liberty, — But to give a righT vTew oftliis imstaken

t)art of liberty ; let me ask, " would any one be a changeling, because
le is less determined by wise considerations than a wise man ? Is it
worth the name of freedom, to be at liberty to play the fool, and
draw shame and misery upon a man''s self?" If to break loose from
the conduct of reason, and to want that restraint of examination
and iudgment, which keeps us from choosing or doing the worse,
be liberty, true liberty, madmen and fools are the only free men ;
but yet, I think, nobody would choose to be mad for the sake of
such lil)erty, but he that is mad already. The constant desire of
happiness, and the constraint it puts upon us to act for it, nobody, I
think, accounts an abridgment of liberty, or at least, an abridg-
ment of liberty to be complained of. God Almighty himself ib^

I

CH. 21. OF POWER. 171

under the necessity of being happy ; and the more any intelligent
being is so, the nearer is its approach to perfection and happiness.
That in this state of ignorance we short-sighted creatures might not
mistake true felicity, we are endowed with a power to suspend any
particular desire, and keep it from determining the will, and engaging
us in action. This is standing still, where we are not sufficiently
assured of the way ; examination is consulting a guide ; the deter-
mination of the will, upon inquiry, is following the direction of that
guide ; and he that has a power to act, or not to act, according as
such determination directs, is a free agent ; such determination
abridges not that power wherein liberty consists. He that has his
chains knocked of, and the prison doors set open to him, is per-
fectly at liberty, because he may either go or stay, as he best likes;
though his preference be determined to stay, by the darkness of
the night, or illness of the weather, or want of other lodging. He
ceases not to be free, though the desire of some convenience to be
had there, absolutely determines his preference, and makes him stay
in his prison.

§51. The necessity of pursuing true happiness^ the foundation of
liberty. — As, therefore, the highest perfection of intellectual nature
lies in a careful and constant pursuit of true and solid happiness ; so
the care of ourselves, that we mistake not imaginary for real happi-
ness, is the necessary foundation of our liberty. The stronger ties
we have to an unalterable pursuit of happiness in general, which is
our greatest good, and which, as such, our desires always follow,
the more are we free from any necessary determination of our will
to any particular action, and from a necessary compliance with our
desire, set upon any particular, and then appearing preferable good,
until we have duly examined whether it has a tendency to, or be in-
consistent with, our real happiness ; and, therefore, until we are as
much informed upon this inquiry, as the weight of the matter, and
the nature of the case, demands, we are, by the necessity of prefer-
ring and pursuing true happiness as our greatest good, obliged to
suspend the satisfaction of our desires in particular cases.

§ 52. The reason of it. — This is the hinge on which turns the
liberty of intellectual beings in their constant endeavours after, and
a steady prosecution of, true felicity, that they can suspend this pro-
secution, in particular cases, until they have looked before them, and
informed themselves whether that particular thing, which is then
proposed or desired, lie in the way to their main end, and make a
real part of that which is their greatest good ; for the inclination
and tendency of their nature to happiness, is an obligation and mo-
tive to them to take care not to mistake or miss it ; and so, necessa-
rily, puts them upon caution, deliberation, and wariness, in the direc-
tion of their particular actions, which are the means to obtain it.
Whatever necessity determines to the pursuit of real bliss, the same
necessity, with the same force, establishes suspense, deliberation,
and scrutiny of each successive desire, whether the satisfaction of
it does not interfeie with our true happiness, and mislead us from

m OF POWER. BOOK 2.

it. This, as seems to uic, is the great privilege of finite intellectual
beings ; and I desire it may be well considered, whether the great
inlet and exercise of all the liberty men have, are capable of, or can
be useful, to them, and that whereon depends the turn of their ac-
tions, does not lie in this, that they can suspend their desires, and
stop them from determining their wills to any action, until they have
duly and fairly examined the good and evil of it, as far forth as the
weight of the thing requires. This we are able to do, and when we
have done it, we have done our duty, and all that is in our power,
and indeed all that needs. For since the will supposes knowledge
to guide its choice, all that we can do, is to hold our wills undeter-
mined, until we have examined the good and evil of what we desire.
What follows after that, follows in a chain of consequences linked
one to another, all depending on the last determination of the judg-
ment ; which, whether it shall be upon a hasty and precipitate view,
or upon a due and mature examination, is in our power; experience
showing us, that, in most cases, we are able to suspend the present
satisfaction of any desire.

§ 53. Government of our j^^^^^ons, the right improiwment
of liberty. — But if any extreme disturbance (as sometimes it hap-
pens) possesses our whole mind, as when the pain of the rack, an
impetuous uneasiness, as of love, anger, or any other violent passion,
running away with us, allows us not the liberty of thought, and we
are not masters enough of our own minds to consider thoroughly,
and examine fairly ; God, who knows our frailty, pities our weak-
ness, and requires of us no more than we are able to do, and sees
what was, and what was not, in our power, will judge as a kind and
merciful father. But the forbearance of a too hasty compliance with
our desires, the moderation and restraint of our passions, so that
our understandings may be free to examine, and reason unbiassed

five its judgment, being that whereon a right direction of our con-
uct to true happiness depends : it is in this we should employ our
chief care and endeavours. In this we should take pains to suit the
relish of our minds, to the true intrinsic good or ill that is in things,
and not permit an allowed or supposed possible great and weighty
good to slip out of our thoughts, without leaving any relish, any de-
sire, of itself there, till, by a due consideration of its true worth, we
have formed appetites in our minds suitable to it, and made our-
selves uneasy in the want of it, or in the fear of losing it. And how
much this is in every one\s power, by making resolutions to him-
self, such as he may keep, is easy for every one to try. Nor let
any one say, he cannot govern his passions, nor hinder them from
))reaking out, and carrying him into action ; for what he can do be-
fore a prince, or a great man, he can do alone, or in the presence of
God, it he will.

§ 54. How men come to pursue different courses. — From what
lias been said, it is easy to give an account, how it comes to pass
that though all men desire happiness, yet their wills carry them so
contrarily, and, consequently, some of them to what is evil. And

cu. 21. OF POWER. 173

to this I say, that tlie various and contrary choices that men make
in the world, do not argue that they do not all pursue good ; but
that the same thing is not good to every man alike. This variety of
pursuit shows that every one does not place his happiness in the same
thing, or choose the same way to it. Were all the concerns of man
terminated in this life, why one followed study and knowledge, and
another hawking and hunting; why one chose luxury and de-
bauchery, and another sobriety and riches, would not Jbe because
every one of these did not aim at his own happiness ; but because
their happiness was placed in different things. And, therefore, it
was a right answer of the physician to his patient that had sore eyes ;
if you have more pleasure in the taste of wine, than in the use of
your sight, wine is good for you ; but if the pleasure of seeing be
greater to you than that of drinking, wine is naught.

§ 55. The mind has a different relish, as well as the palate; and
you will as fruitlessly endeavour to delight all men with riches or
glory (which yet some men place their happiness in), as you would
to satisfy all men's hunger with cheese or lobsters; which though
very agreeable and delicious fare to some, are to others extremely
nauseous and offensive ; and many people would, with reason, prefer
the griping of an hungry belly, to those dishes which are a feast to
others. Hence it was, I think, that the philosophers of old did in
vain inquire, whether stminumi hoiiuiu consisted in riches or bodily
delights, or virtue, or contemplation ? And they might have as rea-
sonably disputed whether the best relish were to be found in apples,
plums, or nuts; and have divided themselves into sects upon it.
For as pleasant tastes depend not on the things themselves, but their
agreeableness to this or that particular palate, wherein there is great
variety ; so the greatest happiness consists in the having those
things which produce the greatest pleasure ; and in the absence of
those which cause any disturbance, any pain. Now these, to dif-
ferent men, are very different things. If, therefore, men in this life
only have hope, if in this life they can only enjoy, it is not strange
nor unreasonable, that they should seek their happiness by avoiding
all things that disease them here, and by pursuing all that delight
them ; wherein it will be no wonder to find variety and difference.
For if there be no prospect beyond the grave, the inference is cer-
tainly right, " let us eat and drink," let us enjoy what we delight in,
" for to-morrow we shall die." This, I think, may serve to show us
the reason, why, though all men's desires tend to happiness, yet
they are not moved by the same object. Men may choose different
things, and yet all choose right, supposing them only like a com-
pany of poor insects, whereof some are bees, delighted with flowers
and their sweetness ; others beetles, delighted with other kind of
viands ; which having enjoyed for a season, they would cease to be,
and exist no more for ever.

§ 5Q, How men come to choose ill. — These things duly weighed,
will give us, as I think, a clear view into the state of human liberty.
Liberty, it is plain, consists in a power to do, or not to do; to do;

174 OF POWER. ROOK 2.

or forbear doing, as we will. This cannot be clcnlcd. But this
seeming to comprehend only the actions of a man consecutive to
volition, it is farther inquired, *' whether he be at liberty to will or
no?"" And to this it has been answered, that in most cases a man
is not at liberty to forbear the act of volition ; he must exert an act
of his will, whereby the action proposed is made to exist, or not to
exist. But yet there is a case wherein a man is at liberty in respect
of willing, and that is the choosing of a remote good as an end to
be pursued. Here a man may suspend the act of his choice from
being determined for or against the thing proposed, till he has ex-
amined whether it be really of a nature in itself and consequences
to make him happy or no. For when he has once chosen it, and
thereby it is become a part of his happiness, it raises desire, and
that proportionably gives him uneasiness, which determines his will,
and sets him at work in pursuit of his choice on all occasions that
offer. And here we may see how it comes to pass, that a man may
justly incur punishment, though it be certain that in all the particu-
lar actions that he wills, he does, and necessarily does, will that which
he then judges to be good. For though his will be always deter-
mined by that which is judged good by his understanding, yet it
excuses him not : because, by a too hasty choice of his own making,
he has imposed on himself wrong measures of good and evil ; which,
however false and fallacious, have the same influence on all his
future conduct, as if they were true and right. He has vitiated his
own palate, and must be answerable to himself for the sickness and
death that follows from it. The eternal law and nature of things
must not be altered to comply with his ill-ordered choice. If the
neglect or abuse of the liberty he had to examine what would
really and truly make for his happiness misleads him, the mis-
carriages that follow on it must be imputed to his own election.
He had a power to suspend his determination : it was given him,
that he might examine, and take care of his own happiness, and
look that he were not deceived. And he could never judge, that it
was better to be deceived, than not, in a matter of so great and near
concernment.

What has been said, may also discover to us the reason why men
in this world prefer different things, and pursue happiness by con-
trary courses. But yet since men are always constant, and in earnest,
in matters of hap|)iness and misery, the question still remains. How
men come often to prefer the worse to the better ; and to choose that,
which, by their own confession, has made them miserable?

§ 57. To account for the various and contrary ways men take,
though all aim at being happy, we must consider whence the various
uneasinesses that determine the will in the preference of each volun-
tary action have their rise.

1 . From bodilij pain. — Some of them come from causes not in
our power, such as are often the pains of the body from want, dis-
ease, or outward injuries, as the rack, &c., which, when present and
\'iolent, operate for' the most part forcibly on the will, and turn the

J

CH. n. OF POWER. 175

courses of men's lives from virtue, piety, and religion, and what
before they judged to lead to happiness; every one not endea-
vouring, or through disuse, not being able, by the contemplation
of remote and future good, to raise in himself desires of them strong
enough to counterbalance the uneasiness he feels in those bodily tor-
ments, and to keep his will steady in the choice of those actions
which lead to future happiness. A neighbour country has been of
late a tragical theatre, from which we might fetch instances, if there
needed any, and the world did not in all countries and ages furnish
examples enough to confirm that received observation, Necessltos
Ci)<^H ad turp'ia; and therefore there is great reason for us to pray,
" Lead us not into temptation/''

2. From zvrong desires, arising from wrong judgment. — Other
uneasinesses arise from our desires of absent good ; which desires
always bear proportion to, and depend on, the judgment we make,
and the relish we have of any absent good : in both which we are
apt to be variously misled, and that by our own fault.

§ 58. Our judgment qf' present good or evil ahcays right. — In the
first place, I shall consider the wrong judgments men make of future
good and evil, whereby their desires are misled. For as to present
happiness and misery, when that alone comes into consideration,
and the consequences are quite removed, a man never chooses amiss;
he knows what best pleases him, and that he actually prefers. Things
in their present enjoyment are what they seem ; the apparent and
real good are, in this case, alvv^ays the same. For the pain or plea-
sure being just so great, and no greater than it is felt, the present
good or evil is really so much as it appears. And, therefore, were
every action of ours concluded within itself, and drew no conse-
quences after it, we sliould undoubtedly never err in our choice of
good; we should always infallibly prefer the best. Were the pains
of honest industry, and of starving with hunger and cold, set to-
gether before us, nobody would be in doubt which to choose : were
the satisfaction of a lust, and the joys of heaven, offered at once to
any one's present possession, he would not balance or err in the de-
termination of his choice.

§ 59. But since our voluntary actions carry not all the happiness
and misery that depend on them along with them in their present
performance, but are the precedent causes of good and evil, which
they draw after them, and bring upon us v/hen they themselves
are passed and cease to be ; our desires look beyond our present
enjoyments, and carry the mind out to absent good, according to
the necessity which we think there is of it, to the making or increase
of our happiness. It is our opinion of such a necessity that gives it
its attraction : without that, we are not moved by absent good.
For in this narrow scantling of capacity which we are accustomed to,
and sensible of, here, wherein we enjoy but one pleasure at once,
which when all uneasiness is away, is, whilst it lasts, sufficient to
make us think ourselves happy ; it is not all remote, and even ap-
parent good, that affects us. Because the indolency and enjoyment

176 OF POWER. BOOK ^.

we have, sufficing for our present happiness, we desire not to venture
the change : since we judge that we are happy already, being content,"
and that is enough. For who is content, is happy. But as soon as
any new uneasiness comes in, this happiness is disturbed, and we are
set afresh on work in the pursuit of happiness.

§ 60. From a zorons^ judgme7it of 'what makes a necessary part
of their happiness. — Their aptness therefore to conclude, that they
can be happy without it, is one great occasion that men often are not
raised to the desire of the greatest absent good. For whilst such
thoughts possess them, the joys of a future state move them not ;
they have little concern or uneasiness about them; and the willj
free from the determination of such desires, is left to the pursuit of
nearer satisfactions, and to the removal of those uneasinesses which
it then feels in its want of, and longing after, them. Change but a
man's view of these things ; let him see that virtue and religion are
necessary to his happiness ; let him look into the future state of bliss
or misery, and see there God, the righteous Judge, ready to " render
to every man according to his deeds ; to them who by patient con-
tinuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immor-
tality, eternal life; but unto every soul that doth evil, indignation
and wrath, tribulation and anguish -^ to him, I say, who hath a
prospect of the different state of perfect happiness or misery that
attends all men after this life, depending on their behaviour here,
the measures of good and evil, that govern his choice, are mightily
changed. For since nothing of pleasure and pain in this life can
bear any proportion to the endless happiness, or exquisite misery, of
an immortal soul hereafter, actions in his power will have their pre-
ference, not according to the transient pleasure or pain that accom-
panies or follows them here, but as they serve to secure that perfect
durable happiness hereafter.

§61. A more particular account of wrong judgments, — But to
account more particularly for the misery that men often bring on
themselves, notwithstanding that they do all in earnest pursue hap-
piness, we must consider how things come to be represented to our
desires, under deceitful appearances ; and that is by the judgment
pronouncing wrongly concerning them. To see how far this reaches,
and what are the causes of wrong judgment, we must remember
that things are judged good or bad in a double sense.

First, That which is properly good or bad, is nothing but barely
pleasure or pain.

Secondly, But because not only present pleasure and pain, but
that also which is apt, by its efficacy or consequences, to bring it upon!
us at a distance, is a proper object of our desires, and apt to move a
creature that has foresight ; therefore things also that draw after
them pleasure and pain are considered as good and evil.

§ 62. The wrong judgment that misleads us, and makes the will
often fasten on the worse side, lies in misreporting upon the various]
comparisons of these. The wrong judgment I am here speaking]
of, is not what one man mav think of the determination of another ;'

CH. 21. OF POWER. nr

but what every man himself must confess to be wrong. For since
I lay it for a certain ground, that every intelligent being really seeks
happiness, which consists in the enjoyment of pleasure, without any
considerable mixture of uneasiness ; it is impossible any one should
willingly put into his own draught any bitter ingredient, or leave
out any thing in his power, that would tend to his satisfaction, and
the completing of his happiness, but only by wrong judgment. I
shall not here speak of that mistake which is the consequence of in-
vincible error, which scarce deserves the name of wrong judgment;
but of that wrong judgment which every man himself must confess
to be so.

§ 63. In comparing present and future, — If, therefore, as to
present pleasure and pain, the mind, as has been said, never mis-
takes that which is really good or evil ; that which is the greater
pleasure, or the greater pain, is really just as it appears. But though
present pleasure and pain show their difference and degrees so plainly,
as not to leave room for mistake; yet when we compare present
pleasure or pain with future (which is usually the case in the most
important determinations of the will), we often make wrong judg-
ments of them, taking our measures of them in different positions of
distance. Objects, near our view, are apt to be thought greater
than those of a larger size, that are more remote ; and so it is with
pleasures and pains ; the present is apt to carry it, and those at a dis-
tance have the disadvantage in the comparison. Thus most men,
like spendthrift heirs, are apt to judge a little in hand better than a
great deal to come ; and so for small matters in possession, part with
greater ones in reversion. But that this is a wrong judgment, every
one must allow, let his pleasure consist in whatever it will : since
that which is future will certainly come to be present; and then
having the same advantage of nearness, will show itself in its full
dimensions, and discover his wilful mistake, who judged of it by
unequal measures. Were the pleasure of drinking accompanied,
the very moment a man takes off his glass, with that sick stomach
and aching head, which, in some men, are sure to follow not many
hours after, I think nobody, whatever pleasure he had in his cups,
would, on these conditions, ever let wine touch his lips ; which yet
he daily swallows, and the evil side comes to be chosen only by the
fallacy of a little difference in time. But if pleasure or pain can be so
lessened only by a few hours removal, how much more will it be so,
by a farther distance, to a man that will not, by a right judgment
do what time will, i. e. bring it home upon himself, and consider it
as present, and there take its true dimensions "^ This is the way we
usually impose on ourselves, in respect of bare pleasure and pain,
or the true degrees of happiness or misery; the future loses its
just proportion, and what is present, obtains the preference as the
greater. I mention not here the wrong judgment, whereby the
: absent are not only lessened, but reduced to perfect nothing ; when
men enjoy what they can in present, and make sure of that, con-
cluding amiss that no evil will thence follow. For that lies not in

178 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

comparing the greatness of future good and evil, which is that we
arc here speaking of; but in another sort of wrong judgment, which
is concerning good or evil, as it is considered to be Uie cause and
procurement of pleasure or pain that will follow from it.

§ 64. Causes of this. — The cause of our judging amiss, when
we compare our present pleasure or pain with future, seems to me
to be the weak and narrow constitution of our minds ; we cannot
well enjoy two pleasures at once, much less any pleasure almost,
whilst pain possesses us. The present pleasure, if it be not very
languid, anci almost none at all, fills our narrow souls, and so takes
up the whole mind, that it scarce leaves any thought of things ab-
sent; or if among our pleasures, there are some which are not
strong enough to exclude the consideration of things at a distance ;
yet we have so great an abhorrence of pain, that a little of it extin-
guishes all our pleasures : a little bitter mingled in our cup, leaves
no relish of the sweet. Hence it comes, that at any rate we desire
to be rid of the present evil, which we are apt to think nothing
absent can equal ; because under the present pain, we find not our-
selves capable of any the least degree of happiness. Men's daily
complaints are a loud proof of this ; the pain that any one actually
feels is still of all other the worst ; and it is with anguish they cry
out, " Any rather than this ; nothing can be so intolerable as what I
now suffer.'' And, thei'efore, our whole endeavoiu's and thoughts
are intent to get rid of the present evil, before all things, as the first
necessary condition to our happiness, let what will follow. Nothing,
as we passionately think, can exceed, or almost equal, the uneasiness
that sits so heavy upon us. And because the abstinence from a
present pleasure, that offers itself, is a pain, nay, oftentimes a very
great one, the desire being inflamed by a near and tempting object ;
it is no wonder that that operates after the same manner pain does,
and lessens in our thoughts what is future ; and so forces us, as it
were, blindfold into its embraces.

§ 65. Add to this, that absent good, or, which is the same thing,
future pleasure, especially if of a sort we are unacquainted with,
seldom is able to counterbalance any uneasiness, either of pain or
desire, which is present. For its greatness being no more thari
what shall be really tasted when enjoyed, men are apt enough to
lessen that, to make it give place to any present desire; and to
conclude nith themselves, that when it comes to trial, it may pos-
sibly not answer the report or opinion that generally passes of it,
they having often found, that not only what others have magnified,
but even what they themselves have enjoyed with great pleasure and
delight at one time, has proved insipid or nauseous at another ;
and therefore they see nothing in it for which they should forego a
present enjoyment. But that this is a false way of judging, when
applied to the happiness of another life, they must confess, unless
they will say, " God cannot make those happy he designs to be so.*"
For that being intended for a state of happiness, it must certainly
be agreeable to every one's wish and desire ; could we suppose their

CH. 21. OF POWER. 179

relishes as different there, as they are here, yet the manna in heaven
will suit every one's palate. Thus much of the wrong judgment
we make of present and future pleasure and pain, when they are
compared together, and so the absent considered as future.

§ 66. In considering consequences of actions. — As to thhigs good
or bad in their consequences, and by the aptness that is in them to
procure us good or evil in the future, we judge amiss several ways.

1. When we judge that so much evil does not really depend on
them, as in truth there does

J2. When we judge, that though the consequences be of that
moment, yet it is not of that certainty, but that it may otherwise
fall out; or else by some means be avoided, as by industry, address,
change, repentance, &c. That these are wrong ways of judging,
were easy to show in every particular, if I would examine them at
large singly : but I shall only mention this in general, viz., that it
is a very wrong and irrational way of proceeding, to venture a
greater good for a less, upon uncertain guesses, and before a due
examination be made, proportionable to the weightiness of the
matter, and the concernment it is to us not to mistake. This, I
think, every one must confess, especially if he considers the usual
causes of his wrong judgment, whereof these following are some.

§67. Causes of this. — 1. Ignorance: he that judges without
informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit
himself of judging amiss.

2. Inadvertency : when a man overlooks even that which he does
know. This is an affected and present ignorance, which misleads
our judgments as much as the other. Judging is, as it were, ba-
lancing an account, and determining on which side the odds lies.
If therefore either side be huddled up in haste, and several of the
sums that should have gone into the reckoning be overlooked, and
left out, this precipitancy causes as wrong a judgment, as if it were a
perfect ignorance. 1 hat which most commonly causes this, is the
prevalency of some present pleasure or pain, heightened by our fee-
ble passionate nature, most strongly wrought on by what is present.
To check this precipitancy, our understanding and reason was
given us, if we will make a right use of it, to search and see, and
then judge thereupon. Without liberty, the understanding would
be to no purpose ; and without understanding, liberty (if it could
be) would signify nothing. If a man sees what would do him
good or harm, what would make him happy or miserable, without
being able to move himself one step towards or from it, what is he
the better for seeing ? and he that is at liberty to ramble in perfect
darkness, what is his liberty better than if he were driven up and
down as a bubble by the force of the wind ? the being acted by a
blind impulse from without or from within, is little odds. The first,
therefore, and great use of hberty, is to hinder blind precipitancy ;
the principal exercise of freedom is to stand still, open the ej^es,
look about, and take a view of the consequences of what we are going
to do, as much as the weight of the matter requires. How much

n2

180 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

sloth and negligence, heat and passion, the prevalency of fashion, or
acquired indispositions, do severally contribute, on occasion, to these
wrong judgments, I shall not here farther inquire ; I shall only add
one other false judgment, which I think necessarj^ to mention, because
perhaps it is little taken notice of, though of great influence.

§ 68. Wrong judgment of 'what is necessary to our happiness.-—
All men desire happiness, that is past doubt : but, as has been
already observed, when they are rid of pain, they are apt to take up
with any pleasure at hand, or that custom has endeared to them, to
rest satisfied in that ; and so being happy till some new desire, by
making them uneasy, disturbs that happiness, and shows them that
they are not so, they look no farther ; nor is the will determined to
any action in pursuit of any other known or apparent good. For
since we find that we cannot enjoy all sorts of good, but one excludes
another ; we do not fix our ideas on every apparent greater good,
unless it be judged to be necessary to our happiness ; if we think we
can be happy without it, it moves us not. This is another occasion
to men of judging Avrong, when they take not that to be necessary to
their happiness, which really is so. This mistake misleads us both
in the choice of the good we aim at, and very often in the means to
it, when it is a remote good. But which way ever it be, either by
placing it where really it is not, or by neglecting the means, as not
necessary to it, when a man misses his great end, happiness, he will
acknowledge he judged not right. That which contributes to this
mistake, is the real or supposed unpleasantness of the actions, which
are the way to this end, it seeming so preposterous a thing, to men,
to make themselves unhappy in order to happiness, that they do not
easily bring themselves to it.

§ 69. fVe can change the agreeableness, or disagreeahleness, in
things. — The last inquiry, therefore, concerning this matter is,
" whether it be in a man's power to change the pleasantness and
unpleasantness that accompanies any sort of action P"*' and as ta
that, it is plain in many cases he can. Men may, and should, cor-
rect their palates, and give a relish to what either has, or they
suppose has, none. The relish of the mind is as various as that
of the body, and like that, too, may be altered ; and it is a mistake
to think, that men cannot change the displeasingness or indiffer-
ency that is in actions, into pleasure and desire, if they will do but
what is in their power. A due consideration will do it in some
cases; and practice, application, and custom in most. Bread
or tobacco may be neglected, where they are shown to be useful to
health, because of an indifferency or disrelish to them ; reason and
consideration at first recommend, and begin their trial, and use
finds, or custom makes, them pleasant. That this is so in virtue
too, is very certain. Actions are pleasing, or displeasing, either
in themselves, or considered as a means to a greater and more de-
sirable end. The eating of a well-seasoned dish suited to a man s
palate, may move the mind by the delight itself that accompanies,
the eating, without reference to any other end ; to which the coq-.

I

CH. 21. OF POWER. 181

sideration of the pleasure there is in health and strength (to which
that meat is subservient), may add a new gusto, able to make us
swallow an ill-relished potion. In the latter of these, any action is
rendered more or less pleasing, only by the contemplation of the
end, and the being more or less persuaded of its tendency to it, or
necessary connexion with it : but the pleasure of the action itself
is best acquired, cr increased, by use and practice. Trials often
reconcile us to that, which at a distance we looked on with aversion ;
and by repetitions, wear us into a liking of what possibly in the
first essay displeased us. Habits have powerful charms, and put
so strong attractions of easiness and pleasure into what we accustom
ourselves to, that we cannot forbear to do, or, at least, be easy in
the omission of, actions which habitual practice has suited, and
thereby recommends to us. Though this be very visible, and every
one's experience shows him he can do so ; yet it is a part in the con-
duct of men towards their happiness, neglected to a degree, that it
will be possibly entertained as a paradox, if it be said, that men
can make things or actions more or less pleasing to themselves;
and thereby remedy that, to which one may justly impute a great
deal of their wandering. Fashion and the common opinion having
settled wrong notions, and education and custom ill-habits, the just
values of things are misplaced, and the palates of men corrupted.
Pains should be taken to rectify these ; and contrary habits change
our pleasures, and give a relish to that which is necessary, or con-
ducive to our happiness. This every one must confess he can do ;
and when happiness is lost, and misery overtakes him, he will con-
fess, he did amiss in neglecting it, and condemn himself for it : and
I ask every one, whether he has not often done so ?

§ 70. Preference of vice to virtue, a manifest wrong judgment. —
I shall not now enlarge any farther on the wrong judgments, and
neglect of what is in their power, whereby men mislead themselves.
This would make a volume, and is not my business. But what-
ever false notions, or shameful neglect of what is in their power,
may put men out of their way to happiness, and distract them, as
we see, into so different courses of life, this yet is certain, that mo-
rality, established upon its true foundations, cannot but determine
the choice in any one that will but consider : and he that will not
be so far a rational creature, as to reflect seriously upon infinite
happiness and misery, must needs condemn himself, as not making
that use of his understanding he should. The rewards and pu-
nishments of another life, which the Almighty has established as
the enforcements of his law, are of weight enough to determine the
choice against whatever pleasure or pain this life can show, when
the eternal state is considered but in its bare possibility, which no-
body can make any doubt of. He that will allow exquisite and
endless happiness to be but the possible consequence of a good life
here, and the contrary state the possible reward of a bad one, must
own himself to judge very much amiss, if he does not conclude, that
a virtuous life, with the certain expectation of everlasting bHss,^

182 OF POWER. BOOK %.

which may come, is to be preferred to a vicious one, with the fear
of that dreadful state of misery, which it is \evy possible may over-
take the guilty ; or at best, the terrible uncertain hope of annihila-
tion. This is evidently so, though the virtuous life here had nothing
but pain ; and the vicious, continual pleasure : which yet is for the
most part quite otherwise, and wicked men have not much the odds
to brag of, even in their present possession ; nay, all things rightly
considered, have, I think, even the worst part here. But when infi-
nite happiness is put in one scale, against infinite misery in the
other ; ii the worst that comes to the pious man, if he mistakes, be
the best that the wicked can attain to, if he be in the right, who
can, without madness, run the venture? Who in his wits would
choose to come within a possibility of infinite misery, which, if he
miss, there is yet nothing to be got by the hazard ? Whereas, on
the other side, the sober man ventures nothing against infinite hap-

Einess to be got, if his expectation comes to pass. If the good man
e in the right, he is eternally happy; if he mistakes, he is not
miserable, he feels nothing. On the other side, if the wicked man
be in the right, he is not happy ; if he mistakes, he is infinitely mi-
serable. Must it not be a most manifest wrong judgment, that does
not presently see to which side, in this case, the preference is to be
given ^ I have forborne to mention any thing of the certainty, or
probability of a future state, designing here to show the wrong
judgment that any one must allow he makes upon his own prin-
ciples, laid how he pleases, who prefers the short pleasures of a vi-
cious life upon any consideration, whilst he knows, and cannot but
be certain, that a future life is at least possible.

§ 71. Recapitulation. — To conclude this inquiry into human
liberty, which, as it stood before, I myself, from the beginning,
fearing, and a very judicious friend of mine, since the publication,
suspecting to have some mistake in it, though he could not particu-
larly show it me, I was put upon a stricter review of this chapter.
Wherein lighting upon a very easy, and scarce observable, slip I
had made, in putting one seemingly indifferent word for another,j
that discovery opened to me this present view, which here, in thia
second edition, 1 submit to the learned world, and which, in shorty
is this : " liberty is a [X)wer to act or not to act, according as th(
mind directs." A power to direct the operative faculties to motioi
or rest in particular instances, is that which we call the will. Thf
which in the train of our voluntary actions determines the will t
any change of operation is some present uneasiness, which is, or at
least is always accompanied with, that of desire. Desire is always
moved by evil, to fly it ; because a total freedom from pain always
makes a necessary part of our happiness: but every good, nay,
every greater good, does not constantly move desire, because it may
not make, or may not be taken to make, any necessary part of our
happiness. For all that we desire, is only to be happy. 15ut
though this general desire of happiness operates constantly and in-
variably, yet the satisfaction of any particular desire can be sus-

cii. 21. OF POWER. 183

pended from determining the will to any subservient action, till we
have maturely examined, whether the particular apparent good,
which we then desire, makes a part of our real happiness, or be
consistent or inconsistent with it. The result of our judgment
upon that examination is what ultimately determines the man who
could not be free, if his will were determined by any thing but his
own desire, guided by his own j udgment. I know that liberty, by
some, is placed in an indifFerency of the man, antecedent to the de-
termination of his will. I wish they who lay so much stress on
such an antecedent indifferency, as they call it, had told us plainly,
whether this supposed indifFerency be antecedent to the thought and
judgment of the understanding, as well as to the decree of the will.
For it is pretty hard to state it between them ; i. e. immediately after
the judgment of the understanding, and before the determination of
the will, because the determination of the will immediately follows
the judgment of the understanding; and to place liberty in an in-
differency, antecedent to the thought and judgment of the under-
standing, seems to me to place liberty in a state of darkness,
wherein we can neither see nor say any thing of it ; at least it
places it in a subject incapable of it, no agent being allowed capable
of liberty, but in consequence of thought and judgment. I am not
• nice about phrases, and therefore consent to say with those that
love to speak so, that liberty is placed in indiff*erency ; but it is an
indifFerency which remains after the judgment of the understand-
ing ; yea, even after the determination of the will. And that is an
indifferency not of the man (for after he has once judged which is
best, viz., to do or forbear, he is no longer indifferent), but an indif-
ferency of the operative powers of the man, which remaining
equally able to operate, or to forbear operating, after, as before, the
decree of the will, are in a state, which, if one pleases, may be
called indifFerency ;' and as far as this indifFerency reaches, a man is
free, and no farther ; v, g. I have the abijity to move my hand, or to
let it rest ; that operative power is indriFerent to move, or not to
move, my hand : I am then in that respect perfectly free. My will
determines that operative power to rest ; I am yet free ; because the
indifFerency of that my operative power, to act, or not to act, still
remains ; the power of moving my hand is not at all impaired by
the determination of my will, which at present orders rest ; the in-
differency of that power to act, or not to act, is just as it was before,
as will appear, if the will puts it to the trial, by ordering the con-
trary. But if, during the rest of my hand, it be seized by a sudden
palsy, the indiff'erency of that operative power is gone, and with it,
my liberty; I have no longer freedom in that respect, but am
under a necessity of letting my hand rest. On the other side, if my
hand be put into motion by a convulsion, the indifFerency of that
operative faculty is taken away by that motion, and my liberty in
I that case is lost ; for I am under a necessity of having my hand
i move. I have added this, to show in what sort of indifFerency

184 OF POWER. BOOK 2.

liberty seems to me to consist, and not in any other, real or
imaginary.

§ 72. True notions concerning the nature and extent of liberty
are of so great importance, that I hope I shall be pardoned this
digression, which my attempt to explain it has led me into. The
ideas of will, volition, liberty, and necessity, in this chapter of
power came naturally in my way. In a former edition of this trea-
tise, I gave an account of my thoughts concerning them, according
to the light I then had ; and now, as a lover of truth, and not a
worshipper of my own doctrines, I own some change in my opinion,
which I think I have discovered ground for. In what I first writ,
I, with an unbiassed indifFerency, followed truth whither I thought
she led me. But neither being so vain as to fancy infallibility, nor
so disingenuous as to dissemble my mistakes, for fear of blemishing
my reputation, I have, with the same sincere design for truth only,
not been ashamed to publish what a severer inquiry has suggested.
It is not impossible, but that some may think my former notions
right, and some (as I have already found) these latter; and some
neither. I shall not at all wonder at this variety in men's opinions :
impartial deductions of reason in controverted points being so rare,
and exact ones in abstract notions not so very easy, especially if of
any length. And, therefore, I should think myself not a little
beholding to any one, who would upon these, or any other grounds,
fairly clear this subject of liberty from any difficulties that may yet
remain.

Before I close this chapter, it may perhaps be to our purpose,
and help to give us clearer conceptions about power, if we make
our thoughts take a little more exact survey of action. I have said
above, that we have ideas but of two sorts of action, viz. motion
and thinking. These, in truth, though called and counted actions,
yet, if neafly considered, will not be found to be always perfectly so.
For, if I mistake not, there are instances of both kinds, which,
upon due consideration, will be found rather passions than actions
and, consequently, so far the effects barely of passive powers ii
those subjects, which yet, on their accounts, are thought agents
For, in these instances, the substance that hath motion or thoughl
receives the impression, whereby it is put into that action purel]
from without, and so acts merely b}^ the capacity it has to receiv<
such an impression from some external agent ; and such a power *
not properly an active power, but a mere passive capacity in th<
subject. Sometimes the substance, or agent, puts itself into actioal
by Its own power, and this is properly active power. Whatsoever
modification a substance has, whereby it produces any effect, that
is called action ; v. g. a solid substance by motion operates on, or
alters, the sensible ideas of another substance, and, therefore, this
modification of motion we call action. But yet, this motion in that
solid substance is, when rightly considered, but a passion, if it re-
ceived it only from some external agent. So that the active power
pf motion is in no substance which cannot begin motion in itself, or

CH. 21. OF POWER. 185

in another substance, when at rest. So likewise in thinking, a power
to receive ideas or thoughts, from the operation of any external
substance, is called a power of thinking : but this is but a passive
power or capacity. But to be able to bring into view ideas out of
sight, at one's own choice, and to compare which of them one
thinks fit, this is an active power. This reflection may be of some
use to preserve us from mistakes about powers and actions, which
grammar, and the common frame of languages, may be apt to lead
us into : since what is signified by verbs that grammarians call ac-
tive, does not always signify action ; v. g. this proposition, I see the
moon, or a star, or I feel the heat of the sun, though expressed by
a verb active, does not signify any action in me, whereby I operate
on those substances ; but the reception of the ideas of light, round-
ness, and heat, wherein I am not active, but barely passive, and can-
not, in that position of my eyes, or body, avoid receiving them.
But when I turn my eyes another way, or remove my body out of
the sun-beams, I am properly active ; because of my own choice, by
a power within myself, I put myself into that motion. Such an ac-
tion is the product of active power.

§ 73. And thus I have, in a short draught, given a view of our
original ideas, from whence all the rest are derived, and of which
they are made up ; which, if I would consider as a philosopher, and
examine on what causes they depend, and of what they are made, I
believe they all might be reduced to these very few primary and ori-
ginal ones, viz. extension, solidity, mobility, or the power of being
moved ; which, by our senses, we receive from body ; perceptivity,
or the power of perception or thinking ; motivity, or the power of
moving ; which, by reflection, we receive from our minds. I crave
leave to make use of these two new words, to avoid the danger of
being mistaken in the use of those which are equivocal. To which,
if we add existence, duration, number, which belong both to the
one and the other, we have, perhaps, all the original ideas on which
the rest depend. For, by these, I imagine, might be explained the
nature of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, and all other ideas we
have, if we had but faculties acute enough to perceive the severally
modified extensions and motions of these minute bodies, which pro-
duce those several sensations in us. But my present purpose being
only to inquire into the knowledge the mind has of things, by
those ideas and appearances which God has fitted it to receive from
them, and how the mind comes by that knowledge, rather than into
their causes, or manner of production ; I shall not, contrary to the
design of this essay, set myself to inquire, philosophically, into the
peculiar constitution of bodies, and the configuration of parts,
whereby they have the power to produce in us the ideas of their
sensible qualities. I shall not enter any farther into that disquisi-
tion, it sufficing to my purpose to observe, that gold or saffron has
a power to produce inus the idea of yellow ; and snow or milk, the
idea of white ; which we can only have by our sight, without exa-
mining the texture of the parts of those bodies, on the particular

186 OF MIXED MODES. book 2.

figures or motion of the particles which rebound from thence, to
cause in us that particular sensation ; though when we go beyond
the bare ideas in our minds, and would inquire into their causes,
we cannot conceive any thing else to be in any sensible object,
whereby it produces different ideas in us, but the different bulk,
figure, number, texture, and motion of its insensible parts.

CHAPTER XXII.

OF MIXED MODES.

^ 1. Mixed modes ^ what — Having treated of simple modes in
the foregoing chapters, and given several instances of some of the
most considerable of them, to show what they are, and how we
come by them: we are now, in the next place, to consider those
we call mixed modes : such are the complex ideas we mark by the
names, obligation, drunkenness, a lie, &c., which, consisting of se-
veral combinations of simple ideas of different kinds, 1 have called
mixed modes, to distinguish them from the more simple modes,
which consist only of simple ideas of the same kind. These mixed
modes being also such combinations of simple ideas, as are not
looked upon to be characteristical marks of any real beings, that
have a steady existence, but scattered and independent ideas, put
together by the mind, are thereby distingLUsTi'able from the coinplex
ideas of subsrances.""'

§ 2. Made hy the mind. — That the mind, in respect of its sim-
pie ideas, is wholly passive, and receives them all from the existence
•>|^and operations of things, such as sensation or reflection offers them,
{ without being able to make any one idea, experience shows us.
I But if we attentively consider these ideas I call mixed modes we
---/ are now speaking of, we shall find their original quite different.
The mind often exercises an active power in making these several
combinations; for it being once furnished with simple ideas^ it can
put them together in several compositions, and so make variety of
complex ideas, without examining whether they exist so together in
nature. And hence I think it is, that these ideas are called notigjis ;
^^ as if they had their original and constant existehcV more in the
thoughts of men, than in the reality of things ; and to form such
Tdeas, it sufficed, that the mind puts the parts of them togetiier,
and that they were consistent in the understanding, without con-
sidering whether they had any real being; though I do not deny
but several of them might be taken from observation, and the ex-
istence of several simple ideas, so combined, as they are put toge-
ther in the understanding. For the man who first framed the idea
of hypocrisy, might have either taken it at first from the observation
of one who made show of good qualities which he had not ; or else

CH. S2. OF MIXED MODES. 187

have framed that idea in his mind, without having any such pattern
to fashion it by. For it is evident that in the beginning of lan-
guages and societies of men, several of those complex ideas which
w^ere consequent to the constitutions established amongst them, must
needs have been in the minds of men, before they existed any where
else ; and that many names that stood for such complex ideas were '^
in use, and to those ideas framed, before the combinations they stood -
for ever existed.

§ 3. Sometimes got hy the explication of their names. — Indeed,
now that languages are made, and abound with words standing for
such combinations, an usual way of getting these complex ideas, is
by the explication of those terms that stand for them. For con-
sisting of a company of simple ideas, combined, they may, by words
standing for those simple ideas, be represented to the mind of one , Jj^x
who understands those words, though that complex combina- ^i
tion of simple ideas were never offered to his mind by the real .ymC
existence of things. Thus a man may come to have the idea of ■ %%
sacrilege or murder, by enumerating to him the simple ideas which * ot
these words stand for, without ever seeing either of them coraV^' *l'f ^
mitted. / <^'''

§ 4. The name^jd&lJhejiaHs^c^^^^ one idea. —

Every mixed mode consi§.tmg of many disdnct simple ideasj it letems
reasonable to inquire " Whence it has fts, M^j^ 2,nd how such a pre-
cise multitude comes to make but one idea, since that combination
does not always exist together in nature ?"" To which I answer^ it
is plain it has its unity from an act of the mind combining those se-
"veraTsmipTe^ldeas together, and considering them as one complex
one, consisting of those parts; and the mark of this union, or that
which is looked on generally to complete it, is one name given to
that combination. For it is by their names, that men commonly
regulate their account of their distinct species of mixed modes,
seldom allowing or considering any number of simple ideas to make
one complex one, but such collections as there be names for. Thus,
though the killing of an old man be as fit, in nature, to be united
into one complex idea, as the killing a man's father ; yet, there be-
ing no name standing precisely for the one, as there is the name of
parricide to mark the other, it is not taken for a particular complex
idea, nor a distinct species of actions, from that of killing a young
man, or any other man.

ijj 5. The cause of making mixed modes. — If we should inquire
a little farther, to see what it is that occasions men to make several
combinations of simple ideas into distinct, and, as it were, settled
modes, and neglect others, which, in the nature of things themselves,
have as much an aptness to be combined, and make distinct ideas,
we shall find the reason of it to be the end of language ; which be-
ing to mark or communicate men's thoughts to one another with all
the despatch that may be, they usually make such collections of ideas
into complex modes, and affix names to them, as they have frequent
use of in their way of living and conversation ; leaving others.

188 OF MIXED MODES. book 2.

which they have but seldom an occasion to mention, loose and
without names to tie them together ; they rather choosing to enu-
merate (when they have need) such ideas as make them up, by the
Particular names that stand for them, than to trouble their memories
y multiplying of complex ideas with names to them, which they
seldom or never have any occasion to make use of.

§6. Why words in one language have jigne answering m another.
— This shows us how it comes to pass, that there are in every lan-
guage many particular words, which cannot be rendered by any
single word of another ; for the several fashions, customs, and man-
ners of one nation, making several combinations of ideas familiar
and necessary in one, which another people have had never any oc-
casion to make, or, perhaps, so much as take notice of, names come
of course to be annexed to them, to avoid long periphrases in things
of daily conversation ; and so they become so many distinct com-
plex ideas in their minds. Thus oVfa>c/(rju,of amongst the Greeks,
and proscriptio amongst the Romans, were words which other lan-
, guages had no names that exactly answered, because they stood for

f^J^ complex ideas, which were not in the minds of the men of other

^nations. Where there was no such custom, there was no notion of

any such actions ; no use of such combinations of ideas as were

^'' , united, and, as it were, tied together, by those terms; and, there-
. .ifore, in other counti'ies, there were no names for them.
' ^ '7* -^wd languages change. — Hence, also, we may see the reason

why languages constantly change, take up new, and lay by old,
terms ; because change of customs and opinions bringing with it
new combinations of ideas, which it is necessary frequently to think
on and talk about, new names, to avoid long descriptions, are
annexed to them ; and so they become new species of complex
modes. What a number of different ideas are, by this means,
wrapped up in one short sound, and how much of our time and
breatli is, thereby, saved, any one will see, who will but take the
pains to enumerate all the ideas that either reprieve or appeal stand
for : and, instead of either of those names, use a periphrasis, to
make any one understand their meaning.

§ 8. Mixed modes where they exist. — Though I shall have occa-
sion to consider this more at large, when I come to treat of words,
and their use ; yet I could not avoid to take thus much notice here
of the names of mixed modes, which being fleeting and transient
combinations of simple ideas, which have but a short, existence any
where, but in the mmds of men, and there, too, have no longer any
existence, than whilst they are thought on, have not so much, any
where, the appearance of a constant and lasting existence, as in
their names ; which are, therefore, in this sort of ideas, very apt to
be taken for the ideas themselves. For if we should inquire, whe-
ther the idea of a triumph or apotheosis exists, it is evident they
could neither of them exist altogether any where in the things them-
selves, l>eing actions that required time to their performance, and so
could never all exist together : and as to the minds of men, where

CH. 22. OF MIXED MODES. 189

the ideas of those actions are supposed to be lodged, they have there,
too, a very uncertain existence ; and, therefore, we are apt to annex
them to the names that excite them in us.

§ 9. How zee get the ideas of mixed modes. — There are, there-
fore, three ways whereby we get the complex ideas of mixed modes.
1. By experience and observation of things themselves. Thus by
seeing two men wrestle, or fence, we get the idea of wrestling or
fencing. 2. By invention, or voluntary putting together of several
simple ideas m our mmds ; so he that first invented printing, or
etching, had an idea of it in his mind, before it ever existed. 3 . Which
is the most usuar'~way,Tiy"^ explaining the names of actions we
never saw, or notions we cannot see; and by enumerating, and
thereby, as it were, setting before our imaginations all those ideas
which go to the making them up, and are the constituent parts of
them. For having by sensation and reflection stored our minds
with simple ideas, and by use got the names that stand for them,
we can, by those means, represent to another any complex idea we
would have him conceive ; so that it has in it no simple ideas but
what he knows, and has, with us, the same name for. For all our
complex ideas are ultimately resolvable into simple ideas, of which
fliey are compounded, and originally made up, though perhaps
their immediate ingredients, as I may so say, are also complex ideas.
Thus the mixed mode, which the word lie stands for, is made up
of these simple ideas: 1. Articulate sounds. 2. Certain ideas in \
the mind of the speaker. 3. Those words the signs of those ideas, j
4. Those signs put together by affirmation or negation, otherwise i '
than the ideas they stand for, are in the mind of the speaker. I /
think I need not go any farther in the analysis of that complex:
idea we call a lie ; what I have said is enough to show, that it is
made up of simple ideas; and it could not be but an offensive
tediousness to my reader, to trouble him with a more minute enu-
meration of every particular simple idea that goes to this complex
one; which, from what has been said, he cannot but be able to
make out to himself. The same may be done in all our complex ^^^^
ideas whatsoever; which, however compounded, and decompounded^ p^y ^
may at last be resolved into simple ideas, which are all the material^ ;^ *
^f knowledge or thought we have, or can have. Nor shall we ImvesnV*^
reason to fear, that the mind is hereby stinted to too scanty a^^^*
number of ideas, if we consider what an inexhaustible stock of simplepfcre
modes, number and figure alone afford us. How far then mixed '7' J^:^
modes, which admit of the various combinations of simple different .^!^, ^,^
ideas, and their infinite modes, are from being few and scanty, we ^sfi
may easily imagine. So that before we have done, we shall see, that ''"^
nobody need be afraid he shall not have scope and compass enough
for his thoughts to range in, though they be, as I pretend, confined
only to simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, and their
several combinations.

§ 10. Motion^ thinkings and poiver have been most modified. —
It is worth our observing, which of all our simple ideas have been

190 OF MIXED MODES. book 2.

most modified, and had most mixed ideas made out of them, with
names given to them ; and those have been these three : thinking,
and motion (which are the two ideas which comprehend in them all
action), and power, and from whence these actions are conceived
to flow. The simple ideas, I say, of thinking, motion, and power,
have been those which have been most modified ; and out of whose
modifications have been made most complex modes, with names to
them. For action being the great busmess of mankind, and the
whole matter about which all laws are conversant, it is no wonder
that the several modes of thinking and motion should be taken
notice of, the ideas of them observed, and laid up in the memory?
and have names assigned to them ; without which, laws could be but
ill made, or vice and disorder repressed. Nor could any communi-
cation be well had amongst men, without such complex ideas with
names to them ; and therefore men have settled names, and sup-

Eosed settled ideas in their minds, of modes of action distinguished
y their causes, means, objects, ends, instruments, time, place, and
other circumstances; and also of their powers fitted for those ac-
tions : V. g. boldness is the power to speak or do what we intend,
before others, without fear or disorder; and the Greeks call the
confidence of speaking by a peculiar name, zuaplrjo-lcc. Which
power or ability in man, of doing any thing, when it has been ac-
quired by frequent doing the same thing, is that idea we name
habit ; when it is forward and ready upon every occasion to break
into action, we call it disposition. Thus testiness is a disposition,
or aptness to be angry.

To conclude : let us examine any modes of action, v. g. con-
sideration and assent, which are actions of the mind ; running and
speaking, which are actions of the body; revenge and murder, which
are actions of both together, and we shall find them but so many
collections of simple ideas, which together make up the complex ones
signified by those names.

§ 11. Several wo^-ds seeming to signify action, sigmfy hut the ef-
fect.— Power being the source from whence all action proceeds, the
substances wherein these powers are, when they exert this power
into act, are called causes ; and the substances which thereupon are
produced, or the simple ideas which are introduced into that subject
Dv the exerting of that power, are called effects. The efficacy
whereby the new substance or idea is produced, is called, in the
subject exerting that power, action ; but in the subject wherein any
simple idea is changed or produced, it is called passion : which efh-
cacy, however various, and the effects almost infinite, yet we can, I
think, conceive it in intellectual agents, to be nothing else but modes
of thinking and willing; in corporeal agents, nothing else but mo-
difications of motion. I say, I think we cannot conceive it to be
any other but these two : for whatever sort of action, besides these,
produces any effects, I confess myself to have no notion or idea of;
and so it is auite remote from my thoughts, apprehensions, and
knowledge, ana as much in the dark to me as five other senses, or

CH. S3. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 191

as the ideas of colours to a blind man ; and therefore many words,
which seem to express some action, signify nothing of the action or
7nodus opermidi at all, but barely the effect with some circvmi stances
of the subject wrought on, or cause operating; v. g. creation, anni-
hilation, contain in them no idea of the action or manner whereby
they are produced, but barely of the cause and the thing done. And
when a countryman says the cold freezes water, though the word
freezing seems to import some action, yet truly it signifies nothing
but the effect, viz. that water that was before fluid, is become hard
and consistent, without containing any idea of the action whereby it
is done.

§ 12. Mixed modes made also of other ideas. — I think I shall
not need to remark here, that though power and action make the
greatest part of mixed modes, marked by names, and familiar in the
minds and mouths of men ; yet other simple ideas, and their several
combinations, are not excluded ; much less, I think, will it be ne-
cessary for me to enumerate all the mixed modes which have been
settled with names to them. That would be to make a dictionary
of the great part of the words made use of in divinity, ethics, law,
and politics, and several other sciences. All that is requisite to my
present design, is to show what sort of ideas those are, which I call
mixed modes; how the mind comes by them; and that they are
compositions made up of simple ideas got frojB«i»ensation and re-
flection; which, I suppose, I have done. -^ ^ Ui^t O

CHAPTER XXIII.

OF OUR COMPLEX IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES.

§ 1, Ideas of siihstances, how made. — The mind being, as I have
declared, furnished with a great number of the simple ideas conveyed
in by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by re-
flection on its own operations, takes notice also that as certain num-
bers of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being pre-
sumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common
apprehensions, and made use of for quick despatch, are called, so
united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertency, we are
apt afterwards to talk of, and consider, as one simple idea, which
indeed is a complication of many ideas together : because, as I have
said, not imagining how these simple ideas can subsist by themselves,
we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum, wherein they do
subsist, and from which they do result ; which, therefore, we call
substance *.

* This section, which was intended only to show how the individuals of distinct species
of substances came to be looked upon as simple ideas, and so to have simple names, viz.
from the supposed substratum of substance, which was looked upon as the thing itself in
which inhered, and from which resulted, that complication of ideas, by which it was re-

192 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

§ 2. Ou?' idea of substance in general. — So that if any one will
examine himself concerning his notion of pure substance in general,

presented to us, hath been mistaken for an account of the idea of substance in general ; and
as such, hath been represented in these words : But how comes the general idea of substance
to be framed in our minds? Is this by abstracting and enlarging simple ideas? No : " But
it is by a complication of many simple ideas together : because, not imagining how these
simple ideas can subsist by themselves, we accustom ourselves to suppose some substratum,
wherein they do subsist, and from whence they do result ; which, therefore, we call substance."
And is this all, indeed, that is to be said for the being of substance, That we accustom our-
selves to suppose a substratum ? Is that custom grounded upon true reason, or not ? If not,
then accidents or modes must subsist of themselves ; and these simple ideas need no tortoise
to support them ; for figures and colours, &c., would do well enough of themselves, but for
some fancies men have accustomed themselves to.

To which objection of the Bishop of Worcester, our author (a) answers thus : " Herein
your lordship seems to charge me with two faults : one, That I make the general idea of
substances to be framed, not by abstracting and enlarging simple ideas, but by a complication
of many simple ideas together; the other, as if I had said, the being of substance had no other
foundation than the fancies of men.

" As to the first of these, I beg leave to remind your lordship, that I say in more places
than one, and particularly Book 3, Chap. 3, $ C, and Book I, Chap. II, § 9, where, ex
profcsso^ I treat of abstraction and general ideas, that they are all made by abstracting,
and, therefore, could not be understood to mean, that that of substance was made any other
way; however, my pen might have slipt, or the negligence of expression, where I might
have something else than the general idea of substance in view, might make me seem to
say so.

*' That I was not speaking of the general idea of substance, in the passage your lordship
quotes, is manifest from the title of that chapter, which is, '• Of the complex ideas of sub-
stances ;' and the first section of it, which your lordship cites for those words you have set
down.

" In which words I do not observe any that deny the general idea of substance to be made
by abstracting, nor any that say it is made by a complication of many simple ideas together.
But speaking in that place of the ideas of distinct substances, such as man, horse, gold, &c.,
I say they are made up of certain combinations of simple ideas, which combinations are looked
upon, each of them, as one simple idea, though they are many ; and we call it by one name
of substance, though made up of modes, from the custom of supposing a substratum, wherein
that combination does subsist. So that in this paragraph I only give an account of the idea
of distinct substances, such as oak, elephant, iron, &c., how they are made up of distinct com-
plications of modes, yet they are looked on as one idea, called by one name, as making distinct
sorts of substance.

" Butthat my notion of substance in general is quite different from these, and has no
such combination of simple ideas in it, is evident from the immediate following words,
where I say (i), * The idea of pure substance in general is only a supposition of wc
know not what support of such qualities as are capable of producing simple ideas in us.'
And these two I plainly distinguish all along, particularly where I say, ♦ whatever, there-
fore, be the secret and abstract nature of substance in general, all the ideas we liave of par-
ticular distinct substances are notiiing but several combinations of simple ideas, co-
existing in such, though unknown cause of their union, as makes the whole subsist of
itself.'

*' The other thing laid to my charge is as if I took the being of substance to be doubt-
ful, or rendered it so by the imperfect and ill-grounded idea I have given of it. To
which I beg leave to say, that I ground not the being, but the idea of substance, on our
accustoming ourselves to support some substratum ; for it is of the idea alone I speak
there, and not of the being of substance. And having every where affirmed, and built
upon it, that a man is a substance, I cannot be supposed to question or doubt of the being
of substance, till I can question or doubt of my own being. Farther, I say (c), ' Sen-
sation convinces us that there are solid extended substances ; and reflection, that there are
thinking ones.' So that, I think, the being of substance is not shaken by what I
have said; and if the idea of it should be, yet (the being of things depending not on our
ideas) the being of substance would not be at all shaken by my saying, we had but an

(a) In his first letter to the Bishop of Worcester. U>) B. 2, c 23, § 2.

(c) lb. § 29.

CH, 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 193

he will find he has no other idea of it at all, but only a supposition
of he knows not what support of such qualities, which are capable
of producing simple ideas in us ; which qualities are commonly
called accidents. If any one should be asked, what is the subject
wherein colour or weight inheres, he would have nothing to say,
but the solid extended parts : and if he were demanded what is it
that solidity and extension adhere in, he would not be in a much
better case than the Indian before-mentioned, who saying that the
world was supported by a great elephant, was asked, what the ele-
phant rested on ? To which his answer was, a great tortoise : but
being again pressed to know what gave support to the broad-backed
tortoise, replied, something, he knew not what. And thus here, as
in all other cases, where we use words without having clear and
distinct ideas, we talk like children ; who being questioned what
such a thing is, which they know not, readily give this satisfactory
answer, that it is something; which, in truth, signifies no more,
when so used, either by children or men, but that they know not
what ; and that the thing they pretend to know, and talk of, is what
they have no distinct idea of at all, and so are perfectly ignorant of
it, and in the dark. The idea then we have, to which we give
the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed,
but unknown, support of those qualities we find existing, which,
we imagine, cannot subsist s'me resuhstantc, without something to
support them, we call that support substantial; which, according to
the true import of the word, is, in plain English, standing under, or
upholding. *

obscure imperfect idea of it, and that that idea came from our accustoming ourselves to
suppose some substratum ; or indeed, if I should say, we had no idea of substance at all.
For a great many things may be, and are granted to have a being, and be in nature, of
which we have no ideas. For example : it cannot be doubted but there are distinct species
of separate spirits, of which, yef we have no distinct ideas at all; it cannot be questioned
but spirits have ways of communicating their tljoughts, and vet we have no idea of it
all.

" The being then of substance being safe and secure, notwithstanding any thing I have

said, let us see whether the idea of it be not so too. Your lordship asks, wilh concern.

And is this all, indeed, that is to be said, for the being (if your lordship please, let it be the

j idea) of substance, that we accustom ourselves to suppose a substratum ? Is that custom

'' grounded upon true reason or no ? I have said that it is grounded upon this, («) < That

I we cannot conceive how simple ideas of sensible qualities should subsist alone ; and, there-

I fore, we suppose them to exist in, and to be supported by, some common subject ; which

j we denote by the name substance.' "Which, I think, is a true reason, because it is the

same your lordship grounds the supposition of a substratum on, in this very page ; even on

I the repugnancy to our conceptions, that modes and actions should subsist by themselves.

' So that I have the good luck to agree here with your lordship : and consequently conclude,

I have your approbation in this, that the substratum to modes or accidents, which is our idea

. of substance in general, is founded in this, ' that we cannot conceive how modes or accidents

\ can subsist by themselves.' "

i * From this paragraph, there hath been raised an objection by the Bishop of Worces-
ter, as if our author's doctrine here, concerning ideas, had almost discarded substance
out of the world : his words in this paragraph being brought to prove, that he is one of
the gentlemen of this new way of reasoning, that have almost discarded substance out
of the reasonable part of the world. To which our author replies: (6) '* This, my
(a) B. 2, c. 23, lb. $ 4. {b) In his first letter to that bishop.

O

194 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

§ 3. Of the soit< of suhstatices. — An obscure and relative idea of
substance in general,' being thus made, we come to have the ideas

lord, is an accusation wliicb your lordship will pardon me, if I do not readily know
what to plead to, btcause I do not understand what it is almost to discard substance out
of the reasonable part of the world. If your lordfchip means by it. that I deny, or
doubt, that there is in the world any such thing as substance, that your lordship will ac-
quit me of, when your lordship looks again into this '2?.A chapter of the second book,
which you have cited more than once; where you will find these words, $ 4, * Whence,
we talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances, as horse, stone, &c.,
thouji:h the idea we have of either of them, be but the complicat'.on or collection of those
several simple ideas of sensible qualities which we use to find united in the thing called
horse, or stone ; yet, because we cannot conceive how they should subsist alone, nor one
in another, we suppose them existing in, and supported by, some common subject,
which support we denote by the name substance ; though it is certain, we have no clear
or distinct idia of that thing we suppose a support.' And again, § 5:' The fame
happens concerning the operations pf the mind, viz. thinking, reasoning, fearing, &c.,
which we considering not to subsist of themselves, nor apprehei ding how they can be-
long to body, or be produced by it, we are apt to think these the actions of some other
substance, which we call spirit ; whereby- yet it is evident, that having no other idea or
notion of matter, but s(»mething wherein those many sensib-e q\ialilies, which affect our
senses, do subsist, by supposing a substance, wherein thinking, Knowing, doubting,
and a power of moving, &c. do subsist, we have as clear a notion of the nature or substance
of spirit, as we have of body ; the one being supposed to be (without knowing what it is)
the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without: and the other supposed (with a
like ignorance of what it is) to be thj substratum to these operations, which we experiment
in ourselves within.' And a^ain. $ 6: ' Whatever, therefore, be the secret nature of sub-
stance in general, all the ideas we have of particular distinct substances, are nothing but
several combinations of simple ideas co-existing in such, tliough unknown cause of their
union, as mak-.s the whole subject of itself.' And I farther say, in the same section,
* that we su;ipose these convbinations to rest in, and to be adherent to, that unknown
common subject, which inheres not in any thing else ' And $ 3 : * That our complex
ideas of substances, besides all those simple ideas they are made up of, have always
the confused idea of something to Tihich they btlong and in which they subsist; and, there-
fore, when we speak of any sort of substance, we say it is a ih'ng having such and such
qualities ; as body is a thing that is extended, figured, and capable of motion : spirit, a thing
capable of thinking.

" * These and the like fashions of speaking, intimate, that the substance is supposed
always something besides the extension, figure, solidity, motion, thinking, or other ob-
servable idea, though we know not what it is.'

" * Our idea of body, I say, (a) is an extended solid substance; and our idea of soul,
is of a substance that thinks.' So that as long as there is any such thing as body or
spirit in the world, I have done nothing towards the discarding substance out of the rea-
sonable part of the world. Nay, as long as there is any simple idea or sensible quality
left according to my way of arguing, substance cannot be discarded; because all sim-
ple ideas, all sensible qualities, carry with them a supposition of a substratum to exist
in, and of a substance wherein they inhere : and of this, that whole chapter is so full,
that I challenge any one who reads it, to think I have almost, or one jot, discarded sub-
stance out of the reasonable part of the world. And of this man, horse, sun, water, iron,
diamond, &c , which I have mentioned of distinct sorts of substances, will be my witnesses,
as long as any such thing remain in being; of which I say, (/;) ' That the idea of substancis
are such combinations of simple ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular tliiiij^s
subsisting by themselves, in which the opposed or confused idea of substance is always the
first and chief.*

*• If, hy almost discarding substance out of the reasonable part of the world, your
lordbhip means, that I have destroyed, and almost discarded, llie true idea we have of
it, by calling it a substratum (c), a sopposilitm of we know not what support of such
qualities as are capable of producing simple ideas in us, an obscure and relative idea, {<l)
That without knowing what it is, it is that whiih supports accidents; so that of sub-
stance we have no idea of what it is, but only a confused obscure one of what it dees ;
I must confess, this, and the like, I have said of our idea of substance : and shoulil
(o) B. 2, c. '^3, § 22. (6) B. 2, c. 12, § 6.

(c) B. 2, c. 23, § J , § 2, § 3. {d) B. 2, c. 13, § 19.

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 195

of particular sorts of substances, by collecting such combinations of
simple ideas, as are by experience and observation of men'*s senses.

be very glad to be convinced by your lordship, or any body else, that I have spoken too
meanly of it. He that would show me a more clear and distinct idea of substance, would
do me a kindness I should thank him for. But this is the best T can hitherto find, either
in my own thoughts, or in the books of logicians : for their account or idea of it is, that it is
ens, or res per se suhsistens, et substans accidentibus ; which, in efFect, is no more, but that
substance is a being or thing; or, in short, something, they know not what, or of which they
have no clearer idea, than that it is something which supports accidents, or other simple ideas
or modes, and is not supported itself, as a mode, or an accident. So that I do not see but
Burgersdicius, Sanderson, and the whole tribe of logicians, must be reckoned by the gentlemen
of this new way of reasoning, who have almost discarded substance out of the reasonable part
of the world.

*' But supposing, my lord, that I, or these gentlemen, logicians of note in the schools,
should own that we have a very imperfect, obscure, inadequate idea of substance, would
it not be a little too hard, to charge us with discarding substance out of the world? For
what, almost discarding, and reasonable part of the world, signifies, I must confess I do
not clearly comprehend : but let almost, and reasonable part, signify here what they will,
for I dare say your lordship meant something by them ; would not your lordship think you
were a little hardly dealt with, if, for acknowledging yourself to have a very imperfect
and inadequate idea of God, or of several other things which in this very treatise you
confess our understandings come short in, and cannot comprehend, you should be accused
to be one of these gentlemen that have almost discarded God, or those other mysterious
things, whereof you contend we have very imperfect and inadequate ideas, out of the
reasonable world ? For I suppose your lordship means, by almost discarding out of the
reasonable world, something that is blameable, for it seems not to be inserted for a com-
mendation ; and yet I think he deserves no blame, who owns the having imperfect, in-
adequate, obscure ideas, where he has no better; however, if it be in'erred from thence,
that either he almost excludes those things out of being, or out of rational discourse, if
that he meant by the reasonable world ; for the first of these will not hold, because the
being of things in the world, depends not on our ideas : the latter, indeed, is true in some
dejjree, but it is no fault ; for it is certain, that where we have imperfect, inadequate, confused,
obscure ideas, we cannot discourse and reason about those things so well, fully, and clearly,
as if we had perfect, adequate, clear, and distinct ideas."

Other objections are made against the following parts of this paragraph, by that reve-
rend prelate, viz. " The repetition of the story of the Indian philosopher, and the talking
like children about substance:" to which our author replies:

'* Your lordship, 1 must own, with great reason, takes notice, that I paralleled, more
than once, our idea of substance with the Indian philosopher's he kncw-not-what, which sup-
M ported the tortoise, &c.

► " This repetition is, I confess, a fault in exact writing : but I have acknowledged
land excused it, in these words, in my preface: ' I am not ignorant how little I herein
(consult my own reputation, when I knowingly let my essay go with a fault so apt to
[disgust the most judicious, who are always the nicest readers.' And there farther add,
I' That I did not publish my essay for such great masters of knowledge as your lordship;
ibut fitted it to men of my own size, to whom repetitions might be sometimes useful.' It
] would not, therefore, have been beside your lordship's generosity (wlio were not intended
'to be provoked by this repetition) to have passed by such a fault as this, in one who pre-
tends not beyond'the lower rank of writers. But I see your lordship would have me exact,
{and without any faults ; and I wish I could be so, the belter to deserve your lordship's
approbation.

"My saying, * That when we talk of substance, we talk like children; who being
-isked a question about something which they know not, readily give this satisfactory answer,
riiat it is something;' your lordship seems' mightily to lay it to heart in these words that
'ollow; ' If this be the truth of the case, we must still talk like children, and I knew not how
t can be remedied. For if we cannot come at a rational idea of substance, we can have no
)i inciple of certainty to go upon in this debate.'

" If your lordship has any better and distincter idea of substance than mine is, which
' have ^iven an account of, your lordship is not at all concerned in what 1 have there
aid. But those whose idea of substance, whether a rational or not rational idea, is like
aine, something, they know not what, must in that, with me, talk like children, when
h€y speak of something, they know not what, For a philosopher that says, that which

196 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

taken notice of to exist together, and are, therefore, supposed to
flow from the particular internal constitution, or unknown essence
of that substance. Thus we come to have the ideas of a man,
horse, gold, water, &c., of which substances, whether any one has
any other clear idea, farther than of certain simple ideas co-existing
together, I appeal to every mane's own experience. It is the ordi-
nary quahties observable in iron, or a diamond, put together, that
make the true complex idea of those substances which a smith or
jeweller commonly knows better than a philosopher; who, what-

supports accidents, is something, he knows not what ; and a countryman that says, tlse
foundation of the great church at Harlem is supported by something, he knows not what:
and a child that stands in the dark, upon his mother's muff, says he stands upon something,
he knows not what, in this respect, talk all three alike. But if the countryman knows that
the foundation of the church of Harlem is. supported b)' a rock, as the houses about Bristol
are ; or by gravel, as the houses about London are ; or by wooden piles, as the houses in
Amsterdam are ; it is plain, that then having a clear and distinct idea of the thing that sup-
ports the church, he does not talk of this matter as a child ; nor will he of the support of
accidents, when he has a clearer and more distinct idea of it, than that it is barely something.
But as long as we think like children, in cases where our ideas are no clearer nor disiinctir
than theirs, I agree with your lordship, that I know not how it can be remedied, but that we
must talk hke them."

Farther, the bishop asks, " Whether there be no difference between the bare being of a
thing, and its subsistence by itself?" To which our author answers: Yes (a). But what
will that do to prove, that upon my principles, we can come to no certainty of reason, that
there is any such thing as substance? Vou seem by this question to conclude, that the
idea of a thing that subsists by itself, is a clear and distinct idea of substance; but, I beg
leave to ask. Is the idea of the manner of subsistence of a thing, the idea of the thing
itself? if it be not, we may have a clear and distinct idea of the manner, and yet have
none but a very obscure and confused one of the thing. For example : I tell your lord-
ship, that I know a thing that cannot subsist without a support, and I know another thing
that does subsist without a support, and say no more of them; can you, by having the clear
and distinct ideas of having a support, and not having a support, say, that you have a
clear and distinct idea of the thing, that I know which has, and of the thing that I know
which has not a support? If your lordship can, I beseech you to give me the clear and
distinct ideas of these, which I only call by the general name, things, that have or have
not supports: for such there are, and such I shall give your lord-hip clear and distinct
ideas of, when you shall please to call upon me for them ; though I think your lordship will
scarce find them by the general and confused idea of things, nor in the clearer and mci
distinct idea of having, or not having, a support.

**To show a blind man, that he has no clear and distinct idea of scarlet, I tell him,
that his notion of it, that it is a tiling or being, does not prove he has any clear or distinct
idea of it; but barely that he takes it to be something, he knows not what. He reiilics,
That he knows more than that, v. g. he knows that it subsists, or inheres in another thing ;
and is there no difference, says he, in your lordship's words, between the bare being of a
thing, and its subsistence in another? Yes, say I to him, a great deal, they are very dif-
ferent ideas. But for all that, you have no clear and distinct idea of scarlet, nor such a
one as I have, who see and know it, and have another kind of idea of it, besides tiiat of
inherence.

** Your lordship has the idea of subsisting by itself, and, therefore, you conclude you
have a clear and distinct idea of the thing that subsists by itself; which, methinks, is all
one, as if your countryman should say, he hath an idea of the cedar of Lebanon, that it is
a tree of a nature to need no prop to lean on for its support ; therefore, he hath a clear
and distinct idea of the cedar of Lebanon ; which clear and distinct idea, when he comes to
examine, it nothing but a general one of a tree, with which his indetermined idea of a cedar
i« confounded. Just to is the idea of substance; whicli, however called clear and distinct,
u confounded with the general indetermined idea of something. But suppose that the man-
ner of subtitling by itself, gives us a clear and distinct idea of substance, how does that prove,
that upon my principles we can come to no certainty of reason, that there is any such thing
as substance in the world ? Which is the proposition to be proved,
(rt) Mr. Locke's third letter.

\

I

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 19T

ever substantial forms he may talk of, has no other idea of those
substances than what is framed by a collection of those shuple
ideas which are to be found in them ; only we must take notice
that our complex ideas of substances, besides all those simple ideas
they are made up of, have always the confused idea of something to
which they belong, and in which they subsist ; and, therefore, when
we speak of any sort of substance, we say it is a thing having such
or such qualities, as body is a thing that is extended, figured, and
capable of motion ; spirit, a thing capable of thinking ; and so hard-
ness, friability, and power to draw iron, we say, are qualities, to be
found in a loadstone. These and the like fashions of speaking
intimate, that the substance is supposed always something besides
the extension, figure, solidity, motion, thinking, or other observable
ideas, though we know not what it is.

§ 4. JVo cleaFTdea of substance in general. — Hence, when we
talk or think of any particular sort of corporeal substances, as
horse, stone, &c,, though the idea we have of either of them, be but
the complication, or collection, of those several simple ideas of sen-
sible qualities, which we use to find united in the thing called horse,
or stone ; yet because we cannot conceive how they should subsist
alone, nor one in another, we suppose them existing in, and sup-
ported by some common subject ; which support we denote by the
name substance, though it be certain we have no clear or distinct
idea of that thing we suppose a support.

§5. As clear an idea of spirit as body. — The same thing hap-
pens concerning the operations of the mind, viz. thinking, reason-
ing, fearing, &c., which we concluding not to subsist of themselves,
nor apprehending how they can belong to any body, or be produced
by it, we are apt to think these the actions of some other substance
which we call spirit ; whereby, yet, it is evident, that having no
other idea, or notion of matter, but something wherein those many
sensible qualities, which affect our senses, do subsist ; by supposing
a substance, wherein thinking, knowing, doubting, and a power of
moving, &c., do subsist, we have as clear a notion of the substance
I of spirit, as we have of body ; the one being supposed to be (with-
I out knowing what it is) the substratum to those simple ideas we
I have from without ; and the other supposed (with a hke ignorance
i of what it is) to be the substratum to those operations we experi-
I ment in ourselves within. It is plain, then, that the idea of cor>
' ^t'eal substance in matter, is as remote from'our conceptions and
I apprehensions, as that of spiritual substance, or spirit ; and there-
fore, from our not having any notion of the substance of spirit, we
; can no more conclude its non-existence, than we can, for the same
reason, deny the existence of body ; it being as rational to affirm,
, there is ncrbody, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the
1 substance of matter, as to say, there is no spirit, because we have no
clear and distinct idea of the substance of a spirit.

§ 6. Of the sorts of substances, — Whatever, therefore, be the
:>ccret abstract nature of substances in general, all the ideas we have

198 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

of paniculaj_di.stUK;it..SQrt&^ several

"combinations of simple ideas, co-existing in suc]i71Houg!nanknown;
i.^cSuse oT tliclr union, as to uv.ikc the wliole subsist of itself. Tt is15y
sucirconibinaTions of simple ideas, and nothing else, thafjye repre-
sent particular sorts of substances, to ourselves^: such are tTie iaeas
-"irrliave of their several species in our inTn^; and such only do we,
by their specific names, signify to others, v. g., man, horse, sun,
water, iron ; upon hearing which words, every one who understands
the language, frames in his mind a combination of those several
simple ideas, he has usually observed, or fancied to exist together,
under that denomination ; all which he supposes to rest in, and be,
as it were, adherent to that unknown comnion subject, which adheres
not in any thing else. Though in the meantime^ it be manifest,
and every one, upon inquiry into his own thoughts, will find that
he has no other idea of any substance, v. g., let it be gold, horse,
iron, man, vitriol, bread, but what he has barely of those sensible
\^A S qualities, which he supposes to inhere, with a supposition of such a
j4-^ substratum, as gives, as it were, a support to those qualities, or sim-
^\ /'pie ideas, which he has observed to exist, united together. Thus,
ucl^^ the idea of the sun, what is it but an aggregate of those several
simple ideas, bright, hot, roundish, having a constant regular
^* motion, at a certain distance from us, and, perhaps, some other ?
', As he who thinks and discourses of the sun, has been more or less

, -^accurate in observing those sensible qualities, ideas, or properties,
' ' J which are in that thing which he calls the sun.
' p § '''• Power a great part of our complex ideas of substances. —
H^Ev^ For he has the most perfect idea of any of the particular sc)rts of _
^ substances, who has gathered and put together mo^t^ofTHos^'snnple
' Meas which do exist m it, among which are to be reckoned its ac-
tive powers, and passive capacities ; which, though not simple ideas,
yet, in this respect, for brevity's sake, may, conveniently enough, be
reckoned amongst them. Thus, the power of drawing iron is on<
of the ideas of the complex one of that substance we call a loadstone \
and a power to be so drawn, is a part of the complex one we call iron j
which powers pass for inherent qualities in those subjects. Becaus
every substance being as apt, by the powers we observe in it, to chan^
some sensible qualities in other subjects, as it is to produce in uj
those simple ideas which we receive immediately from it, does bj
those new sensible qualities introduced into other subjects, discov(
to us those powers which do thereby immediately affect our sense
as regularly as its sensible qualities do it immediately : v. g., we ir
mediately by our senses, perceive in fire its heat and colour]
which are, if rightly considered, nothing but powers in it to pre
duce those ideas in us : we also, by our senses, perceive the coloi
and brittleness of charcoal, whereby we come by the knowledge <
another power in fire, which it has to change the colour and coi _
sistency of wood. By the former fire immediately ; by the latter7
it immediately discovers to us these several qualities, which, therefore,
we look uiH)n to be a part of the qualities of fire, and so make

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 199

them a part of the complex ideas of it. For all those powers that
we take cognizance of, terminating only in the alteration of some
sensible qualities in those subjects on which they operate, and so
making them exhibit to us new sensible ideas ; therefore it is that I
have reckoned these powers amongst the simple ideas which make
the complex ones of the sorts of substances ; though these powers,
considered in themselves, are truly complex ideas. And, in this
looser sense, I crave leave to be understood, when I name any of
these potentialities amongst the simple ideas which we recollect in
our minds, when we think of particular substances. For the powers
that are severally in them, are necessary to be considered, if we will
have true distinct notions of the several sorts of substances.

§ 8. And why. — Nor are we to wonder that powers make a great
part of our complex ideas of substances; since their secondary
qualities are those, which, in most of them, serve principally to
distinguish substances one from another, and commonly make a
considerable part of the complex idea of the several sorts of them.
For^pur senses failing us in the discovery of the bulk, texture, and
jfigure of the minute parts of bodies, on which their real constitutions
and differences depend, we are fain to make use of their secondary .v/V"^^
qualities, as the characteristical notes and marks whereby to frame "f
ideas of them in our mind, and distinguish them one from another., -^ .
All which secondary qualities, as has been shown, are nothing but l^jsj^^
bare powers. For the colour and taste of opium, areas well as its ^-^
soporific or anoTlyne virtues, mere powers, depending on its primary ^
quaKties7"vv1iefeliy it is fitted to produce different operations on dif- »^^
ferent parts of our bodies, <;-(/^*V,„<^.

§^. Three sorts of ideas make our complex: ones of mb stances. — ''

The ideas that make our complex ones of corporeal substances, are
of these three sorts. First, The ideas of the primary qualities of
things, which are disgovefHi~lTy our sen^ses, arid are i them, even
when we perceive them not; such are the bulk, figure, number,
situation, and motion of the parts of bodies, which are really in
them, whether we take notice of them or no. Secondly, The sensible
secondary qualities, which depending on these^^afe* nothing but the
power?lho^5^tibstances have to produce several ideas in us by our
senses; which ideas are not in the things themselves, otherwise than
as any thing is in its cause. Thirdly, The aptness we consider in ^
any substance, to give or receive such alterations of primary c^ua- ,
fitiesj aTtlmFTfie si^ so altered should produce in us different |^^ ^,

ideas from what it clicT before; these are called active and passive ji ^^
powers, "all" w!ilcK~ powers, as far as we have any notice or notion"^'^-*^
of them, terminate only in sensible simple ideas. For whatever al-
teration a loadstone has the power to make in the minute particles ^•y-Av'v
of iron, we should have no notion of any power it had at all to ope- / ^il^
rate on iron, did not its sensible motion discover it ; and I doubt ^' .
not, but there are a thousand changes that bodies we daily handle ^^«^^
have a power to cause in one another, which we never suspect, be-
cause they never appear in sensible effects.

200 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

§ 10. Powers make a great part of our complex ideas of sub-
stances,— Powers, tliereforc, justly make a great part of our complex
ideas of substances. He that will examine I>is complex idea of
gold, will find several of its ideas, that make it up, to be only pow-
ers, as the power of being melted, but of not spending itself in the
fire ; of bemg dissolved in aqua regia ; are ideas as necessary to
make up our complex ideas of gold, as its colour and weight : which,
if duly considered, are also nothing but different powers. For to
speak truly, yellowness is not actually in gold ; but is a power in
gold to produce that idea in us by our eyes, when placed in a due
light : and the heat, which we cannot leave out of our ideas of the
sun, is no more really in the sun, than the white colour it introduces
into wax. These are both equally powers in the sun, operating by
the motion and figure of its sensible parts so on a man, as to make
him have the idea of heat ; and so on wax, as to make it capable to
produce in a man the idea of white.

§ 11. The new secondary gualities of bodies would disappear, if
we could discover the pi^imary ones of their minute j^ arts. — Had we
senses acute enough to discern the minute particles of bodies, and
the real constitution on which their sensible qualities depends, I doubt
not but they would produce quite different ideas in us ; and that
which is now the yellow colour of gold, would then disappear, and
instead of it, we should see an admirable texture of parts of a cer-
tain size and figure. This microscopes plainly discover to us : for
what to our naked eyes produces a certain colour, is, by thus aug-
menting the acuteness of our senses, discovered to be quite a different
thing ; and the thus altering, as it were, the proportion of the bulk
of the minute parts of a coloured object to our usual sight, produces
different ideas from what it did before. Thus sand, or pounde'
glass, which is opaque and white to the naked eye, is j^ellucid in
microscope ; and a hair seen this way, loses its former colour, a]
is in a great measure pellucid, with a mixture of some bright spar
ling colours, such as appear from the refraction of diamonds, am
other pellucid bodies. Blood, to the naked eye, appears all red
but by a good microscope, wherein its lesser parts appear, shows onli
some few globules of red swimming in a pellucid hquor ; and ho
these red globules would appear, if glasses could be found that cou'
yet magnify them 1000, or 10,000 times more, is uncertain.

§ 12. Our faculties of discovery suited to our state. — The in:
nitely wise Contriver of us, and all things about us, hath fitted o
senses, faculties, and organs, to the conveniences of life, and t
business we have to do here. We are able, by our senses, to know
and distinguish things; and to examine them so far, as to apply
them to our uses, and several ways to accommodate the exigencies
of this life. We have insight enough into their admirable con-
trivances, and wonderful effects, to admire and magnify the wisdom,
power, and goodness of their Author. Such a knowledge as this,
which is suited to our present condition, we want not faculties to
attain. But it appears not that God intended wc should have a

jj

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 201

feet, clear, and adequate knowledge of them : that perhaps is not
in the comprehension of any finite being. We are furnished with
faculties (dull and weak as they are) to discover enough in the crea-
tures, to lead us to the knowledge of the Creator, and the know-
ledge of our duty ; and we are fitted well enough with abilities to
provide for the conveniences of living: these are our business in
this world. But were our senses altered, and made much quicker
and acuter, the appearance and outward scheme of things would
have quite another face to us ; and I am apt to think, would be in-
consistent with our being, or at least well-being, in this part of the
universe which we inhabit. He that considers how little our con-
stitution is able to bear a remove into parts of this air, not much
higher than that we commonly breathe in, will have reason to be satis-
fied, that in this globe of earth allotted for our mansion, the all- wise
Architect has suited our organs, and the bodies that are to aflect
them, one to another. If our sense of hearing were but one thou-
sand times quicker than it is, how would a perpetual noise distract
us? And we should, in the quietest retirement, be less able to
sleep or meditate, than in the middle of a sea-fight. Nay, if that
most instructive of our senses, seeing, were in any man one thou-
sand, or one hundred thousand times, more acute than it is by the
best microscope, things several millions of times less than the small-
est object of his sight now, would then be visible to his naked eyes,
and so he would come nearer to the discovery of the texture and
motion of the minute parts of corporeal things; and in many of
them, probably, get ideas of their internal constitutions; but then
he would be in a quite different world from other people : nothing
would appear the same to him, and others : the visible ideas of every
thing would be different. So that I doubt, whether he, and the
rest of men, could discourse concerning the objects of sight, or have
any communication about colours, their appearances being so wholly
different. And, perhaps, such a quickness and tenderness of sight
could not endure bright sun-shine, or so much as open day-light ;
nor take in but a very small part of any object at once, and that too
only at a very near distance. And if by the help of such microsco-
pal eyes (if I may so call them) a man could penetrate farther than
ordinary into the secret composition and radical texture of bodies,
he would not make any great advantage by the change, if such an
acute sight would not serve to conduct him to the market and ex-
change ; if he could not see things he was to avoid at a convenient
distance, nor distinguish things he had to do with, by those sensible
qualities others do. He that was sharp-sighted enough to see the
configuration of the minute particles of the spring of a clock, and
observe upon what peculiar structure and impulse its elastic motion
depends, would no doubt discover something very admirable ; but
if eyes so framed, could not view at once the hand and the charac-
ters of the hour-plate, and thereby at a distance see what a clock it
was, their owner could not be much benefited by that acuteness;

202 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

wliich, whilst it discovered the secret contrivance of the parts of the
machine, made him lose its use.

§ 13. Conjecture about spirits. — And here give me leave to pro-
pose an extravagant conjecture of mine, viz. That since we have
some reason (if there be any credit to be given to the report of
tilings that our philosophy cannot account for) to imagine, that spi-
rits can assume to themselves bodies of different bulk, figure, and
conformation of parts ; whether one great advantage some of them
have over us, may not lie in this, that they can so frame and shape
to themselves organs of sensation or perception, as to suit them to
their present design, and the circumstances of the object they
would consider. For how much would that man exceed all others
in knowledge, who had but the faculty so to alter the structure of
his eyes, that one sense, as to make it capable of all the several de-
grees of vision which the assistance of glasses (casually at first
lighted on) has taught us to conceive? What wonders would he
discover, who could so fit his eyes to all sorts of objects, as to see,
when he pleased, the figure and motion of the minute particles in
the blood, and other juices of animals, as distinctly as he docs, at
other times, the shape and motion of the animals themselves ? But
to us, in our present state, unalterable organs, so contrived, as to
discover the figure and motion of the minute parts of bodies,
whereon depend those sensible qualities we now observe in them,
would, perhaps, be of no advantage. God has, no doubt, made
them so, as is best for us in our present condition. He hath fitted
us for the neighbourhood of the bodies that surround us, and we
have to do with : and though we cannot, by the faculties we have,
attain to a perfect knowledge of things, yet they will serve us well
enough for those ends above-mentioned, which are our great con-
cernment. I beg my reader"'s pardon, for laying before him so wild
a fancy, concerning the ways of perception in beings above us : but
how extravagant soever it be, I doubt whether we can imagine any
thing about the knowledge of angels, but after this manner, some
way or other, in proportion to what we find and observe in ourselves.
And though we cannot but allow, that the infinite power and wis-
dom of God, may frame creatures with a thousand other faculties,
and ways of perceiving things without them, than what we have,
yet our thoughts can go no further than our own, so impossible it is
for us to enlarge our very guesses beyond the ideas received from
our own sensation and reflection. The supposition, at least, that
angels do sometimes assume bodies, needs not startle us, since some
of the most ancient and most learned fathers of the church, seemed
to believe that they had bodies : and this is certain, that their state
and way of existence is unknown to us.

§ 14. Complex ideas of' substances.— But to return to the matter
in hand ; the ideas we have of substances, and the ways we come by
them ; I s«iy, our specific ideas of substances are nothing else but a
collection of a certain number of simpleideas, considered asjJtjiteci

*CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 203

^" ^"^..^iliiSSr These ideas of substances, though they are com-
InonTy simple apprehensions, and the names of them simple terms ;
yet, in effect, are complex and compounded. Thus the idea which
an Englishman signifies by the name swan, is white colour, long
neck, red beak, black legs, and whole feet, and all these of a certain
size, with a power of swimming in the water, and making a certain
kind of noise : and, perhaps, to a man who has long observed this
kind of birds, some other properties, which all terminate in sensible
simple ideas, ^11 united in one coimnpn sulyegt^

§ 1 5. Idea oJ^splrTfuat suhsiances, as clear as of bodily substances.
— Besides the complex ideas we have of material sensible sub-
stances, of which I have last spoken, by the simple ideas we have
taken from those operations of our own minds, which we experi-
ment daily in ourselves, as thinking, understanding, willing, know-
ing, and power of beginning, motion, &c., co-existing, in some sub-
stance; we are able to frame the complex idea of an immaterial
spirit. And thus, by putting together the ideas of thinking, per-
ceiving, liberty, and power of moving themselves and other things,
we have as clear a perception and notion of immaterial substances,
as we have of material. For putting together the ideas of thinking
and willing, or the power of moving, or quieting corporeal motion,
joined to substance, of which we have no distinct idea, we have the
idea of an immaterial spirit ; and by putting together the ideas of
coherent solid parts, and a power of being moved, joined with sub-
stance, of which likewise we have no positive idea, we have the idea
of matter. The one is as clear and distinct an idea, as the other ;
the idea of thinking, and moving a body, being as clear and distinct
ideas, as the ideas of extension, solidity, and being moved. For
our idea of substance is equally obscure, or none at all, in both ; it
is but a supposed I know not what, to support those ideas we call
accidents. It is for want of reflection that we are apt to think that
our senses show us nothing but material things. Every act of sensa-
tion, when duly considered, gives us an equal view of both parts of
nature, the corporeal and spiritual. For whilst I know, by seeing,
or hearing, &c., that there is some corporeal being without me, the
object of that sensation, I do more certainly know, that there is
some spiritual being within me, that sees and hears. This I must
be convinced cannot be the action of bare insensible matter ; nor
ever could be without an immaterial thinking being.

§ 16. No idea of abstract substance. — By the complex idea of
extended, 'figurarrTGimrfeiar^^^^^ qualities, which

is all that we know of it, we are as far from the idea of the substance
of body, as if we knew nothing at all ; nor after all the acquaint-
ance and familiarit}? which we imagine we have with matter, and the
many qualities men assure themselves they perceive and know in
bodies, will it, perhaps, upon examination, be found, that they have
any more, or clearer, primary ideas belonging to body, than they
liave belonging to immaterial spirit. I

§ 17. The cohesion of solid part J, .and impulse, the primary

204 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

ideas of body, — The primary ideas we have peculiar to body, as
contra- distinguished to spirit, are the cohesion of solid, and con-
sequently separable, parts, and a power of communicating motion
by impulse. These, I think, are the original ideas proper and
peculiar to body ; for figure is but the consequence of finite
extension.

^18. Thinkiiig and motivity, the primary ideas of spirit. — The
ideas we have belonging and peculiar to spirit, are thinking, and
will, or a power of putting body into motion by thought, and, M'hich
is consequent to it, liberty. For as body cannot but communicate
its motion by impulse to another body, which it meets with at rest,
so the mind can put bodies into motion, or forbear to do so, as it
pleases. The ideas of existence, duration, and mobihty, are common
to them both.

§ 19. Spirits capable of motion. — There is no reason why it
should be thought strange that I make mobility belong to spirit :
for having no other idea of motion, but change of distance, with
other beings that are considered as at rest ; and finding that spirits,
as well as bodies, cannot operate but where they are, and that spi-
rits do operate at several times in several places, I cannot but attri-
bute change of place to all finite spirits (for of the infinite spirit I
speak not here). For my soul being a real being, as well as my
body, is certainly as capable of changing distance with any other
body, or being as body itself, and so is capable of motion. And if
a mathematician can consider a certain distance, or a change
of that distance, between two points, one may certainly conceive
a distance, and a change of distance, between two spirits ; and
so conceive their motion, their approach or removal, one from
another.

§ 20. Every one finds in himself, that his soul can think, will,
and operate on his body, in the place where that is ; but cannot ope-
rate on a body, or in a place, a hundred miles distant from it.
Nolxxly can imagine that his soul can think, or move a body, at
Oxford, whilst he is at London ; and cannot but know, that being
united to his body, it constantly changes place all the whole journey,
between Oxford and London, as the coach or horse does that
carries him ; and, I think, may be said to be truly all that
while in motion ; or if that will not be allowed to afl'ord us a clear
idea enough of its motion, its being separated from the body in
death, I think will : for to consider it as going out of the body, or
leaving it, and yet to have no idea of its motion, seems to me
impossible.

I 21. If it be said by any one, that it cannot change place, be-
cause it hath none, for spirits are not in loco., but itbi ; I supj)ose
that way of talking will not now be of much weight to many in an
age that is not much disposed to admire, or suffer themselves to be
deceived by, such unintelligible ways of speaking. But if any one
thinks there is any sense in that distinction, and that it is applicable
to our present purpose, I desire him to put it into intelligible English ;

(

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 205

and then from thence draw a reason to show that immaterial
spirits are not capable of motion ; indeed, motion cannot be attri-
buted to God, not because he is an immaterial, but because he is an
infinite, sph'it.

§ 22. Idea of soul and hody compared. — Let us compare our com-
plex idea of immaterial spirit, with our complex idea of body, and see
whether there be any more obscurity in one than in the other, and in
which most. Our idea of body, as I think, is an extended solid
substance, capable of communicating motion by impulse : and our
idea of soul, as an immaterial spirit, is of a substance that thinks,
and has a power of exciting motion in body, by willing, or thought.
These, I think, are our complex ideas of soul and body, as contra-
distinguished ; and now let us examine which has most obscurity in
it, and difficulty to be apprehended. I know that people, whose
thoughts are immersed in matter, and have so subjected their minds
to their senses, that they seldom reflect on any thing beyond them,
are apt to say, that they cannot comprehend a thinking thing ; which,
perhaps, is true : but I affirm, when they consider it well, they can
no more comprehend an extended thing.

§ S3. Cohesion of solid parts in hody^ as hard to he conceived as
tliinMng in a soul. — If any one say, he knows not what it is
thinks in him ; he means, he knows not what the substance is of
that thinking thing ; no more, say I, knows he what the sub-
stance is of that solid thing. Farther, if he says, he knows not
how he thinks ; I answer, neither knows he how he is extended ;
how the solid parts of body are united, or cohere together to make
extension. For though the pressure of the particles of air, may
account for the cohesion of several parts of matter that are grosser
than the particles of air, and have pores less than the corpuscles
of air ; yet the weight or pressure of the air will not explain, nor
can be a cause of the coherence of, the particles of air themselves.
And if the pressure of the ether, or any subtiler matter than the
air, may unite and hold fast together the parts of a particle of air,
as well as other bodies ; yet it cannot make bonds for itself, and
hold together the parts that make up every the least corpuscle of
that materia suhtilis. So that the hypothesis, how ingeniously
soever explained, by showing, that the parts of sensible bodies are
held together by the pressure of other external insensible bodies,
reaches not the parts of the ether itself ; and by how much the more
evident it proves that the parts of other bodies are held together by
the external pressure of the ether, and can have no other conceivable
cause of their cohesion and union, by so much the more it leaves us
in the dark concerning the cohesion of the parts of the corpuscles of
the ether itself ; which we can neither conceive without parts, they
being bodies and divisible ; nor yet how their parts cohere, they
wanting that cause of cohesion which is given of the cohesion of the
parts of all other bodies.

§ 24. But, in truth, the pressure of any ambient fluid, how
great soever, can be no intelligible cause of the cohesion of the

206 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

solid parts of matter. For though such a pressure may hinder the
avulsion of two polished superficies one from another, in a line per-
pendicular to them, as in the experiment of two polished marbles ;
yet it can never, in the least, hinder the separation by a motion in
a hne parallel to those surfaces : because the ambient fluid, having
a full liberty to succeed in each point of space deserted by a lateral
motion, resists such a motion of bodies so joined, no more than it
would resist the motion of that body, were it on all sides environed
by that fluid, and touched no other body : and, therefore, if there
were no other cause of cohesion, all parts of bodies must be easily
separable by such a lateral sliding motion. For if the pressure of
the ether be the adequate cause of cohesion, wherever that cause
operates not there can be no cohesion. And since it cannot
operate against such a lateral separation (as has been shown),
therefore in every imaginary plane, intersecting any mass of mat-
ter, there could be no more cohesion, than of two polished surfaces,
which will always, notwithstanding any imaginable pressure of a
fluid, easily slide one from another. So that, perhaps, how clear
an idea soever we think we have of the extension of body, which is
nothing but the cohesion of solid parts, he that shall well consider
it in his mind, may have reason to conclude, that it is as easy for
him to have a clear idea how the soul thinks, as how body is
extended. For since body is no farther, nor otherwise extended,
than by the union and cohesion of its solid parts, we shall very ill
comprehend the extension of body, without understanding wherein
consists the union and cohesion of its parts ; which seems to me
as incomprehensible as the manner of thinking, and how it is per-
formed.

§ 25. I allow it is usual for most people to wonder how any one
should find a difficulty in what they think they every day observe.
Do we not see, will they be ready to say, the parts of bodies stick
firmly together ? Is there any thing more common ? And what
doubt can there be made of it ? And the like, I say, concerning
thinking, and voluntary motion : do we not every moment experi-
ment it in ourselves, and therefore can it be doubted ? The mat-
ter of fact is clear, I confess ; but when we would a little nearer
look into it, and consider how it is done, there, I think, we are
at a loss, both in the one and the other ; and can as little under-
stand how the parts of body cohere, as how we ourselves perceive,
or move. I would have any one intelligibly explain to me, how
the parts of gold, or brass (that but now in fusion were as loose from
one another, as the particles of water, or the sands of an hour-glass),
come in a few moments to be so united, and adhere so strongly one
to another, that the utmost force of men*'s arms cannot separate tnem ;
a considering man will, I suppose, be here at a loss to satisfy his own
or another man's understancling.

§ J26. The little bodies that compose that fluid we call water,
are so extremely small, that I never heard of, any one, who by a
microscope (and yet I have heard of soboc thit h^ve magnified to

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 207

ten thousand ; nay, to much above one hundred thousand times)
pretended to perceive their distinct bulk, figure, or motion : and
the particles of water are also so perfectly loose one from another,
that the least force sensibly separates them. Nay, if we consider
their perpetual motion, we must allow them to have no cohesion
one with another; and yet let but a sharp cold come, and they
unite, they consolidate, these little atoms cohere, and are not,
without great force, separable. He that could find the bonds that
tie these heaps of loose little bodies together so firmly ; he that
could make known the cement that makes them stick so fast one
to another, would discover a great, and yet unknown, secret ; and
yet when that was done, would he be far enough from making the
extension of body (which is the cohesion of its solid parts) intel-
ligible, till he could show wherein consisted the union, or conso-
lidation, of the parts of those bonds, or of that cement, or of the
least particle of matter that exists. Whereby it appears that this
primary and supposed obvious quality of body, will be found,
when examined, to be as incomprehensible as any thing belonging
to our minds, and a solid extended substance, as hard to be con-
ceived, as a thinking immaterial one, whatever difficulty some would
raise against it.

§ 27. For, to extend our thoughts a little farther, that pressure
which is brought to explain the cohesion of bodies, is as unin-
telligible as the cohesion itself. For if matter be considered, as no
doubt it is, finite, let any one send his contemplation to the extre-
mities of the universe, and there see what conceivable hoops, what
bond, he can imagine to hold this mass of matter in so close a pres-
sure together, from whence steel has its firmness, and the parts of
a diamond their hardness and indissolubility. If matter be finite,
it must have its extremes ; and there must be something to hin-
der it from scattering asunder. If, to avoid this difficulty, any
one will throw himself into the supposition and abyss of infinite
matter, let him consider what light he thereby brings to the cohe-
sion of body ; and whether he be ever the nearer making it intelli-
gible, by resolving it into a supposition, the most absurd and most
incomprehensible of all other ; so far is our extension of body (which
is nothing but the cohesion of solid parts) from being clearer, or more
distinct, vi^hen we would inquire into the nature, cause, or manner of
it, than the idea of thinking.

§ 28. Communication ^motion by impulse, or by thought equally
intelligible. — Another idea we have of body, is the power of com-
munication of motion by impulse ; and of our souls, the power of
exciting of motion by thought. These ideas, the one of body,
the other of our minds, every day's experience clearly furnishes us
with ; but if here again we inquire how this is done, we are equally
in the dark. For in the communication of motion by impulse,
wherein as much motion is lost to one body, as is got to the other,
which is the most ordinary case, we can have no other conception,
but of the passing of motion out of one body into another ; which, I

208 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

think, is as obscure and unconceivable, as how our minds move or
stop our bodies by thought; which we every moment find they
do. The increase of motion by impulse, which is observed or be-
lieved sometimes to happen, is yet harder to be understood. We
have by daily experience, clear evidence of motion produced both
by impulse and by thought ; but the manner how, hardly comes
within our comprehension; we are equally at a loss in both. So
that, however we consider motion, and its communication either
from body or spirit, the idea which belongs to spirit, is at least
as clear as that which belongs to body. And if we consider the
active power of moving, or, as I may call it, motivity, it is much
clearer in spirit, than body, since two bodies, placed by one an-
other, at rest, will never afford us the idea of a power in the one to
move the other, but by a borrowed motion ; whereas the mind
every day affords us ideas of an active power of moving of bodies ;
and, therefore, it is worth our consideration, whether active power
be not the proper attribute of spirits, and passive power of matter.
Hence may be conjectured, that created spirits are not totally
separate from matter, because they are both active and pas-
sive. Pure spirit, viz., God, is only active ; pure matter, is only
passive ; those beings that are both active and passive, we may
judge to partake of both. But be that as it will, I think we have
as many, and as clear ideas, belonging to spirit, as we have be-
longing to body, the substance of each being equally unknown to
us ; and the idea of thinking in spirit, as clear as of extension in
body ; and the communication of motion by thought, which we
attribute to spirit, is as evident as that by impulse which we ascribe
to body. Constant experience makes us sensible of both these,
though our narrow understandings can comprehend neither. For
when the mind would look beyond those original ideas we have
from sensation or reflection, and penetrate into their causes and
manner of production, we find still it discovers nothing but its own
short-sightedness.

§ 29. To conclude : sensation convinces us that there are solid
extended substances ; and reflection, that there are thinking ones ;
experience assures us of the existence of such beings ; and that the
one hath a power to move body by impulse, the other by thought ;
this we cannot doubt of. Experience, I say, every moment fur-
nishes us with the clear ideas both of the one and the other. But
beyond these ideas, as received from their proper sources, our fa-
culties will not reach. If we would inquire farther into their na^
ture, causes, and manner, we perceive not the nature of extension
clearer than we do of thinking. If we would explain them any
farther, one is as easy as the other : and there is no more difficulty
to conceive how a substance we know not, should, by thought, set
IxkJj into motion, than how a substance we know not, should,
by impulse, set Ixxly into motion. So that we are no more able
to discover wherein the ideas belonging to body consist, than
those bek)nging to spirit. From whence it seems probable to me,

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 209

that 'the simple ideas we receive from sensation and reflection, are
the boundaries of our thoughts ; beyond which, the mind, whatever
efforts it would make, is not able to advance one jot ; nor can it
make any discoveries, when it would pry into the nature and hidden
causes of those ideas.

§ 30. Idea of spirit and body compared. — So that, in short, the
idea we have of spirit, compared with the idea we have of body,
stands thus : the substance of spirit is unknown to us ; and so is the
substance of body equally unknown to us ; two primary qualities or
properties of body, viz., solid coherent parts and impulse, we have
distinct clear ideas of ; so, likewise, we know and have distinct clear
ideas of two primary qualities, or properties of spirit, viz., thinking,
and a power of action ; i. e. a power of beginning, or stopping,
several, thoughts or motions. We have also the ideas of several
qualities, inherent in bodies, and have the clear distinct ideas of
them ; which qualities are but the various modifications of the ex-
tension of cohering solid parts, and their motion. We have, like-
wise, the ideas of the several modes of thinking, viz., believing,
doubting, intending, fearing, hoping ; all which are but the several
modes of thinking. We have also the ideas of willing and moving
the body consequent to it, and with the body itself too ; for, as has
been shown, spirit is capable of motion.

§ 31. The'7iotion of spirit involves no more difficulty in it, than
that of' body. — Lastlij, If this notion of immaterial spirit may have,
perhaps, some difficulties in it, not easy to be explained, we have,
therefore, no more reason to deny or doubt the existence of such
spirits, than we have to deny or doubt the existence of body ; be-
cause the notion of body is cumbered with some difficulties, very
hard, and, perhaps, impossible, to be explained or understood by us.
For I would fain have instanced any thing in our notion of spirit,
more perplexed, or nearer a contradiction, than the very notion of
body includes in it ; the divisibility, in infinitum, of any finite ex-
tension involving us, whether we grant or deny it, in consequences
impossible to be explicated, or made in our apprehensions consistent ;
consequences that carry greater difficulty, and more apparent ab-
surdity, than any thing that can follow from the notion of an imma-
terial knowing substance.

§ 32. We knoxv nothing beyond our simple ideas. — Which we
are not at all to wonder at, since we having but some few superficial
ideas of things, discovered to us only by the senses from without,
or by the mind, reflecting on what it experiments in itself within,
have no knowledge beyond that, much less of the internal constitu-
tion, and true nature of things, being destitute of faculties to attain
it. And therefore, experimenting and discovering in ourselves
knowledge, and the power of voluntary motion, as certainly as we
experiment or discover in things without us, the cohesion and se-
paration of solid parts, which is the extension and motion of bodies ;
we have as much reason to be satisfied with our notion of immaterial

«10 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

spirit, as with our notion of body ; and the existence of the one,
as well as the other. For it being no more a contradiction, that
thinking should exist separate and independent from solidity, that
it is a contradiction, that stolidity should exist separate and inde-
pendent from thinking, they being both but simple ideas, independent
one from another ; and having as clear and distinct ideas in us of
thinking, as of solidity. I know not why we may not as well allow
a thinking thing without solidity, i. e. immaterial, to exist, as a solid
thing without thinking, i. e. matter to exist: especially since it is not
harder to conceive how thinking should exist without matter, than
how matter should think. For whensoever we would proceed beyond
these simple ideas we have from sensation and reflection, and dive
farther into the nature of things, we fall presently into darkness and
obscurity, perplexedness, and difficulties ; and can discover nothing-
farther, but our own blindness and ignorance. But whichever of
these complex ideas be clearest, that of body, or immaterial spirit,
this is evident, that the simple ideas that make them up, are no other
than what we have received from sensation or reflection, and so is it
of all our other ideas of substances, even of God himself.

§ 3B. Idea of God. — For if we examine the idea we have of the
incomprehensible supreme Being, we shall find that we come by it
the same way ; and that the complex ideas we have both of God,
and separate spirits, are made up of the simple ideas we receive from
reflection : v. g. having, from what we experiment in ourselves, got
the ideas of existence and duration ; of knowledge and power ; c^
pleasure and happiness; and of several other qualities and powers,
which it is better to have than to be without : when we would frame
an idea the most suitable we can to the supreme Being, we enlarge
every one of these with our idea of infinite : and so putting them
together, make our complex idea of God. For that the mind has
such a power of enlarging some of its ideas, received from sensati
and reflection, has been already shown.

§ 34. If I find that I know some few things, and some of thai
or all, perhaps, imperfectly, I can frame an idea of knowing twice
many ; which I can double again, as often as I can add to numbei
and thus enlarge my idea of knowledge, by extending its compre
hension to all things existing, or possible : the same also I can do
of knowing them more perfectly; i. e. all their qualities, powers,
causes, consequences, and relations, &c., till all be perfectly knowjLJ
that is in them, or can any way relate to them ; and thus frame t]U
idea of infinite or boundless knowledge : the same may also be don?"
of power, till we come to that we call infinite; and also of tl
duration of existence, without beginning or end ; and so frame t
idea of an eternal being. The degrees, or extent, wherein we j
cribe existence, power, wisdom, and all other perfections (whi
we can have any ideas of) to that sovereign Bemg, which we ci
God, being all boundless and infinite, we frame the best idea of hin
our minds are capable of: all which is done I say, by cnlargini:

las

I

th||
cflRI

4

CH. 23. OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. 21 1

those simple ideas we have taken from the operations of our own
minds, by reflection ; or by our senses, from exterior things, to that
vastness to which infinity can extend them.

§ 35. Idea of God. — For it is infinity which, joined to our
ideas of existence, power, knowledge, &c., makes that complex idea,
whereby we represent to ourselves, the best we can, the supreme
Being. For though in his own essence, which certainly we do not
know, not knowing the real essence of a pebble, or a fly, or of our
own selves, God be simple and uncompounded ; yet, I think, I may .
say we have no other idea of him, but a complex one of existence,
knowledge, power, happiness, &c., infinite and eternal: which are
all distinct ideas, and some of them being relative, are again com-
pounded of others ; all which being, as has been shown, originally
got from sensation and reflection, go to make up the idea or notion
we have of God.

§ 36. No ideas in our complex oiie of spii'its^ hut those got from
sensation or reflection. — This farther is to be observed, that there is
no idea we attribute to God, bating infinity, which is not also a part
of our complex idea of other spirits. Because, being capable of no
other simple ideas, belonging to any thing but body, but those, which
by reflection we receive from the operation of our minds, we can at-
tribute to spirits no other but what we receive from thence : and all
the difference we can put between them in our contemplation of
spirits, is only in the several extents and degrees of their knowledge,
power, duration, happiness, &c. For that in our ideas, as well of
spirits, as of other things, we are restrained to those we receive from
sensation and reflection, is evident from hence, that in our ideas of
spirits, how much soever advanced in perfection beyond those of
bodies, even to that of infinite, we cannot yet have any idea of the
manner wherein they discover their thoughts one to another ; though
we must necessarily conclude, that separate spirits, which are beings
il that have more perfect knowledge, and greater happiness than we,
i must needs have also a more perfect way of communicating their
I thoughts than we have, who are fain to make use of corporeal signs,
I and particular sounds, which are therefore of most general use, as
being the best and quickest we are capable of. But of immediate
I communication, having no experiment in ourselves, and, consequently
'no notion of it at all, we have no idea, how spirits, which use not
! words, can with quickness, or much less how spirits, that have no
I bodies, can be masters of their own thoughts, and communicate or
'conceal them at pleasure, though we cannot but necessarily suppose
they have such a power.

§ 37. Recapitulation. — And thus we have seen what kind of ideas
we have of substances of all kinds, wherein they consist, and how we .
come by them. From whence, I think, it is very evident, ^^^-v.

First, That all our ideas of the several sorts of substances, are j
nothing but collections of simple ideas, with a supposition of some- f
thing to which they belong, and in which they subsist ; though of /
this supposed something we have no clear distinct idea at all. , y

212 OUR IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES. book 2.

Secondly^ That all the simple ideas that, thus united in one com-
mon subtratum, make up our complex ideas of several sorts of the
substances, are no other but such as we have received from sensation
or reflection. So that even in those which we think we are most
intimately acquainted with, and that come nearest the comprehension
of our most enlarged conceptions, we cannot go beyond those simple
ideas. And even in those which seem most remote from all we have
to do with, and do infinitely surpass any thing we can perceive in
ourselves by reflection, or discover by sensation in other things, we
can attain to nothing but those simple ideas which we originally re-
ceived from sensation or reflection, as is evident in the complex ideas
we have of angels, and particularly of God himself.

Thirdly i That most of the simple ideas that make up our complex
ideas of substances, when truly considered, are only powers, however
we are apt to take them for positive qualities; v. g. the greatest
part of the ideas that make our complex idea of gold, are yellowness,
great weight, ductility, fusibility, and solubility, in aqua regia^ &c.,
all united together in an unknown substratum ; all which ideas are
nothing else but so many relations to other substances, and are not
really in the gold considered barely in itself, though they depend on
those real and primary qualities oi its internal constitution, whereby
it has a fitness differently to operate, and be operated on by several
other substances.

CHAPTER XXIV.

OF COLLECTIVE IDEAS OF SUBSTANCES.

§ 1. One idea. — Besides these complex ideas of several single
substances, as of man, horse, gold, violet, apple, &c., the mind liath
also complex collective ideas of substances ; which I so call because
such ideas are made up of many particular substances considered
together, as united into one idea, and which so joined, are looked
on as one ; v. g. the idea of such a collection of men as make an
army, though consisting of a great number of distinct substances, is
as much one idea, as the idea of a man : and the great' collective
idea of all bodies whatsoever, signified by the name world, is as
much one idea, as the idea of any the least particle of matter in
it ; it sufficing to the unity of any idea, that it be considered as one
representation, or picture, though made up of ever so many par-
ticulars.

V_ § 2. (Made by the power of compqmmJ^^J^^ 7wincZ.4-These col-
lective ia^s of subsfaFices" the miha malc¥s by its power of composi-
tion, and uniting severally, either simple or complex ideas into one
as it does by the same faculty make the complex ideas of particular
substances, consisting of an aggregate. of divers simple ideas, united
jn one substance : and as the mind, by putting together the repeated

CH. 25. OF RELATION. 213

ideas of unity, makes the collective mode, or complex idea, of any
number as a score, or a gross, &c. : so by putting together several
particular substances, it makes collective ideas of substances, as a
troop, an army, a swarm, a city, a fleet ; each of which, every one
finds, that he represents to his own mind, by one idea, in one view ;
and so under that notion, considers those several things as perfectly
one, as one ship, or one atom. Nor is it harder to conceive how an
army of ten thousand men should make one idea, than how a man
should make one idea ; it being as easy to the mind to unite into
one, the idea of a great number of men, and consider it as one, as it
is to unite into one particular, all the distinct ideas that make up the
composition of a man, and consider them altogether as one.

§ 3. All artificial things are collective ideas. — Amongst such
kind of collective ideas, are to be counted most part of artificial
things, at least such of them as are made up of distinct substances :
and, in truth, if we consider all these collective ideas aright, as army,
constellation, universe, as they are united into so many single ideas,
they are but the artificial draughts of the mind, bringing things very
remote, and independent on one another, into one view, the better
to contemplate and discourse of them, united into one' conception^
and signified by one name. For there are no things so femofi^, 'I'ior
so contrary, which the mind cannot, by this art of composition, bring-
in to one idea, as is visible in that signified by the name universe.

CHAPTER XXV.

OF RELATION.

§ 1. Relation^ what. — Besides the ideas, whether simple or
complex, that the mind has of things, as they are in themselves,
there are others it gets from their comparison one with another.
The understanding, in the consideration of any thing, is not con-
fined to that precise object : it can carry any idea, as it were, beyond
itself, or, at least, look beyond it, to see how it stands in conformity
to any other. When the mind so considers one thing, that it does,
as it were, bring it to, and set it by, another, and carry its view
from one to the other : this is, as the words import, relation and
lespect ; and the denominations given to positive things intimating
that respect, and serving as marks to lead the thoughts beyond the
subject itself denominated, to something distinct from it, are wliat
we call relatives : and the things so brought together, related. Thus,
when the mind considers Caius as such a positive being, it takes
nothing into that idea but what really exists in Caius ; v. g. when I
consider him as a man, I have nothing in my mind but the complex
idea of the species, man. So likewise, when I say Caius is a white
man, I have nothing but the bare consideration of a man, who hath
that white colour. But when I give Caius the name husband,
1 intimate some other person : and when I give him the name

214 OF RELATION. book %

whiter, I intimate some other thing. In both cases, my thought is
led to something beyond Caius, and there are two things brought
into consideration. And since any idea, whether simple or complex,
may be the occasion why the mind thus brings two things together,
and, as it were, takes a view of them at once, though still considered
as distinct ; therefore, any of our ideas may be the foundation of
relation. As in the above-mentioned instance, the contract and ce-
remony of marriage with Sempronia, is the occasion of the denomina-
tion or relation of husband ; and the colour white, the occasion why
he is said to be whiter than free-stone.

§ 2. Belations without correlative terms, not easily perceived. —
Tliese, and the like relations expressed by relative terms that have
others answering them, with a reciprocal intimation, as father and
son, bigger and less, cause and effect, are very obvious to every one,
and every body at first sight perceives the relation. For father and
son, husband and wife, and such other correlative terms, seem so
nearly to belong one to another, and, through custom, do so readily
chime, and answer one another, in people'*s memories, that upon the
naming of either of them, the thoughts are presently carried beyond
the thing so named ; and nobody overlooks, or doubts of, a relation,
where it is so plainly intimated. But where languages have failed
to give correlative names, there the relation is not always so easily
taken notice of. Concubine is, no doubt, a relative name, as well as
wife : but in languages where this, and the like words, have not a
correlative term, there people are not so apt to take them to be so,
as wanting that evident mark of relation which is between correla-
tives, which seem to explain one another, and not to be able to
exist, but together. Hence it is, that many of those names, which,
duly considered, do include evident relations, have been called ex-
ternal denominations. But all names that are more than empty
sounds, must signify some idea, which is either in the thing to
which the name is applied ; and then it is positive, and is looked on
as united to, and existing in, tlie thing to which the denomination is
given : or else it arises from the respect the mind finds in it to some-
thing distinct from it, with which it considers it ; and then it concludes
a relation.

§ 3. Soine seemingly absolute terms contain relations. — Another
sort of relative terms there is, which are not looked on to be
cither relative, or so much as external, denominations ; which yet,
imder the form and appearance of signifying something absolute in
the subject, do conceal a tacit, thougn less observable, relation.
Sucli are the seemingly positive terms of old, great, imperfect, &c.,
whereof I shall have occasion to speak more at large in the following
chapters.

§ 4. Relation different fiom the things related. — This farther
may be observed, that the ideas of relation may be the same in men,
who have far different ideas of the things that are related, or that
are thus compared ; v. g, those who have far different ideas of a
man, may yet agree in the notion of a father : which is a notion su-
perinduced to the substance, or man, and refers only to an act of

CH. 25, OF RELATION. 215

that thing called man ; whereby he contributes to the generation of
one of his own kind, let man be what it will.

§ 5. Change of relation may be without any change in the subject,
— The nature, therefore, of relation, consists in the referring or
comparing two things one to another ; from which comparison, one
or both comes to be denominated. And if either of those things
be removed, or cease to be, the relation ceases, and the denomina-
tion consequent to it, though the other receive in itself no alteration
at all : v. g. Caius, whom I consider to-day as a father, ceases to be
so to-morrow, only by the death of his son, without any alteration
made in himself. Nay, barely by the mind's changing the object to
which it compares any thing, the same thing is capable of having
contrary denominations at the same time : v. g. Caius compared to
several persons, may be truly said to be older and younger, stronger
and weaker, &c.

§ 6. Relation only betzdat two things. — Whatsoever doth, or
can exist, or be considered as one thing, is positive : and so not
only simple ideas, and substances, but modes also, are positive beings !
though the parts of which they consist are very often relative one
to another ; but the whole together considered as one thing, pro-
ducing in us the complex idea of one thing, which idea is in our
minds, as one picture, though an aggregate of divers parts, and
under one name, it is a positive or absolute thing, or idea. Thus
a triangle, though the parts thereof, compared one to another, be re-
lative, yet the idea of the whole is a positive absolute idea. The
same may l>e said of a family, a tune, &c., for there can be no rela-
tion but betwixt two things, considered as two things. There must
always be in relation two ideas, or things, either in themselves,
really separate, or considered as distinct, and then a ground or oc-
casion for their comparison.

§ 7. All things capable of relation. — Concerning relation in ge-
neral, these things may be considered :

Firsts That there is no one thing, whether simple idea, substance,
mode, or relation, or name of either of them, which is not capable
of almost an infinite number of considerations, in reference to other
things ; and, therefore, this makes no small part of men's thoughts
and words : v. g. one single man may at once be concerned in,
and sustain all these following relations, and many more, viz. father,
brother, son, grandfather, grandson, father-in-law, son-in-law, hus-
band, friend, enemy, subject, general, judge, patron, client, pro-
fessor, European, Englishman, islander, servant, master, possessor,
captain, superior, inferior, bigger, less, older, younger, contemporary,
like, unHke, &c., to an almost infinite number: he being capable
of as many relations, as there can be occasions of comparing him to
other things, in any manner of agreement, disagreement, or respect
Avhatsoever : for, as I said, relation is a way of comparing, or con-
sidering, two things together ; and giving one, or both of them,
some appellation from that comparison, and sometimes giving ^ven
the relation itself a name.

216 OF RELATION. book 2.

§ 8. The ideas of relations clearer often, than of the subjects
related, — Secondly, This farther may be considered concerning' re-
lation, that though it be not contained in the real existence of things,
but something extraneous and super-induced : yet the ideas which
relative words stand for, are often clearer, and more distinct, than
of those substances to which they do belong. Tlie notion we have
of a father, or brother, is a great deal clearer and more distinct, than
that we have of a man ; or, if you will, paternity is a thing whereof
it is easier to have a clearer idea, than of humanity ; and I can
much easier conceive what a friend is, than what God; because
the knowledge of one action, or one simple idea, is oftentime suf-
ficient to give me notion of a relation ; but to the knowing of any
substantial being, an accurate collection of sundry ideas is necessary.
A man, if he compares two things together, can hardly be supposed
not to know what it is wherein he compares them ; so that when he
compares any things together, he cannot but have a very clear
idea of that relation. The ideas, then, of relations, are capable at
least of being more perfect and distinct in our minds, than those
of substances ; because it is commonly hard to know all the simple
ideas which are really in any substance, but for the most part easy
enough to know the simple ideas that make up any relation I think
on, or have a name for ; v. g. comparing two men, in reference to
one common parent, it is very easy to frame the ideas of brothers
without having yet the perfect idea of a man. For significant re-
lative Avords, as well as others, standing only for ideas ; and those
being all either simple, or made up of simple ones, it suffices, for
the knowing the precise idea the relative term stands for, to have a
clear conception of that which is the foundation of the relation ;
which may be done without having a perfect and clear idea of the
thing it is attributed to. Thus having the notion that one laid the
egg out of which the other was hatched, I have a clear idea of the
relation of dam and chick, between the two cassiowaries in St. James's
Park ; though, perhaps, I have but a very obscure and imperfect
idea of those birds themselves.

§ 9. Relations all terminate in simple ideas, — Thirdly, Though
tliere be a great number of considerations wherein things may l)c
compared one with another, and so a multitude of relations ; yet they
all terminate in, and are concerned about, those simple ideas, either
of sensation or reflection, which I think to be the whole materials of
all our knowledge. To clear this, I shall show it in the most con-
siderable relations that we have any notion of; and in some that
seem to be the most remote from sense or reflection ; which yet will
appear to have their ideas from thence, and leave it past doubt, that
the notions we have of them are but certain simple ideas, and so
originally derived from sense or reflection.

§ 10. Terms lending the mind beyond the subject dciiomirialed,
are relative. — Fourthly, That relation being the considering of one
thing with another, which is extrinsical to it, it is evident, that all
words that necessarily lead the mind to any other ideas than arc

II

CH. 26. OF RELATION. 217

supposed really to exist in that thing to which the word is applied,
are relative words; v. g. a man black, merry, thoughtful, thirsty,
angry, extended ; these, and the like, are all absolute, because they
neither signify nor intimate any thing, but what does, or is supposed
really to, exist, in the man thus denominated ; but father, brother,
king, husband, blacker, merrier, &c. are words, which, together with
the thing they denominate, imply also something else separate, and
exterior to the existence of that thing.

§11. Conclusion. — Having laid down these premises concerning
relation in general, I shall now proceed to show, in some instances,
how all the ideas we have of relation are made up, as the others are,
only of simple ideas ; and that they all, how refined or remote from
sense soever they seem, terminate at last in simple ideas. I shall
begin with the most comprehensive relation, wherein all things that
do or can exist are concerned, and that is, the relation of cause and
effect. The idea whereof, how derived from the two fountains of all
our knowledge, sensation and reflection, I shall in the next place
consider.

CHAPTER XXVI.

OF CAUSE AND EFFECT, AND OTHER RELATIONS.

§ 1. Whence their ideas got. — In the notice that our senses take
of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe, that
several particular, both qualities and substances, begin to exist ; and
that they receive this their existence from the due application and
operation of some other being. From this observation we get our
ideas of cause and effect. That which produces any simple or com-
plex idea, we denote by the general name cause; and that which is
produced, effect. Thus finding, that in that substance which we
call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea, that was not in it before, is
constantly produced by the application of a certain degree of heat,
we call the simple idea of heat, in relation to fluidity in wax, the
cause of it ; and fluidity, the effect. So also finding that the sub-
stance of wood, which is a certain collection of simple ideas so called,
by the application of fire, is turned into another substance, called
ashes, i. e. another complex idea, consisting of a collection of simple
ideas, quite different from that complex idea which we call wood;
we consider fire, in relation to ashes, as cause, and the ashes, as
effect. So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate
to the producing any particular simple idea, or collection of simple
ideas, whether substance, or mode, which did not before exist, hath
thereby in our minds the relation of a cause, and so is denominated
by us.

§ 2. Creation, generation, making alteration. — Having thus,\
from what our senses are able to discover in the operations of bo-

218 OF RELATION. book 2.

dies on one another, got the notion of cause and effect, viz., that a
cause is that which makes any other thing, either simple idea, sub-
stance, or mode, begin to be ; and an effect is that which had its be-
ginning from some other thing ; the mind finds no great difficulty to
distinguish the several originals of things into two sorts :

Hrst, When the thing is wholly made new, so that no part thereof
did ever exist before ; as when a new particle of matter doth begin
to exist, ifi rerum natura, which had before no being, and this we
call creation.

Second/i/, When a thing is made up of particles which did all of
them before exist, but that very thing so constituted of pre-existing
particles, which considered all together, make up such a collection
of simple ideas, as had not any existence before, as this man, this
egg, rose, or cherry, &c. And this, when referred to a substance,
produced in the ordinary course of nature, by an internal principle,
but set on work by, and received from, some external agent, or
cause, and working by insensible ways, which we perceive not, we
call generation ; when the cause is extrinsical, and the effect pro-
duced by a sensible separation, or jiixta position of discernible parts,
we call it making ; and such are all artificial things. When any
simple idea is produced, which was not in that subject before, we
call it alteration. Thus a man is generated, a picture made, and
either of them altered, when any new sensible quality, or simple idea,
is produced in either of them, which was not there before; and
the things thus made to exist, which were not there before, are
effects: and those things which operated to the existence, causes.
In which, and all other cases, we may observe that the notion of
cause and effect has its rise from ideas received by sensation or
reflection ; and that this relation how comprehensive soever, termi-
nates at last in them. For to have the idea of cause and effect, it
suffices to consider any simple idea, or substance, as beginning to
exist by the operation of some other, without knowing the manner
of that operation.

§ 3. Ilelations of time. — Time and place are also the foundations
of very large relations, and all finite beings at least are concerned
in them. But having already shown, in another place, how wci
get these ideas, it may suffice here to intimate, that most ofj
the denominations of things received from time, are only re-I
lations; thus, when any one says that Queen Elizabeth lived'
sixty-nine, and reigned forty-five years, these words import only
the relation of that duration to some other, and mean no more]
but this, that the duration of her existence was equal to sixty-
nine, and tlie duration of her government, to forty-five, annual
revolutions of the sun; and so are all words answering how long.
Again, William the Conqueror invaded England about the year
lOCG, which means this: that taking the duration from our
Saviour's tifne, till now, for one entire great length of time, it
shows at what distance this invasion was from the two extremes;
and so do all words of time, answering to the (question when, which

cH. 26. OF RELATION. 219

show only the distance of any point of time, from the period of a
longer duration, from which we measure, and to which we thereby
consider it as related.

§ 4. There are yet, besides those other words of time that or-
dinarily are thought to stand for positive ideas, which yet will,
when considered, be found to be relative ; such as are young, old,
&c., which include and intimate the relation any thing has to a cer-
tain length of duration, whereof we have the idea in our minds.
Thus having settled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary
duration of a man to be seventy years, when we say a man is
young, we mean that his age is yet but a small part of that which
usually men attain to; and when we denominate him old, we
mean, that his duration is ruif out almost to the end of that which
men do not usually exceed. And so it is but comparing the par-
ticular age or duration of this or that man, to the idea of that
duration which we have in our minds, as ordinarily belonging
to that sort of animals ; which is plain in the application of
these names to other things ; for a man is called young at twenty
years, and very young at seven years old: but yet a horse we
call old at twenty, and a dog at seven, years ; because in each of
these, we compare their age to different ideas of duration, which
are settled in our mind as belonging to these several sorts of ani-
mals, in the ordinary course of nature. But the sun and stars,
though they have out-lasted several generations of men, we call
not old, because we do not know what period God hath set to that
sort of beings. This term belonging properly to those things
which we can observe in the ordinary course of things, by a natural
decay, to come to an end in a certain period of time; and so
have in our minds, as it were, a standard to which we can compare
the several parts of their duration ; and by the relation they bear
thereunto, call them young, or old ; which we cannot therefore
do to a ruby, or diamond, things whose usual periods we know
not.

§ 5. Relations of place and extension, — The relation also that
things have to one another, in their places and distances, is very
obvious to observe ; as above, below, a mile distant from Charing
Cross, in England, and in London. But as in duration, so in ex-
tension and bulk, there are some ideas that are relative, which we
signify by names that are thought positive; as great and little, are
truly relations. For here also having, by observation, settled in
our minds the ideas of the bigness of several species of things, from
those we have been most accustomed to, we make them, as it were,
the standards whereby to denominate the bulk of others. Thus
Ave call a great apple, such a one as is bigger than the ordinary
sort of those we have been used to ; and a little horse, such a one
as comes not up to the size of that idea which we have in our
minds to belong ordiijarily to horses; and that will be a great
horse to a Welchman, which is but a little one to a Fleming;
they two having, from the different breed of their countries, taken

220 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

several sized ideas to which they compare, and in relation to which
they denominate, their great and their little.

§ 6. Absolute terms often stand for relations. — So likewise weak
anS strong are but relative denominations of power, compared to
some ideas we have, at that time, of greater or less power. Thus
when we say a weak man, we mean one that has not so much
strength or power to move, as usually men have, or usually those of
his size have; which is a comparing his strength to the idea we
have of the usual strength of men, or men of such a size. The like
when we say the creatures are all weak things; weak, there, is but
a relative term, signifying the disproportion there is in the power of
God and the creatures. And so abundance of words, in ordinary
speech, stand only for relations (and, perhaps, the greatest part),
which at first sight seem to have no such signification ; v. g. the ship
has necessary stores. Necessary and stores, are both relative words
one having a relation to the accomplishing the voyage intended, and
the other to future use. All which relations, how they are confined
to, and terminate in, ideas derived from sensation or reflection, is too
obvious to need any explication.

CHAPTER XXyil.

OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.

§ 1. Wherein identity consists. — Another occasion the mind
often takes of comparing, is the very being of things, when con-
sidering any thing as existing, at any determined time and place, we
compare it with itself, existing at another time, and thereon, form
the ideas of identity and diversity. When we see any thing to be
in any place in any instant of time, we are sure (be it what it will) '
that it is that very thing, and not another, which at that samci
time exists in another place, how like and undistinguishable soever]
it may be in all other respects ; and in this consists identity, when
the ideas it is attributed to, vary not at all from what they were
that moment, wherein we consider their former existence, and to
which we compare the present. For we never finding, nor con-
ceiving it possible, that two things of the same kind should exist in
the same place at the same time, we rightly conclude, that whatever
exists any where at any time, excludes all of the same kind, and is
there itself alone. When, therefore, we demand whether any tiling
be the same or no.^ it refers always to something that existed sucli
a time in such a place, wliich, it was certain, at that instant, was the
same with itself, and no other ; from whence it follows, that one thing
cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one begin-
ning, it being impossible for two things of the same kind, to be or
exist in the same mstant, in the very same place, or one and the same

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 221;

thing, in different places. That, therefore, that had one beginning,
is the same thing ; and that which had a different beginning in time
and place from that, is not the same, but diverse. That which has
made the difficulty about this relation, has been the little care and
attention used in having precise notions of the things to which it is
attributed.

§ 2. Identity of substances. — We have the ideas but of three
sorts of substances; 1, God. 2, Finite intelligences. 3, Bodies.
First, God is without beginning, eternal, unalterable, and every
where ; and, therefore, concerning his identity, there can be no
doubt. Secondly, Finite spirits having had each its determinate
time and place of beginning to exist, the relation to that time
and place will always determine to each of them its identity, as
long as it exists. Thirdly, The same will hold of every particle
of matter, to which no addition or subtraction of matter being
made, it is the same. For though these three sorts of substances,
as we term them, do not exclude one another out of the same
place; yet we cannot conceive but that they must necessarily,
each of them, exclude any of the same kind out of the same place;
or else the notions and names of identity and diversity would be in
vain, and there could be no such distinction of substances, or any
thing else, one from another. For example : could two bodies be
iji the same place at the same time ; then those two parcels of mat-
ter must be one and the same, take them great or little ; nay, all
bodies must be one and the same. For, by the same reason that two
particles of matter may be in one place, all bodies may be in one
place ; which, when it can be supposed, takes away the distinction
of identity and diversity of one and more, and renders it ridiculous.
But it being a contradiction, that two or more should be one, iden-
tity and diversity are relations and ways of comparing well founded,
and of use to the understanding.

Identity of modes. — All other things being but modes or relations
ultimately terminated in substances, the identity and diversity of each
particular existence of them too, will be, by the same way, de-
termined ; only as to things whose existence is in succession, such as
are the actions of finite beings, v. g, motion and thought, both
which consist in a continued train of succession, concerning their
diversity, there can be no question ; because each perishing the
moment it begins, they cannot exist in different times, or in different
places, as permanent beings can, at different times, exist in distant
places ; and, therefore, no motion or thought, considered as at differ-
ent times, can be the same, each part thereof having a different be-
ginning of existence.

§ 3. Principium individuationls. — From what has been said,
it is easy to discover what is so much inquired after, the princi-
pium individuationis ; and that, it is plain, is existence itself, which
determines a being of any sort to a particular time and place in-
communicable to two beings of the same kind. This, though it
seems easier to conceive in simple substances or modes, yet when

222 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book a.

reflected on, is not more difFicult in compound ones, if care be
taken to what it is applied; v. g.t let us suppose an atom, i. e. a
continued body, under one immutable superficies, existing in a de-
termined time and place ; it is evident, that considered in any in-
stant of its existence, it is, in that instant, the same with itself.
For being at that instant what it is, and nothing else, it is the
same, and so must continue as long as its existence is continued ;
for so long it will be the same, and no other. In like manner, if
two or more atoms be joined together into the same mass, every
one of those atoms will be the same, by the foregoing rule. And
whilst they exist united together, the mass, consisting of the same
atoms, must be the same mass, or the same body, let the parts be
ever so differently jumbled ; but if one of these atoms be taken
away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass, or
the same body. In the state of the living creatures, their identity
depends not on a mass of the same particles, but on something
else. For in them the variation of great particles of matters alters
not the identity ; an oak growing from a plant to a great tree, and
then lopped, is still the same oak ; and a colt grown up to a horse,
sometimes fat, sometimes lean, is all the while the same horse ;
though, in both these cases, there may be a manifest change of
the parts; so that truly they are not, either of them, the same
masses of matter, though they be truly one of them, the same oak ;
and the other, the same horse. The reason whereof is, that in these
two cases, a mass of matter, and a living body, identity is not applied
to the same thing.

§ 4. Identiti/ of vegetables. — We must, therefore, consider wherein
an oak differs from a mass of matter, and that seems to me to be in
this ; that the one is only the cohesion of particles of matter any how
united ; the other, such a disposition of them, as constitutes the parts
of an oak ; and such an organization of those parts, as is fit to receive,
and distribute nourishment, so as to continue and frame the wood,
bark, and leaves, &c., of an oak, in which consists the vegetable life.
That being then one plant, which has such an organization of
parts in one coherent body, partaking of one common life, it con-
tinues to be the same plant, as long as it partakes of the same life,
though that life be communicated to new particles of matter vitally
united to the living plant, in a like continued organization, con-
formable to that sort of plants. For this organization being, at any
one instant, in any one collection of matter, is in that particular
concrete distinguished from all other, and is that individual life,
which existing constantly from that moment both forwards and
backwards, in the same continuity of insensibly succeeding parts
united to the living body of the plant, it has that identity which
makes tlie same plant, and all the parts of it, parts of the same
plant, during all the time that they exist united m that continued
organization, which is fit to convey that common life to all the parts
so united.

§ 5. Identity of animals. — The case is not so much different in

CK. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.

brutes, but that any one may hence see what makes an animal, and
continues it the same. Something we have like this in machines,
and may serve to illustrate it. For example, what is a_watch?
It is plain it is nothing but a fit organization or construction of parts,
to a certain end, which, when a sufficient force is added to it, it is
capable to attain. If we would suppose this machine one continued
body, all whose organized parts were repaired, increased, or dimi-
nished, by a constant addition or separation of insensible parts with
one common life, we should have something very much like the body
of an animal, with this difference, that in an animal, tlie fitness of
the organization, and the motion wherein life consists, begin together,
the motion coming from within : but in machines, the force coming
sensibly from without, is often away when the organ is in order, and
well fitted to receive it.

§ 6. Ideiitity of man, — This also shows wherein the identity
of the same man consists; viz., in nothing but a participation of
the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter,
in succession, vitally vmited to the same organized body. He
that shall place the identity of man in any thing else, but like that
of other animals, in one fitly organized body, taken in any one
instant, and from thence continued, under one organization of
life, in several successively fleeting particles of matter, united to
it, will find it hard to make an embryo, one of years, mad and
sober, the same man, by any supposition that will not make it
possible for Seth, Ishmael, Socrates, Pilate, St. Austin, and Ciesar
Borgia, to be the same man. For if the identity of soul alone
makes the same man, and there be nothing in the nature of matter,
why the same individual spirit may not be united to different
bodies, it will be possible that those men, living in distant ages,
and of different tempers, may have been the same man ; whicli
way of speaking must be, from a very strange use of the word
man, applied to an idea out of which body and shape are ex-
cluded ; and that way of speaking would agree yet worse with
the notions of those philosophers, who allow of transmigration,
and are of opinion that the souls of men may, for their miscar-
riages, be detruded into the bodies of beasts, as fit habitations,
with organs suited to the satisfaction of their brutal inclinations.
But yet, I think, nobody, could he be sure that the soul of Helio-
gabalus were in one of his hogs, would yet say that hog were a man
or Heliogabalus.

§ 7. Identity suited to the idea, — It is not, therefore, unity of
substance that comprehends all sorts of identity, or will determine
it in every case; but to conceive and judge of it aright, we must
consider what idea the word it is applied to, stands for ; it being
one thing to be the same substance ; another, the same man ; and
a third, the same person ; if person, man, and substance, are three
names standing for three different ideas; for such as is the idea
belonging to that name, such must be the identity ; which, if it
had been a little more carefully attended to, would possibly have

224 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

prevented a great deal of that confusion which often occurs about
this matter, with no small seeming difficulties, especially concerning
personal identity, which, therefore, we shall, in the next place, a
little consider.

§ 8. Same man, — An anijBal. is-a.,JUYiijg .QXganized^^^ ; and
fretjuently the same animal, as we have observed, is the same con-
tinued life communicated to different particles of matter, as they
happen successively to be united to that organized living body.
Ana whatever is talked of other definitions, ingenious observation
puts it past doubt, that the idea in our minds, of which the sound
man in our mouths is the sign, is nothinff else but of an animal of
such a certain form ;^ since I thint I maybe confident, that wlioevef
shoidd see a creature of his own shape and make, though it had no
more reason all its life than a cat or a parrot, would call him still
a man ; or, whoever should hear a cat or a parrot discourse, reason,
and philosophize, would call or think it nothing but a cat Or a parrot ;
and say, the one was a dull irrational man, and the other a very in-
telligent rational parrot. A relation we have in an author of great
note, is sufficient to countenance the supposition of a rational parrot.
His words* are,

" I had a mind to know from Prince Maurice's own mouth, the
account of a common, but much credited, story, that I had heard
so often from many others, of an old parrot he had in Brazil, during
his government there, that spoke, and asked, and answered, common
questions, like a reasonable creature ; so that those of his train there
generally concluded it to be witchery or possession ; and one of
his chaplains, who lived long afterwards in Holland, would never,
from tnat time, endure a parrot, but said, they all had a devil in
them. I had heard many particulars of this story, and assevered by
])eople hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince Maurice
what there was of it ? He said, with his usual plainness and dry-
ness in talk, there was something true, but a great deal false, of
what had been reported. I desired to know of him what there was
of the first ? He told me short and coldly, that he had heard of
such an old parrot when he had been at Brazil ; and though he be-
lieved nothing of it, and it was a good way off, yet he had so much
curiosity as to send for it ; that it was a very great and a very old
one ; and when it came first into the room where the prince was,
with a great many Dutchmen about him. it said presently, ' What
a company of white men are here !"* They asked it what it thought
that man was? pointing at the prince. It answered, * Some
general or other;' when they brought it close to him, he asked it,
lyou venvz vous ? * Whence come ye ?' It answered,/)^ Marinnan,
' From Marinnan/ The prince, A qui estcs-voiis? ' To whom do
you belong ?*• Parrot, A un Portugah. * To a Portuguese.' Prince,
QuefaiS'tu Id ^ ' What do you there ?' The parrot, Jc garde les

• Memoirs of what passed in Christendom, from 1G72 to 17C9, p. ^

I

i

CH 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 225

poules, ' I Jook after the chickens."' The prince laughed, and said,
Fous gardez les poules ? * You look after the chickens ?^ The par-
rot answered. Qui, moi ; etje sfais hien faire ; ' Yes, I ; and I know-
well enough how to do it ; and made the chuck, four or five times,
that people use to make to chickens when they call them. I set
down the words of this worthy dialogue in French, just as Prince
Maurice said them to me. I asked him in what language the par-
rot spoke? and he said in BraziUan. I asked whether he under-
stood Brazilian ? he said, no : but he had taken care to have two
interpreters by him, the one, a Dutchman that spoke Brazilian,
and the other a Brazilian that spoke Dutch : that he asked them
separately and privately, and both of them agreed in telling him
just the same thing that the parrot had said. I could not but
tell this odd story, because it is so much out of the way, and from
the first hand, and what may pass for a good one ; for I dare say
this prince, at least, believed himself in all he told me, having ever
passed for a very honest and pious man. I leave it to naturalists
to reason, and to other men to believe, as they please upon it ; how-
ever, it is not, perhaps, amiss to relieve or enliven a busy scene some-
times with such digressions, whether to the purpose or no."**

Same man. — I have taken care that the reader should have the
story at large in the author's own words, because he seems to me
not to have thought it incredible; for it cannot be imagined that
so able a man as he, who had sufficiency enough to warrant all the
testimonies he gives of himself, should take so much pains, in a
place where it had nothing to do, to pin so close, not only on a
man whom he mentions as his friend, but on a prince, in whom he
acknowledges very great honesty and piety, a story, which, if he
himself thought incredible, he could not but also think ridiculous.
The prince, it is plain, who vouches this story, and our author
who relates it from him, both of them call this talker a parrot ;
and I ask any one else, who thinks such a story fit to be told, whe-
ther if this parrot, and all of its kind, had always talked, as we
have a prince's word for it this one did ; whether I say, they would
not have passed for a race of rational animals ; but yet, whether,
for all that, they would have been allowed to be men, and not par-
rots ? For I presume it is not the idea of a thinking or rational
being alone, that niakes the idea of a man in most people's sense,
but of a body, so and so shaped, joined to it ; and if that be the
Idea of a man, the same successive body not shifted all at once,
must, as well as the same immaterial spirit, go to the making of the
same man.

^ 9. Personal identity. — This being premised, to find wherein
personal identity consists, we must consider what person stands for ;
which, I think, is a thinking intelligent being, that has reason and
reflection, and can consider itself, as itself, the same thinking thing
in different times and places ; which it does only by that conscious-
ness which is inseparable from thinking, and, as it seems to me,
essential to it ; it being impossible for any one to perceive, without

U^6 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

perceiving that he does perceive. When we hear, smell, taste, feel,
meditate, or will any thing, we know that we do so. Thus it is
always as to our present sensations and perceptions ; and by this
every one is to himself that which he calls self ; it not being con-
sidered in this case, whether the same self be continued in the same
or divers substances. For since consciousness always accompanies
thinking, and it is that which makes every one to be what he calls
self, and thereby distinguishes himself from all other thinking
things ; in this, alone, consists personal identity, i. e. the sameness
o{ a rational being ; and as far as this consciousness can he ex-
tended backwards, to any past action or thouglit, so far reaches the
identity of that person ; it is the same self now, it was then ; and it
is by the same self with this present one, that now reflects on it,
that that action was done.

§ 10. Consciousness makes personal identity, — But it is farther
inquired, whether it be the same identical substance? This, few
would think they had reason to doubt of, if those perceptions, with
their consciousness, always remained present in the mind, whereby
the same thinking thing would be always consciously present, and,
as would be thought, evidently the same to itself. But that which
seems to make the difficulty, is this, that this consciousness being
interrupted always by forgetfulness, there being no moment of our
lives wnerein we have the whole train of all our past actions before
our eyes in one view ; but even the best memories losing the sight
of one part, whilst they are viewing another : and we sometimes,
and that the greatest parts of our lives, not reflecting on our past
selves, being intent on our present thoughts ; and in sound sleep,
having no thoughts at all, or, at least, none with that consciousness
which remarks our waking thoughts : I say, in all these cases, our
consciousness being interrupted, and we losing the sight of our past
selves, doubts are raised whether we are the same thinking thmg,
i. e. the same substance, or no ; which, however reasonable, or un-
reasonable, concerns no personal identity at all ; the question being,
what makes the same person ? and not whether it be the same iden/
tical substance, which always thinks in the same person ; which i
this case matters not at all ; different substances, by the same con^
sciousness (where they do partake in it), being united into one perJ
son, as well as different bodies, by the same life, are united into
one animal, whose identity is preserved, in that change of substances,
by the unity of one continued life. For it being the same con-
sciousness that makes a man be himself to himself, personal identity
depends on that only, whether it be annexed solely to one individual
substance, or can be continued in a succession of several substances.
For a.s far as any intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past
action with the same consciousness it had of it at first, and with the
same consciousness it has of any present action ; so far it is the
same personal self. For it is by the consciousness it has of its pre;
sent tnoughts and actions, that it is self to its self now, and so will he
the same self, as far as the same consciousness can extend to action|^

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 227

past or to come and would be by distance of time, or change of
substance, no more two persons, than a man be two men, by wear-
ing other clothes to-day than he did yesterday, with a long or
a short sleep between ; the same consciousness uniting those distant
actions into the same person, whatever substances contributed to
their production.

§ 11. Personal identity in change of substances — That this is
so, we have some kind of evidence in our very bodies, all whose
particles, whilst vitally united to this same thinking conscious self,
so that we feel when they are touched, and are affected by, and
conscious of good or harm that happens to them, are a part of
ourselves ; i. e. of our thinking conscious self. Thus the limbs of
his body are to every one a part of himself; he sympathizes and is
concerned for them. Cut off an hand, and thereby separate it from
that consciousness he had of its heat, cold, and other affections,
and it is then no longer a part of that which is himself, any more
than the remotest part of matter. Thus we see the substance,
whereof personal self consisted at one time, may be varied at
another, without the change of personal identity ; there being no
question about the same person, though the limbs, which but now
were a part of it, be cut off.

§ 12. Whether in the change of thinking substances, — But the
question is, whether if the same substance, which thinks, be changed,
it can be the same person ; or remaining the same, it can be different
persons.

And to this I answer. First, This can be no question at all to
those who place thought in a purely material animal constitution, void
of an immaterial substance. For whether their supposition be true
or no, it is plain they conceive personal identity preserved in some-
thing else than identity of substance ; as animal identity is preserved
in identity of life, and not of substance. And, therefore, those who
place thinking in an immaterial substance only, before they can come
to deal with these men, must show why personal identity cannot
be preserved in the change of immaterial substances, or variety of
particular immaterial substances, as well as animal identity is pre-
1 served in the change of material substances, or variety of particular
\ bodies ; unless they will say, it is one immaterial spirit that makes
j the same life in brutes, as it is one immaterial spirit that makes the
i same person in men, which the Cartesians at least will not admit, for
fear of making brutes thinking things too.

§ 13. But next, as to the first part of the question, " whether
if the same thinking substance (supposing immaterial substances
only to think) be changed, it can be the same person ?" I answer,
that cannot be resolved, but by those who know what kind of sub-
stances they are that do think ; and whether the consciousness of
past actions can be transferred from one thinking substance to an-
I other. I grant, were the same consciousness the same individual
action it could not ; but it being but a present representation of a
past action, why it may not be possible that that may be repre-

a 2

228 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

sented to the mind to have been, which really never was, will re-
main to be shown. And therefore, how far the consciousness of
past actions is annexed to any individual agent, so that another
cannot possibly have it, will be hard for us to determine, till we
know what kind of action it is, that cannot be done without a reflex
act of perception accompanying it, and how performed by thinking
substances, who cannot think without being conscious of it. But
that which we call the same consciousness, not being the same
individual act, why one intellectual substance may not have repre-
sented to it, as done by itself, what it never did, and was perhaps
done by some other agent : why, I say, such a representation may
not possibly be without reality of matter of fact, as well as seve-
ral representations in dreams are, which yet, whilst dreaming,
we take for true, will be difficult to conclude from the nature of
things. And that it never is so, will by us, till we have clearer
views of the nature of thinking substances, be best resolved into
the goodness of God, who, as far as the happiness or misery of
any of his sensible creatures is concerned in it, will not, by a fatal
error of theirs, transfer from one to another that consciousness
which draws reward or punishment with it. How far this may be
an argument against those who would place thinking in a system
of fleeting animal spirits, I leave to be considered. But yet, to
return to the question before us, it must be allowed, that if the
same consciousness (which, as has been shown, is quite a different
thing from the same numerical figure or motion in body) can be
transferred from one thinking substance to another, it will be pos-
sible, that two thinking substances may make but one person. P^or
the same consciousness being preserved, whether in the same or dif-
ferent substances, the personal identity is preserved.

§ 14. As to the second part of the question, " whether the
same immaterial substance remaining, there may be two distinct
persons .?" Which question seems to me to be built on this, whe-
ther the same immaterial being, being conscious of the action of its
past duration, may be wholly stripped of all the consciousness of its
past existence, and lose it beyond the power of ever retrieving it
again : and so, as it were, beginning a new account from a new
period, have a consciousness that cannot reach beyond this new
state. AH those who hold pre-existence, are evidently of this
mind, since they allow the soul to have no remaining conscious-
ness of what it did in that pre-existent state, either wholly separate
^ from body, or informing any other body ; and if they should
not, it is plain, experience would be against them. So that per-
/ sonal identity reaching no farther than consciousness reaches,*^
/ pre-existent spirit not having continued so many ages in a state of
L silence, must needs make different persons. Suppose a Christian,
Platonist, or Pythagorean, should, upon God's having ended all
his works of creation the seventh day, think his soul hath existed
ever since; and would imagine it has revolved in several human
bodies, as I once met with one, who was persuaded his had been

CH. 27. eF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 2S9

the soul of Socrates (how reasonably I will not dispute. This I
know, that in the post he filled, which was no inconsiderable one,
he passed for a very rational man ; and the press has shown that he
wanted not parts or learning), would any one say, that he, being
not conscious of any of Socrates's actions or thoughts, could be
the same person with Socrates ? Let any one reflect upon himself,
and conclude, that he has in himself an immaterial spirit, which
is that which thinks in him, and in the constant change of his
body keeps him the same ; and is that which he calls himself ; let
him also suppose it to be the same soul that was in Nestor or
Thersites at the siege of Troy (for souls being, as far as we know
any thing of them, in their nature indifferent to any parcel of
matter, the supposition has no apparent absurdity in it), which it
may have been, as well as it is now, the soul of any other man ;
but he now having no consciousness of any of the actions either of
Nestor or Thersites, does, or can he, conceive himself the same
person with either of them? Can he be concerned in either of
their actions ? attribute them to himself, or think them his own,
more than the actions of any other man that ever existed ? So
that this consciousness not reaching to any of the actions of either
of those men, he is no more one self with either of them, than if
the soul or immaterial spirit that now informs him, had been
created, and began to exist, when it began to inform his present
body, though it were ever so true, that the same spirit that informed
Nestor's or Thersites's body, were numerically the same that now
informs his. For this would no more make him the same person
with Nestor, than if some of the particles of matter that were once a
part of Nestor, were now a part of this man ; the same immaterial
substance, without the same consciousness, no more making the
same person by being united to any body, than the same particle
of matter, without consciousness, united to any body, makes the
same person. But let him once find himself conscious of any
of the actions of Nestor, he then finds himself the same person with
Nestor.

§ 15. And thus we may be able, without any difficulty, to con-
ceive the same person at the resurrection, though in a body not ex-
actly in make or parts the same which he had here, the same con-
sciousness going along with the soul that inhabits it. But yet the
soul alone, in the change of bodies, would scarce to any one, but to
him that makes the soul of the man, be enough to make the same
man. For should the soul of a prince, carrying with it the conscious-
ness of the prince's past life, enter and inform the body of a cobbler,
as soon as deserted by his own soul, every one sees he would be the
same person with the prince, accountable only for the prince's
actions ; but who would say it was the same man ? The body too
goes to the making the man, and would, I guess to every body, de-
termine the man in this case, wherein the soul, with all its princely
thoughts about it, would not make another man ; but he would be

280 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

the same cobbler to every one besides himself. I know that in the
ordinary way of speaking, the same person, and the same man, stand
for one and the same thing. And, indeed, every one will always
have a liberty to speak as he pleases, and to apply what articulate
sounds to what ideas he thinks fit, and change them as often as he
pleases. But yet, when we will inquire what makes the same spirit,
man, or person, we must fix the ideas of spirit, man, or person, in
our minds ; and having resolved with ourselves what, we mean by
them, it will not be hard to determine in either of them, or the like,
when it is the same, and when not.

§ 16. Consciousness makes the same person. — But though the
same immaterial substance, or soul, does not alone, wherever it be,
and in whatsoever state, make the same man ; yet it is plain, con-
sciousness, as far as ever it can be extended, should it be to ages
past, unites existences and actions, very remote in time, into the
same person, as well as it does the existences and actions of the im-
mediately preceding moment ; so that whatever has the conscious-
ness of present and past actions, is the same person to whom tliey
both belong. Had I the same consciousness that I saw the ark arid
Noah's flood, as that I saw an overflowing of the Thames last
winter, or as that 1 write now, I could no more doubt that I who
write this now, that saw the Thames overflowed last winter, and
that viewed the flood at the general deluge, was the same self, place
that self in what substance you please, than that I who write this
am the same myself now, whilst I write (whether I consist of all the
same substance, material or immaterial, or no), that I was yesterday.
For as to this point of being the same self, it matters not whether
this present self be made up of the same or other substances, I
being as much concerned, and as justly accountable, for any action
that was done a thousand years since, appropriated to me now by
this self consciousness, as I am for what I did the last moment.

§ 17. Self depends on consciousness. — Self is that conscious]
thinking thing, whatever substance made up of (whether spiritualj
or material, simple or compounded, it matters not), which is senJ
sible, or conscious of pleasure and pain, capable of happiness orj
misery, and so is concerned for itself, as far as that consciousness
extends. Thus every one finds, that whilst comprehended undei
that consciousness, the Httle finger is as much a part of itself,]
as what is most so. Upon separation of this little finger, should
this consciousness go along with the little finger, and leave thai
rest of the body, it is evident the little finger would be the person,
the same person ; and self, then, would have nothing to do with
the rest of the body. As, in this case, it is the consciousness
tliat goes along with the substance, when one part is separate
from another, which makes the same person, and constitutes this
inseparable self ; so it is in reference to substances remote in time.
That with which the consciousness of this present thinking thing
can join itself, makes the same person, and is one self with it, and

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 231

with nothing else ; and so attributes to itself, and owns all the ac-
tions of that thing as its own, as far as that consciousness reaches
and no farther ; as every one who reflects will perceive.

§ 18. Objects of reward and punishment. — In this personal
identity is founded all the right and justice of reward and punish-
ment; happiness and misery being that for which every one is
concerned for himself, and not mattering what becomes of any
substance, not joined to, or affected with, that consciousness. For
as it is evident in the instance I gave but now, if the consciousness
went along with the little finger, when it was cut off, that would
be the same self which was concerned for the whole body yester-
day, as making part of itself, whose actions then, it cannot but
admit as its own now. Though if the same body should still live, and
immediately, from the separation of the httle finger, have its own
peculiar consciousness, whereof the little finger knew nothing, it
would not at all be concerned for it, as a part of itself, or could
own any of its actions, or have any of them imputed to him.

§ 19. This may show us wherein personal identity consists;
not in the identity of substance, but, as I have said, in the identity
of consciousness, wherein, if Socrates and the present Mayor of
Queenborough agree, they are the same person ; if the same
Socrates, waking and sleeping, do not partake of the same con-
sciousness, Socrates waking and sleeping is not the same person.
And to punish Socrates waking, for what sleeping Socrates
thought, and waking Socrates was never conscious of, would be no
more of right, than to punish one twin for what his brother-
twin did, whereof he knew nothing, because their outsides were
so like, that they could not be distinguished ; for such twins have
been seen.

§ 20. But yet possibly it will still be objected, suppose I wholly
Ifise. -the. memory of some parts of my life,^ beyond a possibility of
retrieving them, so that perhaps I shall never be conscious of them
again ; yet am I not the same person that did those actions, had
those thoughts that I once was conscious of, though I have now
forgot them ? to which I answer, that we must here take notice
what the word I is applied to ; which, in this case, is the man only.
And the same man being presumed to be the same person, I is
easily here supposed to stand also for the same person. But if it
be possible for the same man to have distinct incommunicable con-
sciousness at different times, it is past doubt the same man would,
at different times, make different persons; which, we see, is the
sense of mankind in the solemnest declarations of their opinions,
human laws not punishing the mad man for the sober man's ac-
tions, nor the sober man for what the mad man did, thereby
making them two persons; which is somewhat explained by our
way of speaking in English, when we say, such an one is not hini-
self, or is beside himself; in which phrases it is insinuated, as if
those who now, or at least, first used them, thought that self was
changed, the self-same person was no longer in that man.

232 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

§ 21. Difference between identity/ of man and person. — But yet
it is hard to conceive that Socrates, the same individual man,
should be two persons. To help us a little in this, we must con-
sider what is meant by Socrates, or the same individual man.

First, It must be either the same individual, immaterial, thinking
substance ; in short, the same numerical soul, and nothing else.

Seccmdly, Or the same animal, without any regard to an imma-
terial soul.

Thirdly, Or the same immaterial spirit united to the same
animal.

Now, take which of these suppositions you please, it is impossi-
ble to make personal identity to consist in any thing but con-
sciousness ; or reach any farther than that does.

For by the first of them, it must be allowed possible, that a man
born of different women, and in distant times, may be the same
man. A way of speaking, which, whoever admits, must allow it
possible for the same man to be two distinct persons, as any two
that have lived in different ages, without the knowledge of one
another''s thoughts.

By the second and third, Socrates in this life, and after it, can-
not be the same man, any way, but by the same consciousness;
and so making human identity to consist in the same thing wherein
we place personal identity, there will be no difficulty to allow the
same man to be the same person. But then they who place human
identity in consciousness only, and not in something else, must
consider how they will make the infant Socrates the same man
with Socrates after the resurrection. But whatsoever to some men
makes a man, and consequently the same individual man, wherein
perhaps few are agreed, personal identity can by us be placed
in nothing but consciousness, (which is that alone which makes what
we call self) without involving us in great absurdities.

§ 22. But is not man, drunk and sober, the same person ?
why else is he punished for the fact he commits when drunk,
though he be never afterwards conscious of it .-^ just as much the
same person, as a man that walks, and does other things in his
sleep, is the same person, and is answerable for any mischief he
shall do in it. Human laws punish both with a justice suitable to
their way of knowledge ; because, in these cases, they cannot
distinguish certainly what is real, what counterfeit ; and so the
ignorance in drunkenness or sleep, is not admitted as a plea. For
though punishment be annexed to personality, and personality to
consciousness, and the drunkard perhaps be not conscious of what
he did ; yet human judicatures justly punish him ; because the fact
is provecf against him, but want of consciousness cannot be proved
for him. But in the great day, wherein the secrets of all hearts
shall be laid open, it may be reasonable to think no one shall be
made to answer for what he knows nothing of ; but shall receive
his doom, his conscience accusing or excusing him.

§ 23. Conscwusncss alone makes self. — Nothing but conscious-

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 233

ness can unite remote existences into the same person ; the identity
of substance will not do it; for whatever substance there is, how-
ever framed, without consciousness, there is no person; and a
carcass may be a person : as well as any sort of substance be so,
without consciousness.

Could we suppose two distinct incommunicable consciousnesses
acting the same body, the one constantly by day, the other by night ;
and, on the other side, the same consciousness, acting by intervals,
two distinct bodies; I ask, in the first case, whether the day and
the night man would not be two as distinct persons, as Socrates and
Plato ? And whether, in the second case, there would not be one
person in two distinct bodies, as much as one man is the same in
two distinct clothings. Nor is it at all material to say, that this
same, and this distinct consciousness in the cases above mentioned,
js owing to the same and distinct immaterial substances, bringing it
with them to those bodies, which, whether true or no, alters not the
case; since it is evident the personal identity would equally be
determined by the consciousness, whether that consciousness were
annexed to some individual immaterial substance or no. For, grant-
ing that the thinking substance in man must be necessarily supposed
immaterial, it is evident that immaterial thinking thing may some-
times part with its past consciousness, and be restored to it again ;
as appears in the forgetfulness men often have of their past actions,
and the mind many times recovers the memor}^ of a past conscious-
ness, which it had lost for twenty years together. Make these in-
tervals of memory and forgetfulness to take their turns regularly by
day and night, and you have two persons with the same immaterial
spirit, as much as, in the former instance, two persons with the same
body. So that self is not determined by identity or diversity of sub-
stance, which it cannot be sure of, but only by identity of con-
sciousness.

§ 24. Indeed it may conceive the substance whereof it is now
made up, to have existed formerly, united in the same conscious
being ; but consciousness removed, that substance is no more itself,
or makes no more a part of it, than any other substance ; as is evi-
dent in the instance we have already given of a limb cut off, of whose
heat, or cold, or other affections, having no longer any conscious-
ness, it is no more of a man's self, than any other matter of the
universe. In like manner, it will be in reference to any immaterial
substance, which is void of that consciousness whereby I am myself
to myself: if there be any part of its existence which I cannot, upon
recollection, join with that present consciousness whereby I am now
myself, it is in that part of its existence no more myself, than any
other immaterial being. For whatsoever any substance has thought
or done, which I cannot recollect, and by my consciousness make
my own thought and action, it will no more belong to me, whether
a part of me thought or did it, than if it had been thought or done
by any other immaterial being any where existing.

§ 25. I agree, the more probable opinion is, that this conscious

234 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

ness is annexed to, and the affection of, one individual immaterial
substance.

But let men, according to their diverse hypotheses, resolve of that
as they please. This every intelligent being, sensible of happiness
or misery, must grant, that there is something that is himself, that he
isj;onQei;ned for, and would have happy ; that his self has existed Tn
a continued duration more than one instant, and therefore it is pos-
sible may exist, as it has done, months and years to come, without any
certain bounds to be set to its duration ; and may be the same self,
by the same consciousness, continued on for the future. And thus,
by his consciousness, he finds himself to be the same self which did
such or such an action some years since, by which he comes to be
happy or miserable now. In all which account of self, the same
numerical substance is not considered as making the same self. But
the same continued consciousness, in which several substances may
have been united, and again separated from it, which, whilst they
continued in a vital union with that wherein this consciousness then
resided, made a part of that same self. Thus any part of our bodies
vitally united to that which is conscious in us, makes a part of our-
selves; but upon separation from the vital union, by which that
consciousness is communicated, that which a moment since was part
of ourselves, is now no more so, than a part of another man''s self
is part of me ; and it is not impossible, but in a little time may be-
come a real part of another person. And so we have the same
numerical substance become a part of two different persons; and
the same person preserved under the change of various substances.
Could we suppose any spirit wholly stripped of all its memory or
consciousness of past actions, as we find our minds always are of a
great part of ours, and sometimes of them all, the union or separa-
tion of such a spiritual substance would make no variation of per-
sonal identity, any more than that of any particle of matter does.
Any substance vitally united to the present thinking being, is a part
of that very same self, which now is : any thing united to it by a con-
sciousness of former actions, makes also a part of the same self,
which is the same both then and now.

§ 26. Person^ a forensic term. — Person, as I take it, is the name
for this self. Wherever a man finds what he calls himself, there, I
think, another may say is the same person. It is a forensic term,
appropriating actions and their merit ; and so belongs only to in-
telligent agents capable of a law, and happiness and misery. This
personality extends itself beyond present existence to what is past,
only by consciousness, whereby it becomes concerned and account-
able, owns and imputes to itself past actions, just upon the same
ground, and for the same reason, that it does the present. All which
IS founded in a concern for happiness, the unavoidable concomitant
of consciousness, that which is conscious of pleasure and pain, de-
siring that that self that is conscious, should be happy. And there-
fore whatever past actions it cannot reconcile or appropriate to that
present self by consciousness, it can be no more concerned in, than

cH. rt. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 235

if they had never been done : and to receive pleasure or pain, i. e.
reward or punishment, on the account of any such action, is all one
as to be made happy or miserable in its first being, without any
demerit at all. For supposing a man punished now for what he had
done in another life, whereof he could De made to have no conscious-
ness at all, what difference is there between that punishment, and
being created miserable .^^ And therefore conformable to this, the
apostle tells us, that at the great day, when every one shall " receive
according to his doings the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open."
The sentence shall be justified by the consciousness all persons shall
have, that they themselves, in what bodies soever they appear, or
what substances soever that consciousness adheres to, are the same
that committed those actions, and deserve that punishment for them.
§ 27. I am apt enough to think I have, in treating of this sub-
ject, made some suppositions that will look strange to some readers,
and possibly they are so in themselves : but yet, I think, they are
such as are pardonable in this ignorance we are in of the nature of
that thinking thing that is in us, and which we look on as ourselves.
Did we know what it was, or how it was tied to a certain system of
fleeting animal spirits ; or whether it could or could not perform its
operations of thinking and memory out of a body organised as ours
is; and whether it has pleased God that no one such spirit shall
ever be united to any but one such body, upon the right constitu-
tion of whose organs its memory should depend, we might see
the absurdity of some of those suppositions I have made. But
taking, as we ordinarily now do (in the dark concerning these
matters), the soul of a man, for an immaterial substance, independ-
ent from matter, and indifferent alike to it all, there can, from the
nature of things, be no absurdity at all to suppose that the same soul
may, at different times, be united to different bodies, and with them
make up, for that time, one man : as well as we suppose a part of a
sheep's body yesterday, should be a part of a man's body to-morrow,
and in that union make a vital part of Meliboeus himself, as well as
it did of his ram.

t § 28. The difficulty from ill use of names.— yo conclude : what-
ever substance begins to exist, it must, during its existence, neces-
sarily be the same: whatever compositions of substances begin to
exist, during the union of those substances, the concrete must be
the same : whatsoever mode begins to exist, during its existence, it
is the same : and so if the composition be of distinct substances,
and different modes, the same rule holds. Whereby it will appear,
that the difficulty or obscurity that has been about this matter, rather
rises from the names ill used, than from any obscurity in things
themselves. For whatever makes the specific idea, to which the
1 name is applied, if that idea be steadily kept to, the distinction of any
! thing into the same, and divers, will easily be conceived, and there
1 can arise no doubt about it.

§ 29. Continued existence makes identity, — For supposing a ra-

OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

tional spirit be the idea of a man, it is easy to know what is the
same man, viz., the same spirit, whether separate or in a body, will
be the same man. Supposing a rational spirit vitally united to a
body of a certain conformation of parts to make a man, whilst that
rational spirit, with that vital conformation of parts, though conti-
nued in a fleeting successive body, remains, it will be the same. But
if to any one the idea of a man be but the vital union of parts in a
certain shape ; as long as that vital union and shape remain in a con-
crete no otherwise the same, but by a continued succession of fleet-
ing particles, it will be the same man. For whatever be the compo-
sition whereof the complex idea is made, whenever existence makes
it one particular thing under any denomination, the same existence
continued, preserves it the same individual under the same deno-
mination*.

• The doctrine of identity and diversity contained in this chapter, the Bishop of
Worcester pretends to be inconsistent with the doctrines of the Christian faith, concerning
the resurrection of the dead. His way of arguing from it, is this : he says, " The reason
of believing the resurrection of the same body, upon Mr. Locke's grounds, is from the
idea of identity." To which our author (a) answers : " Give me leave, my lord, to say,
that the reason of believing any article of the Christian faith (such as your lordship is
here speaking of) to me, and upon my grounds, is its being a part of divine revelation:
upon this ground I believed it, before I either writ that chapter of identity and diversity,
and before I ever thought of those propositions which your lordship quotes out of that
chapter; and, upon the same ground, I believe it still; and not from my idea of iden-
tity. This saying of your lordship's, therefore, being a proposition neither self-evident,
nor allowed by me to be true, remains to be proved. So that your foundation failing,
all your large superstructure built thereon, comes to nothing.

" But, my lord, before we go any farther, I crave leave humbly to represent to your
lordship, that I thought you undertook to make out, that my notion of ideas was incon-
sistent with the articles of the Christian faith. But that which your lordship instances in
, here, is not, that I yet know, an article of the Christian faith. The resurrection of the
j dead, I acknowledge to be an article of the Christian faith : but that the resurrection of
the same body, in your lordship's sense of the same body, is an article of the ChristiaUj
faith, is what, I confess, I do not yet know.

"• In the New Testament (wherein, 1 think, are contained til the articles of th<
Christian faith) I find our Saviour, and the apostles, to preach the resurrection of th«
dead, and the resurrection from the dead, in many places ; but I do rot reniember an]
place, where the resurrection of the same body is so much as mentioned. Nay, which i|
very remarkable in the case, I do not remember in any place of the New Testament
(where the general resurrection at the last day is spoken of), any such expression as thi
resurrection of the body, much less of the same body.

" I say the general resurrection at the last day ; because, where the resurrection
some particular persons, presently upon our Saviour's resurrection, is mentioned, thi
words are (6), ' The graves were opened, and many bodies of saints, which slept, arosaj
and came out of the graves, after his resurrection, and went into the Holy City, and
appeared to many:' of which peculiar way of speaking of this resutrection, the passaj
itself gives a reason in these words, appeared to many, i. e. those who slept appeared, !
as to be known to be risen. But this could not be known, unless they brought with thei
the evidence, that they were those who had been dead ; whereof there were these tw^
proofs, their graves were opened, and their bodies not only gone out of them, but af
]>cared to be the same to those who had known them formerly alive, and knew them to I
dead and buried. For if they had been those who had been dead so long, that all whd
knew them once alive, were now gone, those to whom they appeared might have know:
them to be men; but could not have known they were risen from the dead, becaus
they never knew they had been dead. All that by their appearing they could have
known, was, they were so many living strangers, of who.se resurrection they knew nothing.

(«) In hi» third letter to the Bishop of Worcester. (6) Matt, xxvii. 52, 53.

<iH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 237

It was necessary, therefore, that they should come in such bodies, as might, in make and size
&c. appear to be the same they had before, that they might be known to those of their
acquaintance, wliom they appeared to. And it is probable they were such as were newly
dead, whose bodies were not yet dissolved and dissipated ; and, therefore, it is particularly
said here (differently from what is said of the general resurrection) that their bodies arose ;
because they were the same, that were then lying in their graves, the moment before they
rose.

'• But 3'our lordship endeavours to prove it must be the same body ; and let us grant that
your lordship, nay, and others too, think you have proved it must be the same body; will
you, therefore, say, that he holds what is inconsistent with an article of faith, who having
never seen this, your lordship's interpretation of the scripture, nor your reasons for the same
body, in your sense of same body; or, if he has seen them, yet wot understanding them, or
not perceiving the force of them, believes what the scripture proposes to him, viz. • That at
the last day, the dead shall be raised,' without determining whether it shall be with the very
same bodies or no ?

" I know your lordship pretends not to erect your particular interpretations of scripture
into articles of faith. And if you do not, he that believes the dead shall be raised,
believes that article of faith which the scripture proposes; and cannot be accused of
holding any thing inconsistent with it, if it should happen, that what he holds is
inconsistent with another proposition, viz. ' That the dead shall be raised with the same
bodies,' in your lordship's sense, which I do not find proposed in Holy Writ as an article of
faith.

"But your lordship argues, It must be the same body; which, as you explain same
body (a), is not the same individual particles of matter which were united at the point of
death ; nor the sauie particles of matter that the sinner had at the time of the commission of
his sins: but that it must be the sati.e material substance which was vitally united to the soul
here ; i. e. as I understand it, the same individual particles of matter which were some time
or other during his life here vitally united to his soul

'■ Your first argument to prove that it must be the same body, in this sense of the same
body, is taken from tliese words of our Saviour (6\ ' All tiiat are in the graves, shall hear his
voice, and shall come forth :' (c) from whence your lordship argues, that these words, ' All
that are in their graves,' relate to no other substance than what was united to the soul in life;
because, ' a different substance cannot be said to be in the graves, and to come out of them.'
Which words of your lordship's, if they prove any thing, prove, that the soul, too, is lodged
in the grave, and raised out of it at the last day. For your lordship says, •• Can a different
substance be ^aid to be in the graves, and come out of them?' so that, according to this
interpretation of these words of our Saviour, ' no other substance being raised, but what
hears his voice; and no other substance hearing his voice, but what being called, comes out
of the grave; and no other substance coming out of the grave, but what was in the grave;*
any one must conclude, that the soul, unless it be in the grave, will make no part of the
person that is raised, unless, as your lordship argues against me {d), you can make it out,
that a substance which never was in the grave, may come out of it, or that the soul is no
substance.

" But setting aside the substance of the soul, another thing that will make any one
doubt, whether this, your interpretation of our Saviour's words, be necessary to be received
as their true sense, is, that it will not be very easily reconciled to your saying (e), you
do not mean by the same body, the same individual particles which were united at the
point of death. And yet by this interpretation of our Saviour's words, you can mean no
other particles but such as were united at the point of death ; because you mean no other sub-
stance but what comes out of the grave; and no substance, no particles come out, you saj',
but what were in the grave ; and I tliink your lordship will not say, that the particles that were
separate from the body by perspiration before the point of death, were laid up in the grave.

" But your lordship, I find, has an answer to this, viz. (f) That by comparing this with
other places, you find that the words (of our Saviour above quoted) are to be understood of
the substance of the body, to which the soul was united, and not to (I suppose your lordship
writ, of) these individual particles, i. e. those individual particles that are in the grave at the
resurrection. For so they must be read, to make your lordship's sense entire, and to the
purpose of your answer here ; and then, methinks, this last sense of our Saviour's words,
given by your lordship, wholly overturns the sense which we have given of them above,
where, from those words, you press the belief of the resurrection of the same body, by this
strong argument, that a substance could not, upon hearing the voice of Christ, come out of
the grave, which was never in the grave. There (as far as I can understand your words)

(a) Second answer. (b) John, v. 28, 29. (c) Second answer.

{d) Ibid. {e) Ibid. (/) Ibid.

238 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

your lordship argues, that our Saviour^s words are to be understood of the particles in
the grave, unless, as your lordship says, one can make out, that a substance which never
was in the grave may come out of it. And here, your lordship expressly says, ' That our
Saviour's words are to be understood of the substance of that body, to which the soul was
(at any time) united, and not to those individual particles that are in the grave.' Which put
together, seems to me to say, That our Saviour's words are to be understood of those particles
only which are in thj grave, and not of those particles only which are in the grave, but of
others also, which have at any time been ^itally united to the soul, but never were in the
grave.

** The next text your lordship brings to make the resurrection of the same body in your
sense, an article of faith, are these words of St. Paul («), ' For we must all appear before the
judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according
to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' To which your lordship subjoins (6) this
question : * Can these words be understood of any other material substance, but that body in
which these things were done?' Answer: A man may suspend his determining the meaning
of the apostle to be, that a sinner shall suffer for his sins, in the very same body wherein he
committed them ; because St Paul does not say he shall have the very same body when he
suffers, that he had when he sinned. The apostle says, indeed, done in his body. The body
he had, and did things in, at five or fifteen, w;is, no doubt, his body, as much as that which
he did things in at fifty, was his body, though his body were not the very same body at these
different ages; and so will the body, which he shall have ufter the resurrection, be his body,
though it be not the very same with that which he had at five, or fifteen, or fifty. He that
at threescore is broke on the wheel, for a murder he committed at twenty, is punished for
what he did in his body, though the body he has, i e. his body at threescore, be not the same,
i. e. made up of the same individual particles of matter, that that body was which he had forty
years before. When your lordship has resolved with yourself, what that same immutable he
is which at the last judgment shall receive the things done in his body, your lordship will
easily see, that the body he had when an embryo in the womb, when a child playing in coats,
when a man marrying a wife, and when bed-rid dying of a consumption, and at last, which he
shall have after his resurrection, are each of them his body, though neither of them be the
same body, the one with the other.

" But farther, to your lordship's question, ' Can these words be understood of any other
material substance, but that body in which these things were done?' I answer. These words
of St. Paul may be understood of another material substance than that body in which
these things were done, because your lordship teaches me, and gives me a strong reason so
to understand them. Your lordship says (/>), * That you do' not say the same particles of
matter, which the sinner had at the very time of the commission of his sins, shall be raised
at the last day.' And your lordship gives this reason for it (<•) ; ' For then a long sinner
must have a vast body, considering the continued spending of particles by perspiration.' Now,
my lord, if the apostle's words, as your lordship would argue, cannot be understood of any
other material substance, but that body in which these things were done ; and no body, upon
the removal or change of some of the particles, that at any time make it up, is the same
material substance, or the same body ; it will, I tliink, thence follow, that either the sinner
must have all the same individual particles vitally united to his soul when he is raised, that
he had vitally united to his soul when he sinned ; or else St. Paul's words here cannot be
understood to mean the same body in which the things were done. For if there were other
particles of matter in the body, wherein the things were done, than in that which is raised,
that which is raised cannot be the same body in which they were done: unless that alone,
which has just all the same individual particles when any action is done, being the .same body
wherein it was done, that also, which has not the same individual particles wherein that action
was done, can be the same body wherein it was done ; which is, in effect, to make the same
body sometimes to be the same, and sometimes not the same.

" Your lordship thinks it suffices to make the same body to have not all, but no other
particles of matter, but such as were some time or other, vitally united to the soul before : bu$
such a body, made up of part of the particles some time or other vitally united to the soul, if
DO more the same body, wherein the actions were done, in the distant parts of the long
sinner's life, than that is the same body in which a quarter, or half, or three quarters of the
same particles, that made it up, are wanting. For example, A sinner has acted here in his
body an hundred years; he is raised at the last day, but with what body? The same, sayl
your lordship, that he acted in; because St. Paul says, he must receive the things done it^
his body. What, therefore, must his body at the resurrection consist of? Must it consist
of all the particles of matter that have ever been vitally united to his soul? For they, iif
succession, have all of them made up his body, wherein he did these things : * No,' says your-

(fl) 2 Cor. V. 10. (h Second answer. (r) Ibid.

I

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 289

lordship (a\ 'that would make his body too vast; it suffices to make the same body in
which the things were done, that it consists of" some of the particles, and no other, but such as
were, some time, during his life, vitally united to his soul.' But according to this account,
his body at the resurrection being, as j'our lordship seems to limit it, near the same size it
was in some part of his life, it will be no more the same body in which the things were done
in the distant parts of his life, than that is the same body, in which half or three quarters, or
more, of the individual matter that then made it up, is now watiting. For example, let his
body at fifty j'ears old, consist of a million of parts ; five hundred thousand at least of those
parts will be different from those which made up his body at ten years, and at an hundred.
So that to take the numerical particles that made up his body at fifty, or any other season of
his life, or to gather them promiscuously out of those which at different times have succes-
sively been vitally united to his soul, they will no more make the same body, which was his,
wherein some of his actions v/ere done, than that is the same body, which has but half the
same particles: and j'et all your lordship's argument here for the same body, is, because
St. Paul says, it must be his body in which these things were done; which it could not be, if
any other substance were joined to it, i. e. if any other particles of matter made up the body,
which were not vitally united to the soul when the action was done.

" Again your lordship says (6), ♦ That you do not say the same individual particles [shall
make up the body at the resurrection] which were united at the point of death, for there must
be a great alteration in them in a lingering disease, as if a fat man falls into a consumption.'
Because, it is likely, your lordship thinks, these particles of a decrepit, wasted, withered body,
would be too few, or unfit, to make such a plump, strong, vigorous, well-sized body, as it
has pleased your lordship to proportion out in your thoughts to men at the resurrection ; and,
therefore, some small portion of the particles formerly united vitally to that man's soul, shall
be reassumed to make up his body to the bulk your lordship judges convenient; but the
greatest part of them shall be left ou^ to avoid the making his body more vast than
your lordship thinks will be fit, as appears by these, your lordship's words immediately
following, viz. (c) ; ' That you do not say the same particles the sinner had at the very time
of commission oi his sins; for then a long sinner must have a vast body.'

*' But then, pray, n)y lord, what must an embryo do, who dying within a few hours after
his body was vitally united to his soul, has no particles of matter, which were formerly vitally
united to it, to make up his body of that size, and proportion, which your lordship seems to
require in bodies at the resurrection? Or, must we believe he shall remain content with that
small pittance of matter, and that yet imperfect body, to eternity, because it is an article of
faith to believe the resurrection of the very same body, i. e. made up of only such particles
as have been vitally united to the soul ? For if it be so, as your lordship says (d), * That
life is the result of the union of soul and body,' it will follow, that the body of an embryo,
dying in the womb, may be very little, not the thousandth part of any ordinary man. For
since from the first conception and beginning of formation, it has life, and * hfe is the result
of the union of the soul with the body ;' an embryo, that shall die either by the untimely
death of the mother, or by any other accident, presently after it has life, must, according to
your lordship's doctrine, remain a man, not an inch long, to eternity; because there are not
particles of matter, formerly united to his soul, to make him bigger, and no other can be
made use of to that purpose : though what greater congruity the soul hath with any particles
of matter which were once vitally united to it, but are now so no longer, than it hath with
particles of matter v/hich it was never united to, would be hard to determine, if that should
be demanded.

" By these, and not a few other the like, consequences, one may see what service they do
to religion, and the Christian doctrine, who raise questions, and make articles of faith, about
the resurrection of the same body, where the scripture says nothing of the same body; or if
it does, it is with no small reprimand (e) to those who make such an inquiry. * But some
man will say. How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool,
that which thou sowest, is not quickened, except it die. And that which thou sowest, thou
sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or some other
grain. But God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him.' Words, I should think, sufficient
to deter us from determining any thing for or against the same body's being raised at the last
day. It suffices, that all the dead shall be raised, and every one appear and answer for the
things done in his life, and receive according to the things he has done in his body, whether
good or bad. He that believes this, and has said nothing inconsistent herewith, I presume
may, and must, be acquitted from being guilty of any thing inconsistent with ihe article of the
resurrection of the dead.

" But your lordship, to prove the resurrection of the same body to be an article of faith,

(«) Second answer. (6) Ibid. (c) Ibid. (d) Ibid.

(<•) 1 Cor. XV. 35, A;c.

240 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

farther asks (a), * How could it be said, if any other substance be joined to the soul at the
resurrection, as its body, that they were the things done in or by the body ?' Answer. Just
as it may be said of a man at an hundred years old, that hath then another substance joined
to his soul, than he had at twenty,; that the murder or drunkenness, he was guilty of at
twenty, were things done in the body : how ' by the body,' comes in here I do not see.

*' Your lordship adds: • and St. Paul's dispute about the manner of raising the body,
might soon have ended, if there were no necessity of the same body.' Answer. When I
understatid what argument there is in these words to prove the resurrection of the same body,
without the mixture of one new atom of matter, I shall know what to say to it. In the mean
time, this I understand, that St. Paul would have put as short an end to all disputes about
this matter, if he had said, that there was a necessity of the same body, or that it should be
the same body.

*•'■ The next text of scripture you bring for the same body, is (6), ' If there be no resur-
rection of the dead, then is not Christ raised.' From which your lordship argues (c),
* It seems, then, other bodies are to be raised as his was.' I grant other dead, as certainly
raise'd as Christ was; for else his resurrection would be of no use to mankind. But I do
not see how it follows, that they shall be raised with the same body, as Christ was raised
with the same body, as your lordship infers, in these words annexed : ' And can there be
any doubt, whether his body was the same material substance which was united to his soul
before?' I answer. None at all; nor that it had just the same distinguishing lineaments
and marks, yea, and the same wounds, that it had at the time of his death. If, therefore,
your lordship will argue from other bodies being raised as his was, That they must keep
proportion with his in sameness ; then we must believe, that every man shall be raised with
the same lineaments and other notes of distinction he had at the time of his death, even with
his wounds yet open, if he had any, because our Saviour was so raised, which seems to me
scarce reconcileable with what your lordship says (tZ), of a fat man falling into a consumption,
and dying.

" But whether it will consist or no with your lordship's meaning in that place, this to me
seems a consequence that will need to be better proved, viz. That our bodies must be raised
the same, just as our Saviour's was : because St. Paul says, ' if there be no resurrection of
the dead, then is not Christ risen.' For it may be a good consequence, Christ is risen, and,
therefore, there shall be a resurrection of the dead ; and yet this may not be a good conse-
quence, Christ was raised with the same body he had at his death, therefore all men sliall
be raised with the same body they had at their death, contrary to what your lordship says
concerning a fat man dying of a consumption. But the case I think far different betwixt our
Saviour, and those to be raised at the last day.

*' 1. His body saw not corruption, and, therefore, to give him another body, new moulded,
mixed with other particles, which were not contained in it, as it lay in the grave, whole and
entire as it was laid there, had been to destroy his body to frame him a new one, without any
need. But why, with the remaining particles of a man's body, long since dissolved and
mouldered into dust and atoms (whereof, possibly, a great part may have undergone variety
of changes, and entered into other concretions; even in the bodies of other men), other new
particles of matter mixed with them, may not serve to make his body again, as well as the
mixture of new and different particles of matter with the old, did in the compass of his life
make his body, I think no reason can be given.

" This may serve to show, why, though the materials of our Saviour's body were not
changed at his resurrection ; yet it docs not follow, but that the body of a man dead and
rotten in his grave, or burnt, may at the last day have several new particles in it, and
that without any inconvenience: since whatever matter is vitally united to his soul, is his
body, as much as is that which was united to it when he was born, or in any other part of
his life.

" 2. In the next place, the size, shape, figure, and lineaments of our Saviour's body,
even to his wounds, into which doubting Thomas put his fingers and his hand, were to
be kept in the raised body of our Saviour, the same they were at his death, to be a con-
viction to his disciples, to whom he showed himself, and who were to b3 witnesses of
his resurrection, that their master, the very same man, was crucified, dead, and buried,
and raised again ; and, therefore, he was handled by them, and eat before them, after
he was risen, to give them in all points full satisfaction that it was really he, the same,
and not another, nor a spectre or apparition of him ; though I do not think your lord-
ship will thence argue, that because others are to be raised as he was, therefore, it is
necessary to believe, that because he eat after his resurrection, others, at the last day,
shall eat and drink after they are raised from the dead ; which seems to me as good an

(n) Second answer. (ft) 1 Cor. xv. 16. (r) Second answer.

(rf; Ibid.

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 241

argument, as because liis undissolved body was raised out of the grave, just as it there
lay entire, without the mixture of any new particles ; therefore the corrupted and consumed
bodies of the dead, at the resurrection, shall be new framed only out of those scattered par-
ticles which were once vitally united to their souls, without the least mixture of any one
single atom of new matter. But at the last day, when all men are raised, there will be no
need to be assured of any one particular man's resurrection. It is enough that every one
shall appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive according to what he had done in
his former life ; but in what sort of body he shall appear, or of what particles made up, the
scripture having said nothing, but that it shall be a spiritual body raised in incorruplion, it is
not for me to determine.

" Your lordship asks, (a) * Were they (who saw our Saviour after his resurrection) wit-
nesses onl}-^ of some material substance then united to his soul ?' In answer, I beg your
lordship to consider, whether you suppose our Saviour was to be known to be the same man
(to the witnesses that were to see him, and testify his resurrection) by his soul, that could
neither be seen or known to be the same : or by his body, that could be seen, and by the
discernible structure and marks of it, be known to be the same ? When your lordship has
resolved that, all that you say in that page will answer itself. But because one man
cannot know another to be the same, but by the outward visible lineaments, and sensible
marks, he hav* been wont to be known and distinguished b}', will your lordship, therefore,
argue, that the Great Judge, at the last day, who gives to each man, whom he raises,
his new body, sliall not be able to know who is who, unless he gives to every one of them a
body, just of the same figure, size, and features, and made up of the very same individual
particles he had in his former life ? Whether such a way of arguing for the resurrection of
Uie same bod}^ to be an article of faith, contributes muth to the strengthening of the
credibility of the article of resurrection of the dead, I shall leave to the judgment of
others. '

*' Farther, for the proving the resurrection of the same body, to be an article of faith,
your lordship saj's, (i) * But the apostle insists upon the resurrection of Christ, not
merely as an argument of the possibility of ours, but of the certainty of it (c) because he rose
as the first-fruits ; Clirist the first-fruits, afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.*
Answer. No doubt, the resurrection of Christ is a proof of the certainty of our resurrection.
But is it, therefore, a proof of the resurrection of the same body, consisting of the same in-
dividual particles, which concurred to the making up of the body here, without the mixture of
any one other particle of matter ? I confess I see no such consequence.

" But your lordship goes on : (rf) * St. Paul was aware of the objections in men's minds
about the resurrection of the same body ; and it is of great consequence as to this article, to
show upon what grounds he proceeds : ' But some men will say, how are the dead raised up,
and with what body do they come?' First, he shows, that the seminal parts of plants are
wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation.'
Answer. I do not perfectly understand, what it is ' for the seminal parts of plants to be
wonderfully improved by the ordinary Providence of God, in the manner of their vegetation :*
or else, perhaps, I should better see how this here tends to the proof of the resurrection of the
same body in your lords-hip's sense.

" It continues, (c) '• They sow bare grain of wheat, or of some other grain, but God giveth
it a body, as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. Here,' says your lord-
ship, < is an identity of tlie material substance supposed.' It may be so. But to me, a di-
versity of the material substance, i. e. of the component particles, is here supposed, or in
direct' words said. For the words of St. Paul taken altogether, run thus : (/) ' That which
; thou sovvest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain :' and so on, as your lord-
Iship has set down in the remainder of them. From which words of St. Paul, the natural ar-
igument seems to me to stand thus : If the body that is put in the earth in sowing, is not that
I body which shall be, then the body that is put' in the grave, is not that, i. e. the same body,
'that shall be. , j r ,

I "But your lordship proves it to be the same body, by these three Greek words of the
itext tJ, rSiou a-u,u<x, which your lordship interprets thus, (g) ' That proper body which
ibelongs to it.' Answer. Indeed by those Greek works, to thov awfxv., whether our
translators have rightly rendered them' ' his own body,' or your lordship nnore rightly, < that
;proj)er body which belongs to it,' I formerly understood no more but this, that in the pro-
duction of wheat and other grain from seed, God continued every species distmct : so that
'from grains of wheat sown, root, stalk, blade, ear, grains of wheat, were produced, and not

(a) Second answer. (6) Ibid. (c) 1 Cor. xv. 20. 23. (rf) Second answer.

(e) Ibid. (/) V. 37. {g) Second answer.

242 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

those of barley ; and so of the rest, which I took to be the meaning of, to every seed his
own body. ' No,' says yonr lordship, ' these words prove, that to every plant of wheat, and
to every grain of wheat produced in it, is given the proper body that belongs to it,
which is the same body with the grain that was sown.' Answer. This, I confess, I do not
understand ; because I do not understand how one individual grain can b? the same with
twenty, fifty, or a hundred individual grains ; for such sometimes is the increase.

" But your lordship proves it. ' For,' says your lordship, (a) ' every seed having that
body in little, which is afterwards so much enlarged ; and in grain, the seed is corrupted
before the germination ; but it hath its proper organical parts, which make it the same
body with that which it grows up to. For although grain be not divided into lobes, as other
seeds are, yet it hath been found by the most accurate observations, that upon separating the
membranes, these seminal parts are discerned in them ; which afterwards grow up to that
body which we call corn. In which words I crave leave to observe, that your lordship
supposes that a body may be enlarged by the addition of a hundred or a thousand times
as much in bulk as its own matter, and yet continue the same body ; which I confess I
cannot understand.

" But in the next place, if that could be so; and that the plant, in its full growth at
harvest, increased by a thousand or a million of times as much new matter added to it, as it
had when it lay a little concealed in the grain that was sown, was the very same body ; yet I
do not think that your lordship will say, that every minute, insensible, and inconceivably
small grain of the hundred grains, contained in tliat little organized seminal plant, is every
one of them the very saine with that grain which contains that whole seminal plant, and all
those invisible grains in it. For then it will follow, that one grain is the same with a
hundred, and a hundred distinct grains the same with one : which 1 shall be able to assent
to, when I can conceive, that all the wheat in the world is but one grain.

" For I beseech you, my lord, consider what it is St. Paul here speaks of : it is plain he
speaks of that which is sown and dies, i. e. the grain that the husbandman lakes out of his barn
to sow in his field. And of this grain St. Paul says, * that it is not that body that shall be.'
These two, viz. ' that which is sown, and that body that shall be,' are all the bodies that St.
Paul here speaks of, to represent the agreement or difference of men's bodies after the resur-
rection, with those they had before they died. Now, I crave leave to at^k your lordship, which
of these two is that little invisible seminal plant which your lordship here speaks of? Docs i
your lordship mean by it the grain that is sown ? But that is not what St. Paul speaks of; he j
could not mean this emhryonated little plant, for he could not denote it by these words, ' that |
which thou sowest,' for that he says must die : but this little emhryonated plant, contained in f
the seed that is sown, dies not : or does your lordship mean by it, ' the body that shall be?*
But neither bj' these words, ' the body that shall be,' can St. Paul be supposed to denote this
insensible little emhryonated plant ; for that is already in being, contained in the seed that is
sown, and, therefore, could not be spoken of under the name of ' the body that shall be.'
And, therefore, I confess, I cannot see of what use it is to your lordship, to introduce here
this third body which St. Paul mentions not, and to make that the same, or not the same,
with any other, when those which St. Paul speaks of, are, as I humbly conceive, these two
visible sensible bodies, the gr^in sown, and the corn grown up to ear ; with neither of which,
this insensible emhryonated plant can be the same body, unless an insensible body can be
the same body with a sensible body, and a little body can be the same body with one ten
thousand, or a hundred thousand times as big as itself. So that yet, I confess, I see not
the resurrection of the same body proved, from these words of St. Paul, to be an article of faith.

" Your lordship goes on : (b) •* St. Paul indeed saith, That we sow not that body that
shall be ; but he speaks not of the identity, but the perfection of it. Here my under-
standing fails me again : for I cannot understand St. Paul to say, That the same identical
sensible grain of wheat, which was sown at seed-time, is the very same with every grain ol
wheat in the ear at harvest, that sprang from it : yet so 1 must understand it, to make it
prove that the same sensible body that is laid in the grave, shall be the very same with thai
which shall be raised at the resurrection. For I do not know of any seminal body in littl.
contained in the dead carcass of any man or woman, which, as your lordship says, in seed
h»Ting its proper organical parts, shall afterwards be enlarged, and at the resurrection gro
up into the same man. For I never thought of any seed or semin«l parts, either of plan
or •nimal, • so wonderfully improved by the Providence of God,' whereby the same plant <
•nimnl should beget itself; nor ever heard, that it was by Divine Providence designed to prob
duoe the same individual, but for the producing of future and distinct individuals, for the cor
tlouation of the same fpecies.

{(i) Second answer. (ft) Ibid.

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 243

" Your . lordship's next words are, (a) ' And although there be such a difference from
the grain itself, when it comes up to l)e perfect corn, with root, stalk, blade, and ear, that
it may be said to outward appearance not to be the same body j yet with regard to the
seminal and organical parts, it is as much the same, as a man grown up is the same with
the embryo in the womb.' Answer. It does not appear, by any thing 1 can find in the
text, that St. Paul here compared the body produced, with the seminal and organical
parts contained in the grain it sprang from, but with the whole sensible grain that was
grown. ]Microscopes had not then discovered the little embryo plant in the seed : and
supposing it should have been revealed to St. Paul (though in the scripture we find little
revelation of natural philosophy), yet an argument taken from a thing perfectly unknown
to tlie Corinthians, whom he writ to, could be of no manner of use to them ; nor serve at
all either to instruct or convince them. But granting that those St. Paul writ to, knew it
as well as Mr. Lewenhoek ; yet your lordship, thereby, proves not the raising of the same
body : your lordship says, ' It is as much the same' (I crave leave to add body) ' as a man
grown up is the same' (same what, I beseech your lordship?) ' with the embryo in the
womb.' For that tlie body of the embryo in the womb, and body of the man grown up,
is the same body, I think no one will say ; unless he can persuade himself that a body
that is not the hundredth part of another, is the same with that other; which I think no
one will do, till having renounced this dangerous way by ideas of thinking and reasoning,
he has learnt to say, that a part and the whole are the same.

" Your lordship goes on ; (b) ' And although many arguments may be used to prove,
that a man is not the same, because life, which depends upon the course of the blood, and
the manner of res})iration, and nutrition, is so different in both states ; yet that man would
be thought ridiculous, that siiould seriously affirm, that it was not the same man.' And
your lordship says, • I grant, that the variation of great parcels of matter in plants, alters
not the identity : and that the organization of the parts in one coherent body, partaking
of one common life, makes the identity of a plant.' Answer. My lord I think the
question is not about the same man, but the same body. For though I do say, (e) (some-
what differently from what your lordship sets down as my words here) ' That that which
has such an organization, as is fit to receive and distribute nourishment, so as to continue
and frame the wood, bark, and leaves, &c. of a plant, in which consists the vegetable life,
continues to be the same plant, as long as it partakes of the same life, though that life be
communicated to new particles of matter, vitally united to the living plant:' yet I do
not remember, tliat I any where say, That a plant, which was once no bigger tlian an
oaten straw, and, afterwards, grows to be above a fathom about, is the same body, though
it be still the same plant.

" The well-known tree in Epping Forest, called' the King's Oak, which, from not

weighing an ounre at first, grew to have many tons of timber in it, was all along the same

oak, the very same plant ; but nobody, I think, will say that it was the same body, when it

weighed a ton, as it was when it weighed but an ounce ; unless he has a mind to signalize

himself, by saying. That that is the same body, wliich has a thousand different particles of

matter in it, for one particle that is the same ; which is no better than to say. That a thousand

I different particles are but one and the same particle, and one and the same particle is a

, thousand different particles ; a thousand times a greater absurdity, than to say half is the

i whole, or the whole is the same with the half; which will be improved ten thousand times

I yet farther, if a man shall say (as your lordship seems to me to argue here), that that great

1 oak is the very same body with the acorn it sprang from, because there was in that acorn

I an oak in little, which was afterwards (as your lordship expresses it) so much enlarged, as

to make that mighty tree. For this embryo, if I may so call it, or oak in little, being not

j the hundredth, or, perhaps, the thousandth, part of the acorn, and the acorn being not the

'thousandth part of the grown oak, it will be very extraordinary to prove the acorn and

'the grown oak to be the same body, by a way wherein it cannot be pretended, that above

lone particle of a hundred thousand, or a million, is the same in the one body, that it

'was in the other. From which way of reasoning, it will follow, that a nurse and her

sucking child have the same body ; and be past doubt, that a mother and her infant have

the same body. But this is a way of certainty, found out to establish the articles of faith,

and to overturn the new method of certainly, that your lordship says I have started,

which is apt to leave men's minds more doubtful than before.

' " And now I desire your lordship to consider of what use it is to you, in the present
iCase, to quote out of my Essay, these words : ' That partaking of one common life,
makes the identity of a plant;' since the question is not about the identity of a plant, but
|ibout the identity of a body. It being a very different thing, to be the same plant, and
'.0 be the sarc6 body. For that which makes the same plant, does not make the same
3ody; the one being the partaking in the same continued vegetable life; the other, the
(«) Second aHswer. (b) Ibid. (c) Essay, b. 2, c 27, § 4.

R 2

244 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

consisting of the same numerical particles of matter. And, therefore, your lordship's in-
ference from my words above quoted, in these which you subjoin, («) seems to me a very
strange ■ore, viz. 'So that in things capable of any sort of life ; the identity is consistent
with a continued success'on of pans; and so the wheat grown up, is the same body with " the
grain thr.t was srwn' For I believe, if my words, from which you ii;fer, * rnd .'O the wheat
grown up, is the same body with the grain that was sown,* were put into a syllogism, this
would hardly be brought to be the conclusion.

** But your lordship goes on with consequence upon consequence, though I have not eyes
acute enough, every where to see the coimexion, till you bring it to the resurrection of the
san-.e body. The connexion of your lordship's words {b) is as lolloweih : ' Ard thus the al-
teration of the parts of the body at the resurrection, is consistent with its identit}', if its orga-
nization ard life be tlie same ; and this is a real identity of the body, which depends not upon
consciousress. From whence it follows, that to make the same body, no more is required, but
restoring life to tiie organized parts of it.' If the question were about raising the same plant,
I do not say but thtre might be some appearance for makirg such an inference from my words
as this, ' Whence it follows, that to make the same plant, no more is required, but to restore
life to the organized parts of it.' But this deduction, wherein from those words of mine, that
speak or.ly of the identity of a plant, your lordship infers, there is no m.ore required to make
the same body, than to make the same plant, being too subtle for me, I leave to my reader to
find out.

•' Your lordsh'p goes on, and says, (r) ' That I grant likewise, that the identity of the same
Kian, consists in a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of
matter in succession, vitally united to the same organised body.' Answer. I speak in these
words of the identity of the same man, and j'our lordship thence roundly concludes; ' .so that
there is no difficulty of the sameness of the body.' But your lordship knows, that I do not
take these two sounds, man and body, to stand for the same thing; nor the identity of the
man to be the same with the identity of the body.

" But let us read out your lordship's words, (d) • So that there is no difHculiy as to tie
sameness of the body, if life were continued : and if, by Divine Power, life be restored to that
material substance, which was before united by a re-union of the soul to it, there is no reason
to deny the identity of the bcdy, not frcm the consciousness of the soul, but from that life
which is the result of th3 union of the soul and body.'

" If I understand your lordship right, you, in these word.s from the passages above quoted
Out of my book, arj^ue, that from those words of mine it will follow. That it is or may be the
same body, that is raised at the resurrection. If so, my Icrd, your lordship has then proved,
That my bock is not inconsistent with, but conformable to, this article of the resurrection of
the same body, which your lordship contends for, and will have to be an article of faith : for
though I do by no means deny, that the same bodies shall be raised at the last day, yet I see
nothing your lordship has said to prove it to be an article of faith.

*■' But your lordship goes on with your proofs, and says, (e) ' But St. Paul still supposes,
that it must be that material substance to which the soul was before united. ' For,' .saith he,

* it is sown in Corruption, it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in dishonour, it is raised In
glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body.' Can such a rr.aterial substance, which was never united to the body, be said I
to be sown in corruption, and weakness, and dishonour ? either, therefore, he must speak of I
the body, or his meaning cannot be comprehended.' I answcy, Can such a material substance i
which was never laid in the grave, be said to be sown? &c. For your lordship says, ( /"f

* You do not say the same individual particles, which were united at the point of death, shalll
be raised at the last day ; and no other particles are laid in the grave, but such as are unitedi
at the point of death ; either, therefore, your lordship must speak of another body, different!
from that which was sown, which shall be raised, or else your meaning, I think, cannot btt
comprehended. ^

" But whatever be your meaning, your lordship proves it to be St. Paul's meaning, thiti
the same body shall be raised, which was sown, in these following words : (g) • Fot
what does all this relate to a conscious principle?' Answer. The scripture being eXH
press, That the f.ame person should be raised and appear before the judgm.ent seat of Chrirt^
that every one may receive according to what he had done in his body ; it was very vttfO\
suited to common apprehensions (which refined not about • particles that had been vitalljft
united to the soul'), to speak of the body, which each one was to have after the resor^J
rection, as he would be apt to speak of it himself. For it being his body both before an
after the resurrection, every one ordinarily speaks of his body as the same, though inj
strict and philosophical sen^e, as your lordship speaks, it be not the very same. Th«

(fl) Second answer, (i) Ibid, (r) Ibid, (rl) Ibid, (c) Ibid. (/) Ibid, {g)

( H. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. 245

it is no impropriety of speech to say, Tliis body of mine, which was formerly strong and
plump, is now weak and wasted, though, in sucli a sense as you are speaking here, it be not
the same body. Revelation declares nothing any where concerning the same body, in your
lordship's sense of liie same body, which appears not to have been thought of. The
apostle directly proposes nothing for or against the same body, as necessary to be believed ;
that which he is plain and direct in, is opposing and condemning such curious questions
about ihe body, which could serve only to perplex, not to confirm, what was material and
necessary for them to believe, viz., a day of judgment and retribution to men in a future
state; and, therefore, it is no wonder that mentioning their bodies, he should use a way of
speaking suited to vulgar notions, from which it would be hard positively to conclude any
thing for the determining of this question (especially against expressions in the same dis-
course that plainly incline to the other side) in a matter which, as it appears, the apostle
thought not necessary to determin;,- ; and the Spirit of God thought not fit to gratify any
one's curiosity in.

" But your lordship says, (a) ' The apostle speaks plainly of that body which was
once quickened, and afterwards falls to corruption, and is to be restored wi:h more noble
qualities.' I wish your lordsh'p had quoted the words of St. Paul, wherein he speaks
plainly of th^it numerical body that was once quickened, they would presently decide
this question. But your lordship proves it, by the.>e following words of St Paul. ' For
this corruption must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality;' to
which your lordship adds, that ' you do not seo how he could more expressly affirm the
identity of this corruptible body, with that after the resurrection.' How expressly it is
affirmed by the apostle, shall be considered by and by. In the mean time, it is past doubt
that your lordship best knows what you do, or do not see. But this I would be bold to
say, that if St. Paul had, any where in this chapter (where there are so many occasions for
it, if it hat! been necessary to have been believed), but said in express words, that the same
bodies should be raised, every one else, who thinks of it, will see he had more expressly af-
firmed the identity of the bodies which men now have, with those they shall have after the
resurrection.

" The remainder of your lordship's period (6) is; * And that without any respect to the
principle of self-cousciousness.' Answer. These words, I doubt not, have some meaning,
but I mu:t own, I know not what ; either towards the proof of the resurrection of the -same
body, or to show, that any thing 1 have said concerning self-consciousness, is inconsistent ; for
I do not remember that I have any where, said, that the identity of body consisted in self-
consciousness.

. " From your preceding words, your lordship concludes thus; (c) ' And so if the scripture
be the sole foundation of our faith, this is an article of it.* My lord, to make the concJusion
unquestionable, 1 humbly conceive the words must run thu.s. And so if the scripture, and
your lordship's interpretation of it, be the sole foundation of our faith, the resurrection of the
same body is an article of it. For with submission, your lordship has neither produced
express words of scripture for it, nor so proved that to be the meaning of any of those words
of scripture, whicii you have produced for it, that a man who reads, and sincerely endeavours
to understand, the scripture, cannot but find himself obliged to believe, as expressly, that the
same bodies of the dead, in your lordship's sense, shall be raised, as that the dead shall be
raised. And I crave leave to give your lordship this one reason for it. He who reads with
attention this discourse of St. Paul, (d) where he discourses of the resurrection, will see, that
he plainly distiuguislies between the dead that shall be raised, and the bodies of the dead.
For it is v6xpo), Tris-xe;, c*, are the nominative cases to {e) r/e/poi/ra;, ^warciriSrieroiiTrti,
lysp9n;'.)>rut^ all along, and not awixaror, bodies; which one may with reason think would
somewhere or other hitve been expressed, if all this had been said to propose it as an article
of faith, that the very same bodies should be raised. The same manner of speakmg the
Spirit of God observes all through the New Testament, where it is said, (/) raise the
dead, quicken or niake alive the dead, the resurrection of the dead. Nay, these very
words of our Saviour (g), urged by your lordship, for the resurrection of the same body,
run thus: nittn; o/ ev Tc7f ix^niJi'-'iic aKO'jcrovrcd T»)i- twvrii cfjrcu nat iitTiopiCrj-yjTai, o/ tx
a/rt'ii 7ro;-7<7avT=f t'g avV«<'''V ?'«>^f o/ 8e ra (^n'j'Ka 'jt^a.^av'Tii; £>; aMig-ccaiv xo'C-sm;. Would
not a well-ir.eaning searcher of the scriptures be apt to think, that if the thing here in-
ten<!ed by our Saviour, were to teach and propose it as an article of faith, necessary to be '
believed by every one, that the very same bodies of the dead should be raised ; would not,
I say, any one be apt to think, that if our Saviour meant so, the words should rather

(a) Second answer. (6) Ibid. (c) Ibid. (d) 1 Cor. xv.

(c) V. 15. 22, 23. -29. 32. 35. .')2. (/) Matt. xxii. 31. Mark, xii. 26. John, v. 21.

Acts, xvi. 7. Rom. iv. 17. 2 Cor. i. 9. 1 Thess. iv. H. 16. (^) JohUi v. 28, 2{?.

S46 OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

have been, vayra rot otifjutja^ a cy ToTf fAvfifxttoi;, i. e. all the bodies that are in the
graves, rather than all who are in the graves ; which must denote persons, and not precisely
bodies.

** Another evidence that St. Paul makes a distinction between the dead, and the bodies of
the dead, so that the dead cannot be taken in this, 1 Cor. xv. to stand precisely lor the bodies
of the dead, are these words of the apostle, («) ♦ But some man will say, how are the dead
raised? and with what body do they come?' Which words, dead and they, if supposed to
stand precisely for the bodies of the dead, the question will run thus : How are the dead bodies
raised? and with what bodies do the dead bodies come? which seems to have no very agree-
able sense.

*' This, therefore, being so, that the Spirit of God keeps so expressly to this phrase, or
form of speaking, in the New Testament, ' of raising, quickening, rising, resurrection, &c.,
of the dead,' where the resurrection at the last day is spoken of ; and that the body is not
mentioned, but in answer to this question, * With what bodies shall those dead, who are
raised, come?' so that by the dead cannot precisely be meant the dead bodies; I do not see
but a good Christian, who reads the scripture, with an intention to believe all that is there
revealed to him. concerning the resurrection, may acquit himself of his duty tlierein, without
entering 4nto the inquiry, whether the dead shall have the veiy same bodies or no ? which
sort of inquiry, the apostle, by the appellation he bestows here on him that makes it,
seems not much to encourage. Nor, if he shall think himself bound to determine con-
cerning the identity of the bodies of the dead, raised at the last day; will he, by the
remainder of St. Paul's answer, find the determination of the apostle to he much in favour
of the very same body, unless the being told, that the body sown is not that body that shall
be ; that the body raised is as different from that which was laid down, as the flesh of
man is from the flesh of beasts, fishes, and birds ; or as the sun, moon, and stars, are diflerent
one from another; or as different as a corruptible, weak, natural, mortal tody, is from an
incorruptible, powerful, spiritual, immortal body; and, lastly, as different as a body that is
flesh and blood, is from a body that is not flesh and blood. ' For flesh and blood cannot,'
says St. Paul, in this very place, (b) ' inherit the kingdom of God,' unless, I say, all this,
which is contained in St. Paul's words, can he supposed to be the way to deliver this as an
article of faith, which is required to be believed by every one, viz. That the dead should be
raised with the very same bodies that they had before in this life ; which article proposed in
these or the like plain and express words, could have left no room for doubt in the meanest
capacities ; nor for contest in the most perverse minds.

" Your lordship adds, in the next words, (c) ' And so it hath been always understood
by the Christian church, viz., That the resurrection of the same body, in your lordship's
sense of the same body is an article of faith.' Answer. What the Christian church has
always understood, is beyond my knowledge. But for those who coming short of your
lordship's great learning, cannot gather their articles of faith from the understanding of
all the whole Christian church, ever since the preaching of the Gospel (who make the far
greater part of Christians, I think I may say nine hundred and ninety and nine of a
thousand), but are forced to have recourse to the scripture, to find them there, I do not
-see that they will easily find there this proposed as an article of faith, that there shall be
a resurrection of the same body; but that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, without
explicitly determining. That they shall be raised with bodies made up wholly of the same
particles which were once vitally united to their souls, in their former life, without the mix-
ture of any one other particle of matter; which is that which your lordship means by the
same body.

" But supposing your lordship to have demonstrated this to be an article of faith, though
I crave leave to own, that I do not see that all your lordship has said here, makes it
so much as probable; What is all this to me? ' Yes,' says your lordship in the following
words, ( J) ' my idea of personal identity is inconsistent with it, for it makes the same body
which was here united to the soul, not to be necessary to the doctrine of the resurrection.
But any material substance united to the same principle of consciousness, makes the same
body."

*' This is an argument of your lordship, which I am obliged to answer to. But is it
not fit I should first understand jt, before I answer it? Now, here, I do not well know,
what it is to make a thing not to be necessary to the doctrine of the resurrection. But to
help myself out the best I can, with a guess, I will conjecture (which in disputing with
learned men, is not very safe) your lordship's meaning is. That ' my idea of personal
identity makes it not necessary,' that for the raising the same person, the body should be

(ff) V. 35. (h) V. 50. (c) Second answer. (rf) IbitU

CH. 27. OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. Ul

" Your lordship's next word is *but:' to which I am ready to reply, but what? what
does my idea of personal identity do? for something of that kind, the adversative particle
* but' should, in the ordinary construction of our language, introduce to make the proposition
clear and intelligible: but here is no such thing. ' But,' is one of your lordship's privileged
particles, which I must not meddle with ; for fear your lordship complain of me again, ' as so
severe a critic, that for the least ambiguity in any particle, fill up pages in my answer, to
make my book look considerable for the bulk of it.' But since this proposition here, ' my
idea of a personal identity, makes the same body which was here united to the soul, not
necessary to the doctrine of the resurrection : but any material substance being united to
the same principle of consciousness, makes the same body,' is brought to prove my idea of
personal identity inconsistent with the article of the resurrection ; I must make it out in some
direct sense or other, that I may see whether it be both true and conclusive. I, therefore,
venture to read it thus : ' my idea of personal identity makes the same body which was here
united to the soul, not to be necessary at the resurrection, but allows, that any material
substance being united to the same principle of consciousness, makes the same body. Ergo,
my idea of personal identiiy is inconsistent with the article of the resurrection of the same
body.'

" If this be your lordship's sense in this passage, as I here have guessed it to be, or else I
know not what it is, I answer,

" I, That my idea of personal identity does not allow, that any material substance, being
united to the same principle of consciousness, makes the same body. I say no such thing in
my book, nor any tiling from whence it may be inferred ; and your lordship would have done
me a favour to have set down the words where I say so, or those from which you infer so, and
showed how it follows from any thing I have said.

" 'J, Granting, that it were a consequence from my idea of personal identity, that ' any
material substance being united to the same principle of consciousness, makes the same
body;' this would not prove that my idea of personal identity was inconsistent with this
proposition, 'that the same body shall be raised;' but, on the contrary, affirms it: since,
if I affirm, as I do, that the same persons shall be raised, and it be a consequence of my
idea of personal identity, that ' any material substance being united to the same principle
of consciousness, makes the same body;' it follows, that if the same person be raised, the
same body must be raised : and so I have herein not only said nothing inconsistent with the
resurrection of the same body, but have said more for it than your lordship. For there can
be nothing plainer, than. that in the scripture it is revealed, that the same persons shall be
raised, and appear before the Judgment seat of Christ, to answer for what they have done in
their bodies. If, therefore, whatever matter be joined to the same principle of consciousness
makes the same body, it is demonstration, that if the same persons are raised, they have the
same bodies.

" How then your lordship makes this an inconsistency with the resurrection is beyond my
conception. ' Yes,' says your lordship, («) ' it is inconsistent with it, for it makes the same
body, which was here united to the soul, not to be necessary.'

" 3, I answer, therefore, Thirdlij, That this is the first time I ever learnt, that ' not neces-
sary,' was the same with •• inconsistent.' I say, that a body made up of the same numerical
parts of matter, is not necessary to the making of the same person ; from whence it will indeed
follow, that to the resurrection of the same person, the same numerical particles of matter are
not required. What does your lordship infer from hence? to wit, this: therefore, he who
thinks that the same particles of matter are not necessary to the making of the same person,
cannot believe that the same persons shall be raised with bodies made of the very same particles
of matter, if God should reveal, that it shall be so, viz., that the same persons shall be raised
with the same bodies they had before. Which is all one as to say, that he who thought the
blowing of rams' horns was not necessary in itself to the falling down of the walls of Jericho,
could not believe that they should fall upon the blowing of rams' horns, when God had declared
it should be so.

" Your lordship says, ' my idea of personal identity is inconsistent with the article of the
resurrection ;' the reason you ground it on, is this, because it makes not the same body
necessary to the making the same person. Let us grant your lordship's consequence to be
good, what will follow from it? No less than this, that your lordship's notion (for^ I dare
not say your lordship has any so dangerous things as ideas) of personal identity, is inconsistent
■with the article of the resurrection. The demonstration of it is thus ; your lordship says, (&)
* It is not necessary that the body to be raised at the last day, should consist of the same
particles of matter which were united at the point of death ; for there must be a great
alteration in them in a lingering disease; as if a fat man falls into a consumption ; you do
not say the same particles which the sinner had at the very time of commission of his sini;

(«) Second answer. {b) Ibid,

24g OF IDENTITY AND DIVERSITY. book 2.

for then a long sinner must have a vast body, considering the continual spending of particles
by perspiration.* And again, here your lordship says, (a) ' you allow the notion of personal
identity to belong to the same man, under several changes of matter. From which words it
is evident, that your lordship supposes a person in this v/orld may be continued and preserved
the same in a body not consisting of the same individual particles of matter; and hence,
it demonstratively follows, that let your lordship's notion of personal identity be what it
will, it makes ' the same body not to be necessary to the same person ;' and, therefore,
it is by your lordship's rule, inconsistent with the article of the resurrection. Wlien
your lordship shall think fit to clear your own notion of personal identity from this in-
consistency with the article of the resurrection, I do not doubt but n)y idea of personal
identity will be thereby cleared too. Till then, all inconsistency with that article, which
your lordship has here charged on mine, will, unavoidably, fall upon your lordship's
loo.

*' But for the clearing of both, give me leave to say, my lord, that whatsoever is not
necessary, does not, thereby, become inconsistent. It is not necessary to the same person,
that his body should always consist of the same numerical particles ; this is demonstration,
because the particles of the bodies of the same persons, in this life, change every moment,
and your lordship cannot deny it; and yet this makes it not inconsistent with God's
preserving, if he thinks fit, to the same persons, bodies consisting of the same numerical
particles always, from the resurrection to eternity. And so, likewise, though 1 say any
thing that supposes it not necessary that the same numerical particles, which were vitally
united to the soul in this life, should be re-unitcd to it at the resurrection, and constitute the
body it shall then have; yet it is net inconsistent with this, that God may, if he pleases, give
to every one a body consisting only of such particles as were before vitally united to his
soul. And thus, I think, I have cleared my book from all that inconsistency which your
lordship charges on it, and would persuade the world it has, with the article of the rcsuriection
of the dead.

** Only before I leave it, I will set down the remainder of what your lordship says upon
this head, that though I see not the coherence nor tendency of it, nor the force of any
argument in it against me; yet that nothing may be omitted that your lordship has thought
fit to entertain your reader with, on this new point, nor any one have reason to suspect,
that I have passed by any word of your lordship (on this now introduced subject j wherein
he might find your lordship had proved what you had promised in your title page. Your
remaining words are these (&) : *■ The dispute is not how far personal identity in itself may
consist in the very same material substance; for we allow the notion of personal identity
to belong to the same man under several changes of matter; but whether it doth not depend
upon a vital union between the soul, and body, and the life, which is consequent upon it ;
and, therefore, in the resurrection, the same material substance must be re-united, or else
it cannot be called a resurrection, but a renovation, i. e. it maybe anew life, but not a raising
the body from the dead.' I confess I do not see how what is here ushered in by the words.,
* and, therefore,* is a consequence from the preceding words; but as to the propriety of
the name, I think it will not be much questioned, that if the same man rise who was dead,
it may very properly be called the resurrection of the dead ; which is the language of the
scripture.

*• I must not part with this article of the resurrection, without returning my thanks to
your lordship for making me (r) take notice of a fault in my Essay. When I wrote
that book, I took it for granted, as I doubt not but many others have done, that the
scripture had mentioned, in express terms, ' the resurrection of the body.' But upcn
the occasion your lordship has given me in your last letter, to look a little more narrowly
into what revelation has declared concerning the resurrection, and finding no such express
words in the scripture, as that ' the body shall riso, or be raised, or the resurrection
of the body;' I shall, in the next edition of it, change these words of my book (rf), ' The
dead brdics of men shall rise,' into these of the scripture, ' the dead shall rise.' Not that
I question, that the dead shall be raised with bodies; but in matters of revelation I think
it not only safest, but our duty, as far as any one delivers it for revelation, to keep close to
the words of the scripture, unless he will assume to himself the authority of one inspind,
or mal^ himself wiser than the Holy Spirit himself. If I had spoke of the resurrection in
precisely scripture terms, I had avoided giving your lordship the occasion of making (e)
here such verbal reflection on my words; < What! not if there be an idea of identity as to
the body ?' "

(«> Second answer. (A) Ibid. (f) Ibid.

{li) Essay, b. 4, c. 1 B, $. 7. (t) Second answer.

CH. 28. OF MORAL RELATIONS. 249

CHAPTER XXVIII.

OF MORAL RELATIONS.

§ 1. Proportional. — Besides the before-mentioned occasions
of time, place, and causality of comparing, or referring things one
to another, there are, as I have said, infinite others, some whereof
I shall mention.

First, The first I shall name, is some one simple idea ; which be-
ing capable of parts or degrees, affords an occasion of comparing
the subject wherein it is to one another, in respect of that simple
idea, v. g. whiter, sweeter, bigger, equal, more, &c. These relations
depending on the equality and excess of the same simple idea in
several subjects, may be called, if one will, proportional ; and that
these are only conversant about those simple ideas received from
sensation or reflection, is so evident, that nothing need be said to
evince it.

§ 2. Natural. — 6Vcowr?/^, Another occasion of comparing things
together, or considering one thing, so as to include in that considera-
tion some other thing, is the circumstances of their origin or begin-
ning ; which being not afterwards to be altered, make the relations
depending thereon, as lasting as the subjects to which they belong ;
V. g. father and son, brothers, cousin-germ an s, &c., which have
their relations by one community of blood, wherein they partake in
several degrees ; countrymen, i. e., those who were born in the same
country, or tract of ground : and these I call natural relations :
wherein w^e may observe, that mankind have fitted their notions and
words to the use of common life, and not to the truth and extent of
things. For it is certain, that in reality, the relation is the same
betwixt the begetter and the begotten, in the several races of other
animals, as well as men ; but yet it is seldom said, this bull is the
grandfather of such a calf; or that two pigeons are cousin-germans.
It is very convenient, ttiat by distinct names, these relations should
be observed, and marked out in mankind, there being occasion,
both in laws, and other communications one with another, to men-
tion and take notice of men under these relations ; from whence also
arise the obligations of several duties amongst men ; whereas in
brutes, men having very little or no cause to mind these relations,
they have not thought fit to give them distinct and peculiar names.
This, by the way, may give us some light into the different state and
growth of languages: which being suited only to the convenience
of communication, are proportioned to the notions men have, and
the commerce of thoughts familiar amongst them ; and not to the
reality or extent of things, nor to the various respects might be
found among them ; nor the different abstract considerations might
be framed about them. Where they had no philosophical notions,
there they had no terms to express them ; and it is no wonder men

250 OF MORAL RELATIONS. book 2.

should have framed no names for those things they found no occasion
to discourse of. From whence it is easy to imagine, why, as in some
countries, they may not have so much as the name for a horse ; and
in others, where they are more careful of the pedigrees of their
horses than of their own, that there they may have, not only names
for particular horses, but also of their several relations of kindred one
to another.

§ 3. Instituted. — Thirdly^ Sometimes the foundation of consi-
dering things, with reference to one another, is some act whereby
any one comes by a moral right, power, or obligation to do some-
thing. Thus a general is one that hath power to command an
army ; and an army under a general, is a collection of armed men,
obliged to obey one man. A citizen, or a burgher, is one who has
a right to certain privileges in this or that place. All this sort, de-
pending upon men''s wills, or agreement in society, I call instituted,
or voluntary, and may be distinguished from the natural, in that
they are most, if not all, of them, some way or other alterable, and
separable from the persons to whom they have sometimes belonged,
though neither of the substances, so related, be destroyed. Now,
though these are all reciprocal, as well as the rest, and contain in
them a reference of two things one to the other ; yet because one
of the two things often wants a relative name, importing that refer-
ence, men usually take no notice of it, and the relation is commonly
overlooked, v, g. a patron and client are easily allowed to be rela-
tions ; but a constable, or dictator, are not so readily, at first hear-
ing, considered as such ; because there is no peculiar name for
those who are under the command of a dictator, or constable,
expressing a relation to either of them ; though it be certain, that
either of them hath a certain power over some others; and so is so
far related to them, as well as a patron is to his client, or general to
his army.

§ 4. Moral. — Fourthly/, There is another sort of relation,
which is the conformity or disagreement men's voluntary actions
have to a rule to which they are referred, and by which they are
judged of; which, I think, may be called moral relation, as being
that which denominates our moral actions, and deserves well to be
examined, there being no part of knowledge wherein we should be
more careful to get determined ideas, and avoid, as much as may
be, obscurity and confusion. Human actions, when with their va-
rious ends, objects, manners, and circumstances, they are framed
into disjtinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, so many mixed
modes, a great part whereof have names annexed to them. Thus,
supposing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return
kindness received ; polygamy to be the having more wives than one at
once ; when we frame these notions thus in our minds, we have
there so many determined ideas of mixed modes. But this is not
all that concerns our actions ; it is not enough to have determined
ideas of them, and to know what names belong to such and such
combinations of ideas. We have a farther and greater concern-

CH. 28. OF MORAL RELATIONS. 251

ment, and that is, to know whether such actions, so made up, are
morally good or bad.

§ 5. Moral good and evil. — Good and evil, as hath been shown,
b. ^, c. 20, § 2, and c. 21, § 42, are nothing but pleasure or pain,
or that which occasions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral
good and evil, then, is only the conformity or disagreement of our
voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn on
us by the will and power of the law-maker: which good and evil,
pleasure or pain, attending our observance, or breach of the
law, by the decree of the law-maker, is that we call reward and
punishment.

§ 6. Moral rules. — Of these moral rules, or laws, to which men
generally refer, and by which they judge of the rectitude or pravity
of their actions, there seem to me to be three sorts, with their three
different enforcements, or rewards and punishments. For since it
would be utterly in vain to suppose a rule set to the free actions of
man, without annexing to it some enforcement of good and evil, to
determine his will, we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose
also some reward or punishment annexed to that law. It would be
in vain for one intelligent being to set a rule to the actions of an-
other, if he had it not in his power to reward the compliance with,
and punish deviation from, his rule, by some good and evil, that is
not the natural product and consequence of the action itself: for
that being a natural convenience, or inconvenience, would operate of
itself, without a law. This, if I mistake not, is the true nature of
all law, properly so called.

§ 7. Laws. — The laws that men generally refer theit actions to,
to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three :
1, The divine law. 2, The civil law. 3, The law of opinion or
reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation they bear to the
first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or duties ;
by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent ; and by the
third, whether they be virtues or vices.

§ 8. Divine law, the measure of sin and duty. — First, The di-
vine law, whereby I mean that law which God has set to the actions
of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature, or
the voice of revelation. That God has given a rule whereby men
should govern themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to
deny. He has a right to do it ; we are his creatures ; he has good-
ness and wisdom to direct our actions to that which is best ; and he
has power to enforce it by rewards and punishments, of infinite
weight and duration in another life ; for nobody can take us out of
his hands. This is the only true touchstone of moral rectitude;
and by comparing them to this law it is that men judge of the most
considerable moral good or evil of their actions ; that is, whether as
duties or sins, they are like to procure them happiness or misery
from the hands of the Almighty.

§ 9- Civil law, the measure of crimes and innocence. — Secondly,
The civil law, the rule set by the commonwealth to the actions of

S52 OF MORAL RELATIONS. book 2.

those who belong to it, is another rule to which men refer their
actions, to judge whether they be criminal or no. This law nobody
overlooks ; the rewards and punishments that enforce it, being ready
at hand, and suitable, to the power that makes it ; which is the force
of the commonwealth, engaged to protect the lives, liberties, and
possessions of those who live according to its laws : and has power
to take away life, liberty, or goods from him who disobeys; which
is the punishment of oifences conmiitted against this law.

§ 1 0. Philosophical law, the measure of virtue and vice. — Thirdly ,
The law of opinion, or reputation. Virtue and vice are names pre-
tended, and supposed, every where to stand for actions in their own
nature, right and wrong; and as far as they realh^ are so applied,
they so far are co-incident with the divine law above-mentioned.
But yet, whatever is pretended, this is visible, that these names, vir-
tue and vice, in the particular instances of their application, through
the several nations and societies of men in the world, are constantly
attributed only to such actions, as, in each country and society, are
in reputation or discredit. Nor is it to be thought strange, that men
every where should give the name of virtue to those actions, which
-amongst them, are judged praiseworthy; and call that vice, which
they account blameable; since, otherwise, they would condemn
themselves, if they should think any thing right, to which they al-
lowed not commendation; any thing wrong, which they let pass
without blame. Thus, the measure of what is every where called
and esteemed virtue and vice, is the approbation or dislike, praise or
blame, which, by a secret and tacit consent, establishes itself in the
several societies, tribes, and clubs of men in the world, whereby
several actions come to find credit or disgrace amongst them, ac-
cording to the judgment, maxims, or fashion of that place. For
though men uniting into politic societies, have resigned up to the
public the disposing of all their force, so that they cannot em-
})loy it against any fellow-citizens, any farther than the law of the
country directs; yet they retain still the power of thinking well or
ill, approving or disapproving, of the actions of those whom they
live amongst, and converse with ; and by this approbation and dis-
like, they establish amongst themselves what they will call virtue
and vice.

§ IL That this is the common measure of virtue and vice, will
api)ear to any one who considers, that though that passes for vice in
<me country, which is counted a virtue, or at least not vice, in an-
other ; yet every where, virtue and praise, vice and blame, go together.
Virtue is every where that which is thought praiseworthy ;' and no-
thing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem, is
called virtue*. Virtue and praise are so united, that they are called

• Our aullior, in his preface to the fourth edition, talcing notice how apt men have
beeu to mijtakc him, added what here follows. " Of this, the ingenious author of the
discourse couccrhing the nature of man has given nic a late instance, to mcniioii no

cii. S8. OF MORAL RELATIONS. 255

often by the same name. " Sunt sua praemia laudi," says Virgil;
and so Cicero, " nihil habet natura praestantius, quam honestatem.

other. For the civility ofhis expressions, and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid
me tj think, that he would have closed his preface with an insinuation, as if in what I had
said, book '2, chap. 28, concerning the third rule, which men refer their actions to, I went
about to make virtue vice, and vice virtue, unless he had mistaken my meaning, which he
could not have done, if he had but given himself the trouble to consider what the argument
was 1 was then upon, and what was the chief design of that chapter, plainly enough set down
in the fourth section, and those following. For I was there not laying down moral rules, but
showing the original and nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of
in moral relations, whether those rules were true or false: and pursuant thereunto, I tell
what has every where that denomination, which, in tlie language of that place, answers to
virtue and vice in ours, which alters not the nature of things, though men do generally judge
of, and denominate, their actions according to the eiteem and fashion of the place, or sect,
hey are of

♦' If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, b. 1 , c. 3, § 1 8, and in this pre-
sent chapter, § 1.-?, 14, lo, and '20. ha would have known what I thiidc of the eternal and un-
alterable nature of right and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice : and if he had observed,
that in the place he quotes, I only report as matter of fcict, what others call virtue and vice,
he would not have found it liable to any great exception. For, I think, I am not much out
in saying. That one of the rules made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a moral
relation, is that esteem and reputation which several sorts of actions find variously in the se-
veral societies of men, according to which they are ih.ere called virtues or vices; and whatso-
ever authority the learned Mr. Lowde places in his old English Dictionarj', I dare say it no
where tells him (if I should appeal to it >, that tlie same action is not in credit, called and counted
a virtue in one place, which being in disrepute, passes for, and under the name of, vice, in
another. The taking notice that men bestow the names of viitue and vice according to this
rule of reputation, is all I have done, or can be laid to my charge to have done, towards
the making vice virtue, and virtue vice. But the good man does well, and as becomes his
calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm, even atexprebsions, which stand-
ing alone by themselves, might sound ill, and be suspected.

" It is to this zeal allowable in iiis function, that I forgive his citing, as he does, these
words of mine in § I I of this chapter : ♦ Tlie exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared
to appeal to common repute, 'whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good
report, if there be any virtue, if there be any prui^e,' &c. Phih iv. 8, without tiiking notice of
those immediately preceding, which introduce them, and run thus; ' whereby in the corrup-
tion of manners, the true boundaries of the law of nature, which ought to be the rule of virtue
and vice, were pretty well preserved : so that even the exhortations of inspired teachers,' &c.
By which words, and the rest of tiiat section, it is plain, that I brought this passage of St.
Paul not to prove that the general measure of what men call virtue and vice, throughout the
world, was the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself; but to show,
that though it were so, yet, for reasons I there give men, in that wav of denominating their
actions, did not, for the most part, much vary from the law of nature, which is that standing
and unalterable rule, by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude and pravity of their
actions, and accordingly denominate tliem virtues or vices Had Mr. Lowde considered this,
he would have found it little to his purpose, to have quoted that passage in a sense I used it
not ; and would, I imagine, have spared the explication he subjoins to it, as not very neces-
sary. But I hope this second edition will give Inm satisfaction in the point, and that this
matter is now so expressed, as to show him there was no cause of scruple.

"• Though 1 am forced to differ from him in those apprehensions he has expressed in the
latter end of his preface, concerning what 1 had said about virtue and vice ; yet we are
better agreed than he thinks, in what he says in his third chapter, p. 7^'^ concerning
natural inscription, and innate notions. I shall not deny him tho privilege he claims,
p. 52, lo state the question as he pleases, especially when he stales it so, as lo leave
nothing in it contrary to what I have said : for according to him, innate notions being
conditional things depending upon the concurrence of several other circumstances, in order
to the soul's exerting them, all that he says for innate, imprinted, impressed notions (for
ef innate ideas he says nothing at all), amounts at last only to this ; that there are certain

«54 OF MORAL RELATIONS. book 2.

quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus ;'' which, he tells you,
are all names for the same thing, Tusc. 1. ii. This is the language
of the Heathen philosophers, who well understood wherein their
notions of virtue and vice consisted. And though, perhaps, by the
different temper, education, fashion, maxims, or interest of different
sorts of men, it fell out, that what was thought praiseworthy in one
place, escaped not censure in another; and so in different societies,
virtues ana vices were changed : yet, as to the main, they for the
most part, kept the same every where. For since nothing can be
more natural, than to encourage with esteem and reputation, that
wherein every one finds his advantage ; and to blame and discoun-
tenance the contrary ; it is no wonder that esteem and discredit,
virtue and vice, should, in a great measure, every where correspond
with the unchangeable rule of right and wrong, which the law of
God hath establislied ; there being nothing that so directly and vi-
sibly secures and advances the general good of mankind in this
world, as obedience to the laws he has set them, and nothing that
breeds such mischiefs and confusion, as the neglect of them. And,
therefore, men, without renouncing all sense and reason, and their
own interest, which they are so constantly true to, could not generally
mistake in placing their commendation and blame on that side that
really deserved it not. Nay, even those men, whose practice was
otherwise, failed not to give their approbation right ; {ew being de-
praved to that degree as not to condemn, at least in others, the faults
they themselves were guilty of: whereby even in the corruption of
manners, the true boundaries of the law of nature, which ought to
be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty well preserved. So that
even the exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to
appeal to common repute : " Whatsoever is lovely, whatsoever is

propositions, which though the soul from the beginning, or when a man is born, does not
know, yet, by assistance from the outward senses, and the help of some previous cultiva-
tion, it may afterwards come certainly to know the truth of; which is no more than what
I have affirmed in my first book. For I suppose by the soul's exerting them, he means
its beginning to know ihem ; or else the souls exerting of notions will be to me a very
unintelligible expression ; and, I tliink, at best is a very unfit one in this case, it misleading
men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these notions were in the mind before the soul exerts
them, i. e. before they are known : whereas truly before they are known, there is nothing of
them in the mind, but a capacity to know them, when the concurrence of those circumstances,
which this ingenious author thinks necessary, in order to the soul's exerting them, brings
ihem into our knowledge.

*• P. 52, I find liiin express it thus : ' these natural notions are not so imprinted upon the
soul, as that they naturally and necessarily exert themselves (even in children and idiots)
without any assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some previous culti-
vation.' Here he says they exert themselves, as p. 78, that the soul exerts them. When he
lias explained to himself or others what he means by the soul's exerting innate notions, or
their exerting themselves, and what that previous cultivation and circumstances, in order to
their being exerted, are ; he will, 1 suppose, find there is so little of controversy between him
•nd me in the point, bating that he calls that exerting of notions, which 1, in a more vulvar
style, call knowing, that I have reason to think he brought in my name upon this occasion
only out of the pleasure he has to speak civilly of me ; which I must gratefully acknowledge
he has done, wherever he menticms me, not without conferring on me, as some others have
done, a title I have no right to."

cii. 28. OF MORAL RELATIONS. 255

of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,"" &c.
Phil. iv. 8.

§ .12, Its enjbrcemeut^ commendation, and discredit. — If any one
sliould imagine, that I forgot my own notion of a law, when I make
the law whereby men judge of virtue and vice, to be nothing else
but the consent of private men, who have not authority enough to
make a law ; especially wanting that which is so necessary and es-
sential to a law, a power to enforce it ; I think I may say, that he who
imagines commendation and disgrace, not to be strong motives to
men, to accommodate themselves to the opinions and rules of those
with whom they converse, seems little skilled in the nature or his-
tory of mankind : the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern
themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion ; and so they
do that which keeps them in reputation with their company, little
regard the laws of God or the magistrate. The penalties that at-
tend the breach of God's laws, some, nay, perhaps most, men, sel-
dom seriously reflect on ; and amongst those that do, many, whilst
they break the law, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and
making their peace for such breaches : and as to the punishments
due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter
themselves with the hopes of impvmity. But no man escapes the
punishment of their censure and dislike, who offends against the
fashion and opinion of the company he keeps, and would recom-
mend himself to. Nor is there one of ten thousand, who is stiff*
and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and
condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and un-
usual constitution, who can content himself to live in constant dis-
grace and disrepute with his own particular society. SoHtude many
men have sought, and been reconciled to : but nobody, that has the
least thought or sense of a man about him, can live in society under
the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars, and those he
converses with. This is a burden too heavy for human sufferance :
and he must be made up of irreconcileable contradictions, who can
take pleasure in company, and yet be insensible of contempt and
disgrace from his companions.

§ 13. These three laivs, the ?'ules of moral good and evil. — These
three then. First, The law of God ; Secondly, The law of po-
litic societies ; Thirdly, The law of fashion, or private censure ;
are those to which men variously compare their actions: and it is
by their conformity to one of these laws, that they take their mea-
sures, when they would judge of their moral rectitude, and denomi-
nate their actions good or bad.

§ 14. Morality is the relation of actions to these rules. — Whe-
ther the rule, to which, as to a touch-stone, we bring our voluntary
actions, to examine them by, and try their goodness, and accord.-
ingly to name them ; which is, as it were, the mark of the value we
set upon them ; whether, I say? we take that rule from the fashion
of the country, or the will of the law-maker, the mind is easily able

256 OF MORAL RELATIONS. book 2.

to observe the relation any action hath to it ; and to j udge whether
the action agrees, or disagrees, with the rule ; and so hath a notion of
moral goodness or evil, ^vnich is either conformity or not conformity,
of any action to that rule ; and, therefore, is often called moral recti-
tude. This rule being nothing but a collection of several simple
ideas the conformity thereto is but so ordering the action, that the
simple ideas belonging to it, may correspond to those which the law
requires. And thus we see how moral beings and notions are
founded on, and terminated in, these simple ideas we have received
from sensation or reflection. For example. Let us consider the
complex idea we signify by the word murder ; and when we have
taken it asunder, and examined all the particulars, we shall find
them to amount to a collection of simple ideas derived from reflec-
tion or sensation, viz.. First, From reflection on the operations of
our own minds, we have the ideas of willing, considering, proposing
before-hand, malice, or wishing ill to another ; and also of life, or
perception, and self-motion. Secondly, From sensation, we have
the collection of those simple sensible ideas which are to be found
in a man, and of some action, whereby we put an end to perception
and motion in the man ; all which simple ideas, are comprehended
in the word murder. This collection of simple ideas being found
by me to agree or disagree with the esteem of the country I have
been bred in, and to be held by most men there, worthy praise or
blame, I call the action virtuous or vicious : if I have the will of a
supreme, invisible. Law-giver for my rule ; then, as I supposed the
action commanded or forbidden by God, I call it good or evil, sin
or duty : and if I compare it to the civil law, the rule made by
the legislative power of the country, I call it lawful or unlawful,
a crime or no crime. So that whenccsoever we take the rule
of moral actions, or by what standard soever we frame in our
minds the ideas of virtues or vices, they consist only, and are
made up of collections of simple ideas, which we originally re-
ceived from sense or reflection, and their rectitude or obliquity con-
sists in the agreement or disagreement with those patterns prescribed
by some law.

§ 15. To conceive rightly of moral actions, we must take notice
of them under this two-fold consideration. First, As they are in
themselves each made up of such a collection of simple ideas.
Thus drunkenness or lying, signify such or such a collection of
simple ideas, which I call mixed modes ; and in this sense, they are
as much positive absolute ideas, as the drinking of a horse, or
speaking of a parrot. Secoiidly, Our actions are considered as .
good, bad," or indifferent ; and in this respect, they are relative ; it
being their conformity to, or disagreement with, some rule, that
makes them to be regular or irregular, good or bad : and so, as far
as they are compared with a rule, and thereupon denominated, they
come under relation. Thus the challenging and fighting with a
man, as it is a certain positive mode, or particular sort of action, by

CH. 28. • O'P MORAL RELATIONS. 357

particular ideas distinguished from all others, is called ducllino- :
which, when considered in relation to the law of God, will deserve
the name sin ; to the law of fashion, in some countries, valour and
virtue; and to the municipal laws of some governments, a capital
crime. In this case, when the positive mode has one name, and
another name as it stands in relation to the law, the distinction may
as easily be observed, as it is in substances, where one name, v. g.
man, is used to signify the thing ; another, v. g. father, to signify
the relation.

§ 16. The denominations of actions often mislead us. — But be-
cause very frequently the positive idea of the action, and its moral
relation, are comprehended together under one name, and the same
word made use of to express both the mode or action, and its mo-
ral rectitude or obliquity ; therefore, the relation itself is less taken
notice of ; and there is often no distinction made between the posi-
tive idea of the action, and the reference it has to a rule. By which
confusion of these two distinct considerations under one term, those
who yield too easily to the impressions of sounds, and are forward
to take names for things, are often misled in their judgment of ac-
tions. Thus, the taking from another what is his, without his
knowledge or allowance, is properly called stealing : but that name
being commonly understood to signify also the. moral pravity of the
action, and to denote its contrariety to the law, men are apt to con-
demn whatever they hear called stealing, as an ill action, disagree-
ing with the rule of right. And yet, the private taking away his
sword from a madman, to prevent his doing mischief, though it be
! properly denominated stealing, as the name of such a mixed mode ;
I yet, when compared to the law of God, and considered in its rela-
tion to that supreme rule, it is no sin or transgression, though the
name stealing ordinarily carries such an intimation with it.
I § 17. Relations innumerable. — And thus much for the re-
I lation of human actions to a law, which, therefore, I call moral re-
, lation.

J It would make a volume to go over all sorts of relations : it is not

j therefore to be expected, that I should here mention them all. It

i suffices to our present purpose, to show by these, what the ideas

are we have of this comprehensive consideration, called relation :

i which is so various, and the occasions of it so many (as many as

'there can be of comparing things one to another), that it is not very

I easy to reduce it to rules, or under just heads. Those I have

mentioned, I think, are some of the most considerable, and

such as may serve to let us see from whence we get our ideas

of relations, and wherein they are founded. But before I

quit this argument, from what has been said, give me leave to

; observe :

i § 18. All relations terminate in simple ideas. — First, That it is
'evident, that all relation terminates in, and is ultimately founded on,
those simple ideas we have got from sensation or reflection : so that
all we have in our thoughts ourselves (if we think of any thing, or

258 OF MORAL RELATIONS. book 2.

liave any meaning), or would signify to others, when we use words
standing for relations, is nothing but some simple ideas, or collec-
tions of simple ideas, compared one with another. This is so mani-
fest in that sort called proportional, that nothing can be more. For
when a man says, honey is sweeter than wax^ it is plain, that his
thoughts in this relation, terminate in this simple idea, sweetness,
which is equally true of all the rest ; though, where they are com-
pounded, or decompounded, the simple ideas they are made up of,
are, perhaps, seldom taken notice of; v. g. when the word father is
n)entioned : First, There is meant that particular species, or collec-
tive idea, signified by the word man. Secondly^ Those sensible sim-
ple ideas signified by the word generation : and, Thirdly, the ef-
fects of it, and all the simple ideas signified by the word child. So
the word friend, being taken for a man who loves, and is ready to do
good to another, has all these following ideas to the making oi it up :
First, all the simj^le ideas comprehended in the word man, or in-
telligent being. Secondly, The idea of love. Thirdly, The idea of
readiness, or disposition. Fowthly, The idea of action, which is
any kind of thought or motion. Fifthly, The idea of good, which
signifies any thing that may advance his happiness, and terminates
at last, if examined, in particular simple ideas, of which the word
good, in general, signifies any one ; but if removed from all simple
ideas quite, it signifies nothing at all. And thus also all moral words
terminate at last, though, perhaps, more remotely, in a collection of
simple ideas: the immediate signification of relative words, being
very often other supposed known relations ; which, if traced one to
another, still end in simple ideas.

§ 19. We have ordmarily as clear {or clearer) a notion of the re-
lation, as of it^ foundation. — Secondly, That in relations, we have
for the most part, if not always, as clear a notion of the relation, as
we have of those simple ideas wherein it is founded : agreement or
disagreement^ whereon relation depends,, being things whereof we
have commonly as clear ideas as of any other whatsoever : it being
but the distinguishing simple ideas, or their degrees, one from an-
other, without which we could have no distinct knowledge at all.
For if I have a clear idea of sweetness, light, or extension, I have
too, of equal, or more, or less, of each of these : if I know what it is
for one man to be born of a woman, viz., Sempronia, I know what
it is for another man to be born of the same woman, Sempronia ; and
so have as clear a notion of brothers, as of births, and perhaps
clearer. For if I believed that Sempronia digged Titus out of the
parsley-bed (as they use to tell children), and thereby became Iiis
mother; and that afterwards in the same manner she ciigged Caius
out of the parsley-bed, I had as clear a notion of the relation of
brothers between them, as if I had all the skill of a midwife; the
notion that the same woman contributed, as mother, equally to their
births (though I were ignorant or mistaken in the manner of it), be-
ing that on which I grounded the relation, and that they agreed in
that circumstance of birth, let it be what it will. The comparing

CH. 29. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. 259

them then in their descent from the same person, without knowing
the particular circumstances of that descent, is enough to found my
notion of their having or not having the relation of brothers. But
though the ideas of particular relations are capable of being as clear
and distinct in the minds of those who will duly consider them, as
those of mixed modes, and more determinate than those of sub-
stances ; yet the names belonging to relation, are often of as doubtful
and uncertain signification, as those of substances or mixed modes ;
and much more than those of simple ideas : because relative words
being the marks of this comparison, which is made only by men''s
thoughts, and is an idea only in men's minds, men frequently apply
them to different comparisons of things, according to their own
imaginations, which do not always correspond with those of others
using the same names.

§ 20. The notion of the relation is the same^ whether the rule and
action to he compared is true or false. — Thirdly, That in these I call
moral relations, I have a true notion of relation by comparing the
action with the rule, whether the rule be true or false. For if I
measure any thing by a yard, I know whether the thing I measure
be longer or shorter than that supposed yard, though, perhaps, the
yard I measure by, be not exactly the standard ; which, indeed, is
another inquiry. For though the rule be erroneous, and I mistaken
in it, yet the agreement or disagreement observable in that which I
compare with, makes me perceive the relation. Though measur-
ing by a wrong rule, I shall thereby be brought to judge amiss of
its moral rectitude, because I have tried it by that which is not the
true rule, yet I am not mistaken in the relation which that action
bears to that rule I compare it to, which is agreement, or disagree-
ment.

CHAPTi5R XXIX.

OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE, DISTINCT AIJD CONFUSED IDEAS.

§ I . Ideas, some clear cmd distinct, others obscure and confused. —
Having shown the original of our ideas, and taken a view of their
several sorts ; considered the difference between the simple and the
complex, and observed how the complex ones are divided into those
of modes, substances, and relations ; all which, I think, is necessary
to be done by any one who would acquaint himself thoroughly with
•the progress of the mind in its apprehension and knowledge of
things, it will, perhaps, be thought I have dwelt long enough upon
the examination of ideas. I must, nevertheless, crave leave to offer
some few other considerations concerning them. The first is, that
some are clear, and others obscure ; some distinct, and others con-
fused.

§ 2. Clear and obscure, explained by sight. — The perception of

s2

260 OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. book 2

the mind being most aptly explained by words relating to the sight,
we shall best understand what is meant by clear and obscure in our
ideas, by reflecting on what we call clear and obscure in the objects
of sight, light being that which discovers to us visible objects, we
give the name of obscure to that which is not placed in a light suf-
ficient to discover minutely to us the figure and colours which are
observable in it, and which, in a better light, would be discernible.
In like manner, our simple ideas are clear, when they are such as
the objects themselves, from whence they were taken, did or might,
in a well-ordered sensation or perception, present them. Whilst
the memory retains them thus, and can produce them to the mind,
whenever it has occasion to consider them, they are clear ideas. So
far as they either want any thing of the original exactness, or have
lost any of their first freshness, and are, as it were, faded or tar-
nished by time, so far are they obscure. Complex ideas, as they
are made up of simple ones, so they are clear, when the ideas that go
to their composition are clear ; and the number and order of those
simple ideas, that are the ingredients of any complex one, is deter-
minate and certain.

§ 3. Causes of obscurity. — The causes of obscurity in simple
ideas, seem to be either dull organs, or very slight and tran-
sient impressions made by the objects; or else a weakness in
the memory not able to retain them as received. For to return
again to visible objects, to help us to apprehend this matter;
if the organs or faculties of perception, like wax over-hardened
with cold, will not receive the impression of the seal, from the
usual impulse wont to imprint it ; or, like wax of a temper too soft,
will not hold it well when well imprinted ; or else supposing the wax
of a temper fit, but the seal not applied with a sufficient force to
make a clear impression ; in any of these cases, the print left by the
seal, will be obscure. This, I suppose, needs no application to make
it plainer.

§ 4. Distinct and confused, what, — As a clear idea is that
whereof the mind has such a full and evident perception, as it does
receive from an outward object operating duly on a well-disposed
organ ; so a distinct idea is that wherein the mind perceives a aiff er-
ence from all other ; and a confused idea is such an one as is not
sufficiently distinguishable from another, from which it ought to be
different.

§ 5. Objection. — If no idea be confused, but such as is not suf-
ficiently distinguishable from another, from which it should be
different ; it will be hard, may any one say, to find any where a con-
fused idea. For let any idea be as it will, it can be no other but
such as the mind perceives it to be ; and that every perception suffi-
ciently distinguishes it from all other ideas, which cannot be other,
i. e. different, without being perceived to be so. No idea, therefore,
can be undistinguishable from another, from which it ought to be
different, unless ^ou would have it different from itself; from all otlier,
it is evidently different.

CH. 29. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. 261

§ 6. CoTifusion qf ideas is in reference to their names. — To re-
move this difficulty, and to help us to conceive aright what it is
that makes the confusion ideas are at any time chargeable with, we
must consider, that things ranked under distinct names, are sup-
posed different enough to be distinguished ; and so each sort, by
its peculiar name, may be m.'uked, and discoursed of apart upon
any occasion; and there is nothing more evident, than that the
greatest part of different names are supposed to stand for different
things. Now, every idea a man has, being visibly what it is, and
distinct from all other ideas but itself, that which makes it confused,
is, when it is such, that it may as well be called by another name,
as that which it is expressed by, the difference which keeps the
things (to be ranked under those two different names) distinct, and
makes some of them belong rather to the one, and some of them to
the other, of those names, being left out; and so the distinction,
which was intended to be kept up by those different names, is quite
lost.

§ 7. Defaults which maJce confusicm. — The defaults which usu-
ally occasion this confusion, I think, are chiefly these following :

First, complex idea^ made up of too few simple ones. — First, When
any complex idea (for it is complex ideas that are most liable to
confusion) is made up of too small a number of simple ideas, and
such only as are common to other things, whereby the differences
that make it, deserve a different name, are left out. Thus, he that
has an idea made up of barely the simple ones of a beast with spots,
has but a confused idea of a leopard, it not being thereby sufficiently
distinguished from a lynx, and several other sorts of beasts, that
are spotted. So that such an idea, though it has the peculiar name
leopard, is not distinguishable from those designed by the names
lynx, or panther, and may as well come under the name lynx, as
leopard. How much the custom of defining of words by general
terms, contributes to make the ideas we would express by them
confused and undetermined, I leave others to consider. This is
evident, that confused ideas are such as render the use of words un-
certain, and take away the benefit of distinct names. When the
ideas for which we use different terms, have not a difference answer-
able to their distinct names, and so cannot be distinguished by them,
there it is that they are truly confused.

§ 8. Secondly, or its simple ones jutMed disorderly together'. —
Secondly, Another fault which makes our ideas confused, is when
though the particulars that make vip any ideas, are in number
enough ; yet they are so jumbled together, that it is not easily dis-
cernible, whether it more belongs to the name that is given it, than
to any other. There is nothing more proper to make us conceive
this confusion, than a sort of pictures usually shown as surprising
pieces of art, wherein the colours, as they are laid by the pencil on
the table itself, mark out very odd and unusual figures, and have
no discernible order in their position. This draught thus made up
of parts, wherein no symmetry nor order appears, is, in itself, no

262 OF CLEAR AND OBSCUllE IDEAS. book 2.

more a confused thing, than the picture of a cloudy sky ; wlierein,
though there be as little order of colours or figures to be found, yet
nobody thinks it a confused picture. What is it then that makes it
to be thought confused, since the want of symmetry does not ? as
it is plain it does not ; for another draught made barely in imita-
tion of this, could not be called confused. I answer, that which makes
it be thought confused, is the applying it to some name, to which
it does no more discernibly belong, than to some other : v. g. when
it is said to be the picture of a man, or Caesar, then any one with
reason counts it confused. Because it is not discernible in that state
to belong more to the name man, or Ca?sar, than to the name baboon,
or Pompey, which are supposed to stand for different ideas from
those signified by man, or Caesar. But when a cylindrical mirror,
placed right, hath reduced those irregular lines on^fKe table into
their due order and proportion, then the confusion ceases, and the
eve presently sees that it is a man, or Caesar ; i. e. that it belongs to
tfiose names ; and that it is sufficiently distinguishable from a ba-
boon, or Pompey ; i. e. from the ideas signified by those names.
Just thus it is with our ideas, which are, as it were, the pictures of
things. No one of these mental draughts, however the parts are
put together, can be called confused (for they are plainly discernible
as they are), till it be ranked under some ordinary name, to which
it cannot be discerned to belong, any more than it does to some
Other name, of an allowed different signification.

§ 9. Thirdly, or are mutable and undetermined. — Thirdly, A
third defect that frequently gives the name of confused to our ideas,
is, when any one of them is uncertain, and undetermined. Thus we
may observe men, who not forbearing to use the ordinary words of
their language, till they have learned their precise signification,
change the idea they make this or that term stand for, almost as
often as they use it. He that does this out of uncertainty of what
he should leave out, or put into, his idea of church, or idolatry,
every time he thinks of either, and holds not steady to any one pre-
cise combination of ideas that makes it up, is said to have a confused
idea of idolatry, or the church ; though this be still for the same
reason as the former, viz. because a mutable idea (if we will allow it
to be one idea) cannot belong to one name, rather than anotlier ;
and so loses the distinction that distinct names are designed for.

§ 10. Confvsion withmit reference to names, tmrdly conceivable. —
By what has been said, we may observe how much names, as sup-
posed steady signs of things, and by their difference to stand for and
keen things distinct, that in themselves are difierent, are the occasion
of denominating ideas distinct or confused, by a secret and unob-
served reference the mind makes of its ideas to such names. This,
|K'rhaps, will be fuller understood, after what I say of words, in the
third book, has been read and considered. But without takiug
notice of such a reference of ideas to distinct names, as the signs of
distinct things, it will be hard to say what a confused idea is. And,
therefore, when a man designs, by any name, a sort of things, or
any one particular thing, (h'stinct fnmi all others, the complex

cH. 29. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. S63

idea he annexes to that name, is the more distinct, the more par-
ticular the ideas are, and the greater and more determinate the
number and order of them are, whereof it is made up. For the
more it has of these, the more it has still of the perceivable differ-
ences whereby it is kept separate and distinct from all ideas be-
longing to other names, even those that approach nearest to it, and
thereby all confusion with them is avoided.

§ 11. Confusion concerns always two ideas. — Confusion making
it a difficulty to separate two things that should be separated, con-
cerns always two ideas ; and those most, which most approach one
another. Whenever, therefore, we suspect any idea to be confused,
we must examine what other it is in danger to be confounded with,
br which it cannot easily be separated from, and that will always be
found an idea belonging to another name, and so should be a differ-
ent thing from which yet it is not sufficiently distinct ; being either
the same with it, or mailing a part of it, or at least, as properly called
by that name, as the other it is ranked under ; and so keeps not
that difference from that other idea, which the different names im-
port.

§ 12. Causes of confusion, — This, I think, is the confusion
proper to ideas, which still carries with it a secret reference to names.
At least, if there be any other confusion of ideas, this is that which most
of all disorders men'*s thoughts and discourses : ideas, as ranked un-
der names, being those that for the most part men reason of within
themselves, and always those which they commune about with
others. And therefore, where there are supposed two different
ideas marked by two different names, which are not as distinguish-
able as the sounds that stand for them, there never fails to be confu-
sion : and where any ideas are distinct, as the ideas of those two sounds
they are marked by, there can be between them no confusion. The
way to prevent it, is to collect and unite into one complex idea, as
precisely as is possible, all those ingredients whereby it is differ-
enced from others ; and to them so united in a determinate num-
ber and order, apply steadily the same name. But this neither
accommodating men''s ease or vanity, or serving any design but that
of naked truth, which is not always the thing aimed at, such exact-
ness is rather to be wished, than hoped for. And since the loose
application of names to undetermined, variable, and almost no ideas,
serves both to cover our own ignorance, as well as to perplex and
confound others, which goes for learning and superiority in know-
ledge, it is no wonder that most men should use it themselves, whilst
they complain of it in others. Though, I think, no small part of
the confusion to be found in the notions of men, might, by care and
ingenuity, be avoided ; yet I am far from concluding it every where
wilful. Some ideas are so complex, and made up of so many parts,
that the memory does not easily retain the very same precise com-
bination of simple ideas, under one name ; much less are we able
constantly to divine for what precise complex idea such a name
stands in another man^s use of it. From the first of these, follows
confusion in a man''s own reasonings and opinions within himself ;

26* OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. book %

from the latter, frequent confusion in discoursing and arguing with
others. But having more at large treated of words, their defects
and abuses, in the following book, I shall here say no more of it.

§ 13. Complex ideas may distinct in one pa7't, and confused in
aiioth€7\ — Our complex ideas being made up of collections, and so
variety of simple ones, may accordingly be very clear and distinct in
one part, and very obscure and confused in another. In a man
who speaks of a chilisedron, or a body of a thousand sides, the ideas
of the figure may be very confused, though that of the number be
very distmct ; so that he being able to discourse and demonstrate
concerning that part of his complex idea which depends upon the
number of a thousand, he is apt to think he has a distinct idea of a
chiliaedron ; though it be plain, he has no precise idea of its figure,
so as to distinguish it by that, from one that has but nine hundred
and ninety-nine sides. The not observing whereof, causes no small
error in men'*s thoughts, and confusion in their discourses.

§ 14. ThiSf if not heeded^ causes ccmfusion in our arguin^s, —
He that thinks he has a distinct idea of the figure of a chiliaedron,
let him, for triaPs sake, take another parcel of the same uniform
matter, viz. gold or wax, of an equal bulk, and make it into a fi-
gure of nine hundred and ninety-nine sides : he will, I doubt not,
be able to distinguish these two ideas, one from another, by the
number of sides ; and reason and argue distinctly about them, whilst
he keeps his thoughts and reasoning to that part only of these ideas,
which is contained in their numbers ; as that the sides of the one could
be divided into two equal numbers ; and of the others, not, &c. But
when he goes about to distinguish them by their figure, he will
there be presently at a loss, and not be able, I think, to frame in
his mind two ideas, one of them distinct from the other, by the bare
figure of these two pieces of gold ; as he could, if the same parcels
of gold were made one into a cube, the other a figure of five sides.
In which incomplete ideas, we are very apt to impose on ourselves,
and wrangle with others, especially where they have particular and
familiar names. For being satisfied in that part of the idea, wliich
we have clear ; and the name which is familiar to us, being applied
to the whole, containing that part also which is imperfect and ob-
scure, we are apt to use it for that confused part, and draw deduc-
tions from it in the obscure part of its signification, as confidently
as we do from the other.

§ 15. Instance in eternity, — Having frequently in our mouths
the name eternity, we are apt to think we have a positive compre-
hensive idea of it, which is as much as to say, that there is no part
of that duration which is not clearly contained in our idea. It is
true, that he that thinks so, may have a clear idea of duration ; he
may also have a very clear idea of a very great length of duration ;
he may also have a clear idea of the comparison of that great one,
with still a greater : but it not being }X)ssible for him to include in
Jiis idea of any duration, let it be as great as it will, the whole cxten
together of a duration, where he supposes no end, that part of hi
idea, which is btill lK»y<>nd the fjounds of that large duration he re

CH. S9. OF CLEAR AND OBSCURE IDEAS. ^65

presents to his own thoughts, is very obscure and undetermined.
And hence it is, that in disputes and reasonings concerning eternity,
or any other infinity, we are apt to blunder, and involve ourselves
in manifest absurdities.

§ 16. Divisibility of matter.— In matter, we have no clear
ideas of the smallness of parts, much beyond the smallest that occur
to any of our senses ; and, therefore, when we talk of the divisibility
of matter in iniinitum^ though we have clear ideas of division and
divisibility, and have also clear ideas of parts made out of a
whole by division ; yet we have but very obscure and confused ideas
of corpuscules, or minute bodies so to be divided, when by former
divisions they are reduced to a smallness much exceeding the per-
ception of any of our senses ; and so all that we have clear and
distinct ideas of, is of what division in general or abstractly is,
and the relation of totum and parts ; but of the bulk of the body,
to be thus infinitely divided after certain progressions, I think we
have no clear nor distinct idea at all. For I ask any one, whether
taking the smallest atom of dust he ever saw, he has any distinct
idea (bating still the number, which concerns not extension) betwixt
the 100,000th, and the 1,000,000th part of it .? Or if he thinks he
can refine his ideas to that degree, without losing sight of them, let
him add ten cyphers to each of those numbers. Such a degree of
smallness is not unreasonable to be supposed, since a division carried
on so far, brings it no nearer the end of infinite division, than the
first division into two halves, does. I must confess, for my part, I have
no clear distinct ideas of the different bulk or extension of those bo-
dies, having but a very obscure one of either of them. So that, I
think, when we talk of division of bodies in infinitum^ our idea of
their distinct bulks, which is the subject and foundation of division,
comes, after a little progression, to be confounded and almost lost
in obscurity. For that idea which is to represent only bigness,
must be very obscure and confused, which we cannot distinguish
from one ten times as big, but only by number ; so that we have
clear distinct ideas, we may say, of ten and one, but no distinct ideas
of two such extensions. It is plain from hence, that when we talk
of infinite divisibility of body, or extension, our distinct and clear
ideas are only of numbers ; but the clear distinct ideas of extension,
after some progress of division, are quite lost ; and of such minute
parts, we have no distinct ideas at all ; but it returns, as all our ideas
of infinite do, at last to that of number always to be added : but
thereby never amounts to any distinct idea of actual infinite parts.
We have, it is true, a clear idea of division, as often as we will
think of it ; but thereby we have no more a clear idea of infinite
parts in matter, than we have a clear idea of an infinite number, by
being able still to add new numbers to any assigned number we
have; endless divisibility giving us no more a clear and distinct
Idea of actually infinite parts, than endless addibihty (if I may so
speak) gives us a clear and distinct idea of an actually infinite num-
ber. They both being only in a power still of increasing the num-

^6 OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS, book %

ber, be it already as great as it will. So that of what remains to be
added (wherein consists the infinity), we have but an obscure, im-
perfect, and confused idea ; from or about which we can argue or
reason with no certainty or clearness, no more than we can in arith-
metic, aboui a number of which we have no such distinct idea, as
we have of four or one hundred : but only this relative obscure one,
that a^mpared to any other it is still bigger : and we have no more
a clear |X)sitive idea of it, when we say or conceive it is bigger, or
more than 400,000,000, than if we should say, it is bigger than
forty, or four ; 400,000,000 having no nearer a proportion to the
end of addition, or number, than four. For he that adds only four
to four, and so proceeds, shall as soon come to the end of all addi-
tion, as he that adds 400,000,000 to 400,000,000 ; and so likewise
in eternity, he that has an idea of but four years, has as much a po-
sitive complete idea of eternity, as he that has one of 400,000,000
of years ; for what remains oi eternity beyond either of these two
numbers of years, is as clear to the one as the other ; i. e. neither
of them has any clear positive idea of it at all. For he that adds
only four years to four, and so on, shall as soon reach eternity, as he
that adds 400,000,000 of years, and so on ; or if he please, dou-
bles the increase as often as he will ; the remaining abyss being still
as far beyond the end of all these progressions, as it is from the
length of a day, or an hour. For nothing finite bears any propor-
tion to infinite ; and therefore our ideas, which are all finite, cannot
bear any. Thus it is also in our idea of extension, when we increase
it by addition, as well as when we diminish it by division, and
would enlarge our thoughts to infinite space. After a few doublings
of those ideas of extension, which are the largest we are accus-
tomed to have, we lose the clear distinct idea of that space : it
becomes a confusedly great one, with a surplus of still greater ;
about which, when we would argue or reason, we shall always find
oin-selves at a loss ; confused ideas, in our arguings and deductions
from that part of them which is confused, always leading us into
confusion.

CHAPTER XXX.

OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS,

§ 1. Jical ideas are conformable to their archetypes. — Besides
what we have already mentioned concerning ideas, other considera-
ti^Mis belong to them, in reference to things from whence they are
taken,^ or which they may be supposed to represent ; and thus, I
think, they may come under a threefold distinction ; and are, L
Either real or fantastical. 2. Adequate or inadequate. 3. True
or false.

First, By real ideas, I mean such as have a foundation in nature ;

CH. 30. OF REAL AND FANTASTICAL IDEAS. 267

such as have a conformity with the real being and existence of things,
or with their archetypes. Fantastical or chimerical, I call such as
have no foundation in nature, nor have any conformity with that re-
ality of being to which they are tacitly referred as their archetypes.
If we examine the several sorts of ideas before mentioned, we shall
find, that,

§ 2. Simple ideas all real. — First, Our simple ideas are all real,
all agree to tne reality of things. Not that they are all of them the
images, or representations, of what does exist, the contrary whereof,
in all but the primary qualities of bodies, hath been already shown.
But though whiteness and coldness are no more in snow, than pain
is ; yet those ideas of whiteness and coldness, pain, &c., being in us
the effects of powers in things without us, ordained by our Maker,
to produce in us such sensations ; they are real ideas in us, whereby
we distinguish the qualities that are really in things themselves. For
these several appearances being designed to be the marks whereby
we are to know and distinguish things which we have to do with,
our ideas do as well serve us to that purpose, and are as real distin-
guishing characters, whether they be only constant effects, or else
exact resemblances of something in the things themselves ; the rea-
lity lying in that steady correspondence they have with the distinct
constitutions of real beings. But whether they answer to those con-
stitutions, as to causes or patterns, it matters not ; it suffices that
they are constantly produced by them. And thus our simple ideas
are all real and true, because they answer and agree to those powers
of things which produce them in our minds, that being all that is
requisite to make them real, and not fictions at pleasure. For in
simple ideas (as has been shown), the mind is wholly confined to the
operation of things upon it, and can make to itself no simple idea
more than what it has received.

§ S. Complex ideas are voluntarif combinations. — Though the
mind be wholly passive, in respect of its simple ideas ; yet 1 think
we may say it is not so, in respect of its complex ideas ; for those
being combinations of simple ideas put together, and united under
one general name, it is plain that the mind of man uses some kind of
liberty in forming those complex ideas ; how else comes it to pass,
that one man's idea of gold, or justice, is different from another's.^
but because he has put in, or left out of his, some simple idea which
the other has not. The question then is, which of these are real,
and which barely imaginary combinations.? What collections agree
to the reality of things, and what not ? And to this, I say, that,

§ 4. Mixed modes, made of consistent ideas, are real. — Secondli/,
Mixed modes and relations, having no other reality but what they
have in the minds of men, there is nothing more required to this
kind of ideas, to make them real, but that they be so framed, that
there be a possibility of existing conformable to them. These ideas
l^eing themselves archetypes, cannot differ from their archetypes,
and so cannot be chimerical, iniless any one will jumble together
in thcnt inconsistent ideas. Indeed,, as any of them have the nain^a

S68 ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS, book 2.

of a known language assigned to them, by which he that has them
in his mind, would signify them to others, so bare possibility of ex-
isting is not enough ; they must have a conformity to the ordinary
signification of the name that is given them, that they may not be
thought fantastical ; as if a man would give the name of justice to
that idea, which common use calls liberality. But this fantastical-
ness relates more to propriety of speech, than reality of ideas ; for
a man to be undisturbed in danger, sedately to consider what is fit-
test to be done, and to execute it steadily, is a mixed mode, or a com-
plex idea of an action which may exist. But to be undisturbed in
danger, without using one's reason or industry, is what is also pos-
sible to be ; and so is as real an idea as the other. Though the
first of these having the name courage given to it, may, in respect of
that name, be a right or wrong idea ; but the other, whilst it has
not a common received name of any known language assigned to it,
is not capable of any deformity, being made with no reference to
any thing but itself.

§ 5. Ideas of suhstances are real^ when they agree with the exist-
ence of things. — Thirdly, Our complex ideas of substances being
made, all of them, in reference to things existing without us, and
intended to be representations of substances, as they really arc, are
no farther real, than as they are such combinations of simple ideas,
as are really united, and co-exist in things without us. On the
contrary, those are fantastical, which are made up of such collec-
tions of simple ideas as were really never united, never were found
together in any substance ; v. g. a rational creature, consisting of a
horse's head, joined to a body of human shape, or such as the cen-
taurs are described ; or, a body yellow, very malleable, fusible, and
fixed; but lighter than common water; or, an uniform, unorgan-
ized body, consisting, as to sense, all of similar parts, with percep-
tion and voluntary motion joined to it. Whether such substances
as these can possibly exist, or no, it is probable we do not know :
but be that as it will, these ideas of substances being made conform-
able to no jmttern existing, that we know, and consisting of such
collections of ideas as no substance ever showed us united together,
they ought to pass with us for barely imaginary ; but much more
arc those complex ideas so, which contain in them any inconsistency
or contratliction of their parts.

CHAPTER XXXI.

OF ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS.

§ 1. Adequate ideas are siLch as perfectly represent their arche-
types.— Of our real ideas, some are adequate, and some are inade-
quate. Those I call adc(juate, which perfectly represent those

CH. 31. ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS. g69

archetypes which the mind supposes them taken from: which it
intends them to stand for, and to which it refers them. Inadequate
ideas are such, which are but a partial or incomplete representation
of those archetypes to which they are referred. Upon wliich account
it is plain,

§ ^. Simple ideas all adequate. — First, That all our simple ideas
are adequate: because, being nothing but the effects of certain
powers in things, fitted and ordained by God, to produce such
sensations in us, they cannot but be correspondent and adequate to
those powers ; and we are sure they agree to the reality of things.
For if sugar produce in us the ideas which we call whiteness, and
sweetness, we are sure there is a power in sugar to produce those
ideas in our minds, or else they could not have been produced by it.
And so each sensation answering the power that operates on any of
our senses, the idea so produced, is a real idea (and not a fiction of
the mind, which has no power to produce any simple idea) ; and
cannot but be adequate, since it ought only to answer that power ;
and so all simple ideas are adequate. It is true, the things producing
in us these simple ideas, are but few of them denominated by us, as
if they were only the causes of them ; but as if those ideas were real
beings in them. For though fire be called painful to the touch,
whereby is signified the power of producing in us the idea of pain :
yet it is denominated also light and heat; as if light and heat were
really something in the fire, more than a power to excite these ideas
in us ; and, therefore, are called qualities in, or of, the fire. But
these being nothing, in truth, but powers to excite such ideas in us,
I must, in that sense, be understood when I speak of secondary qua-
lities, as being in things ; or of their ideas, as being the objects that
excite them in us. Such ways of speaking, though accommodated
to the vulgar notions, without which one cannot be well understood,
yet truly signify nothing but those powers which are in things, to
excite certain sensations or ideas in us. Since were there no fit
organs to receive the impressions fire makes on the sight and touch ;
nor a mind joined to those organs to receive the ideas of light and
heat, by those impressions from the fire or sun, there would yet be
no more light or heat in the world, than there would be pain, if there
were no sensible creature to feel it, though the sun should continue
just as it is now, and Mount Etna flame higher than ever it did.
Solidity and extension, and the termination of it, figure, with mo-
tion and rest, whereof we have the ideas, would be really in the world
as they are, whether there were any sensible being to perceive them,
or no ; and, therefore, we have reason to look on those as the real
modifications of matter, and such are the exciting causes of all our
various sensations from bodies. But this being an enquiry not be-
longing to this place, I shall enter no farther into it, but proceed to
show what complex ideas are adequate, and what not.

§ 3. Modes are all adequate. — Secondly, Our complex ideas
of modes, being voluntary collections of simple ideas, which the
mind puts together, without reference to any real archetypes, or

270 ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS, book 2.

standing patterns, existing any where, are, and cannot but be, ade-
quate ideas ; because they not being intended for copies of things
really existing, but for archetypes made by the mind, to rank and
denominate things l)y, cannot want any thing ; they having, each of
them, that combmation of ideas, and thereby that perfection which
the mind intended they should ; so that the mind acquiesces in them,
and can find nothing wanting. Thus, by having the idea of a figure,
with three sides, meeting at three angles, I have a complete idea,
wherein I require nothing else to make it perfect. That the mind is
satisfied with the perfection of this, its idea, is plain in that it does
not conceive that any understanding hath, or can have, a more com-
plete or perfect idea of that thing it signifies by the word triangle,
supposing it to exist, than itself has in that complex idea of three
sides, and three angles : in which is contained all that is, or can be,
essential to it, or necessary to complete it, wherever or however it
exists. But in our ideas of substances, it is otherwise. For their
desiring to copy things, as they really do exist, and to represent to
ourselves that constitution, on which all their y)roperties depend,
we perceive our ideas attain not that perfection we intend ; we find
they still want something we should be glad were in them ; and so
are all inadequate. But mixed modes, and relations, being arche-
types without patterns, and so having nothing to represent but them-
selves, cannot but be adequate, every thing being so to itself. He that
at first put together the idea of danger perceived, absence or disorder
from fear, sedate consideration of what was justly to be done, and
executing that without disturbance, or being deterred by the danger
of it, had certainly in his mind that complex idea made up of that
combination ; and intending it to be nothing else but what it is, nor
to have in it any other simple ideas but what it hath, it could not
also but be an adequate idea ; and laying this up in his memory,
with the name courage annexed to it, to signify it to others, and
denominate from thence any action he should observe to agree with
it, had, thereby, a standard to measure and denominate actions by^
as they agreed to it. This idea thus made, and laid up for a pat-
tern, must necessarily be adequate, being referred to nothing else but
itself, nor made by any other original, but the good-liking and will
of him that first made this combination.

8 4. Modes in reference to settled tiames^ may he inadequate. —
Indeed, another coming after, and, in conversation, learning from
him the word courage, may make an idea, to which he gives the
name courage, different from what the first author applied it to, and
has in his mind, when he uses it. And in this case, if he designs
that his idea in thinking should be conformable to the other's
idea, as the name he uses in speaking is conformable in sounds to
his, from whom he learned it, nis idea may be very wrong and in-
adequate ; because, in this case, making the other man's idea the
pattern of his idea in thinking, as the other man's word, or sound,
IS the pattern of his in speaking, his idea is so far defective and inade-
quate, as it is distant from the archetype and pattern he refers it to.

cH. 31. ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS. 271

and intentls to express and signify by the name he uses for it ; which
name he would have to be a sign of the other man's idea (to which
in its proper use, it is primarily annexed), and of his own, as agreeing
to it ; to which, if his own does not exactly correspond, it is faulty
and inadequate.

§ 5. Therefore these complex ideas of modes, when they are
referred by tlie mind, and intended to correspond to the ideas in
the mind of some other intelligent being, expressed by the names
we apply to them, they may be very deficient, wrong, and in-
adequate ; because they agree not to that which the mind designs
to be their archetype and pattern ; in which respect only, any idea
of modes can be wrong, imperfect, or inadequate. And on this ac-
count, our ideas of mixed modes are the most liable to be faulty
of any other ; but this refers more to proper speaking, than know-
ing right-

§ 6. Ideas of substance?^ as referred to real essences^ not adequate.
— Thirdly, What ideas we have of substances, I have above shown ;
now, those ideas have in the mind a double reference : 1. Some-
times they are referred to a supposed real essence of each species
of things. 2. Sometimes they are only designed to be pictures
and representations in the mind of things that do exist by id^as
of those qualities that are discoverable in them. In both which
ways, these copies of those originals and archetypes, are imperfect
and inadequate.

First, It is usual for men to make the names of substances
stand for things, as supposed to have certain real essences,
whereby they are of this or that species ; and names standing for
nothing but the ideas that are in men''s minds, they must conse-
quently refer their ideas to such real essences, as to their archetypes.
That men (especially such as have been bred up in the learning
taught in this part of the world) do suppose certain specific essences
of substances, which each individual, in its several kinds, is made
conformable to, and partakes of, is so far from needing proof, that
it will be thought strange if any one should do otherwise. And
thus they ordinarily apply the specific name they rank parti-
cular substances under, to things, as distinguished by such specific
real essences. Who is there almost, who would not take it amiss,
if it should be doubted, whether he called himself a man, with any
other meaning than as having the real essence of a man ? And yet
if you demand, what those real essences are, it is plain men are ig-
norant, and know them not. From whence it follows, that the
ideas they have in their minds, being referred to real essences, as
to archetypes which are unknown, must be so far from being ade-
quate, that they cannot be supposed to be any representation of
them at all. The complex ideas we have of substances, are, as it
has been shown, certain collections of simple ideas that have been
observed or supposed constantly to exist together. But such a
complex idea cannot be the real essence of any substance ; for then
the properties we discover in that body, would depend on that

272 ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS, book 2.

complex idea, and be deducible from it, and their necessary con-
nexion with it be known ; as all properties of a triangle depend on,
and as far as they are discoverable, are deducible from, the complex
idea of three lines, including a space. But it is plain, that in our
complex ideas of substances, are not contained such ideas, on
which all the other qualities, that are to be found in them, do de-
pend. The common idea men have of iron, is a body of a certain
colour, weight, and hardness ; and a property that they look on as
belonging to it, is malleableness. But yet this property has no neces-
sary connexion with that complex idea, or any part of it ; and there
is no more reason to think, that malleableness depends on that co-
lour, weight, and hardness, than that that colour, or that weight,
depends on its malleableness. And yet, though we know nothing
of these real essences, there is nothing more ordinary, than that
men should attribute the sorts of things to such essences. The
particular parcel of matter, which makes the ring I have on my
finger, is forwardly, by most men, supposed to have a real essence,
whereby it is gold ; and from whence those qualities flow, which I
find in it, viz., its peculiar colour, weight, hardness, fusibility,
fixedness, and change of colour upon a slight touch of mercury.
Sec. This essence, from which all these properties flow, when I
enquire into it, and search after it, I plainly perceive I cannot
discover ; the farthest I can go is only to presume, that it being
nothing but body, its real essence, or internal constitution, ,on
which these qualities depend, can be nothing but the figure, size,
and connexion of its solid parts ; of neither of which, having any
distinct perception at all, I can have no idea of its essence, which
is the cause that it has that particular shining yellowness, a greater
weight than any thing I know of the same bulk, and a fitness to
have its colour changed by the touch of quicksilver. If any one
will say, that the real essence, and internal constitution, on which
these properties depend, is not the figure, size, and arrangement or
connexion of its solid parts, but something else, called its particu-
lar form ; I am farther from having any idea of its real essence,
than I was before ; for I have an idea of figure, size, and situation
of solid parts in general, though I have none of the particular
figure, size, or putting together of parts, whereby the qualities
above-mentioned are produced ; which qualities I find in that parti-
cular parcel of matter that is on my finger, and not in another parcel
of matter with which I cut the pen 1 write with. But when I am told,
that something besides the figure, size, and posture of the solid parts
of that Ixxly, is its essence, something called substantial form ; of that,
I confess, I have no idea at all, but only of the sound form ; which
is far enough from an idea of its real essence, or constitution. The
like ignorance as I have of the real essence of this particular sub-
stance, I have also of the real essence of all other natural ones ; of
which essences, I confess, I have no distinct ideas at all ; and I
am apt to suppose others, when they examine their own knowledge,
will find in themselves, in this one point, the same sort of ignorance.

CH. 31. ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS. 273

§ 7. Now then, when men apply to this particular parcel of mat-
ter on my finger, a general name already in use, and denominated
gold, do they not ordinarily, or are they not understood to, give it
that name as belonging to a particular species of bodies having a
real internal essence ; by having of which essence, this particular
substance comes to be of that species, and to be called by that name ?
If it be so, as it is plain it is, the name by which things are marked,
as having that essence, must be referred primarily to that essence ;
and consequently the idea to which that name is given, must be re-
ferred also to that essence, and be intended to represent it. Which
essence, since they, who so use the names, know not their ideas of
substances, must be all inadequate in that respect, as not containing
in them that real essence which the mind intends they should.

§ 8. Ideas of substances, as collections qf their qualities, are all
inadequate. — Secondly, Those who neglecting that useless suppo-
sition of unknown real essences, whereby they are distinguished,
endeavour to copy the substances that exist in the world, by
putting together the ideas of those sensible qualities which are found
co-existing in them, though they come much nearer a likeness of
them, than those who imagine they know not what real specific es-
sences ; yet they arrive not at perfectly adequate ideas of those sub-
stances they would thus copy into their minds ; nor do those copies
exactly and fully contain all that is to be found in their archetypes.
Because those qualities, and powers of substance, whereof we make
their complex ideas, are so many and various, that no man's com-
plex idea contains them all. That our abstract ideas of substances,
do not contain in them all the simple ideas that are united in the
things themselves, it is evident, in that men do rarely put into their
complex idea of any substance, all the simple ideas they do know to
exist in it. Because, endeavouring to make the signification of their
names as clear, and as little cumbersome, as they can, they make
their specific ideas of the sorts of substances, for the most part, of a
few of those simple ideas which are to be found in them : but these
having no original precedency, or right to be put in, and make the
specific idea more than others that are left out, it is plain, that both
these ways, our ideas of substances are deficient and inadequate.
The simple ideas whereof we make our complex ones of substances,
are all of them (bating only the figure and bulk of some sorts)
powers, which being relations to other substances, we can never be
sure that we know all the powers that are in any one body, till we
have tried what changes it is fitted to give to, or receive from, other
substances, in their several ways of application : which being im-
possible to be tried upon any one body, much less upon all, it is
impossible we should have adequate ideas of any substance made up
of a collection of all its properties.

§ 9. Whosoever first lighted on a parcel of that sort of substance
we denote by the word gold, could not rationally take the bulk and
figure he observed in that lump, to depend on its real essence or in-
ternal constitution. Therefore those never went into his idea of that

2U ADEQUATE AND INADEQUATE IDEAS, book 2.

species of body ; but its peculiar colour, perhaps, and weight, were
the first he abstracted from it, to make the complex idea of that
species. AVhich both are but powers; the one to affect our eyes
after such a manner, and to produce in us that idea we call yellow ;
and the other, to force upwards any other body of equal bulk, they
being })ut into a pair of equal scales, one against another. Another,
perhaps, added to these, the ideas of fusibiHty and fixedness, two
other ])assive powers, in relation to the operation of fire upon it ;
another, its ductility and solubility in aqua 7'egia; two other powers,
relating to the operation of other bodies, in changing its outward
figure or separation of it into insensible parts. These, or part of
these, put together, usually make the complex idea in men"'s minds,
of that sort of body we call gold.

§ 10. But no one, who hath considered the properties of bodies
in general, or this sort in particular, can doubt, that this called gold,
has infinite other properties, not contained in that complex idea.
Some, who have examined this species more accurately, could, T
believe, enumerate ten times as many properties in gold, all of them
as inseparable from its internal constitution, as its colour, or weight;
and, it is probable, if any one knew all the properties that are by
divers men known of this metal, there would be an hj.mdred times
as many ideas go to the complex idea of gold, as any one man yet
has in his ; and yet, perhaps, that not be the thousandth part of
what is to be discovered in it. The changes which that one body
is apt to receive, and make in other bodies, upon due application,
exceeding far, not only what we know, but what we are apt to ima-
gine. Which will not appear so much a paradox, to any one who
will but consider how far men are yet from knowing all the proper-
ties of that one, no very compound figure, a triangle, though it be
no small number that are already by mathematicians discovered
of it.

§ 11. Ideas of substances^ as collections of their q\ialit\es^ are all
inadequate. — So that all our complex ideas of substances, are im-
perfect and inadequate. Which would be so also in mathematical
figures, if we were to have our complex ideas of them only by collect-
ing their properties in reference to other figures. How uncertain
and imperfect would our ideas be of an ellipsis, 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. Simple ideas, axluTfa, and adequate. — This in the mind has
three sorts of abstract ideas, or nominal essences.

Fi7st, Simple ideas, which are iahira, or copies; but yet cer-
tainly adequate. Because being intended to express nothing but tlu'
power in tilings to produce in the mind such a sensation, that sen-
sation 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 sperik
according to the common notion of light), to produce in men tlu

CH. 82. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. 275

sensation which I call \\ hitc, 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 idea in itself, 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, it is perfectly adequate to that
power ; or else, that power would produce a different idea.

§ 13. Ideas of substances are sKhnrai inadequate, — Secondly, The
complex ideas of substances, are ectypes, copies too; but not per-
fect 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 an-
swers all that are in that substance : since not having tried all the
operations of all other substances upon it, and found all the altera-
tions it would receive from, or cause in, other substances, it cannot
have an exact adequate collection of all its active and passive capa-
cities ; and so not have an adequate complex idea of the powers of
any substance existing, and its relations, which is that sort of com-
plex ideas of substances we have. And, after all, if we would have,
and actually had, in our complex idea, an exact collection of all the
secondary 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 es-
sence of that substance, but depend on it, and flow from it, any col-
lection 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 itself.

§ 14. Ideas of modes and relations, are archetypes, and cannot hut
he adequate. — 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 itself puts together, and such collections, that each of
them contains in it precisely all that the mind intends that 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.

CHAPTER XXXII.

OF TIIUE AND FALSK IDEAS.

§ 1. Truth and falsehood properly belong" to propositions, —
lough truth and falsehood belong, in propriety of speech, only to

' T 2 ^

*e76 OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. book %

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 sec, if we examine the particular occa-
sions wherein they come to be called tme or false. In all which,
we shall find some kind of affirmation, or negation, which is the rea-
son 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. Metaphysical truth contains a tacit proposition. — Indeed,
lK)th 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, looked upon as the standards of that truth, which
amounts to a mental proposition, though it be usually not taken
notice of.

§ 3. No idea, as an appearance in the mind, true oi' false. — But
it 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 falsehood in it, when it appears in our minds, than
the name centaur has falsehood in it, when it is pronounced by our
mouths, or written on paper. For truth or falsehood 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 judg-
ment on them ; that is, affirms or denies something of them.

§ 4. Ideas referred to any thing may he true or false. — Wlien-
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 nappens to be true or false ; so
ttie ideas themselves come to be denominated. The most usual cases
wherein this happens, are these following :

§ 5. Other merCs ideas, real existence, and supposed real essences,
are what men usually refer their ideas to. — Fi^'st, When the mind
supposes any idea it has in itself, to be conformable to that in other
inen'*8 minds, called by the same common name ; v. g. when the
mind intends or judges its ideas of justice, temperance, religion,
to be the same with what other men give those names to.

Secondly, When the mind supposes any idea it has in itself, toi
be conformable to some real existence. Thus the two ideas of a niani
and a centaur, supposed to be the ideas of real substances, are the

CH. 32. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. 277

one true, and the other false ; the one having a conformity to what
has really existed, the other not.

Thirdly^ When the mind refers any of its ideas to that real con-
stitution and essence of any thing, whereon all its properties depend :
and thus the greatest part, if not all our ideas of substances, are false:

§ 6. The cause of such references . — These suppositions the mind
is very apt tacitly to make concerning its own ideas : but yet if we
will examine it, we shall find it is chiefly, if not only, concerning
its abstract complex ideas. For the natural tendency of the mind
being towards knowledge ; and finding that, if it should proceed by,
and dwell upon, only particular things, its progress would be very
slow, and its work endless : therefore, to shorten its way to know-
ledge, and make each perception the more comprehensive, the first
thing it does, as the foundation of the easier enlarging its knowledge,
either by contemplation of the things themselves that it would know,
or conference with others about them, is to bind them into bundles,
and rank them so into sorts, that what knowledge it gets of any of
them, it may thereby with assurance extend to all of that sort ; and
so advance by larger steps in that, which is its great business, know-
ledge. This, as I have elsewhere shown, is the reason why we col-
lect things under comprehensive ideas, with names annexed to them,
into genera and species, i, e. into kinds and sorts.

§ 7. If, therefore, we will warily attend to the motions of the
mind, and observe what course it usually takes in its way to know-
ledge, we shall, I think, find, that the mind having got an idea,
whicli it thinks it may have use of, either in contemplation or dis-
course, the first thing it does, is to abstract it, and then get a name
to it : and so lay it up in its store-house, the memory, as containing
the essence of a sort of things, of which that name is always to be
the mark. Hence it is, that we may often observe, that when any
one sees a new thing of a kind that he knows not, he presently asks
what it is, meaning by that inquiry, nothing but the name. As if
the name carried with it the knowledge of the species, or the essence
of it, whereof it is indeed used as the mark, and is generally sup-
posed annexed to it.

§ 8. The cause cifsuch references, — But this abstract idea being
something in the mind between the thing that exists, and the name
that is given to it; it is in our ideas, that both the rightness of our
knowledge, and the propriety or intelligibleness of our speaking,
consists. And hence it is, that men are so forward to suppose that
the abstract ideas they have in their minds, are such as agree to the
things existing without them, to which they are referred ; and are
the same, also, to which the names they give them, do, by the use
and propriety of that language, belong. For without this double
conformity of their ideas, they find they should both think amiss of
things in themselves, and talk of them unintelligibly to others.

§ 9. Siniple ideas may hejalse, iti reference to others of the same
name, hut are least liable to be so. — First, Then, I say, that when

21S OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. book 2.

the truth of our ideas is judged of by the conformity they have to
the ideas which otlier men have, and commonly signify by the same
name, they may be any of them false. But yet simple ideas are
least of all liable to be so mistaken : because a man by his senses,
and every day'*s observation, may easily satisfy himself Avhat the
simple ideas are, which their several names that are in common use
stand for, they being but few in nimiber, and such, as if he doubts
or mistakes in, he may easily rectify by the objects they are to be
found in. Therefore, it is seldom that any one mistakes in his names
of simple ideas ; or applies the name red, to the idea of green ; or
the name sweet, to the idea bitter : much less are men apt to con-
found the names of ideas belonging to different senses ; and call a
colour by the name of a taste, &c., whereby it is evident, that the
simple ideas they call by any name, are commonly the same that
others have and mean, when they use the same names.

§ 10. Ideas of mixed modes most liable to be false in this sense, —
Complex ideas are much more liable to be false in this respect ; and
the complex ideas of mixed modes, much more than those of sub-
stances: because in substances (especially those which the common
and unborrowed names of any language are applied to), some re-
markable sensible qualities, serving ordinarily to distinguish one
sort from another, easily preserve those, who take any care in the
use of their words, from applying them to sorts of substances to which
they do not at all belong. But in mixed modes, we are much mpre
uncertain, it being not so easy to determine of several actions, whe-
ther they are to be called justice or cruelty ; liberality or prodigality.
And so in referring our ideas to those of other men, called by the
same names, ours may be false ; and the idea in our minds, which
we express by the word, justice, may, perhaps, be that which ought
to have another name.

§ 11. Or at least to be thought false. — But whether or no our
ideas of mixed modes are more liable than any sort, to be different
from those of other men, which are marked by the same names :
this at least is certain, that this sort of falsehood is much more fa-
miliarly attributed to our ideas of mixed modes, than to any other,
when a man is thought to have a false idea of justice, or gratitude,
or glory, it is for no other reason, but that his agrees not with the
ideas which each of those names are the signs of in other men.

§ 12. And why. — The reason whereof seems to me to be tliis,
that the abstract ideas of mixed modes, being men'^s voluntary com-
binations of such a precise collection of simple ideas; and so the
c?»sence of each species being made by men alone, whereof we have
no other sensible standard existing any where: but the name itself,
or the definition of that name : we have nothing else to refer these
our ideas of mixed modes to, as a standard to which we would con-
form them, but the ideas of those who are thought to use those i
imnies in tlieir most proper significations; and so, as our ideas con-
form, or differ from them, they pass for true or false. And thus

(H. 32. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. 279

niucli concerning the truth and falsehood of our ideas in reference
to their names.

§ 13. As referred to real existences^ none of our ideas can hcjahe^
but those of substances. — Secondly, As to the truth and falsehood
of our ideas, in reference to the real existence of things, when that
is made the standard of their truth, none of them can be termed
false but only complex ideas of substances.

§ 14. First, siyn^le ideas in this sense not false, and why. — First,
Our simple ideas bemg barely such perceptions as God has fitted
us to receive, and given power to external objects to produce in us
by established laws and ways, suitable to his wisdom and goodness,
though incomprehensible to us, their truth consists in nothing else
but in such appearances as are produced in us, and must be suitable
to those powers he has placed in external objects, or else they coidd
not be produced in us : and thus answering those powers, thev are
what they should be, true ideas. Nor do they become liable to
any imputation of falsehood, if the mind (as in most men I believe
it does) judges these ideas to be in the things themselves. For God
in his wisdom, having set them as marks of distinction in things,
whereby we may be able to discern one thing from another, and so
choose any of them for our use^, as we have occasion, it alters not
the nature of our simple idea, whether we think, that the idea of
blue be in the violet itself, or in our mind only ; and only the power
of producing it by the texture of its parts, reflecting the particles of
light, after a certain manner, to be in the violet itself. For that
texture in the object, by a regular and constant operation, produc-
ing the same idea of blue in us, it serves us to distinguish by our
eyes, that from any other thing, whether that distinguishing mark,
as it is really in the violet, be only a peculiar texture of parts, or
else that very colour, the idea whereof (which is in us) is the exact
resemblance. And it is equally from that appearance to be deno-
minated blue, whether it be that real colour, or only a peculiar tex-
ture in it, that causes i« us that idea : since the name blue notes
properly nothing but that mark of distinction that is in a violet,
discernible only by our eyes, whatever it consists in, that being be-
yond our capacities distinctly to know, and, perhaps, would be of
less use to us, if we had faculties to discern.

(:} 15. Though one man's idea of blue should he different from
another^ s. — Neither would it carry any imputation of falsehood to
our simple ideas, if by the different structure of our organs, it were
so ordered, that the same object should produce in several men's
minds different ideas at the same time ; v. g. if the idea that a violet
produced in one man's mind by his eyes, were the same that a mari-
gold produced in another mane's, and vice versa. For since this
could never be known, because one man's mind could not pass into
another man's body, to perceive what appearances were produced
by those organs ; neither the ideas hereby, nor the names, would
be at all confounded, or any falsehood be in either. For all things
that had the texture of a violet, producing constantly the idea that

;

280 OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. book 2

he called blue; and those which had the texture of a marigold,
producing constantly the idea which he has constantly called yellow,
whatsoever those appearances were in his mind, he would be able
as regularly to distinguish things for his use by those appearances,
and understand and signify those distinctions, marked by the names
blue and yellow, as if the appearances, or ideas in his mind, received
from those two flowers, were exactly the same with the ideas in other
men^s minds. I am nevertheless very apt to think, that the sensi-
ble ideas produced by any object in different men's minds, are most
commonly very near and undiscernibly alike. For which opinion,
I think, there might be many reasons offered : but that being besides
my present business, I shall not trouble my reader with them : but
only mind him, that the contrary supposition, if it could be proved,
is of little use, either for the improvement of our knowledge, or
convenience of life; and so we need not trouble ourselves to
examine it.

§ IG. Firsts simple ideas in this sense notfalse^ and why ? — From
what has been said concerning our simple ideas, I think it evident,
that our simple ideas can none of them be false, in respect of things
existing without us. For the truth of these appearances, or percep-
tions in our minds, consisting, as has. been said, only in their being
answerable to the powers in external objects, to produce by our
senses such appearances in us, and each of them being in the mind,
such as it is suitable to the power that produced it, and which alone
it represents, it cannot, upon that account, or as referred to such a
pattern, be false. Blue or yellow, bitter or sweet, can never be false
ideas; these perceptions in the mind are just such as they are there,
answering the powers appointed by God to produce them ; and so
are truly what they are, and intended to be. Indeed the names
may be misapplied ; but that in this respect, makes no falsehood in
the ideas : as if a man ignorant in the English tongue, should call
purple, scarlet.

§ 17. Secondly^ modes not false, — Secondly^ Neither can our com-
plex ideas of nioofes, in reference to the essence of any thing really
existing, be false. Because whatever complex idea I have of any
mode, it hath no reference to any pattern existing, and made by
nature ; it is not supposed to contain in it any other ideas than what
it hath ; nor to represent any thing, but such a complication of ideas
as it does. Thus, when I have the idea of such an action of a man,
who forbears to afford himself such meat, drink, and clothing, and
other necessaries of life, as his riches and estate will be sufficient to
supply, and his station requires, I have no false idea ; but such an
one as represents an action, either as I find or imagine it ; and s^"
1*8 capable of neither truth or falsehood. But when 1 give the nam^
of frugality, or virtue, to this action, then it may be called a fala
idea, if thereby it be supposed to agree with that idea, to which, ii
propriety of speech, the name of frugality doth belong; or to be ^
conformable to that law, which is the standard of virtue and vice.

§ 18. Thirdly, ideas of substances when false. — Thirdly, Our

CH. S2. OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. 281

complex ideas of substances, being all referred to patterns in things
themselves, may be false. That they are all false, when looked upon
as the representations of the unknown essences of things, is so
evident, that there needs nothing to be said of it. I shall, there-
fore, pass over that chimerical supposition, and consider them as
collections of simple ideas in the mind, taken from combinations of
simple ideas existing together constantly in things, of which patterns
they are the supposed copies : and in this reference of them, to the
existence of things, they are false ideas. 1. When they put together
simple ideas, which in the real existence of things have no union ;
as when to the shape and size that exist together in a horse, is joined
in the same complex idea, the power of barking like a dog : which
three ideas, however put together into one in the mind, were never
united in nature ; and this, therefore, may be called a false idea of a
horse. 2. Ideas of substances are, in this respect, also false, when
from any collection of simple ideas that do always exist together,
there is separated, by a direct negation, any other simple idea which
is constantly joined with them. Thus, if to extension, solidity, fusi-
bility, the peculiar weigh tiness, and yellow colour of gold, any one
join in his thoughts the negation of a greater degree of fixedness than
is in lead or copper, he may be said to have a false complex idea ; as
well as when he joins to those other simple ones, the idea of a perfect
absolute fixedness. For either way, the complex idea of gold being
made up of such simple ones as have no union in nature, may be
termed false. But if we 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.

§ 1 9. Truth andjalsehood always supposes ^fftrmatioii or negation,
— Though in compliance with the ordinary way of speaking, I have
shown 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 called 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 falsehood, 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 falsehood in the contrary, as shall be more
fully shown hereafter.

§ 20. Ideas in themselves neither true nor false. — Any idea then
which we have in our minds, whether conformable or not to the ex-
istence of things, or to any idea in the minds of other men, cannot
properly for this alone be called false. For these representations,

282 OF TRUE AND FALSE IDEAS. book 2.

if they have nothing in them but ^vhat 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 represen-
tations, or ideas, of things they do not represent. But the mistake
and falsehood is,

§ 21. Jhtt are false, Jirst when judged agreeable tj anoilier man's
idea uithout being so. — First, When the mind having any idea, it
judges and concludes it the same that is in other men's minds, sig-
nified 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 judged to agree to real existence, when they
do not. — 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 judged adequate without being so. — Thirdly,
When in its complex idea, it has united a certain number of simple
ideas, that do really exist together in some sort of creatures, but has
also left out others, as much inseparable, it judges this to be a per-
fect complete idea of a sort of things which really it is not ; v. g.
having joined the idea of substance, yellow, malleable, most heavy,
and fusible, it takes that complex idea to be the complete idea of
gold, when yet its peculiar fixedness and solubility in aqua regia, are
as inseparable from those other ideas or qualities of tliat body, as
they are one from another.

§ 24. Fourthly, when judgedtorepresent the real essence. — 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 pow-
ers 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 a
few, in comparison of what are really in that body, atid 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
including a space, make up that essence : but the properties that
flow from this essence, are more than can be easily known or enu-
merated. 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. Ideas, when false* — To conclude, a man having no notion
of any thing without hnn, but by the idea he has of it in his mind

CH. 33. OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 283

(which idea he has a power to call by what name he pleases), he
may, indeed, make an idea neither answering the reahty of thinsjs,
nor agreeing to the ideas commonly signified by other people's
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 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
falsehood lies 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, with-
out thinking either that existence, or the name of man or Tartar,
belongs to it, I will call it a man or Tartar, I may be justly thought
fantastical in the naming ; but not erroneous in my judgment ; nor
the idea any way false.

§ 26. More properly to he called rigid or wrong. — Upon the whole
matter, I think, that our ideas, as they are considered by the mind,
cither 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, it 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 falsehood, 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 our 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 wrong, as far as they disagree with such archetypes.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS.

§ 1. Something unreasonable in most men. — There is scarce any
one that does not observe something that seems odd to him, and is
in itself really extravagant in the opinions, reasonings, and actions of
other men. The least flaw of this kind, if at all different from his
own, every one is quick-sighted enough to espy in another, and will,
.by the authority of reason, forwardly condemn, though he be guilty
of much oTealer unreasonableness in his own tenets and conduct,

284 OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. book 2.

which he never perceives, and will very hardly, if at all, be con-
vinced of.

I 2. Not ivliolly from self-love, — This proceeds not wholly from
self-love, though that has often a great hand in it. Men of fair minds,
and not given up to the overweening of self-flattery, are frequently
guilty of it ; and in many cases one with amazement hears the ar-
guings, and is astonished at the obstinacy, of a worthy man, who
yields not to the evidence of reason, though laid before him as clear
as daylight.

§ 3. Not from education. — This sort of unreasonableness is usually
imputed to education and prejudice, and for the most part truly
enough, though that reaches not to the bottom of the disease, nor
shows distinctly enough whence it rises, or wherein it lies. Educa-
tion is often rightly assigned for the cause, and prejudice is a good
general name for the thing itself: but yet, I think, he ought to look
a little farther, who would trace this sort of madness to the root it
springs from, and so explain it, as to show whence this flaw has its
original in very sober and rational minds, and wherein it consists.

§ 4. A degree of madness. — I shall be pardoned for calling it by
so harsh a name as madness, when it is considered, that opposition
to reason deserves that name, and is really madness ; and there is
scarce a man so free from it, but that, if he should always, on all
occasions, argue or do as in some cases he constantly does, woukl
not be thought fitter for Bedlam, than civil conversation. I do not
here mean when he is under the power of an unruly passion, but in
the steady calm course of his life. That which will yet more apolo-
gize for this harsh name, and ungrateful imputation on the greatest
part of mankind, is, that enquiring a little by-the-by into the nature
of madness, b. 2. c. 11. § 13. I found it to spring from the very same
root, and to depend on the very same cause, we are here speaking
of. This consideration of the thing itself at a time when I thought
not the least on the subject which 1 am now treating of, suggested
it to me. And, if this be a weakness to which all men are so liable ;
if this be a taint which so universally infects mankind, the greater
care should be taken to lay it open under its due name, thereby to
excite the greater care in its prevention and cure.

§ 5. From a wroftig connexion of ideas. — Some of our ideas have
a natural correspondence and connexion one with another : it is the
office and excellency of our reason to trace these, and hold them
together in that union and correspondence which is founded in tlieir
jKXJuliar beings. Besides this, there is another connexion of ideas
wholly owing to chance or custom ; ideas that in themselves are no^
at all of kin, come to be so united in some men's minds, that it"ls
very hard to separate them ; they always keep in company, and the
one no sooner at any time comes into the understanding, but its
associate appears with it ; and if they are more than two, which are
thus united, the whole gang, always inseparable, show themselves
together.

§ 6. This connexion lu)w wad^.— This strong combination of ideas,

CH. 33. OF TFIE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 285

not allayed by nature, the mind makes in itself either voluntarily, or
by chance ; and hence it comes in different men to be very different,
according to their different inclinations, education, interests, &c.
Custom settles habits of thinking in the understanding, as well as
of determining in the will, and of motions in the body; all which
seem to be but trains of motion in the animal spirits, which
once set agoing, continue in the same steps they have been used to,
which by often treading, are worn into a smooth path, and the
motion in it becomes easy, and, as it were, natural. As far as we
can comprehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our
minds ; or if they are not, this may serve to explain their following
one another in an habitual train, when once they are put into their
track, as well as it does to explain such motions of the body. A
musician used to any tune, will find, that let it but once begin in his
"Read^the ideas of the several notes of it will follow one another
orderly in his understanding, without any care or attention, as regu-
larly as his fingers move orderly over the keys of the organ to play
out the tune he has begun, though his unattentive thoughts be else-
where a wandering. VVhether the natural cause of these ideas, as
well as of that regular dancing of his fingers, be the motion of his
animal spirits, 1 will not determine, how probable soever by this ill-
stance it appears to be so, but this may help us a little to conceive of
intellectual habits, and of the tying together of ideas.

§ 7. Some antipathies an effect of it. — I'hat there are such asso-
ciations of them made by custom in the minds of most men, I think
nobody will question, who has well considered himself or others ;
and to this, perhaps, might be justly attributed most of the sympa-
thies and antipathies observable in men, which work as strongly,
and produce as regular effects, as if they were natural, and are, there-
fore, called so, though they, at first, had no other original, but the
accidental connexion of two ideas, which either the strength of the
firiit impression, or future indulgence, so united, that they always
afterwards keep company together in that man"'s mind, as if they
were but one idea. I say, most of the antipathies, I do not say all,
for some of them are truly natural, depend upon our original consti-
tution, and are born with us ; but a great part of those which are
counted natural, would have been known to be from unheeded,
though, perhaps, early impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which
would have been acknowledged the original of them, if they had
been warily observed. A grown person surfeiting with honey, no
sooner hears the name of it, but his fancy immediately carries sick-
ness and qualms to his stomach, and he cannot bear the very idea
of it ; other ideas of dislike, and sickness, and vomiting, presently
accompany it, and he is disturbed, but he knows from whence to
date this weakness, and can tell how he got this indisposition ; had
this happened to him by an overdose of honey, when a child, all
the same effects would have followed, but the cause would have been
mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural.

§ 8. I mention this, not out of any great necessity there is in this

286 OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. book 2.

present argument, to distinguish nicely between natural and acquired
antipathies, but I take notice of it for another purpose, viz., that those
who have children, or the charge of their education, would think it
worth their while, diligently to watch, and carefully to prevent, the
undue connexion of ideas in the minds of young people. This is the
time most susceptible of lasting impressions ; and though those re-
lating to the health of the body, are, by discreet people, minded and
fenced against ; yet I am apt to doubt, that those which relate more
peculiarly to the mind, and terminate in the understanding, or pas-
sions, have been much less heeded than the thing deserves; nay,
those relating purely to the understanding, have, as I suspect, been,
by most men, wholly overlooked.

§ 9. yi g7'eai cause of errors. — This wrong connexion in our
minds of ideas, in themselves loose and independent one of another,
has such an influence, and is of so great force to set us awry in our
actions, as well moral as natural passions, reasonings, and notions
themselves ; that, perhaps, there is not any one thing that deserves
more to be looked after.

§ 10. Instances. — The ideas of goblins and sprights, have really
no more to do with darkness than light ; yet let but a foolish maid
inculcate these often on the mind of a child, and raise them there
together, possibly he shall never be able to separate them again su
long as he lives ; but darkness shall ever afterwards bring with it
those frightful, ideas and they shall be so joined, that he can no more
bear the one than the other.

§ 11. A man receives a sensible injury from another, thinks on
the man and that action over and over, and by ruminating on them
strongly, or much in his mind, so cements those two ideas together,
that he makes them almost one ; never thinks on the man, but the
pain and displeasure he suffered, comes into his mind with it, so that
he scarce distinguishes them, but has as much aversion for the one
as the other. Thus hatreds are often begotten from slight and in-
nocent occasions, and quarrels propagated and continued in the
world.

§ 12. A man has suffered pain or sickness in any place ; he saw
his friend die in such a room ; though these have in nature nothing
to do with one another, yet when the idea of the place occurs to his
mind, it brings (the impression being once made) that of the pain
and displeasure with it, he confounds them in his mind, and can as
little bear the one as the other.

§ 13. Why time cures some disoj'ders in the mincl^ which reason
cam.7wt. — When this combination is settled, and whilst it lasts, it is
not in the power of reason to help us, and relieve us from the effects
of it. Ideas in our minds, when they are there, will operate accord-
iDff to their natures and circumstances; and here we see the cause
why time cures certain affections, which reason, though in the right,
and allowed to be so, has not power over, nor is able against them
to prevail with those who are apt to hearken to it in other cases.
The death of a child, that was the daily delight of his mother's eyes.

CH. 3S. OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 287

and joy of her soul, rends from lier heart the whole comfort of her
life, and gives her all the torment imaginable : use the consolations
of reason in this case, and you were as good preach ease to one on
the rack, and hope to allay, by rational discourses, the pain of his
joints tearing asunder : till time has by disuse separated the sense of
that enjoyment, and its loss from the idea of the child returning to
her memory, all representations, though ever so reasonable, are in
vain ; and therefore some, in whom the union between these ideas is
never dissolved, spend their lives in mourning, and carry an incur-
able sorrow to their graves.

§ 14. Farther instances of the effect of the association of ideas. — A
friend of mine knew one perfectly cured of madness by a very harsh
and offensive operation. The gentleman, who was thus recovered,
with great sense of gratitude and acknowledgement, owned the cure
all his life after, as the greatest obligation he could have received ; but
whatever gratitude and reason suggested to him, he could never bear
the sight of the operator : that image brought back with it the idea
of that agony which he suffered from his hands, which was too mighty
and intolerable for him to endure.

§ 15. Many children imputing the pain they endured at school to

the books they were corrected for, so join those ideas together, that

a book becomes their aversion, and they are never reconciled to the

study and use of them all their lives after ; and thus reading becomes

a torment to them, which otherwise possibly they might have made

the great pleasure of their lives. There are rooms convenient enough,

that some men cannot study in ; and fashions of vessels, which though

ever so clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by

reason of some accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make

them offensive ; and who is there that hath not observed some man

to flag at the appearance, or in the company, of some certain person

i not otherwise superior to him, but because having once on some oc-

j casion got the' ascendant, the idea of authority and distance goes

i along with that of the person, and he that has been thus subjected, is

not able to separate them.

§ 16. Instances of this kind are so plentiful every where, that if
I add one more, it is only for the pleasant oddness of it. It is of a
young gentleman, who having learned to dance, and that to great
perfection, there happened to stand an old trunk in the room where
he learned. The idea of this remarkable piece of household stuff*, had
so mixed itself with the turns and steps of all his dances, that though
in that chamber he could dance excellently well, yet it was only whilst
that trunk was there, nor could he perform well in any other place,
unless that, or some such other, trunk, had its due position in the
room. If this story shall be suspected to be dressed up with some
comical circumstances, a little beyond precise nature ; I answer for
myself, that I had it some years since from a very sober and worthy
man, upon his own knowledge, as I report it ; and I dare say, there
are very few inquisitive persons, who read this. Mho have not met
with accounts, if not examples, of this nature, that may parallel, or
It least justify, this.

288 OF THE ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. book 2.

§ 17. Its influence on intellectual habits. — Intellectual habits and
defects this way contracted, are not less frequent and powerful,
though less observed. Let the ideas of being and matter, be strongly-
joined either by education or much thought, whilst these are still
combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings, will there be
about separate spirits? let custom, from the very childhood, have
joined figure and shape to the idea of God, and what absurdities will
that mind be liable to, about the Deity .?

Let the idea of infallibility be inseparably joined to any person, and
tliese two constantly together possess the mind, and then one body,
in two places at once, shall unexamined be swallowed for a certam
truth, by an implicit faith, whenever that imagined infallible person
dictates and demands assent without enquiry.

§ 18. Obse7'vable in different sects. — Some such wrong and un-
natural combinations of ideas, will be found to establish the irre-
concileable opposition between different sects of philosophy and
religion ; for we cannot imagine every one of their followers to im-
pose wilfully on himself and knowingly refuse truth offered by
plain reason. Interest, though it does a great deal in the case,
yet cannot be thought to work whole societies of men to so uni-
versal a perverseness, as that every one of them, to a man, should
knowingly maintain falsehood : some at least must be allowed to
do what all pretend to, i. e. to pursue truth sincerely ; and there-
fore there must be something that blinds their understandings,
and makes them not see the falsehood of what they embrace for
real truth. That which thus captivates their reason, and leads men
of sincerity blindfold from common sense, will, when examined, be
found to be what we are speaking of: some independent ideas, of
no alliance to one another, are, by education, custom, and the
constant din of their party, so coupled in their minds, that they
always appear there together, and they can no more separate them
in their thoughts, than if they were but one idea, and they operate
as if they were so. This gives sense to jargon, demonstration to
absurdities, and consistency to nonsense, and is the foundation of
the greatest, I had almost said, of all the errors in the world ; or
if it does not reach so far, it is at least the most dangerous one,
since so far as it obtains, it hinders men from seeing and examining.
When two things, in themselves disjoined, appear to the sight con-
stantly united ; if the eye sees these things riveted, which are loose,
where will you begin to rectify the mistakes that follow in two ideas,
that they have been accustomed so to join in their minds, as to
substitute one for the other, and, as I am apt to think, often without
|)erceiving it themselves? This, whilst they are under the deceit
of it, makes them incapable of conviction, and they applaud them-
selves as zealous champions for truth, when indeed they are con-
tending for error ; and the confusion of two different ideas, whith
a customary connexion of them in their minds hath to them made in
effect but one, fills their heads with false views, and their reasonings
with false consequences.

BOOK a cu. I. LANGUAGE IN GENERAL. 289

§ 19. Conclusio7i. — Having thus given an account of the original,
sorts, and extent of our ideas, with several other considerations,
about these (I know not whether I may say) instruments, or mate-
rials, of our knowledge ; the method 1 at first proposed to myself,
would now require, that I should immediately proceed to show,
what use the understanding makes of them, and what knowledge
we have by them. This was that, which, in the first general view
I had of this subject, was all that I thought I should have to do;
but upon a nearer approach, I find, that there is so close a con-
nexion between ideas and words ; and our abstract ideas, and ge-
neral words, have so constant a relation one to another, that it is
impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our knowledge, which
all consists in propositions, without considering, first, the nature,
use, and signification of language; which therefore must be the
business of the next book.

^ BOOK IIL CHAPTER I.

^L OF WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL.

^^ 1. MAN fitted to form articulate sounds. — God having de-
signed man for a sociable creature, made him not only with an
inclination, and under a necessity, to have fellowship with those of
his own kind, but furnished him also with language, which was to
I be the great instrument, and common tie, of society. Man, there-
fore, had by nature his organs so fashioned, as to be fit to frame
articulate sounds, which we call words. But this was not enough
to produce language : for parrots, and several other birds, will be
taught to make articulate sounds distinct enough, which yet, by no
means, are capable of language.

§ 2. To make them signs of ideas. -^l^e%\des articulate sounds,

} therefore, it was farther necessary, that he should be able to use

I these sounds as signs of internal conceptions; and to make them

I stand as marks for the ideas within his own mind, whereby they

might be made known to others, and the thoughts of men's minds

be conveyed from one to another.

§ 3. To make general signs. — But neither was this sufficient to

make words so useful as they ought to be. It is not enough for the

perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas,

unless those sounds can be so made use of, as to comprehend

several particular things ; for the multiplication of words would

have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a

jJistinct name to be signified by. To remedy this inconvenience,

anguage had yet a farther improvement in the use of general terms,

thereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular

existences; which advantageous use of sounds was obtained only

)y the difference of the ideas they were made signs of: those

lames becoming general, which are made to stand for general ideas ; '

u

290 WORDS OR LANGUAGE IN GENERAL, book 3.

and those remaining particular, where the ideas they are used for
are particular.

§ 4. Besides these names which stand for ideas, there be other
words which men make use of, not to signify any idea, but the
want of absence of some ideas, simple or complex, or ideas to-
gether : such as are nihil in Latin, and in English, ignorance and
barrenness. All which negative or privitive words, cannot be said
properly to belong to, or signify, no ideas ; for then they would be
perfectly insignificant sounds ; but they relate to positive ideas, and
signify their absence. J

§ 5. Words ultimately derived from such as signify sensible ideas, "
— It may also lead us a little toward the original of all our notions
and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence our words
have on common sensible ideas ; and how those, which are made use
of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have
their rise from thence, and, from obvious sensible ideas, are trans-
ferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas
that come not under the cognizance of our senses : v. g., to imagine,
apprehend, comprehend, adhere, conceive, instil, disgust, disturb-
ance, tranquillity, &c., are all words taken from the operations of
sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. Spirit,
in its primary signification, is breath ; angel, a messenger : and I
doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should
find, in all languages, the names which stand for things that fall
not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas.
By which we may give some kind of guess, what kind of notions
they were, and whence derived, which filled their minds, who were
the first beginners of languages ; and how nature, even in the nam-
ing of things, unawares suggested to men the originals and prin-
ciples of all their knowledge ; whilst, to give names, that might
make known to others any operations they felt in themselves, or
any other ideas that come not under their senses, they were fain to
borrow words from ordinary known ideas of sensation, by that
means to make others the more easily to conceive those operations
they experimented in themselves, which made no outward sensible
appearances: and then, when they had got known and agreed
names, to signify those internal operations of their own minds,
they were sufficiently furnished to make known by words, all their
other ideas ; since they could consist of nothing, but either of out-
ward sensible perceptions, or of the inward operations of their i
minds, about them ; we having, as has been proved, no ideas at all,
but what originally came either from sensible objects without, or:
what we feel within ourselves, from the inward workings of our own
spirits, of which we are conscious to ourselves within.

§ 6. Distribution. — But to understand better the use and force
of language, as subservient to instruction and knowledge, it will b©
convenient to consider,

Firsts To what it is that names, in the use of language, are
immediately applied.

CH. 2. THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS. 29i

Secondli/, Since all (except proper) names are general, and so
stand not particularly for this or that single thing, but for sorts and
ranks of things, it will be necessary to consider, in the next place,
what the sorts and kinds, or, if you rather like the Latin names,
what the species and genera, of things are : wherein they consist ;
and how they come to be made. These being (as they ought) well
looked into, Ve shall the better come to find the right use of words ;
the natural advantages and defects of language ; and the remedies
that ought to be used, to avoid the inconveniences of obscurity or
uncertainty in the signification of words, without which, it is im-
possible to discourse with any clearness, or order, concerning
knowledge ; which being conversant about propositions, and those
most commonly universal ones, has greater connexion with words,
than, perhaps, is suspected.

These considerations, therefore, shall be the matter of the follow-
ing chapters.

CHAPTER II.

^ OF THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS.

§ 1. Words are sensible signs, necessari) for communication. —
Man, though he has great variety of thoughts, and such, from
which others, as well as himself, might receive profit and delight;
yet they are all within his own breast invisible, and hidden from
others, nor can of themselves be made appear. The comfort and
advantage of society, not being to be had without communication
of thoughts, it was necessary, that man should find out some
external sensible signs, whereby those invisible ideas, which his
thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others. For
this purpose, nothing was so fit, either for plenty, or quickness, as
those articulate sounds, which, with so much ease and variety, he
found himself able to make. Thus we may conceive how words,
which were by nature so well adapted to that purpose, come to be
made use of by men, as the signs of their ideas ; not by any natural
connexion that there is between particular articulate sounds and
certain ideas ; for then there would be but one language amongst
all men ; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a word is
made arbitrarily the mark of such an idea. The use then of words,

i is to be sensible marks of ideas ; and the ideas they stand for, are

VJ their proper and immediate signification.

\ § 2. Words are the sensible signs of his ideas who uses them. —

i ; The use men have of these marks, being either to record their own
! thoughts for the assistance of their own memory ; or, as it were, to

•; 1 bring out their ideas, and lay them before the view of others ;
words in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing,
but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them, how imperfectly
soever, or carelessly, those ideas are collected from things which

u2

292 THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS. book 3.

they are supjK)sc(.l to represent. \Mien a man speaks to another,
it is that lie may be understood ; and the end of speech, is, that those
sounds, as marks, may make known his ideas to the hearer. That
then which words are the niarks of, are the ideas of the speaker ; nor
can any one apply them, as marks, immediately to any thing else,
but the ideas that he himself hath. For this would be to make
them signs of his own conceptions, and yet apply them to other
ideas; which would be to make them signs, and not signs of his
ideas at the same time ; and so, in effect, to have no signification at
all. Words being voluiUary signs, they cannot be voluntary signs
imposed by him on things he knows not. That would be to make
them signs of nothing, sounds without signification. A man cannot
make his words the signs either of qualities in things, or of concep-
tions in the mind of another, whereof he has none in his own. Until
he has some ideas of his own, he cannot suppose them to correspond
with the conceptions of another man ; nor can he use any signs for
them ; for thus they would be the signs of he knows not what, which
is, in truth, to be the signs of nothing. But when he represents to
himself other men's ideas, by some of his own, if he consent to give
them the same names that other men do, it is still to his own ideas ;
to ideas that he has, and not to ideas that he has not.

§ 3. This is so necessary in the use of language, that in this
respect, the knowing and the ignorant, the learned and unlearned,
use the words they speak (with any meaning) all alike. They, in
every man''s mouth, stand for the ideas he has, and which he
would express by them. A child having taken notice of nothing
in the metal he hears called gold, but the bright shining yellow
colour, he applies the word gold only to his own idea of that
colour, and nothing else ; and therefore calls the same colour in a
peaccxik's tail, gold. Another that hath better observed, adds to
shining yellow, great weight ; and then the sound gold, when he
uses it, stands for a complex idea of a shining yellow and very
weighty substance. Another adds to those qualities, fusibility ;
and then the word gold signifies to him a body, bright, yellow,
fusible, and very heavy. Another adds malleability. Each of these
uses equally the word gold when they have occasion to express the
idea which they have applied it to ; but it is evident, that each can
apply it only to his own idea ; nor can he make it stand as a sign of
such a complex idea as he has not.

§ 4. IVords often secretlt/ referred Jif'St to the ideas in other men's
minds. — But though words, as they are used by men, can properly
and immediately signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind,
of the speaker ; yet they, in their thoughts, give them a secret re-
ference to two otlier things.

first, They suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the
minds also oi otlier men, with whom they communicate ; for els^:
they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds
they applied to one idea, were such as by the hearer were applied to
another, which is to speak two languages. But in this, men stand.

CH. 2. THE SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS. 293

not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they dis-
course with, have in their minds, be the same; but think it enough,
that they use the word, as tliey imagine, in the common acceptation
of that language; in which they suppose that the idea they make it a
sign of, is precisely the same to which the understanding men of that
country apply that name.

§ 5. Secondly^ to the reality of things. — Secondly, Because men
would not be thought to talk barely of their own imaginations, but
of things as really they are; therefore they often suppose their words
to stand also for the reality of things. Ikit this relating more par-
ticularly to substances, and their names, as perhaps the former does
to simple ideas and modes, we shall speak of these two different \vays
of applying words- more at large, when we come to treat of the
names of mixed modes, and substances, in particular ; though give
me leave here to say, that it is a perverting the use of words, and
brings unavoidable obscurity and confusion into their signification,
whenever we make them stand for any thing but those ideas we have
in our own minds.

§ 6. Words by use readily excite ideas. — Concerning words also,
it is farther to be considered : First, That they being immediately
the signs of men's ideas ; and, by that means, the instruments whereby
men communicate their conceptions, and express to one another those
thoughts and imaginations they have within their own breasts ; there
comes by constant use, to bo such a connexion between certain
sounds, and the ideas they stand for, that the names heard, almost
as readily excite certain ideas, as if the objects themselves, which are
apt to produce them, did actually affect the senses. Which is mani-
festly so in all obvious sensible qualities; and in all substances that
frequently and familiarly occur to us

. § 7. Words often used without signification. — Secondly, That
though the proper and immediate signification of words, are ideas
in the mind of the speaker ; yet because, by famiHar use from our
cradles, we come to learn certain articulate sounds very perfectly
and have them readily on our tongues, and always at hand in our
memories ; but yet are not always careful to examine, or settle their
significations perfectly, it often happens that men even when they
would apply themselves to an attentive consideration, do set their
thoughts more on words, than things. Nay, because words are many
of them learned before the ideas are known for which they stand ;
therefore some, not only children, but men, speak several words, no
otherwise than parrots do, only because they have learned them, and
have been accustomed to those sounds. But so far as words are of
use and signification, so far is there a constant connexion between the
sound-and the idea; and a designation, that the one stands for the
other ; witliout which application of them, they are nothing but so
much insignificant noise.

§ 8. 7 heir signification perfectly arbitrary. — Words by long and
familiar use, as has been said, come to excite in men certain ideas,
so constantly and readily, that they are apt to suppose a natural

^4 GENERAL TERMS. i^ook 3.

connexion between them. But that they signify only men's peculiar
ideas, and that by a perfect arbitrary imposition, is evident, in that
they often fail to excite in others (even that use the same language)
the same ideas we take them to be the signs of; and every man has
so inviolable a liberty to make words stand for what ideas he pleases,
that no one hath the power to make others have the same ideas in
their minds, that he has, when they use the same words that he does.
And therefore the great Augustus himself, in the possession of that
power which ruled the world, acknowledged he could not make a
new Latin word ; which was as much as to say, that he could not
arbitrarily appoint what idea any sound should be a sign of, in the
mouths and common language of his subjects. It is true, common
use, by a tacit consent, appropriates certain sounds to certain ideas
in all languages, which so far limits the signification of that sound,
that unless a man applies it to the same idea, he does not speak pro-
perly ; and let me add, that unless a man''s words excite the same
ideas in the hearer which he makes them stand for in speaking, he
does not speak intelligibly. But whatever be the consequence of any
man's using of words difterently, either from their general meaning,
or the particular sense of the person to whom he addresses them, this
is certain, their signification, in his use of them, is hmited to his
ideas, and they can be signs of nothing else.

CHAPTER III.

OF GENERAL TERMS.

§ 1. The greatest part of words general.-- A\\\hmg^ that exist
being particulars, it may perhaps be thought reasonable that words,
which ought to be conformed to things, should be so too. I mean
in their signification : but yet we find the quite contrary. The far
greatest part of words, that make all languages, are general terms ;
which has not been the effect of neglect, or chance, but of reason and
necessity.

§ 2. For everi^ particular thing to have a name, is impossible. —
First, It is impossible that every particular thing should have a
distinct peculiar name. For the signification and use of words,
depending on that connexion which the mind makes between its
ideas, and the sounds it uses as signs of them, it is necessary, in the
application of names to things, that the mind should have distinct
ideas of the things, and retain also the particular name that belongs
to every one, with its peculiar appropriation to that idea. But it is
beyond the power of human capacity to frame and retain distinct
ideas of all the particular things we meet with ; every bird and beast
men saw, every tree and plant that affected the senses could not find
a place in the most capacious understanding. If it be looked on as
an instance of a pRKligious memory, that some generals have been
able to call every soldier in their army, by his proper name; we

CH. 3. GENERAL TERMS. ^95

may easily find a reason why men have never attempted to give
names to each sheep in their flock, or crow that flies over their heads ;
much less to call every leaf of plants, or grain of sand, that came in
their way, by a peculiar name.

§ 3. Jnd useless, — Secondly^ If it were possible, it would yet be
useless ; because it would not serve to the chief end of language.
Men would in vain heap up names of particular things, that would
not serve them to communicate their thoughts. Men learn names,
and use them in talk with others, only that they may be understood ;
which is then only done, when by use or consent, the sound I make
by the organs of speech, excites in another man's mind, who hears
it, the idea I apply to it in mine, when I speak it. This cannot be
done by names, applied to particular things, whereof I alone having
the ideas in my mind, the names of them could not be significant or
intelligible to another, who was not acquainted with all those very
particular things, which had fallen under my notice.

§ 4. Thirdly^ But yet granting this also feasible (which I think
is not), yet a distmct name for every particular thing would not be
of any great use for the improvement of knowledge ; which, though
founded in particular things, enlarges itself by general views; to
which things, reduced into sorts under general names, are properly
subservient. These, with the names belonging to them, come within
some compass, and do not multiply every moment, beyond what
either the mind can contain, or use requires. And, therefore, in
these, men have for the most part stopped ; but yet not so as to
hinder themselves from distinguishing particular things by appro-
priated names, where convenience demands it. And, therefore, in
their own species, Avhich they have most to do with, and wherein
they have often occasion to mention particular persons, they make
use of proper names; and their distinct individuals have distinct
denominations.

§ 5. What things have proper names. — Besides persons, countries

also, cities, rivers, mountains, and other the like distinctions of place,

have usually found peculiar names, and that for the same reason ;

they being such as men have often an occasion to mark particularly,

and, as it were, set before others in their discourses with them. And

I doubt not, but if we had reason to mention particular horses, as

j often as we have to mention particular men, we should have proper

I names for the one, as familiar as for the other ; and Bucephalus would

I be a word as much in use as Alexander. And, therefore, we see that

1 amongst jockeys, horses have their proper names to be known and

I distinguished by, as commonly as their servants : because amongst

; them, there is often occasion to mention this or that particular horsG,

I when he is out of sight.

j § 6. Hoiv general words are 7?iade. — The next thing to be con-

} sidered is, how general words come to be made. For since all things

' that exist are only particulars, how come we by general terms, or

where find we those general natures they are supposed to stand for.

Words become general, by being made the signs of general ideas :

296 GENERAL TERMS. book 3.

and ideas become general, by separating from them the circumstances
of time, and place, and any other ideas that may determine them to
this or that particular existence. By this way of abstraction, they
are made capable of representing more individuals than one ; each of
which having in it a conformity to that abstract idea, is (as we call
it) of that sort.

§ 7. But to deduce this a little more distinctly, it will not perhaps
be amiss to trace our notions and names, from their beginning, and
observe by what degrees we proceed, and by what steps we enlarge
our ideas from our first infancy. There is nothing more evident,
than that the ideas of the persons children converse with (to instance
in them alone), are like the persons themselves, only particular. The
ideas of the nurse and the mother, are well framed in their minds ;
and, like pictures of them there, represent only those individuals.
The names they first gave to them, are confined to these individuals ;
and the names of nurse and mamma, the child uses, determine them-
selves to those persons. Afterwards, when time and a larger ac-
quaintance have made them observe, that there are a great many
other things in the world, that in some common agreements of shape,
and several other qualities, resemble their father and mother, and
those persons they have been used to, they frame an idea, which they
find those niany particulars do partake in ; and to that they give,
with others, the name man for example. And thus they come to
have a general name, and a general idea. Wherein they make no-
thing new, but only leave out of the complex idea they had of Peter
and James, Mary and Jane, that which is peculiar to each, and retain
only what is common to them all.

§ 8. By the same way that they come by the general name and
idea of man, they easily advance to more general names and notions
For observing, that several things that differ from their idea of maDj
and cannot therefore be comprehended under that name, have y<
certain qualities, wherein they agree with man, by retaining onlj
those qualities, and uniting them into one idea, they have agaii
another and a more general idea ; to which having given a name
they make a term of a more comprehensive extension : which net
idea is made, not by any new addition, but only, as before, by leavii
out the shape, and some other properties signified by the name ma!
and retaining only a body, with life, sense, and spontaneous motioi
comprehended under the name animal.

§ 9. General natures are nothing but abstract ideas. — That tl
is the way whereby men first formed general ideas, and general
names to them, I think, is so evident, that there needs no other
proof of it, but the considering of a man\s self, or others, and the or-
dinary proceedings of their minds in knowledge: and he that thinks
general natures or notions, are any thing else but sudi abstract and
partial ideas of more complex ones, taken at first from particular
existences, will, I fear, be at a loss where to find them. For let any
one reflect, and then tell me, wherein does his idea of man differ
from tliat of Peter and Paul ; or his idea of horse, from that of

cii. S. GENERAL TERMS. 297

Bucephalus, but in the leaving out something that is peculiar to
each individual ; and retaining so much of those particular complex
ideas of several particular existences, as they are found to agree in ?
Of the complex ideas signified by the names man and horse, leaving
out but those particulars wherein they differ, and retaining only
those wherein they agree, and of those making a new distinct
complex idea, and giving the name animal to it, one has a more
general term, that comprehends, with man, several other creatures.
Leave out of the idea of animal, sense and spontaneous motion, and
the remaining complex idea, made up of the remaining simple ones
of body, life, and nourishment, becomes a more general one, under
the more comprehensive term vivens. And not to dwell longer upon
this particular, so evident in itself, by the same way the mind pro-
ceeds to body, substance, and at last to being, thing, and such uni-
versal terms which stand for any of our ideas whatsoever. To
conclude, this whole mystery oi genera and species, which makes such
a noise in the schools, and are, with justice, so little regarded out of
them, is nothing else but abstract ideas, more or less comprehensive,
with names annexed to them. In all which, this is constant and
unvariable, that every more general term stands for such an idea, as
is but a part of any of those contained under it.

§ 10. Why '' the crenus'" is ordinarilij made use qfindefiiiitions. —
This may show us the reason why in the defining of words, which is
nothing but declaring tlieir significations, we make use of the genus,
or next general word that comprehends it. Which is not out of neces-
sity, but only to save the labour of enumerating the several simple
ideas, which the next general word, ov genus stands for; or, perhaps,
sometimes tlie shame of not being able to do it. But though defin-
ing by genus and differentia (I crave leave to use these terms of art,
though originally Latin, since they most properly suit those notiont
they are applied to), I say, though defining hyuiQ genus be the shortest
way, yet I think it may be doubted, whether it be the best. This
I am sure, it is not the only, and so not absolutely necessary. For
definition being nothing but making another understand by words,
what idea the term defined stands for, a definition is best made by
enumerating those simple ideas that are combined in the signification
of the term defined ; and if, instead of such an enumeration, men
have accustomed themselves to use the next general term, it has not
been out of necessity, or for greater clearness ; but for quickness
and despatch sake. For, I think, that to one who desired to know
what idea the word man stood for ; if it should be said, that man
was a solid extended substance, having life, sense, spontaneous mo-
tion, and the faculty of reasoning, I doubt not but the meaning of
the term man, would be as well understood, and the idea it stands
for, be at least as clearly made known, as when it is defined to be a
rational animal ; which, by the several definitions of animal vivens,
and corpus, resolves itself into those enumerated ideas. I have, in
explaining the term man, followed here the ordinary definition of the
schools : which, though, perhaps, not the most exact, yet serves well

298 GENERAL TERMS book 3.

enough to my present purpose. And one may, in this instance, see
what gave occasion to the rule, that a definition must consist of genus
and differentia ; and it suffices to show us the Uttle necessity there
is of such a rule, or advantage in the strict observing of it. For
definitions, as has been said, being only the explaining of one word,
by several others, so that the meaning or idea it stands for, may cer-
tainly be known ; languages are not always so made, according to
the rules of logic, that every term can have its signification exactly
and clearly expressed by two others. Experience sufficiently satisfies
us to the contrary ; or else those who have made this rule, have done
ill that they have given us so few definitions conformable to it. But
of definitions, more in the next chapter.

§11. General arid universal, are creatures of the understanding,
— To return to general words, it is plain, by what has been said,
that general and universal, belong not to the real existence of things ;
but are the inventions and creatures of the understanding, made by
it for its own use, and concern only signs, whether words or ideas.
Words are general, as has been said, when used for signs of general
ideas : and so are applicable indifferently to many particular things ;
and ideas are general, when they are set up as the representatives of
many particular things ; but universality belongs not to things them-
selves, which are all of them particular in their existence, even
those words and ideas, which, in their signification, are general.
When, therefore, we quit particulars, the generals that rest, are
only creatures of our own making, their general nature being no-
thing but the capacity they are put into by the understanding, of
signifying, or representing many particulars. For the signification
they have, is nothing but a relation that by the mind of man is
added to them.*

* Against this the Bishop of Worcester objects, and our author (a) answers as followetli :
" ' However,' sailh the bishop, ' the abstracted ideas are the work of' the mind, yet they are
not mere creatures of the mind : as appears by an instance produced of the essence of the
sun being in one single individual : in which case it is granted, That the idea may be so
abstracted, that more suns might agree in it, and it is as much a sort, as if there were as many
suns as there are stars. So that here we have a real essence subsisting in one individual,
but capable of being muliiplied into more, and the same essence remaining. But in this
one sun, there is a real essence, and not a mere nominal or sbstracted essence : but suppose
there were more suns, would not each of them have the real essence of the sun? For what
is it makes the second sun, but having the same real essence witli the first ? If it were but
a nominal essence, tiien the second would have nothing but the name.'

** This, as I understand," replies Mr. Locke, " is to prove that tlie abstract general
essence of any sort of things, or things of the same denomination, v. g. of man or marigold,
hath a real being out of the understanding ; which, I confess, I am not able to conceive.
Your lordship's proof here, brought out of my Essay, concerning the sun, I humbly con-
ceive, will not reach it ; because what is said there, does not at all concern the real, but
nominal essence, as is evident from hence, that the idea I speak of there is a complex
idea; but we have no complex idea of the internal constitution, or real essence, of the
sun. Besides, I say expressly. That our distinguishing substances into species by names,
is not at all founded on their real essences. So that the sun being one of these substances,
1 cannot, in the place quoted by your lordship, be supposed to mean by essence of the sun,
Uie real essence of the sun, unless I had fo expres&ed it. But all this argument will

('/) In his iirst lelltr.

CH. 3. GENERAL TERMS. 299

§ 12. Abstract ideas are the essences of the genera and species, —
The next thing, therefore, to be considered, is what kind of significa-
tion it is, that general words have. For, as it is evident, that they

be at an end, when your lordship shall have explained what you mean by these words,
« true sun.' In my sense of them, any thing will be a true sun, to which the name sun
may be truly and properly applied ; and to that substance or thing the name sun may be
truly and properly applied, which has united in it that combination of sensible qualities, by
which any thing else, that is called sun, is distinguished from other substances, i. e. by the
nominal essence; and thus our sun is denominated and distinguished from a fixed star, not
by a real essence that we do not know (for if we did, it is possible we should find the real
essence or constitution of one of the fixed stars to be the same with that of our sun), but by
a complex idea of sensible qualities co-existing, which, wherever they are found, make a true
sun. And thus I crave leave to answer your lordship's question : ' For what is it makes the
second sun to be a true sun, but having the same real essence with the first ? If it were but
a nominal essence, then the sacond would have nothing but the name.'

" I humbly conceive, if it had the nominal essence, it would have something besides the
name, viz., That nominal essence, which is sufficient to denominate it truly a sun, or to
make it to be a true sun, though we know nothing of that real essence whereon that nominal
one depends. Your lordship will then argue, that that real essence is in the second sun,
and makes the second sun. I grant it when the second sun comes to exist, so as to be per-
ceived by us to have all the ideas contained in our complex idea, i. e. in our nominal essence
of a sun. For siiould it be true (as is now believed by astronomers), that the real essence of
the sun were in any of the fixed stars, yet such a star could not for that be by us called a sun,
whilst it answers not our complex idea, or nominal essence, of a sun. But how far that
will prove, that the essences of things, as they are knowable by us, have a reality in them
distinct from that of abstract ideas in the mind, which are merely creatures of the mind, I
do not see ; and we sliall farther inquire, in considering your lordship's following words.
' Therefore,' say you, ' there must be a real essence in every individual of the same kind.*
Yes, and I beg leave of your lordsliip to say, of a different kind too. For that alone is it
which makes it to be what it is.

*• That every individual substance has real, internal, individual constitution, i. e. a real
essence, that it makes it to be what it is, I readily grant. Upon this, your lordship says,
' Peter, James, and John, are all true and real men.' Answer. Without doubt, supposing
them to be men, they are true and real men, i. e. supposing the name of that species belongs
to them. And so these three bobaques are all true and real bobaques, supposing the name
of that species of animals belongs to them.

" For I beseech your lordship to consider, whether in your way of arguing, by naming

them Peter, James, and John, names familiar to us, as appropriated to individuals of the

species man, your lordship does nut first suppose them men, and then very safely ask,

whether they be not all true and real men. But if I should ask your lordship, whether

, Weweena, Chuckery, and Cousheda, were true and real men or no ? your lordship would

I not be able to tell me, till, I having pointed out to your lordship the individuals called by

those names, your lordship, by examining whether they had in them those sensible qualities

I which your lordship has combined into that complex idea to which you give the specific

name man, determined them all, or some of them, to be the species which you call man,

and so to be true and real man ; which, when your lordship has determined, it is plain you

I did it by that which is only the nominal essence, as not knowing the real one. But your

j lordship farther asks, ' What is it makes Peter, James, and John, real men? Is ii the at-

Itributing the general name to them? No, certainly; but that the true and real essence of

ja man is in every one of them.'

'[ " If when your lordship asks, ' What makes them men ?' your lordship used the word
making in the proper sense for the efficient cause, and in that sense it were true, that tlie
essence of a man, i. e. the specific essence of that species made a man : it would undoubtedly
follow, that this specific essence had a reality beyond that of being only a general abstract
idea in the mind. But when it is said that it is the true and real essence of a man in every
jone of them, that makes Peter, James, and John, true and real men, the true and real
meaning of these words is no more, but that the essence of that species, i. e. the properties
answering the complex abstract idea to which the specific name is given, being found in them,
that makes them be properly and truly called men, or is the reason why they are called men.
Your lordship adds, ' And we must be as certain of this, as we are that they are men.'

300 GENERAL TERMS. book 3.

do not signify barely one particular thing ; for then they would not
be general terms, but proper names ; so, on the other side, it is as
evident, they do not signify a plurality ; for man and men would theft

•• How, I beseech your lordship, are we certain that they are men, but only by our senses,
finding those properties in them which answer the abstract complex idea which is in our minds,
of the specific idea to which we have annexed the specific name man ? This I take to be the
true meaning of what your lordship says in the next words, viz., ' They take their denomina-
tion of being men from that common nature or essence which is in thetn ;' and I am apt to
think these words will not hold true in any other sense.

*• Your lordship's fourth inference begins thus : ' That the general idea is not made from
the simple ideas by the mere act of the mind abstracting from circumstances, but from reason
and consideration of the nature of things.'

" I thought, my lord, that reason and consideration had been aits of the mind, mere ai'ts
of the mind, when any thing was done by them. Your lordship gives a reason for it, viz.,
' For when we see several individuals that have the same powers and properties, we thence
irjfer, that there must be something common to all, which makes them of one kind.'

" I ^rant the inference to be true ; but must beg leave to deny that this proves, that
the general idea the name is annexed to, is not made by the n)ind. I have said, and it agrees
with what your lordship here says (a). That * the mind, in making its ccmplex ideas of sub-
stances, only follows nature, and puts no ideas together, which are not supposed to have a
union in nature. Nobody joins the voice of a sheep with the shape of a horse; or the colour
of lead with tha weight and fixedness of gold, to be the complex ideas of any real substances ;
unless he has a mind to fill his head with chimeras, and his discourses with unintelligible
words. Men observing certain qualities, always joined and existing together, therein copied
nature, and of ideas so united, made their complex ones of substance, &c.' Which is very
litilj different from what your lordship here says, ' that it is from our observation of indi-
viduals, that we come to infer, ' that there is something common to them all,' ' But I do
not see how it will thence follow that the general or specific idea is not made by the mere act
of the mind. ' No,' says your lordship, ' there is something common to them all, which ;
makes th^m of one kind ; and if the diflerence of kinds be real, that which makes them all of;
one kind, must not be a nominal, but real, essence.'

•' This may he some objection to the name of nominal essence ; but is, as I humbly i
conceive, none to th2 thing designed by it. There is nn internal constitution of things, on
which their properties depend. This your lordship and I are agreed of, and tiiis we'
call the real essence. There are also certain complex ideas, or combinations of these
properties in men's minds to which they commonly annex specific names, or names of sorts
or kinds of things. This, I believe, your lordship does not deny. These complex ideas,
for want of a better name, I have called nominal essences ; how properly, I will not dispute.
But if any one will help me to a belter name for them, I am ready to receive it: till then;
I must to express myself, use this : New, my lord, body, life, and the power of reasoning,
being not the real essence of a man, as I believe your lordsliip will a<;ree, will your lordship
sa)', that they are not enough to make the thing wherein they are found, of the kind called
man, and not of the kind called baboon, because the difference of these kinds is re
If this be not real enough to make the thing of one kind, and not of another, I do notj
how animal rationale can be enough really to distinguish a man from a horse : for th
but the nominal, not real essence of that kind, designed by the name man. And
I suppose, every one thinks it real enough to make a real difference between that and ol
kinds. And if nothing will serve the turn, to make things of one kind, and not of anot
(which as I have shown bignifies no more but ranking of them under different specific nar
but their real unknown constitutions, which are the real essences we arc spoiiking of, I fiar
would be a long while before we should have really different kinds of substances, or distii
names for them, unless we could distinguish them by these differences, of which we have n
distinct c«>nception8. For I think it would not be readily answered me, if I should demand,
wherein lies the real difference in the internal constitution of a stag from that of a buck, which
arc each u( iheni very well known to be of one kind, and not of the other; and ncibcxi
questions but that tli'j kinds whereof each of them is, are really different.

" Your lordship farther sa>s, * And this difference doth not depend upon the complex idt
of substances, whereby men arbitrarily join modes together in their minds.' I confess, n

(a) B. 3. c. H. t5.'.^f^, 'J!>.

( H. 3. (GENERAL TERMS. 301

sio'iiify the same; and the distmction of numbers (as the gramma-
rians call them) would be superfluous and useless. That then which
general words signify is a sort of things, and each of them does that

lord, I know not what to say to this, because I do rot know what these complex ideas of
substances are, whereby men arbitrarily join modes together in their minds. But I am apt
t.) think there is a mistake in the matter, by the words that follow, which are these : ' For
let them mistake in their complication of ideas, either in leaving out or putting in what doth
not belong to them ; and let their ideas be what they please, the real essence of a man, and a
horse, and a tree, are just what they were/

" The mistake 1 spoke cf, I humbly suppose is this, that things are here taken to be
distinguished by their real essences ; when, by the very way of speaking of them, it is
clear, tiiat, they are already distinguished by their nominal e:;sences, and are so taken to be.
For what, .1 beseech your lordship, dees your lordship mean, when you say, ' The real essence
of a man, and a horse, and a tree,' but that there are such kinds already set out by the
signification of tlicse names,* man, horse, tree?' And what, I beseech your lordship, is
the signification of each of these specific rames, but the complex idea it stands for ? And
that complex idea is the nominal essence and nothing else. So that taking man as your
lordship does here, to stand for a kind or sort of individuals, all which agree in that common
complex idea, which that specific name stands for, it is certain that the real essence of all the
individuals compBehended under the specific name man, in your use of it, would be just the
same ; let others leave out or put into their complex idea of man what they please : because
the real essence on which that unaltered complex idea, i. e. those properties depend, must
necessarily be concluded to be the same.

" For i take it for granted, that in using the name man, in this place, your lordship uses
it for that complex idea which is in your lordship's mind of that species. So that your
lordship, by putting it for or substituting it in, the place of that complex idea where you say
the real essence of it is just as it was, or the very same as it was, does suppose the idea it
stands for to be steadily the same. For if 1 change the signification of the word man,
wheieby it may not comprehend just the same individuals which in your lordship's sense it
dues, but shut out some of those that to your lordship are men, in your signification of the
word man, or take in others, to which your lordship does not allow the name man ; I do
think you will say, that the real essence of man in both these senses is the same. And yet
your lordship seems to say so, when you say, ' Let men mistake in the complication of their
ideas, either in leaving out or puuiug in what doth not belong to them;' and let their ideas
be what they please, the real essence of the individuals comprehended under the names an-
nexed to these ideas, will be the same, for so, I humbly conceive, it must be put, to make out
what your lordship aims at. For as your lordship puts it by the name of man, or any other
specific name, your lordship seems to me to suppose, that that name stands for, and not for,
the same idea, at the same time.

" For example, my lord, let your lordship's idea to which you annex the sign man, be a
rational animal: let another man's idea be a rational animal of such a shape; let a third
man's idea be of an animal of such a size and shape, leaving out rationality ; let a fourth's
be nn animal with a body of such a shape, and an immaterial substance, with a power of
reasoning; let a fifth leave out of his idea, an immaterial substance. It is plain every one
of these wdl call his a man, as well as your lordship; and yet it is as plain that men, as
standing for all these distinct complex ideas, cannot be supposed to have the same internal
constitution, i. e. the same real essence. The truth is, every distinct abstract idea with a
name to it, makes a real distinct kind, whatever the real essence (which we know not any of
them) be.

" And therefore I grant it true what your lordship says in the next words : ' And let the
i nominal essences differ ever so much, the real common essence or nature of the several kinds
i are not at all altered by them,' i. e. that our thoughts or ideas cannot alter the real con-
[ stitutions that are in things that exist, there is nothing more certain. But yet it is true, that
j the changes of ideas to which we annex theui, can and does alter the signification of their
I names, and thereby alter the kinds, which by these names we rank and sort tliem into,
t Your lordship farther adds, ' And these real essences are unchangeable,' i. e. the internal
{constitutions are unchangeable. Of what, I beseech your lord-hip, are the interr.al con-
stitutions unchangeable? Not of any that exist, but of God alone ; for they may be changed
all as easily by that hand that made them, as the internal frame of a watch. What then is it
that is unchangeable? The internal constitution or real essence of a species: which, in
plain English, is no more but this, whilst the same specific name, v. g. of man, horse, or

302 GENERAL TERMS; book 3.

by being a sign of an abstract idea in the mind, to which idea, as
things existing are found to agree, so they come to be ranked under
that name ; or, which is all one, be of that sort. Whereby it is evi-
dent, that the essences of the sorts, or (if the Latin word pleases bet-
ter) species of things, are nothing else but these abstract ideas. For
the having the essence of any species, being that which makes any
thing to be of that species, and the conformity to the idea to which
the name is annexed, being that which gives a right to that name, the
having the essence, and the having the conformity, must needs be the
same thing ; since to be of any species, and to have a right to the
name of that species, is all one. As, for example, to be a man, or of
the species man, and to have a right to the name man, is the same
thing. Again, to be man, or of the species man, and have the essence
of a man, is the same thing. Now, since nothing can be a man,
or have a right to the name man, but what has a conformity to the
abstract idea the name man stands for ; nor any thing be a man, or
have a right to the species man, but what has the essence of that
species ; it follows, that the abstract idea for which the name stands,
and the essence of the species, is one and the same. From whence
it is eas}' to observe, that the essences of the sorts of things, and
consequently the sorting of this, is the workmanship of the under-
standing that abstracts, and makes those general ideas.

§ 13. They are the workmanship of the understandings hit have their
foundatio^i in the similitude of things. — I would not here be thought
to forget, much less to deny, that nature in the production of things,
makes several of them alike ; there is nothing more obvious, especi-
ally in the races of animals, and all things propagated by seed. But
yet, I think we may say, the sorting of them under names, is the
workmanship of the understanding, taking occasion from the simi-
litude it observes amongst them, to make abstract general ideas, an('
set them up in the mind, with names annexed to them, as patternj
or forms (for in that sense the word form has a very proper signifij
cation \ to which, as particular things existing are found to agree
so they come to be of that species, have that denomination, or at
put into that classis. For when we say, this is a man, that a horse
this justice, that cruelty ; this a watch, that a jack ; what do wg el
but rank things under different specific names, as agreeing

tree, is annexed to, or made the sion of the same abstract complex idea under which I rani
several individuals ; it is impossible but the real constitution on which that unaltered comple^
idea or nominal essence depends, must be the same, i. e. in other words, where we find all th
same properties, we have reason to conclude there is the same real internal constitution froU
which those properties flow.

•• But ycur lordship proves the real essences to be unchangrallo, because God make
thetn, in tliese following words : ' For, however there may happen some variety in individuals
by particular accidents, yet the essences of men, and horses, and trees, remain always the
same : because they do not depend on the ideas of men, but on the will of the Creator, who
hath iT.ade several sortx of beings.^

** It is true, the real constitutions or essences of particular things existing, do not depend
on the ideas of men, but on the will of the Creator; but their being ranked into sorts, under
uicb and such names, does depend, and wholly depend, on the ideas of men." ,.

cH. 3. GENERAL TERMS. 303

those abstract ideas, of which we have made those names the
signs ? And what are the essences of those species, set out and
marked by names, but those abstract ideas in the mind ; which are,
as it were, the bonds between particular things that exist, and the
names they are to be ranked under ? and when general names have
any connexion with particular beings, these abstract ideas are the
medium that unites them ; so that the essences of species, as distin-
guished and denominated by us, neither are, nor can be, any thing
but these precise abstract ideas we have in our minds. And, there-
fore, the supposed real essences of substances, if different from our
abstract ideas, cannot be the essences of the species we rank things
into. For two species may be one, as rationally as two different es-
sences be the essence of one species ; and I demand, what are the
alterations may, or may not, be in a horse or lead, without making
either of them to be of another species ? In determining the species
of things by our abstract ideas, this is easy to resolve ; but if any one
will regulate himself herein, by supposed real essences, he will, I
suppose, be at a loss : and he will never be able to know when any
thing precisely ceases to be of the species of a horse or lead.

§ 14. I'lach distinct abstract idea is a distinct essence. — Nor will
any one wonder, that I say these essences, or abstract ideas (which
are the measures of name, and the boundaries of species), are the
workmanship of the understanding, who considers that at least the
complex ones are often, in several men, different collections of simple
ideas ; and therefore, that is covetousness to one man, which is not
so to another. Nay, even in substances, where their abstract ideas
seem to be taken from the things themselves, they are not constantly
the same ; no, not in that species which is most familiar to us, and
with which we have the most intimate acquaintance ; it having been
more than once doubted, whether the foetus born of a woman, were
a man, even so far that it hath been debated, whether it were, or
were not, to be nourished and baptized ; which could not be, if the
abstract idea, or essence, to which the name man belonged, were of
nature's making ; and were not the uncertain and various collection
of simple ideas, which the understanding puts together, and then
abstracting it, affixed a name to it. So that, in truth, every distinct
abstract idea, is a distinct essence : and the names that stand for such
distinct ideas, are the names of things essentially different. Thus a
circle is as essentially different from an oval, as a sheep from a goat ;
and rain is as essentially different from snow, as water from earth ;
that abstract idea, which is the essence of one, being impossible to be
communicated to the other. And thus any two abstract ideas, that
in any part vary one from another, with two distinct names annexed to
them, constitute two distinct sorts, or, if you please, species, as essen-
tially different as any two the most remote or opposite in the world.

§ 15. jReal and nominal essences. — But since the essences of
things are thought by some (and not without reason) to be wholly
unknown ; it may not be amiss to consider the several significations
of the word essence.

304 GENERAJ. TERMS. book 3.

First, Essence may be taken for the being of any thing, whereby
it is what it is. And thus, the real internal, but generally, in sub-
stances, unknown, constitution of things, whereon their discoverable
qualities depend, may be called their essence. This is the proper
original signification of the word, as is evident from the formation
of it ; essentia, in its primary notation, signifying properly, being.
And in this sense it is still used, when we speak of the essence of
particular things, without giving them any name.

Secondliy, The learning and disputes of the schools, having been
much busied about ^f«?/.y and species, the word essence has almost
lost its primary signification ; and instead of the real constitution of
things, has been almost wholly applied to the artificial constitution
o^ genus and species. It is true, there is ordinarily supposed a real
constitution of the sorts of things ; and it is past doubt, there must
be some real constitution, on which any collection of simple ideas
co-existing must depend. But it being evident, that things are
ranked under names into sorts or species, only as they agree to cer-
tain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed those names, the es-
sence of each genus or sort, comes to be nothing but that abstract
idea, which the general, or sortal (if I may have leave so to call it
from sort, as I do general from genus'), names stands for. And
this we shall find to be that which the word essence imports, in its
most familiar use. These two sorts of essences, I suppose, may not
unfitly be termed, the one the real, the other the nominal, essence.

§ 16. Constant connexion betzveen the name and nominal essence. —
Between the nominal essence, and the name, there is so near a con-
nexion, that the name of any sort of things cannot be attributed to
any particular being, but what has this essence, whereby it answers
that abstract idea, whereof that name is the sign.

§ 17. Supposition that species are distinguished by their real
essences, useless. — Concerning the real essences of corporeal sub
stances (to mention these only), there are, if I mistake not, tw<
opinions. The one is of those who using the word essence for thei
know not what, suppose a certain number of those essences, accord
ing to which all natural things are made, and wherein they do exactly,]
every one of them, partake, and so become of this oi* that species.!
The other, and more rational, opinion, is of those, who look on all
natural things to have a real but unknown, constitution of their inson-
sibleparts, from which flow those sensible qualities, which serve us to
distinguish them one from another, according as we have occasion to
rank them into sorts, under common denominations. The former
of these opinions, which supposes these essences as a certain num-
ber of forms or moulds, wherein all natural things, that exist, are
cast, and do equally partake, has, I imagine, very much perplexed
the knowledge of natural things. The frequent productions of
monsters, in all the species of animals, and of changelings, and other
strange issues of human birth, carry with them difficulties not pos-
sible to consist with this hypothesis ; since it is as impossible, that two
things, partaking exactly of the same real essence, should have dif-

CH. 3. GENERAL TERMS 305

ferent properties, as that two figures, partaking of the same real es-
sence of a circle, should have different properties. . But were there
no other reason against it, yet the supposition of essences, that can-
not be known ; and the making them, nevertheless, to be that which
distinguishes the species of things, is so wholly useless and unservice-
able to any part of our knowledge, that that alone were sufficient to
make us lay it by, and content ourselves with such essences of the
sorts or species of things, as come within the reach of our knowledge ;
which, when seriously considered, will be found, as I have said, to
be nothing else but those abstract complex ideas to which we have
annexed distinct general names.

§ 18. Real and nominal essence^ the same in simple ideas and
modes, different in substances. — Essences being thus distinguished
into nominal and real, we may farther observe, that in the species of
simple ideas and modes they are always the same ; but in substances,
always quite different. Thus a figure including a space between
three lines, is the real as well as nominal essence of a triangle ; it
being not only the abstract idea to which the general name is an-
nexed, but the very essentia, or being, of the thing itself, that foun-
dation from which all its properties flow, and to which they are all
inseparably annexed. But it is far otherwise concerning that parcel
of matter which makes the ring on my finger, wherein these two
essences are apparently <lifFerent. For it is the real constitution of
its insensible parts, on which depend all those properties of colour,
weight, fusibility, fixedness, Sec, which makes it to be gold, or gives
it a right to that name, which is therefore its nominal essence ; since
nothing can be called gold, but what has a conformity of qualities to
that abstract complex idea, to which that name is annexed. But
this distinction of essences, belonging particularly to substances, we
shall, when we come to consider their names, have an occasion to
treat of more fully.

§ 19. Essences ingenei'ahle and imoryuptible. — That such abstract
ideas, with names to them, as we have been speaking of, are essences,
may farther appear by what we are told concerning essences, viz.,
that they are all ingenerable and incorruptible. Which cannot be
true of the real constitutions of things, which begin and perish with
them. All things that exist, besides their author, are all liable to
change ; especially those things we are acquainted with, and have
ranked into bands, under distinct names or ensigns. Thus that
which was grass to day, is to morrow the flesh of a sheep ; and
within a few days after, becomes part of a man ; in all which, and
the like changes, it is evident, their real essence, i. e. that constitution
whereon the properties of these several things depended, is destroyed,
1 and perishes with them. But essences being taken for ideas, estab-
I lished in the mind, with names annexed to them, they are supposed
I to remain steadily the same whatever mutations the particular sub-
stances are liable to. For whatever becomes of Alexander and
Bucephalus, the ideas to which man and horse are annexed, are sup-
posed nevertheless to remain the same ; and so the essences of those

X

306 NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS. book 3.

species are preserved whole and undcstroyed, whatever changes
happen to any, or all of the individuals of those species. By this
means the essence of a species rests safe and entire, without the
existence of so much as one individual of that kind. For were
there now no circle existing any where in the world (as, perhaps,
that figure exists not any where exactly marked out), yet the idea
annexed to that name would not cease to be what it is ; nor cease
to be as a pattern, to determine which of the particular figures we
meet with, have, or have not, a right to the name circle, and so to
show which of them, by having that essence, was of that species.
And though there neither were, nor had been in nature such a
beast as an unicorn, nor such a fish as a mermaid ; yet supposing
those names to stand for complex abstract ideas, that contained no
inconsistency in them ; the essence of a mermaid is as intelligible
as that of a man ; and the idea of an unicorn, as certain, steady,
and permanent, as that of a horse. From what has been said, it
is evident, that the doctrine of the immutability of essences, proves
them to be only abstract ideas ; and is founded on the relation es-
tablished between them, and certain sounds as signs of them ; and
will always be true, as long as the same name can have the same
signification.

§ 20. Recapitulation, — To conclude, this is that which in short
I would say, viz., that all the great business of genera and species,
and their essences, amounts to no more but this, that men making-
abstract ideas, and settling them in their minds, with names annexed
to them, do thereby enable themselves to consider things, and dis-
course of them, as it were, in bundles, for the easier and readier
improvement and communication of their knowledge, which would
advance but slowly, were their words and thoughts confined only to
particulars.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS.

§ 1 . Names of simple ideas, modes, and substances, have each
something peculiar. — T. hough all words, as I have shown, signify
nothing immediately but the ideas in the mind of the speaker, yet
upon a nearer survey, we shall find that the names of simple ideas,
mixed modes, (under which I comprise relations too), and natural
substances, have each of them something peculiar and different from
the other. For example :

§ 2. First, names of simple ideas and substances, intimate rial
existence, — First, The names of simple ideas and substances, witli
the abstract ideas in the mind, which they immediately signify, in-
timate also some real existence, from which was derived their ori-

CH. 4. NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS. 307

ginal pattern. But the names of mixed modes terminate in the idea
that is in the mind, and lead not the thoughts any farther, as we shall
See more at large in the following chapter.

§ 3. Secondly, names of simple ideas and modes y signify always
both real and nominal essence. — Secondly, The names of simple ideas
and modes, signifying always the real, as well as nominal essence of
their species. But the names of natural substances signify rarely, if
ever, any thing but barely the nominal essences of those species, as
we shall show in the chapter that treats of the names' of substances
in particular.

I 4. Thirdly, names of simple ideas undejinable. — Thirdly, The
names of simple ideas are not capable of any definitions ; the names
of all complex ideas are. It has not, that I know, hitherto been -
taken notice of by any body, what words are, and what are not,
capable of being defined ; the want whereof is, as I am apt to think,
not seldom the occasion of great wrangling and obscurity in men's
discourses, whilst some demand definitions of terms that cannot be
defined ; and others think, they ought to rest satisfied in an expli-
cation made by a more general word, and its restriction (or to speak
in terms of art, by a genus and difference), when even after such
definition made according to rule, those who hear of it, have often
no more a clear conception of the meaning of the word, than they
had before. This at least, I think, that the showing what words
are, and what are not, capable of definitions, and wherein consists
a good definition, is not wholly beside our present purpose ; and
perhaps will afford so much light to the nature of these signs, and
our ideas, as to deserve a more particular consideration.

^ 5. If all were definable, it would be a process in infinitum. — I
will not here trouble myself, to prove that all terms are not definable
from that progress, in infinitum, which it will visibly lead us into,
if we should allow, that all names could be defined. For if the terms
of one definition, were still to be defined by another, where at last
should we stop ? But I shall, from the nature of our ideas, and the
signification of our words, show, why some names can, and others
cannot, be defined, and which they are.

§ 6. What a definition is. — I think it is agreed, that a definition
; is nothing else, but the showing the meaning of one word by several
I other not synonymous terms. The meaning of words, being only
i the ideas they are made to stand for by him that uses them ; the
' meaning of any term is then shown, or the word is defined, when by
: other words the idea it is made the sign of, and annexed to in the
; mind of the speaker, is, as it were, represented, or set before the
view of another ; and thus its signification ascertained. This is the
\ only use and end of definitions ; and therefore the only measure of
' what is, or is not, a good definition.

§ 7. Simple ideas why undefinable. — This being premised, I say,
that the names of simple ideas, and those only, are incapable of
being defined. The reason whereof is this, that the several terms

x2

S08 NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS. book 5.

of a definition, signifying several ideas, they can altogether by no
means represent an idea, wliich has no composition at all ; and
therefore definition, which is properly nothing but the showing thq
meaning of one word by several others, not signifying each the same
thing, can in the names of simple ideas have no place.

§ 8. Instances ; motion. — The not observing this difference \\\
our ideas, and their names, has produced that eminent trifling in
tlie schools, which is so easy to be observed in the definitions they
give us of some few of these simple ideas. For as to the greatest
part of them, even those masters of definitions were fain to leave
them untouched, merely by the impossibility they found in it.
What more exquisite jargon could the wit of man invent, than
this definition, '' The act of a being in power, as far forth as in
power?*" which would puzzle any rational man, to whom it was
not already known by its famous absurdity, to guess what word
it could ever be supposed to be the explication of. If Tully asking
a Dutchman what beweegitige was, should have received this expli-
cation in his own language, that it was actus entis in potentia quatemis
in potentia ; I ask whether any one can imagine he could thereby
have understood what the word beweeginge signified, or have guessed
what idea a Dutchman ordinarily had in his mind, and would signify
to another, when he used that sound.

§ 9. Nor have the modern philosophers, who have endeavoured
to throw off the jargon of the schools, and speak intelligibly, much
better succeeded in defining simple ideas, whether by explaining
their causes, or any otherwise. The atomists, who define motion
to be a passage from one place to another, what do they more than
put one synonymous word for another? For what is passage other
than motion ? And if they were asked what passage was, how
would they better define it than by motion ? For is it not at least
as proper and significant to say, passage is a motion from one })lacc
to another, as to say, motion is a passage, &c. ? This is to trans-
late, and not to define, when we change two words of the same sig-
nification one for another; which when one is better understood
than the other, may serve to discover what idea the unknown stands
for ; but is very far from a definition, unless we will say, every
English word in the dictionary, is the definition of the Latin word
it answers, and that motion is a definition of motus. Nor will the
successive application of the parts of the superficies of one body, to
those of another, which the Cartesians give us, prove a much better
definition of motion when well examined.

§ 10. Light. — " The act of perspicuous, as far forth as perspi-
cuous,*" is another peripatetic definition of a simple idea ; which
though not more absurd than the former of motion, yet betrays its
uselessness and insignificancy more plainly, because experience will
easily convince any one, that it cannot make the meaning of the
word light (which it pretends to define) at all understood by a blind
man : but ti)e definition of motion appears not at first sight so use-

I

CH. 4. NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS, 309

less, becausG it escapes this way of trial. For this simple idea, en-
tering by the touch as well as sight, it is impossible to show an
example of any one, who has no other way to get the idea of motion,
but barely by the definition of that name. Those who tell us, that
light is a great number of little globules, striking briskly on the
bottom of the eye, speak more intelligibly than the schools : but
yet these words ever so well understood, would make the idea the
word light stands for, no more known to a man that understands it
not before, than if one should tell him, that light was nothing but
a company of little tennis-balls, which fairies all day long struck
with rackets against some men's foreheads, whilst they passed by
others. For granting this explication of the thing to be true ; yet
the idea of the cause of light, if we had it ever so exact, would no
more give us the idea of light itself, as it is such a particular per-
ception in us, than the idea of the figure and motion of a sharp
piece of steel, would give us the idea of that pain which it is able to
cause in us. For the cause of any sensation, and the sensation
itself, in all the simple ideas of one sense, are two ideas ; and two
ideas so different and distant one from another, that no two can be
more so. And therefore should Des Cartes'* globules strike ever
so long on the retina of a man, who was blind by a gutta serena,
he would thereby never have any idea of light, or any thing ap-
proaching it, though he understood what little globules were, and
what striking on another body was, ever so well. And therefore
the Cartesians very well distinguish between that light which is the
cause of that sensation in us, and the idea which is produced in us
by it, and is that which is properly light.

^5} 1 1 . Simple ideas, xvhy undejinahle^ farther explained. — Simple
ideas, as has been shown, are only to be got by those impressions
objects themselves make on our minds by the proper inlets appointed
to each sort. If they are not received this way, all the words in
the world, made use of to explain or define any of their names,
will never be able to produce in us the idea it stands for. For words
being sounds, can produce in us no other simple ideas, than of those
very sounds ; nor excite any in us, but by that voluntary connexion
which is known to be between them, and those simple ideas which
common use has made them signs of. He that thinks otherwise,
let him try if any words can give him the taste of a pine-apple, and
make him have the true idea of the relish of that celebrated delicious
fruit. So far as he is told it has a resemblance with any tastes,
whereof he has the ideas already in his memory, imprinted there by
sensible objects, not strangers to his palate, so far may he approach
that resemblance in his mind. But this is not giving us that idea by
a definition, but exciting in us other simple ideas, by their known
i names ; which will be still very different from the true taste of that
I fruit itself. In light and colours, and all other simple ideas, it is
I the same thing : for the signification of sounds is not natural, but
only imposed and arbitrary. And no definition of light, or redness,
is more fitted, or able to produce either of those ideas in us, than

310 NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS. book 3.

the sound light, or red, by itself. For to hope to produce an idea
of light, or colour, by a sound, however formed, is to expect that
sounds should be visible, or colours audible ; and to make the ears
do the office of all the other senses. Which is all one as to say, that
we might taste, smell, and see by the ears : a sort of philosophy
worthy only of Sancho Pancha, who had the faculty to see Dulcmea
by hearsay. And therefore he that has not before received into his
mind, by the proper inlet, the simple idea which any word stands
for, can never come to know the signification of that word, by any
other words, or sounds, whatsoever, put together according to any
rules of definition. The only way is, by applying to his senses the
proper object ; and so producing that idea in him, for which he has
learned the name already. A studious blind man, who had mightily
beat his head about visible objects, and made use of the explication
of his books and friends, to understand those names of light and
colours which often came in his way ; bragged one day, that he now
I understood what scarlet signified. Upon which, his friend demanding,
I what scarlet was ? the blind man answered, it was like the sound of
( a trumpet. Just such an understanding of the name of any other
simple idea will he have, who hopes to get it only from a definition,
or other words made use of to explain it.

§ 12. The contrary shozon in complex ideas, hy instances of a
statue and rainbozv. — The case is quite otherwise in complex ideas ;
which consisting of several simple ones, it is in the |X)wer of words,
standing for the several ideas, that make that composition, to im-
print complex ideas in the mind, which were never there before,
and so make their names be understood. In such collections of
ideas, passing under one name, definition, or the teaching the sig-
nification of one word, by several others, has place, and may make
us understand the names of things, which never came within
the reach of our senses ; and frame ideas suitable to those in other
men's minds, when they use those names : provided that none of the
terms of the definition stand for any such simple ideas, which he
to whom the explication is made, has never yet had in his thought.
Thus the word statue may be explained to a blind m^in by other
words, when picture cannot, his senses having given him the idea of
figure, but not of colours, which therefore words cannot excite in
him. This gained the prize to the painter, against the statuary ;
each of which contending for the excellency of his art, and the sta-
tuary bragging that his was to be preferred, because it reached far.,
ther, and even those who had lost their eyes, could yet perceive the
excellency of it. The painter agreed to refer himself to the judg-
ment of a blind man ; who being brought where there was a statue
made by the one, and a picture clrawn by the other ; he was first led
to the statue, in which he traced with his hands, all the lineaments of
the face and l)ody ; and with great admiration, applauded the skill
of the workman. But being led to the picture, and having his
hands laid upon it, was told that now he touched the head, and then
the forehead, eye^, nose, &c. as his hands moved over the parts of

CH. 4. NAMES OF SIMPLE IDEAS. 31i

the picture on the cloth, without finding any the least distinction :
whereupon he cried out, that certainly that must needs be a very ad-
mirable and divine piece of workmanship, which could represent to
them all those parts, where he could neither feel nor perceive any
thing.

§ 13. He that should use the word rainbow, to one who knew all
those colours, but yet had never seen that phenomenon, would, by
enumerating the figure, largeness, position, and order of the colours,
so' well define that word, that it might be perfectly vmderstood.
But yet that definition, how exact and perfect soever, would never
make a blind man understand it; because several of the simple
ideas that make that complex one, being such as he never received
by sensation and experience, no words are able to excite them in his
mind.

§ 14. The names of complex ideas ivhen to be made intelligible by
words. — Simple ideas, as has been shown, can only be got by expe-
rience, from those objects which are proper to produce in us those
perceptions. When by this means we have our minds stored with
them, and know the names for them, then we are in a condition to
define, and by definition, to understand, the names of complex
ideas, that are made up of them. But when any term stands for a
simple idea, that a man has never yet had in his mind, it is impos-
sible, by any words, to make known its meaning to him. When any
term stands for an idea a man is acquainted with, but is ignorant
that that term is the sign of it, there another name, of the same idea
which he has been accustomed to, may make him understand its
meaning. But in no case whatsoever, is any name, of any simple
idea, capable of a definition.

§ 15. Fourthly, names of simple ideas least doubtful. — Fourthly,
But though the names of simple ideas have not the help of definition
to determine their signification ; yet that hinders not, but that they
are generally less doubtful and uncertain, than those of mixed modes
and substances. Because they standing only for one simple percep-
tion, men, for the most part, easily and perfectly agree in their signi-
fication : and there is little room for mistake and wrangling about
their meaning. He that knows once, that whiteness is the name of
that colour he has observed in snow or milk, will not be apt to mis-
apply that word, as long as he retains that idea ; which, when he has
quite lost, he is not apt to mistake the meaning of it, but perceives
he understands it not. There is neither a multiplicity of simple ideas
to be put together, which makes the doubtfulness in the names of
; mixed modes ; nor a supposed, but an unknown, real essence, with
i properties depending thereon, the precise number whereof is also
j unknown, which makes the difficulty in the names of substances.
1 But, on the contrary, in simple ideas, the whole signification of the
name is known at once, and consists not of parts, whereof more or
less being put in, the idea may be varied, and so the signification of
name be obscure or uncertain.

312 NAMES OF MIXED MODES. book 5.

§ 16. Fifthly, simple ideas liavefexo ascents in lined prcBdicamentali.
— Fifthly, This farther may be observed, concerning simple ideas
and their names, that they have but few ascents in lined prcedica-
mentali (as they call it), from the lowest species to the summum
genus. The reason whereof is, that the lowest species being but one
simple idea, nothing can be left out of it, that so the difference
being taken away, it may agree with some other thing in one idea
common to them both : which having one name, is the s^erius of the
other two : v. g. there is nothing can be left out of the idea of white
and red, to make them agree in one common appearance, and so
have one general name ; as rationality being left out of the complex
idea of man, makes it agree with brute, in the more general idea and
name of animal. And, therefore, when to avoid unpleasant enu-
merations, men would comprehend both white and reef, and several
other such simple ideas, under one general name, they have been
fain to do it by a Avord which denotes only the way they get into the
mind. For when white, red, and yellow, are all comprehended under
the genus or name colour, it signifies no more, but such ideas as
are produced in the mind only by the sight, and have entrance only
through the eyes. And when they would frame yet a more general
term, to comprehend both colours and sounds, and the like simple
ideas, they do it by a word that signifies all such as come into the
mind only by one sense ; and so the general term quality, in its or-
dinary acceptation, comprehends colours, sounds, tastes, smells, and
tangible qualities, with distinction from extension, number, motion,
pleasure, and pain, which make impressions on the mind, and intro-
duce their ideas by more senses than one.

§ 17. Sixthly, names of simple ideas stand for ideas, not at all ar-
bitrary.— Sixthly, The names of simple ideas, substances, and mixed
modes, have also this difference : that those of mixed modes stand for
ideas, perfectly arbitrary : those of substances, are not perfectly so ;
but refer to a pattern, though with some latitude : and those of simple
ideas are perfectly taken from the existence of things, and are not
arbitrary at all. Which, what difference it makes in the significations
of their names, we shall see in the following chapters.

The names of simple modes differ little from those of simple
ideas.

I

CHAPTER V.

OF THE NAMES OF MIXED MODES AND RELATIONS.

§ 1 . They stand for abstract ideas, as well as other general names,
— The names of mixed modes being general, they stand, as has
l)een shown, for sorts or species of things, each of which has its pe-
culiar essence. The essences of these species also, as has been

CH. o. NAMES OF MIXED MODES. SIS

shown, are nothing but the abstract idea^ in the mind, to which the
name is annexed. Thus far the names and essences of mixed modes,
have nothing but what is common to them, with other ideas ; but if
we take a little nearer survey of them, we shall find that they have
something peculiar, which, perhaps, may deserve our attention.

§ 2. First, the ideas they stand for, are made by the understand-
ing.— The first particularity I shall observe in them is, that the
abstract ideas, or, if you please, the essences, of the several species
of mixed modes, are made by the understanding, wherein they differ
from those of simple ideas ; in which sort, the mind has no power to
make any one, but only receives such as are presented to it, by the
real existence of things operating upon it.

§ 3. Secondly, made arhitrarily, and without patterns. — In the
next place, these essences of the species of mixed modes, are not
only made by the mind, but made very arbitrarily, made without
patterns, or reference to any real existence. Wherein they difter
from those of substances, which carry with them the supposition of
some real being, from which they are taken, and to which they are
conformable. But in its complex ideas of mixed modes, the mind
takes a liberty not to follow the existence of things exactly. It
unites and retains certain collections, as so many distinct specific
ideas, whilst others, that as often occur in nature, and are as plainly
suggested by outward things, pass neglected, without particular
names or specifications. Nor does the mind, in these of mixed
modes, as in the complex ideas of substances, examine them by the
real existence of things: or verify them by patterns, containing
such peculiar compositions in nature. To know whether his idea
of adultery, or incest, be riglit, will a man seek it any where
amongst things existing ? Or, is it true, because any one has been
witness to such an action .? No : but it suffices here, that men have
put together such a collection, into one complex idea, that makes
the archetype and specific idea, whether ever any such action Avere
committed in rerum natura, or no.

§ 4. Hoiv this is done. — To understand this aright, we must
consider wherein this making of these complex ideas consists ; and
that is not in the making any new idea, but putting together those
which the mind had before. Wherein the mind does these three
things ; First, It chooses a certain number. Secondly, It gives them
connexion, and makes them into one idea. Thirdly, It ties them
together by a name. If we examine how the mind proceeds in
these, and what liberty it takes in them, we shall easily observe how
these essences of the species of mixed modes, are the workmanship
of the mind ; and consequently, that the species themselves are of
men's making.

§ 5. Evidently arbitrary, in that the idea is often before the exist-
ence.— Nobody can doubt, but that these ideas of mixed modes,
are made by a voluntary collection of ideas put together in the
mind, independent from any original patterns in nature, who will
but retlect, that this sort of complex ideas may be made, abstracted.

314 NAMES OF MIXED MODES. book S.

and have names given them, and so a species be constituted, before
any one individual of that species ever existed. AVho can doubt,
but the ideas of sacrilege, or adultery, might be framed in the minds
of men, and have names given them ; and so these species of mixed
modes be constituted, before either of them was ever committed ;
and might be as well discoursed of, and reasoned about, and as cer-
tain truths discovered of them, whilst yet they had no being but in
the understanding, as well as now, that they have but too frequently
a real existence? Whereby it is plain, how much the sorts of
mixed modes, are the creatures of the understanding, where they
have a being as subservient to all the ends of real truth and know-
ledge, as when they really exist : and we cannot doubt but law-
makers have often made laws about species of actions, which were
only the creatures of their own understandings : beings that had no
other existence, but in their own minds. And, I think, nobody can
deny, but that the resurrection was a species of mixed modes in the
mind, before it really existed.

§ 6. Instances ; murde?', incest, stabbing. — To sec how arbitrarily
these essences of mixed modes are made by the mind, we need but
take a view of almost any of them. A little looking into them, will
satisfy us, that it is the mind that combines several scattered inde-
pendent ideas, into one complex one ; and by the common name it
gives them, makes them the essence of a certain species without
regulating itself by any connexion they have in nature. For what
greater connexion in nature has the idea of a man, than the idea of
a sheep, with killing ; that this is made a particular species of action,
signified by the word murder ; and the other not ? Or what union
is there in nature, between the idea: of a relation of a father, with
killing, than that of a son, or neighbour, that those are combined
into one complex idea, and, thereby, made the essence of the dij
tinct species, parricide, whilst the other make no distinct species a^
all ? But though they have made killing a man's father or motherJ
a distinct species from kilHng his son or daughter ; yet, in some
other cases, son and daughter are taken in too, as well as father anc'
mother ; and they are all equally comprehended in the same species
as in that of incest. Thus the mind in mixed modes ai'bitraril]
unites into complex ideas, such as it finds convenient ; whilst other
that have altogether as much union in nature, are left loose, ani
never combined into one idea, because they have no need of one"
name. It is evident then, that the mind, by its free choice, gives a
connexion to a certain number of ideas, which, in nature, have no
more union with one another, nor others that it leaves out ; why
else is the part of the weapon, the beginning of the wound is made
with, taken notice of, to make the distinct species, called stabbing,
and the figure and matter of the weapon left out ? I do not say
this is done without reason, as we shall see more by-and-by ; but
this, I say, that it is done by the free choice of the mind, pursuing
its own ends, and that, therefore, these species of mixed modes, arc
the workinanuhip of the understanding ; and there is nothing more

CH. 5. NAMES OF MIXED MODES. 315

evident, than that, for the most part, in the framing these ideas, the
mind searches not its patterns in nature, nor refers the ideas it makes
to the real existence of things ; but puts such together, as may best
serve its own purposes, without tying itself to a precise imitation of
any thing that really exists.

§ 7. Bui still siihservunt to the end of language. — But though
these complex ideas, or essences of mixed modes, depend on the
mind, and are made by it with great liberty ; yet they are not made
at random, and jumbled together without any reason at all. Though
these complex ideas be not always copied from nature, yet they are
always suited to the end for which abstract ideas are made ; and
though they be combinations made of ideas, that are loose enough,
and have as little union in themselves, as several other, to which the
mind never gives a connexion that combines them into one idea;
yet they are always made for the convenience of communion,
which is the chief end of language. The use of language is, by
short sounds, to signify, with ease and despatch, general conceptions ;
wherein not only abundance of particulars may be contained, but
also a great variety of independent ideas collected into one complex
one. In the making, therefore, of the species of mixed modes, men
have had regard only to such combinations as they had occasion to
mention one to another. Those they have combined into distinct
complex ideas, and given names to ; whilst others, that in nature
have as near an union, are left loose and unregarded. For to go
no farther than human actions themselves, if they would make dis-
tinct abstract ideas of all the varieties might be observed in them,
the number must be infinite, and the memory confounded with the
plenty, as well as overcharged to little purpose. It suffices, that
men make and name so many complex ideas of these mixed modes,
as they find they have occasion to have names for, in the ordinary
occurrence of their affairs. If they join to the idea of kilhng, the
idea of father, or mother, and so make a distinct species from kill-
ing a man"'s son or neighbour, it is because of the different heinous-
ness of the crime, and the distinct punishment is due to the
murdering a man's father and mother, different from what ought
to be inflicted on the murder of a son or neighbour ; 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 cir-
cumlocutions, and tedious descriptions.

§ 8. Whereof the intranslatable i^ords of divers languages are a
proof — A moderate skill in different languages, will easily satisfy
one of the truth of this, it being so obvious to observe great store

316 NAMES OF MIXED MODES. book 3

of words in one language, which have not any that answer them in
another. Which plainly shows, that those of one country, by their
customs and manner, of life, have found occasion to make several
complex ideas, and giye names to them, which others never col-
lected into specific 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 comnumication. 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 Charibee, or Westoe tongues ; and
the vcrsura of the Romans, or corhan of the Jews, have no words in
other languages to answer them ; the reason whereof is plain, from
what has been said. Nay, if we look a little more nearly into this
matter, and exactly compare different language, 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 rendered 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,
rendered by the English names, hour, foot, and pound ; 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
Englishman expresses by those English ones. And if either of
these should make use of the measures that those of the other lan-
guage designed 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. This sltoios species to he made for communication. — The
reason why I take so particular notice of this, is, that we may not
be mistaken about genera and species, and their 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 the
species of mixed modes are made by the understanding; yet, I
tliink, it can by nolx^dy be denied, that it is the mind makes those
abstract complex ideas, to which specific names are given. Atul if

CH. 5. NAMES OF MIXED MODES. 317

it be true, as it is, that the mind makes the 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 EngHsh idiom.

§ 10. In rnixed modes, it is the name that ties the comhination
together, and mah'es it a species. — 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, it is the name which is, as it were, .
the knot that ties them fast together. What a vast variety of dif-
ferent 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 show, 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, v.e find, that men, speaking of mixed
modes, seldom imagine or take any other for species of them, but
such as are set out by name : 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 could 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 an-
nexed to it, wherein the parts of that complex idea have a settled
and permanent union ; then is the essence, as it were, established,
and the species looked on as complete. For to what purpose sh.ould
: the memory charge itself with such compositions, unless it were by
! abstraction to make them general .^^ And to what purpose make
I them general, unless it were, that they might have general names,
I 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

*i

318 NAMES OF MIXED MODES. book 3.

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 names, without any
operation of the mind, either abstracting, or giving a name to that
complex idea.

§ 12. For the originals of mixed modes, zoe look nofarilier than
the mind, which also shores them to be the worhmanship of the under-
standing.— Conformable also to what has been said concerning the
essences of the species of mixed modes, thiit 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 -justice, or gratitude, we
frame to ourselves no imagination of any thing existing, which we
would conceive ; but our thoughts terminate in the abstract ideas of
those virtues, and look not farther ; as they do, when we speak of a
horse, or iron, whose specific 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
parts of them, which are moral beings, we consider the original pat-
terns as being in the mind ; and to those we refer for the distinguish-
ing 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 un-
derstanding.

§ 13. Their being made by the understanding without patterns,
shows the reason xvhy they arc so compounded. — Hence likewise we
may learn, why tlie complex ideas of mixed modes are commonly
more compounded and decompounded, than those of natural sub-
stances. Because they being the workmanship of the understand-
ing, pursuing only its own ends, and the conveniency of expressing
in short those ideas it would make known to another, it does, with
great ability, 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, these
two, viz. shape and voice, conmionly make the whole nominal
essence.

§ 14. Names of mixed modes stand always for their real essences.
— Another thing we may observe from what lias been said, is, that
tlie names of mixed modes always signify (when they have any

CH. 5. NAMES OF MIXED MODES. 319

determined 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 itself has formed, which is all it would have expressed 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 truth, we shall see hereafter.

§ 15. Why their names are generally got before their ideas, —
This also may show us the reason, why for the most part the names
of mixed modes are got, before tbe 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
frequently 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 ideas of glory and ambition, before
he has heard the names of them ? In simple ideas and substances,
I I grant it is otherwise ; which being such ideas as have a real exist-
: ence and union in nature, the ideas and names are got one before the
i other, as it happens.

I § 16. Reason of my being so large on this subject. — What has

{ been said here of mixed modes, is, with very little difference,

I applicable also to relations ; which, since every man himself may

! observe, I may spare myself the pains to enlarge on : especially,

; since what I have here said concerning words in this third book, wijl

! possibly be thought by some to be much more than what so slight

I a subject required. I allow, it might be brought into a narrower

i 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 it 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. AVhen it is considered,

what a pudder is made about essences, and how much all sorts of

knowledge, discourse, and conversation, are pestered and disordered

by the careless and confused use and application of words, it will,

320 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

perhaps, be thought worth while thoroughly to lay it open. And
I shall be pardoned 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
swelled 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 an 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.

CHAPTER VI.

OF the: names or substances.

§ 1. The common names of substances stand for sorts, — The com-
mon names of substances, as well as other general terms, stand for
sorts ; which is nothing else but the being made signs of such com-
plex ideas, wherein several particular substances do, or might, agree,
by virtue of which, they are capable of being comprehended in oiu>
common conception, and signified by one name. I say, do or might
agree: for though there be but one sun existing in the world, yt
the idea of it being abstracted, so that more substances (if there wei
several) might eacMi agree in it ; it is as much a sort, as if there wei
as many suns as there are stars. They want not their reasons, wl
think there are, and that each fixed star would answer the idea tl
name sun stands for, to one who was ]^laced in a due distance ; whicl
by the way, may show us how much the sorts, or, if you pleas
genera and species of things (for those Latin terms signify to me i
more than the English word sort), depend on such collections of idei
as men have made ; and not on the real nature of things : since it
not impossible, but that, in propriety of speech, that might be a si
to one, which is a star to another.

§ 2. The essence of each sort is the abstract idea. — The measui
and boundary of each sort, or species, whereby it is constitute
that particular sort, and distinguished from others, is that we a

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 8«1

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 consti-
tution 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 first
sight, to discover.

§ 3. The nominal and real essence different. — For though, per-
haps, voluntary motion, with sense and reason, joined 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 nobody will say, that that complex idea is the real
essence and source of all those operations, which 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
diflferent : 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 it
is possible angels have, and it 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 is now, as
is his who knows all the springs and wheels, and other contrivances
within, of the famous clock at Strasburgh, from that which a gazing
countryman 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. Nothing essential to individuals. — That essence, in the or-
dinary 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 shows their relation. It is necessary for me to be as I am ;
God and nature has made me so ; but there is nothing I have is
i 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
j memory, or both ; and an apoplexy, leave neither sense nor under-
standing, no, nor life. Other creatures of my shape may be made
with more and better, and fewer and worse, faculties than I have ;

322 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

and others may have reason and sense in a shape and body very
different from mine. Neither 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 ab-
stract idea of that sort, something is found essential. Let any one
examine his own thoughts, and he will find, that as soon as he sup-
poses or speaks of essential, the consideration of some species, or
the complex idea signified by some general name, comes into his
mind ; and it is in reference to that, that this or tliat quahty 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 ;
no 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 the name man given it, then reason is essen-
tial 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 m the abstract ideas, which any
general terms stand for, cannot be ranked under that species, nor
be called by that name, since that abstract idea is the very essence of
that species.

§ 5. Thus, if the idea of body, with some people, be bare ex-
tension or space, then solidity is not essential to body ; if others
make the idea to which they give the name body, to be solidity and
extension, then solidity is essential to body. That, therefore, and
that alone, is considered as essential, which makes a part of th<
complex idea the name of a sort stands for, without which, no pi
ticular thing can be reckoned of that sort, nor be entitled to thi
name. Should there be found a parcel of matter that had all tl
other qualities that are in iron, but wanted obedience to the loa<
Stone ; and would neither be drawn by it, nor receive direction frc
it, would any one question whether it wanted any thing essential'
It would be absurd to ask, whether a thing really existing, wanted
any thing essential to it ? Or could it be demanded, whether this
made an essential or specific difference, or no; since we have no
other measure of essential or specific, but our abstract ideas ? And
to talk of specific differences in nature, without reference to general
ideas and names, is to talk unintelligibly. For I would ask any one,
what is sufficient to make an essential difference in nature, between
any two particular beings, without any regard had to some abstract il
idea, which is looked upon as the essence and standard of a species?
All such patterns and standards, being quite laid aside, particular
beings, considered barely in themselves, will be found to have alli
their qualities equally essential ; and every thing, in each individualj I
will be essential to it, or, .which is more, nothing at all. For though I
it may be reasonable to ask, whether obeying the magnet, be essential i

cH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 323

to iron ? yet^ I think, it is very improper and insignificant to ask,
whether it be essential to the particular parcel of matter I cut my
pen with, without considering it under the name iron, or as being of
a certain species ? And if, as has been said, our abstract ideas, which
have names annexed to them, are the boundaries of species, nothing
can be essential but what is contained in those ideas.

§ 6. It is true, I have often mentioned a real essence, distinct
in substances, from those abstract ideas of them, which I call their
nominal essence. By this real essence, I mean, that real constitu-
tion of any thing, which is the foundation of all those properties
that are combined in, and are constantly found to co-exist with, the
nominal essence ; that particular constitution which every thing has
within itself, without any relation to any thing without it. But
essence, even in this sense, relates to a sort, and supposes a species :
for being that real constitution on which the properties depend, it
necessarily supposes a sort of things, properties belonging only to
species, and not to individuals ; v. g. supposing the nominal essence
of gold, to be body of such a peculiar colour and weight, with mal-
leability and fusibility, the real essence is that constitution of the
parts of matter, on which these qualities, and their union, depend ;
and is also the foundation of its solubility in aqua regia, and other
properties accompanying that complex idea. Here are essences
and properties, but all upon supposition of a sort, or general abstract
idea, which is considered as immutable : but there is no individual
parcel of matter, to which any of these qualities are so annexed, as
to be essential to it, or inseparable from it. Indeed as to the real
essences of substances, we only suppose their being, without precisely
knowing what they are : but that which annexes them still to the
species, is the nominal essence, of which they are the supposed
foundation and cause.

§ 7. TTie nominal essence bounds the species, — The next thing

i to be considered is, by which of those essences it is, that substances

are determined into sorts, or species ; and that, it is evident, is by

I the nominal essence. For it is that alone, that the name, which is

i the mark of the sort, signifies. It is impossible, therefore, that any

thing should determine the sorts of things, which we rank under

general names, but that idea, which that name is designed as a mark

for ; which is that, as has been shown, which we call nominal essence.

Why do we say, this is a horse, and that a mule ; this is an animal,

that an herb ? How comes any particular thing to be of this or that

sort, but because it has that nominal essence, or, which is all one,

agrees to that abstract idea, that name is annexed to ? And I desire

any one but to reflect on his own thoughts, when he hears or speaks

any of those, or other names of substances, to know what sort of

essences they stand for.

§ 8. And that the species of things to us, are nothing but the
ranking them under distinct names, according to the complex ideas
in us, and not according to precise, distinct, real essences in them,
is plain from hence, that we find many of the individuals that are

324 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book S.

ranked into one sort, called by one common name, and so received
as being of one species, have yet qualities depending on their real
constitutions, as far different one from another, as from others, ■
from which they are accounted to differ specifically- This, as it is I
easy to be observed by all who have to do with natural bodies ; so
chemists especially are often, by sad experience, convinced of it, when
they sometimes in vain seek for the same qualities in one parcel of
sulphur, antimony, or vitriol, which they have found in others. For
though they are bodies of the same species, having the same nominal
essence, under the same name ; yet do they often, upon severe ways
of examination, betray qualities so different one from another, as to
frustrate the expectation and labour of very wary chemists. But if
things were distinguished into species, according to their real essences,
it would be as impossible to find different properties in any two
individual substances of the same species, as it is to find different
properties in two circles, or two equilateral triangles. That is
properly the essence to us, which determines every particular to
this or that classis ; or, which is the same thing, to this or that
general name : and what can that be else, but that abstract idea to
which that name is annexed ? And so has, in truth, a reference,
not so much to the being of particular things, as to their general
denominations.

§ 9. Not the real essence, which we Jcnow not. — Nor indeed can
we rank and sort things, and consequently (which is the end of
sorting) denominate them by their real essences, because we know
them not. Our faculties carry us no farther towards the know-
ledge and distinction of substances, than a collection of those sen-
sible ideas, which we observe in them ; which however made with
the greatest diligence and exactness we are capable of, yet is more
remote from the true internal constitution, from which those qualitiei"
flow, than, as I said, a countryman's idea is from the inwari
contrivance of that famous clock at Strasburgh, whereof he onlj
sees the outward figure and motions. There is not so contemptibf
a plant or animal, that does not confound the most enlarged undei
standing. Though the familiar use of things about us, take off oi
wonder, yet it cures not our ignorance. When we come to e^
amine the stones we tread on, or the iron we daily handle, we pn
sently find we know not their make; and can give no reason c
the different qualities we find in them. It is evident, the internal
constitution, whereon their properties depend, is unknown to us.
For to go no farther than the grossest and most obvious we can
imagine amongst them, what is that texture of parts, that real es-
sence, that makes lead and antimony fusible; wood and stones not?
What makes lead and iron malleable; antimony and stones not?
And yet how infinitely these come short of the fine contrivances,
and unconceivable real essences of plants or animals, every one
knows. The workmanship of the all-wise and powerful God, in
the great fabric of the universe, and every part thereof, farther
exceeds the capacity and comprehension of the most inquisitive

CH. a NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 325

and intelligent man, than the best contrivance of the most inge-
nious man, doth the conceptions of the most ignorant of rational
creatures. Therefore, we in vain pretend to range things hi to
sorts, and dispose them into certain classes, under names, by their
real essences, that are so far from our discovery or comprehension.
A blind man may as soon sort things by their colours; and he
that has lost his smell, as well distinguish a lily and a rose by their
odours, as by those internal constitutions which he knows not.
He that thinks he can distinguish sheep and goats by their real
essences, that are unknown to him, may be pleased to try his skill
in those species, called cassiowary, and querechinchio ; and by their
internal real essences, determine the boundaries of those species,
without knowing the complex idea of sensible qualities, that each of
those names stand for, in the countries where those animals are to be
found.

§ 10. Not substantial forms, which we "know less. — Those there-
fore who have been taught, that the several species of substances had
their distinct, internal, substantial forms ; and that it was those forms
which made the distinction of substances into their true species and
genera, were led yet farther out of the way, by having their minds
set upon fruitless inquiries after substantial forms, wholly unintelligi-
ble, and whereof we have scarce so much as any obscure or confused
conception in general.

§ 11. That the nominal essence is that whereby we distinguish
species. Jar ther evident from spirits. — That our ranking and distin-
guishing natural substances into species, consists in the nominal
essences the mind makes, and not in the real essences to be found
in the things themselves, is farther evident from our ideas of spirits.
For the mind getting, only by reflecting on its own operations,
those simple ideas which it attributes to spirits, it hath, or can have,
no other notion of spirit, but by attributing all those operations it
finds in itself, to a sort of beings, without consideration of matter.
And even the most advanced notion we have of God is but attri-
buting the same simple ideas which we have got from reflection
on what we find in ourselves, and which we conceive to have more
perfection in them, than would be in their absence, attributing, I
say, those simple ideas to him in an unlimited degree. Thus having
got from reflecting on ourselves, the idea of existence, know-
ledge, power, and pleasure, each of which we find it better to have
than to want ; and the more we have of each, the better ; joining
all these together, with infinity to each of them, we have the com-
plex idea of an eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, infinitely wise, and
happy Being. And though we are told, that there are different
species of angels ; yet we know not how to frame distinct specific
ideas of them ; not out of any conceit, that the existence of more
species than one of spirits, is impossible: but because having no
more simple ideas (nor being able to frame more) applicable to
such beings, but only those few taken from ourselves, and from the
actions of our own minds in thinking, and being delighted, and

336 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

moving several parts of our bodies, we can no otherwise distinguish
in our conceptions the several species of spirits, one from another,
but by attributing those operations and powers, we find in ourselves,
to them in a higher or lower degree ; and so have no very distinct
specific ideas of spirits, except only of God, to whom we attribute
both duration, and all those other ideas with infinity ; to the other
spirits, with limitation : nor, as I humbly conceive, do we, between
God and them in our ideas, put any difference by any number of
simple ideas, which we have of one, and not of the other, but only
that of infinity. All the particular ideas of existence, knowledge,
will, power, and motion, &c. being ideas derived from the operations
of our minds, we attribute all of them to all sorts of spirits, with
the difference only of degrees, to the utmost we can imagine, even
infinity, when we would frame, as well as we can, an idea of the
first Being ; who yet, it is certain, is infinitely more remote in the
real excellency of his nature, from the highest and most perfect
of all created beings, than the greatest man, nay, purest seraph,
is from the most contemptible part of matter ; and consequently must
infinitely exceed what our narrow understandings can conceive of
him.

§ 12. Whereof there are 'probably numberless species. — It is not
impossible to conceive, nor repugnant to reason, that there may be
many species of spirits, as much separated and diversified one from
another, by distinct properties, whereof we have no ideas, as the
species of sensible things are distinguished one from another, by
qualities, which we know, and observe in them. That there should
be more species of intelligent creatures above us, than there are of
sensible and material below us, is probable to me from hence, that
in all the visible corporeal world, we see no chasms or gaps. All
quite down from us, the descent is by easy steps, and a continued
series of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the
other. There are fishes that have wings, and are not strangers to
the airy region : and there are some birds, that are inhabitants of
the water, whose blood is cold as fishes, and their flesh so like in
taste, that the scrupulous are allowed them on fish-days. Then
are animals so near of kin both to birds and beasts, that they arc
in the middle between both : amphibious animals link the terres
trial and aquatic together ; seals live at land and at sea, and por-
poises have the warm blood and entrails of a hog, not to mentioi
what is confidently reported of mermaids, or seamen. There are^
some brutes, that seem to have as much knowledge and reason, as
some that are called men : and the animal and vegetable kingdoms
are so nearly joined, that if you will take the lowest of one, and the
highest of the other, there will scarce be perceived any great dif-
ference between them ; and so on, till we come to the lowest and
the most inorganical parts of matter, we shall find every where,
that the several species are linked together, and differ but in al-
most insensible degrees. And when we consider the infinite power
and wisdom of the Maker, wc have reason to think, that it is suit-

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 327

able to the magnificent liarraony of the universe, and the great design
and infinite goodness of the architect, that the species of creatures
should also, by gentle degrees, ascend upward from us, toward his
infinite perfection, ^s we see they gradually descend from us down-
wards ; which, if it be probable, we have reason then to be persuaded,
that there are far more species of creatures above us, than there are
beneath ; we being in degrees of perfection, much more remote from
the infinite being of God, than we are from the lowest state of being,
and that which approaches neare:-t to nothing. And yet of all those
distinct species, for the reasons above said, we have no clear distinct
ideas.

§ 13. The nominal essence, that of the species, proved from water
and ice. — But to return to the species of corporeal substances. If I
should ask any one whether ice and water were two distinct species
of things, I doubt not but that I should be answered in the affirma-
tive ; and it cannot be denied, but he that says, that they are two
distinct species, is in the right. But if an Englishman, bred in
Jamaica, who, perhaps had never seen or heard of ice, coming into
England in the winter, find the water he puts in his bason at night,
in a great part frozen in the morning, and not knowing any peculiar
name it had, should call it hardened water; I ask, whether this
would be a new species to him, different from water ? And, I think,
it would be answered here, it would not be to him, a new species,
no more than congealed jelly, when it is cold, is a distinct species
from the same jelly, fluid and warm ; or than liquid gold, in the
furnace, is a distinct species from hard gold, in the hands of a work-
man. And if this be so, it is plain, that our distinct species are no-
thing but distinct complex ideas, with distinct names annexed to
them. It is true, every substance tliat exists, has its peculiar con-
stitution, whereon depend those sensible qualities and powers we
observe in it ; but the ranking of things into species, which is no-
thing but sorting them under several titles, is done by us, according
to the ideas that we have of them ; which though sufficient to dis-
tinguish them by names ; so that we may be able to discourse of them
when we have them not present before us ; yet, if we suppose it to
be done by their real internal constitutions, and that things existing
are distinguished by nature into species, by real essences, according
as we distinguish them into species by names, we shall be liable to
great mistakes.

§ 14. Difficulties against a certain number of real essences. — To
distinguish substantial beings into species, according to the usual
supposition that there are certain precise essences or forms of things,
whereby all the individuals existing, are, by nature, distinguished
into species, these things are necessary.

§ \b. First, To be assured, that nature, in the production of
things, always designs them to partake of certain regulated estab-
lished essences, which are to be the models of all things to be pro-
duced. This, in that crude sense, it is usually proposed, would need
some better explication, before it can fully be assented to.

328 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

§ 16. Secondly y It would be necessary to know, whether nature
always attains that essence it designs in the production of things.
The irregular and monstrous births, that in divers sorts of animals
have been observed, will always give us reason to doubt of one, or
both, of these.

§17. Thirdly^ It ought to be determined, whether those we
call monsters, be really a distinct species, according to the scholastic
notion of the word species ; since it is certain, that every thing that
exists, has its particular constitution ; and yet we find, that some of
these monstrous productions have few or none of those qualities,
which are supposed to result from, and accompany, the essence of
that species, from whence they derive their originals, and to which,
by their descent, they seem to belong.

§ 18. Our nominal essences of substances^ not perfect collections of
'properties. — Fourthli/^ The real essences of those things, which we
distinguish into species, and, as so distinguished, we name, ought to
be known ; i, e. we ought to have ideas of them. But since we are
ignorant in these four points, the supposed real essences of things
stand us not in stead for the distinguishing substances into species.

§ 19- Fiftlblj/, The only imaginable help in this case would be,
that having framed perfect complex ideas of the properties of things,
flowing from their different real essences, we should thereby distin-
guish them into species. But neither can this be done ; for being
ignorant of the real essence itself, it is impossible to know all those
properties that flow from it, and are so annexed to it, that any one
of them being away, we may certainly conclude, that that essence is
not there, and so the thing is not of that species. We can never
know what are the precise number of properties depending on the
real essence of gold, any one of which failing, the real essence of gold,
and consequently gold, would not be there, unless we knew the rea[
essence of gold, itself, and by that determined that species. By th^
word gold here, I must be understood to design a particular piece o
matter ; v. ff, the last guinea that was coined. For if it should stam
liere in its ordinary signification for that complex idea which I,
any one else, calls gold ; i. e. for the nominal essence of gold,
would be jargon ; so hard is it to show the various meaning and ii
perfection of words, when we have nothing else but words to do it bj

§ 20. By all which it is clear, that our distinguishing substance
into species by names, is not at all founded on their real essences!
nor can we pretend to range and determine them exactly into species
according to internal essential differences.

S 21. But such a collectio7i as our name stands for. — But since
as has been remarked, we have need of general words, though w
know not the real essences of things ; all we can do, is to collect sucl
a number of simple sides, as, by examination, we find to be united
together in things existing, and thereof to make one complex idea.
Which, though it be not the real essence of any substance that
exists, is vt't the specific essence to which our name belongs, and is
convertible with it ; by which we may, at least, try the truth of these

CM. 6, NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. S29

nominal essences. For example, there be that say, that the essence
of body is extension ; if it be so, we can never mistake in putting the
essence of any thing for the thing itself. Let us then, in discourse
put extension for body ; and when we would say, that body moves,
let us say that extension moves, and see how ill it will look. He that
should say, that one extension by impulse moves another extension,
would, by the bare expression, sufficiently show the absurdity of such
a notion. The essence of any thing, in respect of us, is the whole
complex idea, comprehended and marked by that name ; and in sub-
stances, besides the several distinct simple ideas that make them up,
the confused one of substance, or of an unknown support and cause
of their union, is always a part ; and, therefore, the essence of body
is not bare extension, but an extended solid thing : and so to say, an
extended solid thing moves, or impels another, is all one, and as in-
telligible, as to say body moves or impels. Likewise, to say, that a
rational animal is capable of conversation, is all one, as to say, a man.
But no one will say that rationality is capable of conversation, because
it makes not the whole essence to which we give the name man.

§ 22. Our abstract ideas ai^e to us the measures of species ; instance
in that of man. — There are creatures in the world, that have shapes
like ours, but are hairy, and want language and reason. There are
naturals amongst us, that have perfectly our shape, but want reason
and some of them language too. There are creatures, as it is said
{sit fdes penes author em^ but there appears no contradiction that there
should be such), that with language and reason, and a shape in other
things agreeing with ours, have hairy tails ; others, where the males
have no beards, and others where the females have. If it be asked,
whether these be all men, or no, all of human species ; it is plain,
the question refers only to the nominal essence ; for those of them to
whom the definition of the word man, or the complex idea signified
by that name, agrees, are men, and the other not. But if the in-
quiry be made concerning the supposed real essence, and whether
the internal constitution and frame of these several creatures be spe-
cifically different, it is wholly impossible for us to answer, no part of
that going into our specific ideas ; only we have reason to think, that
where the faculties, or outward frame, so much differs, the internal
constitution is not exactly the same ; but what difference, in the in-
ternal real constitution makes a specific difference, it is in vain to in-
quire; whilst our measures of species be, as they are, only our
abstract ideas, which we know ; and not that internal constitution,
which makes no part of them. Shall the difference of hair only on
the skin, be a mark of a different internal specific constitution between
a changeling and a drill, when they agree in shape, and want of rea-
son and speech ? And shall not the want of reason and speech be
a sign to us of different real constitutions and species between a
changeling and a reasonable man ? And so of the rest, if we pretend
that distinction of species or sort, is fixedly established by the real
frame, and secret constitutions, of things.

330 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

§ 23. Species not distinguished hy generation. — Nor let any one
sayi that the power of propagation in animals, by the mixture of
male and female, and in plants, by seeds, keeps the supposed real
species distinct and entire. For granting this to be true, it would
help us in the distinction of the species of things, no farther than the
tribes of animals and vegetables. What must we do for the rest ?
But in those too it is not sufficient : for if history lie not, women have
conceived by drills ; and what real species, by that measure, such a
production will be in nature, will be a new question ; and we have
reason to think, that this is not impossible, since mules and jumarts,
the one from the mixture of an ass and a mare, the other from the
mixture of a bull and a mare, are so frequent in the world. I once
saw a creature that was the issue of a cat and a rat, and had the plain
marks of both about it ; wherein nature appeared to have followed
the pattern of neither sort alone, but to have jumbled them both to-
gether. To which, he that shall add the monstrous productions that
are so frequently to be met with in nature, will find it hard even in
the race of animals, to determine by the pedigree of what species
every animal's issue is ; and be at a loss about the real essence, which
he thinks certainly conveyed by generation, and has alone a right to
the specific name. But farther, if the species of animals and plants
are to be distinguished only by propagation, must I go to the Indies
to see the sire and dam of the one, and the plant from which the seed
was gathered that produced the other, to know whether this be a
tiger, or that, tea.

§ 24. Not by substantial forms. — Upon the whole matter, it is
evident, that it is their own collections of sensible qualities, that
men make the essences of their several sorts of substances ; and that
their real internal structures are not considered by the greatest
part of men, in the sorting them. Much less were any substantial
forms ever thought on by any, but those who have in this one part
of the world, learned the language of the schools ; and yet those
ignorant men, who pretend not any insight into the real essences,
nor trouble themselves about substantial forms, but are content
with knowing things one from another, by their sensible qualities,
are often better acquainted with their differences, can more nicely
distinguish them from their uses, and better know what they expect
from each, than those learned quick-sighted men, who look so deep
into them, and talk so confidently of something more hidden and.
essential.

§ 25. The specific essences are made by the mind. — But supposing
that the real essences of substances were discoverable by those that
would severally apply themselves to that inquiry ; yet we could not
reasonably think, that the ranking of things under general names,
was regulated by those internal real constitutions, or any thing else,
but their obvious appearances ; since languages, in all countries,
have been establisheci long before sciences. So that they have not
been philosophers, or logicians, or such who have troubled them-

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. S31

selves about forms and essences, that have made the general names
that are in use amongst the several nations of men ; but those more
or less comprehensive terms, have, for the most part, in all lan-
guages, received their birth and signification from ignorant and
illiterate people, who sorted and denominated things, by those sen-
sible qualities they found in them, thereby to signify them, when
absent, to others, whether they had an occasion to mention a sort,
or a particular thing.

§ 26. The?'efore very various and uncertain, — Since, then, it is
evident, that we sort and name substances by their nominal, and
not by their real, essences ; the next thing to be considered is, how,
and by whom, these essences come to be made. As to the latter,
it is evident they are made by the mind, and not by nature ; for
were they nature's workmanship, they could not be so various and
different in several men, as experience tells us they are. For if we
will examine it, we shall not find the nominal essence of any one
species of substances, in all men the same ; no not of that, which, of
all others, we are the most intimately acquainted with. It could
not possibly be, that the abstract idea, to which the name man is
given, should be different in several men, if it were of nature's
making; and that to one it should be animal 7'ationale, and to
another, animal implume bipes latis unguibus. He that annexes the
name man to a complex idea, made up of sense and spontaneous
motion, joined to a body of such a shape, has, thereby, one essence
of the species man ; and he that, upon farther examination, adds
rationality, has another essence of the species he calls man ; by which
means, the same individual will be a true man to the one, which is
not so to the other. I think, there is scarce any one will allow this
upright figure, so well known, to be the essential difference of the
species man ; and yet how far men determine of the sorts of animals,
rather by their shape than descent, is very visible ; since it has been
more than once debated, whether several human foetuses should be
preserved, or received to baptism, or no, only because of the differ-
ence of their outward configuration, from the ordinary make of
children, without knowing whether they were not as capable of
reason, as infants cast in another mould ; some whereof, though of
an approved shape, are never capable of as much appearance of

i reason, all their lives, as is to be found in an ape or an elephant ;

i and never give any signs of being actuated by a rational soul.

! Whereby it is evident, that the outward figure, which only was
found wanting, and not the faculty of reason, which nobody could
know would be wanting in its due season, was made essential to the
human species. The learned divine and lawyer, must, on such
occasions, renounce his sacred definition of animal rationale, and
substitute some other essence of the human species. Monsieur
Menage furnishes us with an example worth the taking notice of

Ion this occasion. " When the Abbot of St. Martin,"" says he,
" was bore, he had so little of the figure of a man, that it bespake

*i

832 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book a

him rather a monster. It was for some time under deliberation,
whether he should be baptized or no. However, he was baptized,
and declared a man provisionally [till time should show what he
would prove]. Nature had moulded him so untowardly, that he
was called all his life, the Abbot Malotru, i. e. ill-shaped. He was
of Caen. Menagiana ^41^.'' This child, we see, was very near being
excluded out of the species of man, barely by his shape. He
escaped very narrowly as he was, and it is certain, a figure a little
more oddly turned had cast him, and he had been executed as a
thing not to be allowed to pass for a man. And yet there can be
no reason given, why, if the lineaments of his face had been a little
altered, a rational soul could not have been lodged in him, why a
visage somewhat longer, or a nose flatter, or a wider mouth, could
not have consisted, as well as the rest of his ill figure, with such a
soul, such parts, as made him, disfigured as he was, capable to be a
dignitary in the church.

^ 27. Wherein, then, would I gladly know, consists the precise
antl unmoveable boundaries of that species ? It is plain, if we ex-
amine, there is no such thing made hy nature, and established by
her amongst men. The real essence of that, or any other sort of
substances, it is evident we know not ; and therefore are so unde-
termined in our nominal essences, which we make ourselves, that
if several men were to be asked, concerning some oddly shaped
foetus, as soon as born, whether it were a man, or no ? it is past
doubt, one should meet with different answers. Which could not
happen, if the nominal essences, whereby we limit and distinguish
the species of substances, were not made by man, with some liberty ;
but were exactly copied from precise boundaries set by nature,
whereby it distinguished all substances into certain species. Who
would undertake to resolve, what species that monster was of, whicj
is mentioned by Licetus, lib. i. c. 3, with a man's head, and hof^
body .^ Or those other, which to the bodies of men had the heac
of beasts, as dogs, horses, &c. If any of these creatures had livec
and could have spoke, it would have increased the difficulty. Hi
the upper part, to the middle, been of human shape, and all belo^
swine ; had it been murder to destroy it .'' Or must the bishop ha^
been consulted, whether it were man enough to be admitted to tl
font, or no? as I have been told, it happened in France some \ei
since, in somewhat a like case. So uncertain are the bounclari<
of species of animals, to us, who have no other measures than ti
complex ideas of our own collecting ; and so far are we from cei
tainly knowing what a man is ; though, perhaps, it will be judgt
great ignorance to make any doubt about it. And yet, I think,
may say, that the certain boundaries of that species, are so far fror
being determined, and the precise number of simple ideas, which
make the nominal essence, so far from being settled, and perfectly
known, that very material doubts may still arise alxDut it; and, I
imagine, none oi the definitions of the word man, which we yet have,

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 333

nor descriptions of that sort of animal, are so perfect and exact, as
to satisfy a considerate inquisitive person : much less to obtain a
general consent, and to be that which men would every where stick
by, in the decision of cases, and determining of life and death, bap-
tism or no baptism, in productions that might happen.

§ 28. But not so arbitrary as mixed modes. — But though these
nominal essences of substances are made by the mind, they are not
yet made so arbitrarily as those of mixed modes. To the making
of any nominal essence, it is necessary. First, That the ideas whereof
it consists, have such an union as to make but one idea, how com-
pounded soever. Secondly, That the particular ideas so united, be
exactly the same, neither more nor less. For if two abstract com-
plex ideas differ either in number of sorts of their component parts,
they make two different, and not one and the same essence. In the
first of these, the mind, in making its complex ideas of substances,
only follows nature ; and puts none together, which are not sup-
posed to have an union in nature. Nobody joins the voice of a
sheep with the shape of a horse ; nor the colour of lead, Avith the
weight and fixedness of gold, to be the complex ideas of any real
substances ; unless he has a mind to fill his head with chimeras,
and his discourse with unintelligible words. Men observing cer-
tain qualities always joined and existing together, therein copied
nature ; and of ideas so united, made their complex ones of sub-
stances. For though men may make what complex ideas they please,
and give what names to them they will ; yet if they will be under-
! stood, when they speak of things really existing, they must, in some
' degree, conform their ideas to the things they would speak of ; or
else men's language will be like that of Babel ; and every mane's
words being intelligible only to himself, would no longer serve to
conversation, and the ordinary affairs of life, if the ideas they stand
I for be not some way answering the common appearances and agree-
1 ment of substances, as they really exist.

I § 29. Though very imperfect. — Secondly, Though the mind of
I man, in making its complex ideas of substances, never puts any
I together that do not really, or are not supposed to, co-exist ; and
i so it truly borrows that union from nature ; yet the number it com-
bines, depends upon the various care, industry, or fancy of him that
i makes it. Men generally content themselves with some few sensible
' obvious qualities ; and often, if not always, leave out others, as ma-
Iterial, and as firmly united, as those that they take. Of sensible
substances, there are two sorts ; one of organized bodies, which are
propagated by seed ; and in these, the shape is that, which to us is the
leading quality, and most characteristical part, that determines the
species ; and therefore in vegetables and animals, an extended solid
I substance of such a certain figure usually serves the turn. For how-
ever some men seem to prize their definition of animal rationale,
'yet should there a creature be found, that had language and reason,
but partook not of the usual shape of a man, I believe it would
hardly pass for a man, how much soever it were animal rationale.

334 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

And if Balaam's ass had, all his life, discoursed as rationally
as he did once with his master, I doubt yet, whether any one would
have thought him worthy the name man, or allowed him to be of
the same species with himself. As in vegetables and animals, it is
the shape ; so in most other bodies, not propagated by seed, it is
the colour we most fix on, and are most led by. Thus where we
find the colour of gold, we are apt to imagine all the other qualities,
comprehended in our complex idea, to be there also ; and we com-
monly take these two obvious qualities, viz. shape, and colour, for
so presumptive ideas of several species, that in a good picture, we
readily say, this is a lion, and that a rose ; this is a gold, and that a
silver, goblet, only by the different figures and colours represented
to the eye by the pencil.

§ 30. Which yet serve for common converse. — But though this
serves well enough for gross and confused conceptions, and in-
accurate ways of talking and thinking ; yet men are far enough from
having agreed on the precise number of simple ideas or qualities,
belonging to any sort of things, signified by its name. Nor is
it a wonder, since it requires much time, pains, and skill, strict
inquiry and long examination, to find out what, and how many,
those simple ideas are, which are constantly and inseparably united
in nature, and are always to be found together in the same subject.
Most men wanting either time, inclination, or industry, enough
for this, even to some tolerable degree, content themselves with
some few obvious and outward appearances of things, thereby
readily to distinguish and sort them for the common affairs of life.
And so, without farther examination, give them names, or take up
the names already in use. Which, though in common conversa-
tion they pass well enough for the signs of some few obvious
qualities co-existing, are yet far enough from comprehending, in i "
settled signification, a precise number of simple ideas ; much Ic
all those which are united in nature. He that shall consider, aft^
so much stir about germs and species, and such a deal of talk
specific differences, how few words we have yet settled definitioj
of, may, with reason, imagine, that those forms, which there ha\
been so much noise made about, are only chimeras, which give i
no light into the specific nature of things. And he that shall coj
sider, how far the names of substances are from having significatior
wherein all who use them do agree, will have reason to conclude
that though the nominal essences of substances are all supposed to
be copied from nature, yet they are all, or most of them, very im-
perfect. Since the composition of those complex ideas are, in
several men, very different ; and, therefore, that these boundaries of
species, are as men, and not as nature, makes them, if at least there
are in nature any such prefixed bounds. It is true, that many par-
ticular substances are so made by nature, that they have agreement
and likeness one with another, and so afford a foundation of being
ranked into sorts. But the sorting of things by us, or the making
of determinate species, being in order to naming and comprehend-

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 335

ing them under general terms, I cannot see how it can be properly
said, that nature sets the boundaries of the species of things : or if
it be so, our boundaries of species are not exactly conformable to
those in nature. For we having need of general names for present
use, stay not for a perfect discovery of all those qualities, which
would best show us their most material differences and agreements ;
but we ourselves divide them, by certain obvious appearances, into
species, that we may the easier, under general names, communicate
our thoughts about them. For having no other knowledge of any
substance, but of the simple ideas that are united in it ; and
observing several particular things to agree with others, in several of
those simple ideas, we make that collection our specific idea, and
give it a general name ; that in recording our thoughts, and in our
discourse with others, we may in one short word design all the
individuals that agree in that complex idea, without enumerating
the simple ideas that make it up ; and so not waste our time and
breath in tedious descriptions ; which we see they are fain to do,
who would discourse of any new sort of things they have not yet a
name for.

§ 31. Essences of species under the same name, very different. — ■

But, however, these species of substances pass well enough in

ordinary conversation, it is plain, that this complex idea, wherein

they observe several individuals to agree, is, by different men, made

very differently ; by some more, and others less, accurately. In

some, this complex idea contains a greater, and in others, a smaller,

\ number of qualities : and so is apparently such as the mind makes it.

' The yellow shining colour makes gold to children ; others add weight,

I malleableness, and fusibility ; and others, yet other qualities, which

j they find joined with that yellow colour, as constantly as its weight

and fusibility : for in all these and the like qualities, one has as good

, a right to be put into the complex idea of that substance, wherein

I they are all joined, as another. And therefore different men leaving

out, or putting in, several simple ideas, which others do not, accord-

i ing to their various examination, skill, or observation of that subject,

I have different essences of gold ; which must therefore be of their own,

I and not of nature's, making.

i § 3^. The Trior e general our ideas are, the more incomplete and

\ partial they are. — If the number of simple ideas that make the

' nominal essence of the lowest species, or first sorting of individuals,

' depends on the mind of man, variously collecting them, it is much

more evident that they do so, in the more comprehensive classis,

which, by the masters of logic, are called genera. These are complex

ideas designedly imperfect : and it is visible at first sight, that several

of those qualities, that are to be found in the things themselves, are

purposely left out of generical ideas. For as the mind, to make

general ideas, comprehending several particulars, leaves out those

of time and place, and such other that make them incommunicable

to more than one individual; so to make other yet more general

ideas, that may comprehend different sorts, it leaves out those qua-

336 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. look S.

lities that distinguish them, and puts into its new collection, only
such ideas as arc common to several sorts. The same convenience
that made men express several parcels of yellow matter coming
from Guinea and Peru, under one name, sets them also upon
making of one name, that may comprehend both gold and silver,
and some other bodies of different sorts. This is done by leaving
out those qualities which are peculiar to each sort ; and retaining a
complex idea made up of those that are common to them all. To
which the name metal being annexed, there is a genus constituted ;
the essence whereof being that abstract idea containing only malle-
ableness and fusibility, with certain degrees of weight and fixedness,
wherein some bodies of several kinds agree, leaves out the colour
and other qualities peculiar to gold and silver, and the other sorts
comprehended under the name metal. Whereby it is plain, that men
follow not exactly the patterns set them by nature, when they make
their general ideas of substances ; since there is no body to be found,
which has barely malleableness and fusibility in it, without other
qualities as inseparable as those. But men, in making their general
ideas, seeing more the convenience of language and quick dispatch,
by short and comprehensive signs, than the true and precise nature
of things, as they exist, have, in the framing their abstract ideas,
chiefly pursued that end, which was to be furnished with store of
general and variously comprehensive names. So that in this whole
business of genera and species, the genus, or more comprehensive,
is but a partial conception of what is in the species, and the species
but a partial idea of what is to be found in each individual. If
therefore, any one will think, that a man and a horse, and an
animal and a plant, &c., are distinguished by real essences made
by nature, he must think nature to be very liberal of these real
essences, making one for body, another for an animal, and another
for a horse; and all these essences liberally bestowed upon Bu-
cephalus. But if we would rightly consider what is done, in all
these genera and species or sorts, we should find, that there is no
new thing made, but only more or less comprehensive signs, whereby
we may be enabled to express, in a few syllables, great numbers of
particular things, as they agree in more or less general conceptions,
which we have framed to that purpose. In all which, we may ob-
serve, that the more general term, is always the name of a less com-
plex idea; and that Qixch genus is but a partial conception of the
species comprehended under it. So that if these abstract general
ideas be thought to be complete, it can only be in respect of a certain
established relation between them and certain names, which are made
use of to signify them ; and not in respect of any thing existing, as
made by nature.

§ 33. This all accommodated to the end of speech. — This is ad-
justed to the true end of speech, which is to be the easiest and
shortest way of communicating our notions. For thus, he that
would discourse of things, as they agreed in the complex ideas of
extension and solidity, needed but use the word body, to denote

\

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. S37

all such. He that to these would join others, signified by the
words life, sense, and spontaneous motion, needed but use the word
animal, to signify all which partook of those ideas : and he that
had made a complex idea of a body, with life, sense, and motion,
with the faculty of reasoning, and a certain shape joined to it,
needed but use the short monosyllable man, to express all particu-
lars that correspond to that complex idea. This is the proper
business of genus and species ; and this men do, without any con-
sideration of real essences or substantial forms, which come not
within the reach of our knowledge, when we think of those things ;
nor within the signification of our words, when we discourse with
others.

§ 34. Instance in cassuaries. — Were I to talk with any one of a
sort of birds I lately saw in St. James's Park, about three or four
feet high, with a covering of something between feathers and hair,
of a dark brown colour, without wings, but in the place thereof,
two or three little branches, coming down like sprigs of Spanish
broom ; long great legs, with feet only of three claws, and without
a tail ; I must make this description of it, and so may make others
understand me : but when I am told, that the name of it is cas-
suaris, I may then use that word to stand in discourse for all my
complex idea mentioned in that description ; though by that word,
which is now become a specific name, I know no more of the real
essence, or constitution, of that sort of animals, than I did before ;
and knew probably as much of the nature of that species of birds,
before I learned the name, as many Englishmen do of swans, or
herons, which are specific names, very well known of sorts of birds
common in England.

§ 35. Men determine the sorts. — From what has been said, it is
evident, that men make sorts of things. For it being different es-
sences alone that make different species, it is plain that they who
make those abstract ideas, which are the nominal essences, do
thereby make the species or sort. Should there be a body found,
having all the other quahties of gold, except malleableness, it would,
no doubt, be made a question whether it were gold or no ; i. c.
whether it were of that species. This could be determined only by
that abstract idea, to which every one annexed the name gold ; so that
it would be true gold to him, and belong to that species, who in-
cluded not malleableness in his nominal essence signified by the sound
gold; and on the other side, it would not be true gold, or of that
species, to him, who included malleableness in his specific idea. And
who, I pray, is it, that makes these diverse species, even under one
and the same name, but men that make two different abstract ideas,
consisting not exactly of the same collection of qualities ? Nor is it
a mere supposition to imagine, that a body may exist, wherein the
other obvious qualities of gold may be without malleableness ; since it
is certain, that gold itself will be sometimes so eager (as artists call
it), that it will as little endure the hammer, as glass itself. What
we have said, of the putting in, or leaving malleableness out, of the

z

8S8 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

complex idea the name gold is by any one annexed to, may be said
of its peculiar weight, fixedness, and several other the hke qualities :
for whatsoever is left out, or put in, it is still the complex idea, to
which that name is annexed, that makes the species : and as any
particular parcel of matter answers that idea, so the name of the sort
belongs truly to it ; and it is of that species. And thus any thing
is true gold, perfect metal. All which determination of the species,
it is plain, depends on the understanding of man, making this or that
complex idea.

§36. Nature makes the similitude. — This then, in short, is the
case : nature makes many particular things which do agree one with
another, in many sensible quahties, and probably too, in their inter-
nal frame and constitution : but it is not this real essence that dis-
tinguishes them into species; it is men, who taking occasion from
the qualities they find united in them, and wherein they observe
often several individuals to agree, range them into sorts, in order to
their naming, for the convenience of comprehensive signs; under
which individuals, according to their conformity to this or that ab-
stract idea, come to be ranked, as under ensigns ; so that this is of
the blue, that of the red, regiment ; this is a man, that a drill : and
in this, I think, consists the whole business oi genufi and species.

§ 37. I do not den}^, but nature, in the constant production of j
particular beings, makes them not always new and various, but very
much alike, and of kin, one to another : but I think it nevertheless
true, that the boundaries of the species, whereby men sort them, are
made by men ; since the essences of the species, distinguished by
different names, are, as has been proved, of men's making, and
seldom adequate to the internal nature of the things they are taken
from. So that we may truly say, such a nianner of sorting of things
is the workmanship of men.

§ 38. Each abstract idea is an essence. — One thing I doubt not
but will seem very strange in this doctrine ; which is, that from what
has been said, it will follow, that each abstract idea, with a name to
it, makes a distinct species. But who can help it, if truth will have
it so ? For so it must remain, till somebody can show us the species
of things limited and distinguished by something else : and let us
see, that general terms signify not our abstract ideas, but something
different from them. I would fain know, why a shock and a hound
are not as distinct species as a spaniel and an elephant ? We have
no other idea of the different essence of an elephant and a spaniel,
than we have of the different essence of a shock and a hound ; all
the essential difference, whereby we know and distinguish them one
from another, consisting only in the different collection of simple
ideas, to which we have given those different names.

§ 39- Genera and species are in order to naming. — How much
the making of species and genera is in order to general names, and
how much general names are necessary, if not to the being, yet at
least to the completing, of a species, and making it pass for such,
will appear, l)csides what has been said above, concerning ice and

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 339

water, in a very familiar example. A silent and a striking watch
are but one species, to those who have but one name for them : but
he that has the name watch for one, and clock for the other, and
distinct complex ideas, to which those names belong, to him they
are different species. It will be said, perhaps, that the inward con-
trivance and constitution is different between these two, which the
watchmaker has a clear idea of. And yet, it is plain, they are but one
species to him, when he has but one name for them. For what is
sufficient in the inward contrivance to make a new species ? There
are some watches that are made with four wheels, others with five :
is this a specific difference to the workman ? Some have strings and
physics, and others none ; some have the balance loose, and others
regulated by a spiral spring, and others by hogs' bristles : are any,
or all of these, enough to make a specific difference to the workman,
that knows each for these, and several other different contrivances,
in the internal constitution of watches ? It is certain, each of these
hath a real difference from the rest : but whether it be an essential,
a specific difference, or no, relates only to the complex idea to
which the name watch is given : as long as they all agree in the idea
which that name stands for, and that name does not as a generical
name comprehend different species under it, they are not essentially
nor specifically different. But if any one will make minuter divi-
sions from differences that he knows in the internal frame of watches,
and to such precise complex ideas, give names that shall prevail,
they will then be new species to them, who have those ideas with
names to them ; and can, by those differences, distinguish watches
into these several sorts, and then watch will be a generical name. But
yet they would be no distinct species to men ignorant of clockwork,
and the inward contrivances of watches, who had no other idea but
the outward shape and bulk, with the marking of the hours by the
hand. For to them, all those other names would be but synony-
mous terms for the same idea, and signify no more, nor no other
thing, but a watch. Just thus, I think, it is in natural things. No-
body will doubt, that the wheels or springs (if I may so say) within,
are different in a rational man and a changeling, no more than that
there is a difference in the frame between a drill and a changeling.
But whether one or both these differences be essential or specificaJ,
is only to be known to us, by their agreement or disagreement with
the complex idea that the name man stands for ; for by that alone
can it be determined, whether one, or both, or neither of those, be a
man, or no.

§ 40. Species of artificial things less confused than natural. — From
what has fjeen before said, we may see the reason why, in the species
of artificial things, there is generally less confusion and uncertainty,
than in natural. Because an artificial thing being a production of
man, which the artificer designed, and, therefore, well knows the
idea of, the name of it is supposed to stand for no other idea, nor to
import any other essence, than what is certainly to be known, and
easy enough to be apprehended. For the idea, or essence, of the

z 2

340 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

several sorts of artificial things, consisting, for the most part, in
nothing but the determinate figure of sensible parts ; and sometimes
motion depending thereon, which the artificer fashions in matter,
such as he finds for his turn, it is not beyond the reach of our facul-
ties to attain a certain idea thereof; and to settle the signification of
the names whereby the species of artificial things are distinguished,
with less doubt, obscurity, and equivocation, than we can in things
natural, whose differences and operations depend upon contrivances
beyond the reach of our discoveries.

^41. Artificial things of distinct species. — I must be excused
here, if I think artificial things are of distinct species, as well as
natural ; since I find they are as plainly and orderly ranked into
sorts, by different abstract ideas, with general names annexed to
them, as distinct one from another as those of natural substances.
For why should we not think a watch and pistol as distinct spe-
cies one from another, as a horse and a dog, they being expressed
in our minds by distinct ideas, and to others by distinct appella-
tions ?

§ 42. Substances alcnie have proper names, — This is farther to be
observed concerning substances, that they alone, of all our several
sorts of ideas, have particular or proper names, whereby one only
particular thing is signified. Because, in simple ideas, modes, and
relations, it seldom happens that men have occasion to mention often
this or that particular, when it is absent. Besides, the greatest part
of mixed modes, being actions which perish in their birth, are not
capable of a lasting duration, as substances, which are the actors ; and
wherein the simple ideas that make up the complex ideas designed
by the name, have a lasting union.

§ 43. Dijficulty to treat of words. — I must beg pardon of my
reader, for having dwelt so long upon this subject, and perhaps witii
some obscurity. But I desire it may be considered, how difficult it
is, to lead another by words into the thoughts of things, stripped of
those specifical differences we give them ; which things, if I name
not, I say nothing ; and if I do name them, I thereby rank them into
some sort or other, and suggest to the mind the usual abstract idea
of that species, and so cross my purpose. For to talk of a man, and
to lay by, at the same time, the ordinary signification of the name
man, which is our complex idea, usually annexed to it ; and bid the
reader consider man, as he is himself, and as he is really distinguish-
ed from others, in his internal constitution, or real essence, that is,
by something, he knows not what, looks like trifling ; and yet thus
one must do, who would speak of the supposed real essences and
species of things, as thought to be made by nature, if it be but only
to make it understood, that there is no such thing signified by the
general names which substances are called by. 13ut because it is
difficult by known familiar names to do this, give me leave to en-
deavour by an example, to make the different consideration the mind
ha.s of specific names and ideas a little more clear; and to show
how the complex ideas of modes are referred sometimes to arche-

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 341

types in the minds of other intelligent beings : or, which is the same,
to the signification annexed by others to their received names ; and
sometimes to no archetypes at all. Give me leave also to show how
the mind always refers its ideas of substances, either to the sub-
stances themselves, or to the signification of their names, as to the
archetypes ; and also to make plain the nature of species, or sorting
of things, as apprehended, and made use of, by us ; and of the es-
sences belonging to those species, which is, perhaps, of more mo-
ment, to discover the extent and certainty of our knowledge, than
we at first imagine.

§ 44. Instances of mixed modei in kinneah and niouph — Let us
suppose Adam in the state of a grown man, with a good understand-
ing, but in a strange country, with all things new and unknown
about him ; and no other faculties to attain the knowledge of them,
but what one of this age has now. He observes Lamech more me-
lancholy than usual, and imagines it to be from a suspicion he has
of his wife Adah (whom he most ardently loved), that she had too
much kindness for another man. Adam discourses these his thoughts
to Eve, and desires her to take care that Adah commits not folly ;
and in these discourses with Eve, he makes use of these two new
words, kinneuh and niouph. In time, Adam's mistake appears, for
he finds Lamech's trouble proceeded from having killed a man ; but
yet the two names, Mnneah and niouph, the one standing for sus-
picion, in a husband, of his wife's disloyalty to him, and the other,
for the act of committing disloyalty, lost not their distinct significa-
tions. It is plain, then, that here were two distinct complex ideas
of mixed modes, with names to them ; two distinct species of ac-
tions, essentially different ; I ask, wherein consisted the essences of
these two distinct species of actions ? and it is plain, it consisted in
a precise combination of simple ideas, different in one from the
other. I ask, whether the complex idea in Adam's mind, which he
called kinneah, were adequate or no ? And it is plain it was ; for it
being a combination of simple ideas, which he, without any regard
to any archetype, without respect to any thing as a pattern, volun-
tarily put together, abstracted, and gave the name kinneah to, to ex-
press in short to others, by that one sound, all the simple ideas
contained and united in that complex one ; it must necessarily fol-
low, that it was an adequate idea. His own choice having made
that combination, it had all in it he intended it should, and so could
not but be perfect, could not but be adequate, it being referred to no
other archetype, which it was supposed to represent.

j:} 45. These words, kinneah and niouph, by degrees grew into
common use ; and then the case was somewhat altered. Adam's
children had the same faculties, and thereby the same power that he
had, to make what complex ideas of mixed modes they pleased in
their own minds ; to abstract them, and make what sounds they
pleased, the signs of them; but the use of names being to make
our ideas within us known to others, that cannot be done, but when
the same sign stands for the same idea in two, who would commu-

343 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

nicate their thoughts, and discourse together. Those, therefore, of
Adam's children that found these two words, kinneah and 7iiouph, in
familiar use, could not take them for insignificant sounds ; but must
needs conclude, they stood for something, for certain ideas, abstract
ideas, they being general names, which abstract ideas were the es-
sences of the species distinguished by those names. If, therefore,
they would use these words as names of species already established
and agreed on, they were obliged to conform the ideas in their
minds, signified by these names, to the ideas that they stood for in
otlier men's minds, as to their patterns and archetypes ; and then,
indeed, their ideas of these complex modes were liable to be inade-
quate, as being very apt (especially those that consisted of combina-
tions of many simple ideas) not to be exactly conformable to the
ideas in other men's minds, using the same names ; though for this,
there be usually a remedy at hand, which is, to ask the meaning of
any word we understand not, of him that uses it ; it being as im-
possible to know certainly what the words jealousy and adultery
(which I think answer n^ijT. and "i1«i) stand for in another man's
mind, with whom I would discourse about them ; as it was impos-
sible, in the beginning of language, to know what kinneah and
fiioupk stood for in another man's mind, without explication, they
being voluntary signs in every one.

§ 46. Instance of substances in zahab. — Let us now also consider,
after the same manner, the names of substances, in their first appli-
cation. One of Adam's children, roving in the mountains, lights on
a glittering substance, which pleases his eye ; home he carries it to
Adam, who, upon consideration of it, finds it to be hard, to have a
bright yellow colour, and an exceeding great weight. These, per-
haps, at first, are all the qualities he takes notice of in it, and ab-
stracting this complex idea, consisting of a substance having that
peculiar bright yellowness, and a weight very great in proportion to
its bulk, he gives it the name zahab, to denominate and mark all
substances that have these sensible qualities in them. It is evident
now, that in this case, Adam acts quite differently from what he did
before, in forming those ideas of mixed modes, to which he gave the
names kinneah and niouph. For there he puts ideas together, only
by his own imagination, not taken from the existence of any thing ;
and to them he gave names to denominate all things that should
happen to agree to those his abstract ideas, without considering
whether any such thing did exist, or no; the standard there was
of his own making. But in the forming his idea of this new sub-
stance, he takes the quite contrary course ; here he has a standard
made by nature, and therefore being to represent that to himself,
by the idea he has of it, even when it is absent, he puts in no simple
idea into his complex one, but what he has the perception of from
the thing itself i Je takes care that his idea be conformable to this
archety|)e, and intends tlie name siiould stand for an idea so con-
formable.

§ 47. This piece of matter, thus denominated zahab by Adam,

p

CH. 6. NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. 343

being quite different from any he had seen before, nobody, I think,
will deny to be a distinct species, and to have its peculiar essence ;
and that the name zahab has the mark of the species, and a name
belonging to all things partaking in that essence. But here, it is
plain, the essence Adam made the name zahab stand for, was no-
thing but a body hard, shining, yellow, and very heavy. But the in-
quisitive mind of man, not content with the knowledge of these, as
I may say, superficial qualities, puts Adam on 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 break-
ing. Is not now ductility to be added to his former idea, and made
part of the essence of the species that name zahab stands for ? Far-
ther trials discover fusibility and fixedness. Are not they also, by
the same reason that any of the others were, to be put into the com-
plex idea signified by the name zahab ? If not, what reason will
there be shown 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 in-
gredients of the complex idea which the name zahab stands for, and
so be the essence of the species marked by that name. Which pro-
perties, because they are endless, it is plain, that the idea made after
this fashion by this archetype, will be always inadequate.

§ 48. Their ideas imperfect, and therefore various. — 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 dis-
tinct 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 signify 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.

§ 49. lliereforc to fix their species, a real essence is supposed. —
To avoid this, therefore, they have supposed a real essence belong-
ing 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 signi-
fying 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 the real
essence is ; and this is that which men do, when they speak of spe-
cies of things, as supposing them made by nature, and distinguished
hy real essences.

§ 50. Which supposition is of no use. — 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

344 NAMES OF SUBSTANCES. book 3.

stands for ; and ao this affirmation, all gold is fixed, contains nothing
but the signification of the term gold. Or else it means, that fixed-
ness not being a part of the definition of the word gold, is a property
of that substance itself ; in which case, it is plain, that the word gold
stands in the place of a substance, having the real essence of a spe-
cies of things, made by nature. In which way of substitution, it has
so confused and uncertain a signification, that though this propo-
sition, gold is fixed, be in that sense an affirmation of something
real ; yet it is a truth will always fail us in its particular application,
and so is of no real use nor certainty. For let it be ever so true, that
all gold, 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, it is impossible we
should know what parcel of matter has that essence, and so whether
it be true gold or no.

§ 61. Cmicluslon. — To conclude ; what hberty Adam had at first
to make any complex idea of mixed modes, by no other patterns
but 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 so-
ciety have already established a language amongst them, the signifi-
cations of words are very warily and sparingly to be altered. Be-
cause 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 coin-
ing of new terms to express them; but men think it a boldness,
and it is uncertain, whether common use will ever make them pas
for current. But in communication with others, it is necessary thai
we conform the ideas we make the vulgar words of any language
stand for to their known proper significations (which I have ex-
plained at large already), or else to make known that new signifies
tion we apply them to.*

CHAPTER VII.

OF PARTICLES.

§ 1. Particles connect parts or whole sentences together, — Besides
words, which are names of ideas in the nnnd, there are a great many
others that are made use of, to signify the connexion that the mind
gives to ideas or propositions one with another." The mind, in com-

(H. 7. PARTICLES. 345

miinicating its thought to others, does not only need signs of the
ideas it has then before it, but others also, to show 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 ne-
gation, without which there is in words no truth or falsehood, 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. In them consists the art of well speaking. — 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 called particles ; and it is in the right use of these, that
more particularly consists the clearness and beauty of a good style.
To think well, it is not enough that a man has ideas clear and dis-
tinct in his thoughts, nor that he observes the agreement, or disagree-
ment, of some of them : but he must think in train, and observe the
dependence of his thoughts and reasonings upon one another ; and
to express well such methodical and rational thoughts, he must have
words to show what connexion, restriction, distinction, opposition,
emphasis, &c., he gives to each respective part of his discourse. To
mistake in any of these, is to puzzle, instead of informing, his hearer ;
and therefore it is, that those words, which are not truly, by them-
selves, the names of any ideas, are of such constant and indispensable
use in language, and do much contribute to men^s well expressing
themselves.

§ 3. They show what relation the mind gives to its own thoughts.
— This part of grammar has been, perhaps, as much neglected, as
some others over diligently cultivated. It is easy for men to write
one after another, of cases and genders, moods and tenses, gerunds
and supines : in these, and the like, there has been great diligence
used ; and particles themselves, in some languages, have been, with
great show of exactness, ranked into their several orders. But
though prepositions and conjunctions, &c., are names well known in
grammar, and the particles contained under them carefully ranked
into their distinct subdivisions; yet he who would show the right use
of particles, and what significancy and force they have, must take a
little more pains, enter into his own thoughts, and observe nicely the
several postures of his mind in discoursing.

§ 4. Neither is it enough, for the explaining of these words, to
render them, as is usual in dictionaries, by words of another tongue
which come nearest to their signification ; for what is meant by
them, is commonly as hard to be understood in one, as another,
language. They are all marks of some action or intimation of the
mind ; and, therefore, to understand them rightly, the several views,
})ostures, stands, turns, limitations, and exceptions, and several other
thoughts of the mind, for which we have either none, or very de-
ficient, names, are diligently to be studied. Of these, there are a

346 ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS, book 3.

great variety, much exceeding the number of particles that most
languages have to express them by ; and, therefore, it is not to be
wondered, that most of these particles have divers, and sometimes
almost opposite, significations. In the Hebrew tongue, there is a
particle consisting but of one single letter, of which there are
reckoned up, as I remember, seventy, I am sure above fifty, several
significations.

§ 5. Instance in hut, — But is a particle, none more familiar in
our language; and he that says it is a discretive conjunction, and
that it answers sed in Latin, or mats in French, thinks he has suf-
ficiently explained it. But it seems to me to intimate several relations
the mind gives to the several propositions or parts of them, which it
joins by this monosyllable.

Firsts " But to say no more :"" here it intimates a stop of the
mind, in the course it was going, before it came quite to the end
of it.

Secondly^ " I saw but two plants f here it shows, that the
mind limits the sense to what is expressed, with a negation of all
other.

Thirdly, " You pray : but it is not that God would bring you to
the true religion."

> Fourthly, " But that he would confirm you in your own :'''' the
first of these buts intimates a supposition in the mind of something
otherwise than it should be ; the latter shows, that the mind makes
a direct opposition between that, and what goes before it.

Fifthly,, " All animals have sense ; but a dog is an animal -^ here
it signifies little more, but that the latter proposition is joined to the
former, as the minor of a syllogism.

§ 6. To these, I doubt not, might be added a great many otlier
significations of this particle, if it were my business to examine it
in its full latitude, and consider it in all the places it is to be found :
which if one should do, I doubt, whether in all those manners it is
made use of, it would deserve the title of discretive^ which gram-
marians ^ive to it. But I intend not here a full explication of this
sort of signs. The instances I have given in this one, may give
occasion to reflect upon their use and force in language, and lead us
into the contemplation of several actions of our minds in discoursing,
which it has found a way to intimate to others by these particles,
some whereof constantly, and others in ccrUiin constructions, have
the sense of a whole sentence contained in them.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS.

8 1. Abstract terms not predicable one of another, and why. — I'he
ordinary words of language, and our common use of them, would
have given us light into the nature of our ideas, if they had been

CH. 8. ABSTRACT AND CONCRETE TERMS. 347

but considered with attention. Tlie mind, as has been shown, has
a power to abstract its ideas, and so they become essences, general
essences, whereby the sorts of things are distinguished. Now each
abstract idea being distinct, so that of any two, the one can never
be the other, the mind wil], by its intuitive knowledge, perceive their
diiFerence; and therefore in propositions, no two whole ideas can
ever be affirmed one of another. This we see in the common use of
language, which permits not any two abstract words, or names of
abstract ideas, to be affirmed one of another. For how near of kin
soever they may seem to be, and how certain soever it is, that man
is an animal, or rational, or white, yet every one, at first hearing,
perceives the falsehood of these propositions ; humanity is animality,
or rationality, or whiteness : and this is as evident as any of the most
allowed maxims. All our affirmations, then, are only inconcrete,
which is the affirming, not one abstract idea to be another, but one
abstract idea to be joined to another ; which abstract ideas, in sub-
stances, may be of any sort ; in all the rest, are little else but of
relations ; and in substances, the most frequent are of powers ; v. g.
a man is white, signifies, that the thing that has the essence of a man,
has also in it the essence of whiteness, which is nothing but a power
to produce the idea of whiteness in one, whose eyes can discover
ordinary objects ; or a man is rational, signifies, that the same thing
that hath the essence of a man, hath also in it the essence of ration-
ality, i. e. a power of reasoning.

§ 2. They show the difference of our ideas. — This distinction of
names shows us also the difference of our ideas : for if we observe
them, we shall find, that our simple ideas have all abstract, as well
as concrete, names : the one whereof is (to speak the language of
grammarians) a substantive, the other an adjective; as whiteness,
white; sweetness, sweet. The like also holds in our ideas of modes
and relations, as justice, just; equality, equal; only with this differ-
ence, that some of the concrete names of relations, amongst men,
chiefly are substantives ; as paternitas^ pater ; whereof it were easy
to render a reason. But as to our ideas of substances, we have
very few or no abstract names at all. For though the schools have
introduced animalitas, humanitas, corporietas, and some others ; yet
they hold no proportion with that infinite number of names of sub-
stances, to which they never were ridiculous enough to attempt the
coining of abstract ones : and those few that the schools forged, and
put into the mouths of their scholars, could never yet get admittance
into common use, or obtain the licence of public approbation.
Which seems to me at least to intimate the confession of all man-
kind, that they have no ideas of the real essences of substances,
since they have not names for such ideas : which no doubt they
would have had, had not their consciousness to themselves of their
ignorance of them, kept them from so idle an attempt. And there-
fore, though they had ideas enough to distinguish gold from a stone,
and metal from wood ; yet they but timorously ventured on such
terms, as aurietas and saxietas, metallietas and lignietas^ or the like

348 IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. book 3.

names, which should pretend to signify the real essences of those
substances, whereof they knew they had no ideas. And, indeed,
it was only the doctrine of substantial forms, and the confidence of -^
mistaking pretenders to a knowledge that they had not, which first
coined, and then introduced, ammalitas^ and luimanitas, and the
like ; which yet went very little farther than their own schools, and
could never get to be current amongst understanding men. Indeed,
humanitas was a word familiar amongst the Romans ; but in a far
different sense, and stood not for the abstract essence of any sub-
stance; but was the abstract name of a mode, and its concrete, |
hwnianus^ not homo.

CHAPTER IX.

OF THE IMPERFECTION OF WOEDS.

§ 1. Words are used for recording and communicating our
thoughts. — From what has been said in the foregoing chapters, it is
easy to perceive what imperfection there is in language, and how the
very nature of words makes it almost unavoidable for many of them
to be doubtful and uncertain in their significations. To examine the
perfection or imperfection of words, it is necessary first to consider
their use and end : for as they are more or less fitted to attain that,
so are they more or less perfect. We have in the former part of this
discourse, often, upon occasion, mentioned a double use of words.

First, One for the recording of our own thoughts.

Secondly, The other for the communicating of our thoughts tt
others.

§ 2. Any words will serve for recording. — x\s to the first of theseJ
for the recording our own thoughts for the help of our own memories,
whereby, as it were, we talk to ourselves, any words will serve th<
turn. For since sounds are voluntary and indifferent signs of anj
ideas, a man may use what words he pleases, to signify his own \dei
to himself: and there will be no imperfection in tfiem, if he con-
stantly use the same sign for the same idea, for then he cannot faij
of having his meaning understood, wherein consists the right use anc'
j)erfection of language.

§ 3. Communication by words civil or philosoi^hical. — As to comJ
munication of words, that too has a double use: 1, civil; Ji, phi
losophical.

First, By their civil use, I mean such a communication of thoughl
and ideas by words, as may serve for the upholding common convei
sation and commerce about the ordinary affairs and conveniences
civil life, in the societies of men one amongst another.

Sccondlf/, liy the philosophical use of words, I mean such an uj
of them as may serve to convey the precise notions of things, and

CH. 9. IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. 349

express, in general propositions, certain and undoubted truths, which
tlie mind may rest upon, and be satisfied with, in its search after true
knowledge. These two uses are very distinct ; and a great deal less
exactness will serve in the one, than in the other, as we shall see in
what follows.

§ 4. The impeifectlon ofivords^ is the doubtfulness of their sig-
nification.— The chief end of language in communication being un-
derstood, words serve not well for that end, neither in civil, nor phi-
losophical, discourse, when any word does not excite in the hearer the
same idea which it stands for in the mind of the speaker. Now since
sounds have no natural connexion with our ideas, but have all their
signification from the arbitrary imposition of men, the doubtfulness
and uncertainty of their signification, which is the imperfection we
here are speaking of, has its cause more in the ideas they stand for^
than in any incapacity there is in one sound more than in another,
to signify any idea : for in that regard they are all equally perfect.

That then which makes doubtfulness and uncertainty in the sig-
nification of some more than other words, is the difference of ideas
they stand for.

§ 5. Causes of their imperfection. — Words having naturally no
signification, the idea which each stands for, must be learned and
retained by those who would exchange thoughts, and hold intelli-
gible discourse with others, in any language. But this is hardest to
be done, where,

First, The ideas they stand for are very complex, and made up of
a great number of ideas put together.

Secondly, Where the ideas they stand for have no certain connexion
in nature ; and so no settled standard any where in nature existing,
to rectify and adjust them by.

Thirdly, When the signification of the word is referred to a
standard, which standard is not easy to be known.

Fourthly, Where the signification of the word, and the real essence
of the thing, are not exactly the same.

These are difficulties that attend the signification of several words
that are intelligible. Those which are not intelligible at all, such as
names standing for any simple ideas, which another has not organs
or faculties to attain ; as the names of colours to a blind man, or
sounds to a deaf man, need not here be mentioned.

In all these cases we shall find an imperfection in words, which I
shall more at large explain, in their particular application to our se-
veral sorts of ideas : for if we examine them, we shall find, that the
names of mixed modes are most liable to doubtfulness and imperfec-
tion for the two first of these reasons ; and the names of substances
chiefly for the two latter.

§ 6. The names of mixed modes douhtfid: first, because the ideas
they stand for are so complex. — First, The names of mixed modes
are many of them hable to great uncertainty and obscurity in their
signification.

1, Because of that great composition these complex ideas are often

350 IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. book 3.

made up of. To make words serviceable to the end of communica-
tion, it IS necessary (as has been said) tliat they excite in the hearer
exactly the same idea they stand for in the mind of the speaker.
Without this, men fill one another's heads with noise and sounds ;
but convey not thereby their thoughts, and lay not before one an-
other their ideas, which is the end of discourse and language. But
when a word stands for a very complex idea, that is compounded and
decompounded, it is not easy for men to form and retain that idea so
exactly, as to make the name in common use stand for the same pre-
cise idea, without any the least variation. Hence it comes to pass,
that men''s names of very compound ideas, such as for the most part
are moral words, have seldom in two different men the same precise
signification, since one man''s complex idea seldom agrees with an-
other's, and often differs from his own, from that which he had yes-
terday, or will have to-morrow.

§ 7. Secondly, because they have no standards. — 2, Because the
names of mixed modes, for the most part, want standards in nature,
whereby men may rectify and adjust their significations ; therefore
they are very various and doubtful. They are assemblages of ideas
put together at the pleasure of the mind, pursuing its own ends of
discourse, and suited to its own notions, whereby it designs not to
copy any thing really existing, but to denominate and rank things as
they come to agree with those archetypes or forms it hath made.
He that first brought the words sham, or weedle, or banter, in use,
put together, as he thought fit, those ideas he made it stand for : and
as it is with any new names of modes, that are now brought into any
language ; so it was with the old ones, when they were first made
use of. Names, therefore, that stand for collections of ideas, which
the mind makes at pleasure, must needs be of doubtful signification,
when such collections are no where to be found constantly united in
nature, nor any patterns to be shown whereby men may adjust them.
What the words murder, or sacrilege, &c., signifies, can never bej
known from things themselves ; there be many of the parts of those
complex ideas, which are not visible in the action itself, the intention!
of the mind, or the relation of holy things, which make a part ofl
murder, or sacrilege, have no necessary connexion with the outward
and visible action of him that commits either: and the pulling thel
trigger of the gun, with which the murder is committed, and is all]
the action that perhaps is visible, has no natural connexion with those]
other ideas that make up the complex one named murder. They
have their union and combination only from the understanding, which
unites them under one name : but uniting them without any rule, or^
pattern, it cannot be but that the signification of the name, that stands
for such voluntary collections, should be often various in the minds
of different men, who have scarce any standing rule to regulate them-
selves and their notions by, in such arbitrary ideas.

§ 8. Propriety not a sufficient remedy, — It is true, common use,
tliat is the rule of propriety, may be supposed here to afford some
aid, to settle the signification of language ; and it cannot be denied,

CH. 9. IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. 351

but that in some measure it does. Common use regulates the mean-
ing of words pretty well for common conversation ; but nobody having
an authority to establish the precise signification of words, nor deter-
mine to what ideas any one shall annex them, common use is not
sufficient to adjust them to philosophical discourses ; there being
scarce any name, of any very complex idea (to say nothing of others) ,
which, in common use, has not a great latitude, and which keeping
within the bounds of propriety, may not be made the sign of far dif-
ferent ideas. Besides the rule and measure of propriety itself being
no where established, it is often matter of dispute, whether this or
that way of using a word be propriety of speech, or no. From all
which, it is evident, that the names of such kind of very complex
ideas are naturally liable to this imperfection, to be of doubtful and
uncertain signification ; and even in men that have a mind to under-
stand one another, do not always stand for the same idea in speaker
and hearer. Though the names glory and gratitude be the same in
every man's mouth through a whole country, yet the complex collec-
tive idea, which every one thinks on or intends by that name, is ap-
parently very different in men using the same language.

§ 9. The way of learning these names ^ contributes also to their
doubtfulness. — The way also wherein the names of mixed modes
are ordinarily learned, does not a little contribute to the doubtfulness
of their signification. For if we will observe how children learn
languages, we shall find, that to make them understand what the
names of simple ideas, or substances, stand for, people ordinarily
show them the thing whereof they would have them have the idea,
and then repeat to them the name that stands for it, as white, sweet,
milk, sugar, cat, dog. But as for mixed modes, especially the most
material of them, moral words, the sounds are usually learned first,
and then to know what complex ideas they stand for, they are either
beholden to the explication of others, or (which happens for the
most part) are left to their own observation and industry ; which
being little laid out in the search of the true and precise meaning
of names, these moral words are, in most men's mouths, little more
than bare sounds ; or when they have any, it is for the most part
but a very loose and undetermined, and consequently obscure and
confused, signification. And even those themselves, who have with
more attention settled their notions, do yet hardly avoid the in-
convenience, to have them stand for complex ideas, different from
those which other, even intelligent and studious, men, make them
the signs of. Where shall one find any, either controversial debate,
or familiar discourse, concerning honour, faith, grace, religion,
church, &c., wherein it is not easy to observe the different notions
men have of them ? which is nothing but this, that they are not
agreed in the signification of those words ; nor have in their minds
the same complex ideas which they make them stand for ; and so all
the contests that follow thereupon, are only about the meaning of a
sound. And hence we see, that in the interpretation of laws,
whether divine or human, there is no end ; comments beget comments.

352 IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. book 3.

and explications make new matter for explications ; and of limiting,
distinguishing, varying the signification of these moral words, there
is no end. These ideas of men's making, are, by men still having
the same power, multiplied in infinitum. Many a man, who was
pretty well satisfied of the meaning of a text of scripture, or clause
in the code, at first reading, has, by consulting commentators, quite
lost the sense of it, and by those elucidations, given rise or increase
to his doubts, and drawn obscurity upon the place. I say not this,
that I think commentaries needless; but to show how uncertain the
names of mixed modes naturally are, even in the mouths of those
who had both the intention and the faculty of speaking as clearly as
language was capable to express their thoughts.

§ 10. Hence unavoidahle ohscurity in ancient authors. — What
obscurity this has unavoidably brought upon the writings of men,
who have lived in remote ages, and different countries, it will be
needless to take notice ; since the numerous volumes of learned
men, employing their thoughts that way, are proofs more than
enough to show what attention, study, sagacity, and reasoning, are
required, to find out the true meaning of ancient authors. But
there being no writings wc have any great concernment to be very
solicitous about the meaning of, but those that contain either truths
we are required to believe, or laws we are to obey, and draw incon-
veniences on us when we mistake or transgress, we may be less
anxious about the sense of other authors, who writing but their
own opinions, we are under no greater necessity to know them, than
they to know ours. Our good or evil depending not on their de-
crees, we may safely be ignorant of their notions ; and therefore in
the reading of them, if they do not use their words with a due clear-
ness and perspicuity, we may lay them aside, and without any injury
done them, resolve thus with ourselves i

" Si non vis intelligi, debes negligi.''

§11. Names of substances of doubtful signification. — If the sig-
nification of the names of mixed modes are uncertain, because
there be no real standards existing in nature, to which those ideas]
are referred, and by which they may be adjusted, the names of
substances are of a doubtful signification, for a contrary reason,
viz., because the ideas they stand for are supposed conformable to
the reality of things, and are referred to stanclards made by nature.
In our ideas of substances we have not the liberty, as m mixed
modes, to frame what combinations we think fit, to be the charac-
teristical notes, to rank and denominate things by. In these we
must follow nature, suit our complex ideas to real existences, and
regulate the signification of their names by the things themselves,
if we will have our names to be the signs of them, and stand for
them. Here, it is true, we have patterns to follow : but patterns
that will make the signification of their names very uncertain ; for
names must be of a very unsteady and various meaning, if the

p

cH. 9. IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. 353

ideas they stand for be referred to standards without us, that either can-
not be known at all, or can be known but imperfectly and uncertainly.

^12. Names of substances referred^ Jirst, to real essences that
cannot he l^nown. — The names of substances have, as has been shown,
a double reference in their ordinary use.

Firsts Sometimes they are made to stand for, and so their signi-
fication is supposed to agree to, the real constitution of things, from
which all their properties flow, and in which they all centre. But
this real constitution, or (as it is apt to be called) essence, being
utterly unknown to us, any sound that is put to stand for it, must
be very uncertain in its application ; and it will be impossible to know
what things are, or ought to be, called a horse or anatomy, w^hen
those words are put for real essences, that we have no ideas of at all.
And, therefore, in this supposition, tlie names of substances being
referred to standards that cannot be known, their significations can
never be adjusted and established by those standards.

§ 13, Secondly^ to co-existing qualities^ which are hnozvn but im-
■perfectly, — Secondly, The simple ideas that are found to co-exist in
substances, being that which their names immediately signify, these,
as united in the several sorts of things, are the proper standards to
which their names are referred, and by which their significations
may be best rectified. But neither will these archetypes so well
serve to this purpose, as to leave these names, without very various
and uncertain significations. Because these simple ideas that co-
exist, and are united in the same subject, being very numerous,
and having all an equal right to go into the complex specific idea,
which the specific name is to stand for, men, though they propose
to themselves the very same subject to consider, yet frame very
different ideas about it: and so the name they use for it un-
avoidably comes to have, in several men, very different signifi-
cations. The simple qualities which make up the complex ideas,
being most of them powers, in relation to changes, which they are
apt to make in, or receive from, other bodies, are almost infinite.
He that shall but observe, what a great variety of alterations any
one of the baser metals is apt to receive, from the different appli-
cation only of fire; and how much a greater number of changes
any one of them will receive in the hands of a chymist, by the
application of other bodies, will not think it strange, that I count
the properties of any sort of bodies not easy to be collected, and
completely known by the ways of inquiry, which our faculties are
capable of. They being, therefore, at least, so many, that no man

II can know the precise and definite number, Xhey are differently dis-
i covered by different men, according to their various skill, attention,
»i and ways of handling; who, therefore, cannot choose, but have
l\ different ideas of the same substance, and, therefore, make the signi-
j fication of its common name very various and uncertain. For the
f! complex ideas of substances, being made up of such simple ones as
> are supposed to co-exist in nature, every one has a right to put into
■^ his complex ideas, those qualities he has found to be united together.

A A

354 IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. book 3.

For though in the substance of gold, one satisfies himself with colour
and weight, yet another thinks solubility in aqua regia, as necessary
to be joined with that colour in his idea of gold, as any one does
its fusibility ; solubility in aqua regia^ being a quality as constantly
joined with its colour and weight, as fusibility, or any other;
others put into it ductihty or fixedness, &c., as they have been
taught by tradition or experience. Who of all these has established
the right signification of the word gold ? Or who shall be the judge
to determine ? Each has his standard in nature, which he appeals
to, and with reason thinks he has the same right to put into his com-
plex idea signified by the word gold, those qualities, which, upon
trial, he has found united ; as another, who has not so well examined,
has to leave them out; or a third, who has made other trials,
has to put in others. For the union in nature of these qualities,
being the true ground of their union in one complex idea, who
can say one of them has more reason to be put in, or left out, ;
than another ? From hence it will always unavoidably follow, that i
the complex ideas of substances in men using the same name for
them, will be very various : and so the significations of those names,
very uncertain.

§ 14. Thirdly^ to co-existing qualities which are know7i but imper-
fictly, — Besides, there is scarce any particular thing existing, which,
in some of its simple ideas, does not communicate with a greater,
and in others, a less, number of particular beings : who shall deter-
mine in this case, which are those that are to make up the precise ,
collection that is to be signified by the specific name ? or can, with i
any just authority, prescribe, which obvious or common qualities |
are to be left out ; or which more secret, or more particular, are \
to be put into the signification of the name of any substance ? All '
which together, seldom or never fail to produce that various and j
doubtful signification in the names of substances, which causes such i
uncertainty, disputes, or mistakes, when we come to a philosophical
use of them.

§ 15. With this imperfection, they may serve for civil, but not
well for philosophical, use. — It is true, as to civil and common con-
versation, the general names of substances, regulated in their
ordinary signification by some obvious qualities (as by the shape
and figure in things of known seminal propagation, and, in other
substances, for the most part by colour, joined with some other
sensible qualities), do well enough to design the things men would
be understood to speak of; and so they usually conceive well
enough the substances meant by the word gold, or apple, to dis-
tinguish the one from the other. But in philosophical inquiries and
debates, where general truths are to be established, and conse-
quences drawn from positions laid down, there the precise signifi-
cation of the names of substances will be found, not only not to be
well established, but also very hard to be so. For example, he that
shall make malleableness, or a certain degree of fixedness, a part
of his complex idea of gold, may make propositions concerning

CH. 9. IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. 355

gold, and draw consequences from them, that will truly and clearly
follow from gold, taken in such a signification ; but yet such as
another man can never be forced to admit, nor be convinced of
their truth, who makes not malleableness, or the same degree of
fixedness, part of that complex idea that the name gold, in his use
of it, stands for.

§ 16. Instance^ liquor. — This is a natural, and almost unavoid-
able imperfection in almost all the names of substances, in all lan-
guages whatsoever, which men will easily find, when once passing
from confused or loose notions, they come to more strict and close
inquiries. For then they will be convinced how doubtful and ob-
scure those words are, in their signification, which in ordinary use
appeared very clear and determined. I was once in a meeting of
very learned and ingenious physicians, where, by chance, there arose
a question, whether any liquor passed through the filaments of the
nerves. The debate having been managed a good while, by variety
of arguments on both sides, I (who had been used to suspect that
the greatest part of disputes were more about the signification of
words, than a real difference in the conception of things) desired,
that before they went any farther on in this dispute, they would
first examine, and establish among them, what the word liquor sig-
nified. They, at first, were a little surprised at the proposal ; and
had they been persons less ingenious, they might perhaps have taken
it for a very frivolous or extravagant one ; since there was no one
there that thought not himself to understand very perfectly, what
the word liquor stood for; which, I think, too, none of the most
perplexed names of substances. However, they were pleased to
comply with my motion, and, upon examination, found, that the
signification of that word was not so settled and certain, as they
had all imagined ; but that each of them made it a sign of a dif-
ferent complex idea. This made them perceive, that the main of
their dispute was about the signification of that term ; and that they
differed very little in their opinions, concerning some fluid and
subtle matter, passing through the conduits of the nerves ; though
it was not so easy to agree, whether it was to be called liquor or no,
a thing which, when considered, they thought it not worth the con-
tending about.

§ 17. Instance^ gold. — How much this is the case in the greatest
part of disputes that men are engaged so hotly in, I shall, perhaps,
have an occasion in another place to take notice. Let us only,
here, consider a Httle more exactly the fore-mentioned instance of
the word gold, and we shall see how hard it is precisely to determine
its signification. I think all agree to make it stand for a body of a
certain yellow shining colour ; which being the idea to which children
have annexed that name, the shining yellow part of a peacock's
tail, is properly to them gold. Others, finding fusibility joined
with that yellow colour, in certain parcels of matter, make, of that
combination, a complex idea, to which they give the name gold, to
denote a sort of substances; and so exclude from being gold, all

A a2

356 IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. book 3.

such yellow shining bodies, as, by fire, will be reduced to ashes, and
admit to be of that species, or to be comprehended under that name,
gold, only such substances as having that shining yellow colour,
will, by fire, be reduced to fusion, and not to ashes. Another,
by the same reason, adds the weight, which being a quality as
straitly joined with that colour, as its fusibility, he thinks has the
same reason to be joined in its idea, and to be signified by its name ;
and, therefore, the other made up of body, of such a colour and
fusibility, to be imperfect ; and so on of all the rest ; wherein no
one can show a reason, why some of the inseparable qualities, which
are always united in nature, should be put into the nominal essence,
and others left out; or why the word gold, signifying that sort of
body the ring on his finger is made of, should determine that sort,
rather by its colour, weight, and fusibility, than by its colour, weight,
and solubility in aqua regia ; since the dissolving it by that liquor,
is as inseparable from it, as the fusion by fire ; and they are both of
them nothing, but the relation which that substance has to two other
l)odies which have power to operate differently upon it. For, by
what right is it, that fusibility comes to be a part of the essence
signified by the word gold, and solubility but a property of it? Or
why is its colour part of the essence, and its malleableness but a
property ? That which I mean, is this, that these being all but pro-
perties, depending on its real constitution ; and nothing but powers,
either active or passive, in reference to other bodies, no one has
authority to determine the signification of the word gold (as referred
to such a body existing in nature) more to one collection of ideas to
be found in that body, than to another : whereby the signification of
that name must unavoidably be very uncertain ; since, as has been
said, several people observe several properties in the same substance;
and, I think, I may say, nobody at all. And, therefore, we havi"
but very imperfect descriptions of things, and words have very u
certain significations.

§ 18. T7te names of simple ideas the least doubtful. — From wh
has been said, it is easy to observe what has been before remarks
viz. that the names of simple ideas are, of all others, the least liabi
to mistakes, and that for these reasons. First, Because the ide
they stand for, being each but one single perception, are much easi
got, and more clearly retained, than the more complex ones, an(
therefore, are not liable to the uncertainty which usually attends those
compounded ones of substances and mixed modes, in which the pre-
cise number of simple ideas, that make them up, are not easily agreed.
and so readily kept in the mind. And, Secondly, Because they arc
never referred to any other essence, but barely that perception they
immediately signify ; which reference is that which renders the
si^ification of the names of substances naturally so perplexed, and
gives occasion to so many disputes. Men that do not perversely
use their words, or, on purpose, set themselves to cavil, seldom
mistake in any language, which they are acquainted with, the use
and signification of the names of simple ideas ; white and sweet,

CH. 9. IMPERFECTION OF WORDS. 357

yellow and bitter, carry a very obvious meaning with them, which
every one precisely comprehends, or easily perceives he is ignorant
of, and seeks to be informed. But what precise collection of simple
ideas modesty or frugality stand for in another'^s use, is not so cer-
tainly 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 dis-
putes, 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. ylnd next to them, simple modes. — By the same rule, the
names of simple modes are, next to those of simple ideas, least liable
to doubt and uncertainty, especially those of figure and number, of
which men have so clear and distinct ideas. Whoever, that had a
mind to understand them, mistook the ordinary meaning of seven, or
a triangle ; and, in general, the least compounded ideas in every kind,
have the least dubious names.

§ 20. The most doubtful are the names of very compounded mixed
modes and substances. — Mixed modes, therefore, that are made up
>| but of a few and obvious simple ideas, have usually names of no very
uncertain signification. But the names of mixed modes, which com-
prehend a great number of simple ideas, are commonly of a very
doubtful and undetermined meaning, as has been shown. The names
of substances being annexed to ideas that are neither the real essences
ijor exact representations of the patterns they are referred to, are
liable yet to greater imperfection and uncertainty, especially when
I we come to a philosophical use of them.

§ 21. Why this imperfection charged upon words. — The great
disorder that happens in our names of substances, proceeding, for
the most part, from our want of knowledge, and inability to pene-
I trate into their real constitutions, it may probably be wondered, why
I I charge this as an imperfection, rather upon our words than under-
standings. This exception has so much appearance of justice, that
I think myself obliged to give a reason, why I have followed this
niethod. I must confess, then, that when I first began this Dis-
I course of the Understanding, and a good while after, I had not the
I least thought that any consideration of words was at all necessary to
! it. But when having passed over the original and composition of
j our ideas, I began to examine the extent and certainty of our know-
: ledge, I found it had so near a connexion with words, that unless
i their force and manner of signification were first well observed,
i there could be very little said clearly and pertinently concerning
I 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
j they seemed scarce separable from our general knowledge. At
t

338 SIGNIFICATION OF WORDS. book 3.

least they interpose themselves so much between our understand-
ings and the truth, which 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 falla-
cies men put upon themselves, as well as others, and the mistakes
in men's 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 carefully 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 men's study ;
and obtained the reputation of learning and subtiHty, 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
thoroughly 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. This should teach us rnoderatton in imposing our own sense
of old authors. — 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, audi
figures of speech, &c., every one of which influence the significatioi
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 inter-
pretations or misunderstanding of those antient writings, which,
though of great concernment to be understood, are liable to the un]
avoidable difficulties of speech, which (if we except the names oi
simple ideas, and some very obvious things) is not capable, without
a constant defining the terms of conveying the sense and intention oi
the speaker, without any manner of doubt and uncertainty to th(
hearer. And, in discourses of religion, law, and morality, as thej
are matters of the highest concernment, so there will be the greatest
difficulty.

§ 23. The volumes of interpreters and commentators on th«
Old and New Testaments, are but too manifest proofs of thi^
Though every thing said in the text be infallibly true, yet thJ
reader may be, nay, cannot choose but be, very fallible in the un\
derstanding of it. Nor is it to be wondered, that the will of God,^
when clothed in words, should be liable to that doubt and uncer-
tainty, which unavoidably attends that sort of conveyance; when
even his Son, whilst clothed in flesh, was subject to all the frailties

CH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. 359

and inconveniences of human nature, sin excepted. And we ought
to magnify 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 (whenever 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 contro-
verted ; and other revealed truths, which are conveyed to us by
books and languages, are liable to the common and natural ob-
scurities 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 ideas and
interpretations of the latter.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE ABUSE OF WORDS.

§ 1. Abuse ofzcords. — 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 neg-
lects, which men are guilty of, in this way of communication,
whereby they render these signs less clear and distinct in their sig-
nification, than, naturally, they need to be.

§ 2. First, "words without any, or mthout clear, ideas, — Firsts
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 :

1, One may observe, in all languages, certain words, that, if they
be examined, will be found, in their first original, and their appro-
priated 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 some-
thing 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 determinate collection of ideas annexed
to them, when they were first invented ; or at least such as, if well
examined, will be found inconsistent, it is no wonder if, afterwards,
in the vulgar use of the same party, they remain empty sounds,
with httle or no signification, amongst those who think it enough
to have them often in their mouths, as the distinguishing charac-
ters of their church, or school, without much troubling their heads
to examine what are the precise ideas they stand for. I shall not

360 ABUSE OF WORDS. . book 3.

need here to heap up instances ; every man's reading and conversa-
tion will sufficiently furnish him ; or if he wants to be better stored,
the great mint-masters of this 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. 2, Others there be, who extend this abuse yet farther, who
take so little care to lay by words, which in their primary notation

. have scarce any clear and distinct idea which they are annexed to,
that by an unpardonable negligence, they familiarly use words,
which the propriety of language has affixed to very important ideas,
widiout 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 i
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 tongue's end, yet there are no determined
ideas laid up in their minds, which are to be expressed to others by
them.

§ 4. Occasioned by learning names hefore the ideas they belong to. —
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 ne-
cessary to settle in their minds determined ideas, they use their
words for such unsteady and confused notions as they have, content-
ing 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 wdthin the ordinary occurrences of
life, where they find it necessary to be understood, and, therefore
they make signs till they are so; yet this insignificancy in theii
words, when they come to reason concerning either their tenets
interest, manifestly fills their discourse with abundance of empt]
unintelhgible noise and jargon, especially in moral matters, whei
the words, for the most part, standing for arbitrary and numeroi
collections of ideas, not regularly and permanently united in nature
their bare sounds are often only thought on, or at least very ol
scure and uncertain notions annexed to them. Men take tl
words they find in use among their neighbours ; and that they maj
not seem ignorant what they stand for, use them confidently withoi
much troubling their heads about a certain fixed meaning ; wherebj
besides the ease of it, they obtain this advantage, that as in suci
discourses they seldom arc in the right, so they are as seldom to 1"
convinced that they are in the wrong ; it being all one to go aboi
to draw those men out of their mistakes, who have no settled notions
as to dispossess a vagrant of his habitation who has no settled alx)d<
This I guess to be so ; and every one may observe in himself am
others, whether it be or no.

CH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. 361

§ 5. Secondly^ unsteady application of them. — Secondly, Another
great abuse of words, iainconstancy in the use of them. It is hard
to find a discourse written upon any subject, especially of controversy,
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
oi 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, it 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 accounts with another, may, with as
much fairness, make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for
one, and sometimes for another, collection of units {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 would speflk thus, in the affairs and business of the world, and
call 8 sometimes seven, and sometimes nine, as best served his
advantage, would presently have clapped upon him one of the two
names men are commonly disgusted with. And yet in arguings, and
learned contests, the same sort of proceeding passes commonly for
wit and learning ; but 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, affected obscurity by wrong application. — Thirdly,
Another abuse of language, is an affected obscurity, by either apply-
ing 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
peripatetic philosophy has been most eminent in this way, yet other
sects have not been wholly clear of it. There are scarce any of them
that are not cumbered with some difficulties (such is the imper-
fection of human knowledge), which they have been fain to cover
with obscurity of terms, and to confound the signification of words,
which, like a mist before people's 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 proper, and as intelligible, to say, the body of an exten-
sion, 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, logic, 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

362 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3

the natural imperfection of languages, whilst it has been made use
of and fitted to perplex the signification of words, more than to dis-
cover 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. Logic and dispute have much contributed to this. — This is
unavoidably to be so, where men's 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, it is no wonder if the wit of man so employed, 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 adjudged not to him who had truth on his side, but the last
word in the dispute.

§ 8. Calling it suhtilty. — 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
subtilty 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 wrang-
ling 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 inexplicable 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 un-
derstood : whilst it appears in all history, that these profound doctors^
were no wiser, nor more useful, than their neighbours; and brougl
but small advantage to human life, or the societies wherein thej
lived : unless the coining of new words, where they produced no nei
things to apply them to, or the perplexing or obscuring the signif
cation of old ones, and so bringmg all things into question and di
pute, were a thing profitable to the life of man, or worthy commenc
ation and reward.

§ 9. This learning very little benefits society. — For notwithstanc
ing these learned disputants, these all-knowing doctors, it was
the unscholastic statesman, that the governments of the world ow(
their peace, defence, and liberties ; and from the illiterate and con-
temned mechanic (a name of disgrace), that they received the im-
provements 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.

GH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS.

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 warriors ; 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. But destroys the insti'uments ofknozvledge and communica-
tion,— Thus learned ignorance, and this art of keeping, even in-
quisitive 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 acquired that acuteness, 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 con-
stant 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 subtilty, 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. As useful as to compound the sound of the letters. — These
i learned men did equally instruct men's understandings, and profit
• their lives, as he who should alter the signification of known cha-
racters, and, by a subtle device of learning, far surpassing the ca-
1 pacity of the illiterate, dull, and vulgar, should in his writing show,
. that he could put A for B, and D for E, &c., to the no small ad-
! miration and benefit of his reader. It being as senseless to put
I 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
i 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
j the organs of speech, for B, which is agreed on to stand for another
I modification of sound, made by another certain motion of the organs
of speech.

§ 12. This art has perplexed religion and justice. — Nor hath this
mischief stopped in logical niceties, or curious empty speculations ;
! it hath invaded the great concernments of human life and society ;
' obscured and perplexed the material truths of law and divinity ;
1 brought confusion, disorder, and uncertainty into the affairs of man-
kind ; and if not destroyed, yet in a great measure rendered useless,
those two great rules, religion and justice. What have the greatest

364 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3.

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 acute niceties, but obscurity and uncertainty, leav-
ing the words more unintelligible, and the reader more at a loss ?
How else comes to pass, that princes, speaking or writing to their
servants, in their ordinary commands, are easily understood ; speak-
ing to their people, in their laws, are not so? And, as I remarked
before, doth it not t ften 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 <.Toes to council ; who, by that time he hath done
explaining them, makes the words signify either nothing at all, or
what he pleases ?

§ 13. And ought not to pass for learning. — Whether any by-
interests of these professions have occasioned this, I will not here ex-
amine ; 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 know-
ledge, and bond of society, should not be employed to darken truth,
and unsettle people's 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 , tak'mg them for things. — 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. To this abuse, those men are most
subject, who most confine their thoughts to any one system, am
give themselves up into a firm behef of the perfection of any i
ceived hypothesis ; whereby they come to be persuaded, that t
terms of that sect are so suited to the nature of things, that th
perfectly correspond with their real existence. Who is there, th
has been bred up in the peripatetic philosophy, who does not thi
the ten names under which are ranked the ten predicaments, to
exactly conformable to the nature of things ? Who is there of th
school, that is not persuaded, that substantial forms, vegetative sou
abhorrence of a vacuum, intentional species, &c., are something rea
These words men have learned from their very entrance up(
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 some-
thing that really exists. The Platonists have their soul of the world,
and the Epicureans their endeavour towards motions in their atoms,
when at rest. There is scarce any sect in philosophy has not a dis-
tinct set of terms that others understand not. But yet this gibberish,
which in the weakness of human understanding, serves so well to

CH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. 365

palliate men''s ignorance, and cover their errors, comes by familiar
use amongst those of the same tribe, to seem the most important
part of language, and of all other, the terms the most significant :
and should atreal and etherial vehicles come once, by the preva-
lency of that doctrine, to be generally received any where, no doubt
those terms would make impressions on men's minds, so as to
establish them in the persuasion of the reality of such things, as
much as peripatetic forms and intentional species have heretofore
done.

§ 15. Instance^ in matter. — How much names taken for things
are apt to mislead the understanding, the attentive reading of philo-
sophical writers would abundantly discover ; and that perhaps in
words little suspected of any such misuse. I shall instance in one
only, and that a 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 it 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 another. But we see, that though 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 big-
ger 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 wherever there is the one, there is the other ; yet matter
and body stand for two different conceptions, whereof the one is in-
complete, 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 sub-
stance 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 expressly contains nothing but
the idea of a solid substance, which is every where the same, every
where uniform. This being our idea of matter, we no more con-
ceive, or speak of, different matters in the world, than we do of dif-
ferent 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 pre-
cision, has no doubt produced those obscure and unintelligible dis-
courses 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 onij, 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

366 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3.

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. This makes errors lasting — 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. It would be a hard matter to persuade any one
that the woras which his father or school-master, the parson of the
parish, or such a reverend 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, it is no wonder that the wrong notions annexed
to them should not be removed.

§ 1 7. Fifthly^ setting them for ivhat they cannot signify. — Fifthly^
Another abuse of words is the setting them in the place of things,
which they do or can by no means signify. 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 for, the real essence of a certain
sort of substances. For when a man says gold is malleable, he
means and would insinuate something more than this, that what I
call gold is malleable (though truly it amounts to no more), but
would have this understood, viz., that gold i. e, what has the real
essence of gold, is malleable; which amounts to thus much, that
malleableness depends on, and is inseparable from, the real essence
of gold. But a man not knowing wherein that real essence consists
the connexion in his mind of malleableness is not truly with an essen
he knows not, but only with the sound gold he puts for it. Thu
when we say that animal rationale is^ and animal implume bipeslatii
unguibus, is not, a good definition of a man ; it is plain, we suppos
the name man in this case to stand for the real essence of a species
and would signify, that a rational animal better described that real
essence, than a two legged animal with broad nails, and withou
feathers. For else why might not Plato as properly make the won
ay^pujTTos or man, stand for his complex idea, made up of the ide
of a body, distinguished from others by a certain shape, and oth
outward appearances, as Aristotle made the complex idea, to whic
he gave the name Av^poirog or man, of body, and the faculty
reasoning, joined together ; unless the name av^pwitos or man, wen
supposed to stand for something else than what it signifies ; and
be put in the place of some other thing than the idea a man profess
he would express by it.

§ 18. F. g. Putting them for the real essences of substances.
It IS true, the names of substances would be much more useful, an

en. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. S&T

propositions made in them much more certain, were the real essences

of substances the ideas in our minds, which those words signified.

And it is for want of those real essences, that our words convey

so little knowledge or certainty in our discourses about them : and

therefore the mind, to remove that imperfection as much as it can,

makes them, by a secret supposition, to stand for a thing having that

real essence, as if thereby it made some nearer approaches to it.

I For though the words man or gold, signifying nothing truly but a

i complex idea of properties, united together in one sort of substances ;

I yet there is scarce any body in the use of these words, but often

I supposes each of those names to stand for a thing having the real

I essence on which these properties depend. Which is so far from

diminishing the imperfections of our words, that by a plain abuse it

I adds to it, when we would make them stand for nothing, which

I not being in our complex idea, the name we use can no ways be the

I sign of.

! § 19. Hence we think every change of our idea in substances ^ not

to change the species. — This shows us the reason why in mixed

modes, any of the ideas that make the composition of the complex

I one, being left out or changed, it is allowed to be another thing, i. e.

I to be of another species, as is plain in chance, medley, manslaughter,

I murder, parricide, &c. The reason whereof is, because the com-

j plex idea signified by that name, is the real as well as nominal es-

I sence ; and there is no secret reference of that name to any other

' essence but that. But in substances, it is not so. For though in

that called gold, one puts into his complex idea what another leaves

out, and vice versa ,- yet men do not usually think that therefore the

species is changed : because they secretly in their minds refer that

name, and suppose it annexed to a real immutable essence of a thing

existing, on which those properties depend. He that adds to his

complex idea of gold, that of fixedness and solubility in aqua regia,

which he put not in it before, is not thought to have changed the

species ; but only to have a more perfect idea, by adding another

simple idea, which is always in fact joined with those other, of which

his former complex idea consisted. But this reference of the name

to a thing, whereof we have not the idea, is so far from helping at

all, that it only serves the more to involve us in difficulties. For by

i this tacit reference to the real essence of that species of bodies, the

' word gold (which by standing for a more or less perfect collection

I of simple ideas, serves to design that sort of body well enough in

civil discourse) comes to have no signification at all, being put for

somewhat, whereof we have no idea at all, and so can signify nothing

at all, when the body itself is away. For however it may be thought

; all one; yet if well considered, it will be found quite a diff*erent

, thing, to argue about gold in name, and about a parcel in the body

itself, V. g. a piece of leaf-gold laid before us ; though in discourse

we are fain to substitute the name for the thing.

§ 20. The cause of the abuse, a supposition of nature's worMng
ahvays regularly. — That which I think very much disposes men to

368 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3.

substitute their names for the real essences of species, is the suppo-
sition before mentioned, that nature works regularly in the pro-
duction of things, and sets the boundaries to each of those species,
by giving exactly the same real internal constitution to each indi-
vidual, which we rank under one general name. Whereas, any one
who observes their different qualities, can hardly doubt, that many
of the individuals, called by the same name, are, in their internal
constitution, as different one from another, as several of those whicli
are ranked under different specific names. This supposition, however,
that the same precise internal constitution goes always with the same
specific name, makes men forward to take those names for the re-
presentatives of those real essences, though indeed they signify no-
thing but the complex ideas they have in their minds when they use
them. So that, if I may so say, signifying one thing, and being-
supposed for, or put in the place of another, they cannot but, in
such a kind of use, cause a great deal of uncertainty in men's dis-
courses ; especially in those who have thoroughly imbibed the doc-
trine of substantial forms, whereby they firmly imagine the several
species of things to be determined and distinguished.

§21. This abuse contains fxo false suppositions. — But however
preposterous and absurd it be, to make our names stand for ideas
we have not, or (which is all one) essences that we know not, it
being in effect to make our words the signs of nothing ; yet it is evi-
dent to any one, who reflects ever so little on the use men make of
their words, that there is nothing more familiar. When a man ask^
whether this or that thing he sees, let it be a drill, or a monstrous
foetus, be a man, or no ; it is evident, the question is not, whether
that particular thing agree to his complex idea, expressed by the
name man : but whether it has in it the real essence of a species of
things, which he supposes his name man stand for. In which waj
of using the names of substances, there are these false suppositioi
contained :

First, That there are certain precise essences, according to whi(
nature makes all particular things, and by which they are distil
guished into species. That every thing has a real constitutioi
whereby it is what it is, and on which its sensible qualities depenc
is past doubt : but I think it has been proved, that this makes n<
the distinction of species, as we .rank them ; nor the boundaries
their names.

Secondly/, This tacitly also insinuates, as if we had ideas of thes
proposed essences. For to what purpose else is it, to inqui
whether this or that thing have the real essence of the species mi
if we did not suppose that there were such a specific essence known!
Which yet is utterly false : and therefore such application of name
as would make them stand for ideas which we have not, must nee(
cause great disorder in discourses and reasonings about them, an
be a great inconvenience in our communication by words.

§ 22. Sixthly, a supposition that words have a certaifi and evidenl
si^iificatio7i. — Sixthly, There remains yet another more general,

CH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. 369

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 them in, 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 stand-
j ing for just what they themselves have been accustomed to apply
1 them to, they never trouble themselves to explain their own, or un-
I derstand clearly others', meaning. From whence commonly proceed
j noise and wrangling, without improvement or information ; whilst
I men take words to be the constant regular marks of agreed notions,
1 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
j asks the meaning of their terms : though the arguings one may every
; day observe in conversation, make it evident, that there are few
I names of complex ideas, which any two men use for the same just
I precise collection. It is hard to name a word which will not be a
I clear instance of this. Life is a term, none more familiar. Any
I one almost would take it for an affront, to be asked what he meant
I by it. And yet if it comes in question, whether a plant, that lies
ready formed in the seed, have life ; whether the embryo of an egg
j before incubation, or a man in a swoon without sense or motion, be
I alive, or no ? it is easy to perceive, that a clear distinct settled idea
'does not always accompany the use of so known a word, as that of
I life is. Some gross and confused conceptions men indeed ordinarily
have, to which they apply the common words of their language, and
such a loose use of their words serves them well enough in their or-
;dinary discourses or affairs. But this is not sufficient for phi-
ilosophical inquiries. Knowledge and reasoning require precise
(determinate ideas. And though men will not be so importunately
•dull, as not to understand what others say, without demanding an
jexplication of their terms ; nor so troublesomely critical, as to cor-
Irect 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 ig-
norance, 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 w^ords 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 have so laid waste the intellectual
world, is owing to nothing more than to this ill use of words. For
Ithough it be generally believed, that there is great diversity of opi*

B B

3T0 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3J

nions in the volumes and variety of controversies the world is di
tracted 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. The ends of language : firsts to convey our ideas. — To con-
clude this consideration of the imperfection and abuse of language :
the ends of language in our discourse with others being chiefly these
three : Firsts To make known one man''s thoughts or ideas to one
another. Secondly, To do it with as much ease and quickness as
possible ; and Thirdly^ Thereby to convey the knowledge of things.
Language is either abused, or deficient, when it fails of any of these
three.

First, Words fail in the first of these ends, and lay not open one
man''s ideas to another''s view, 1, When men have names in their
mouths without any determined ideas in their minds, whereof they
are the signs : or 2, 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, 3, When they applied them very un-
steadily, making them stand now for one, and by-and^by for an-
other idea.

§ 24. Secondly, to do it zeith quichness. — Secondly, Men fail of
conveying their thoughts, with all the quickness and ease that may
be, when they have complex ideas, without having any distinct names
for them. This is sometimes the fault of the language itself, which
has not in it a sound yet applied to such a signification ; and some-
times the fault of the man, who has not yet learned the name for that
idea he would show another.

§ 25. Thirdly, therezvith to convey the knowledge of things.— •_
Thirdly, There is no knowledge of things conveyed by men's wor
when their ideas agree not to the reality of things. Though it b
defect, that has its original in our ideas, which are not so conforma
to the nature of things, as attention, study, and application, mi<^
make them : yet it fails not to extend itself to our words too, when
we use them as signs of real beings, which yet never had any reality
or existence.

§ 26. How men^s woi'dsjail in all these. — 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 niaK
a noise without any sense or signification, and how learned soever hi
may seem by the use of hard words, or learned terms, is not niucli
more advanced thereby in knowledge, than he would be in learninf,^
who had nothing in his study but the bare titles of books, witiiont
possessing the contents of them. For all such words, however piii
mto discourse, according to the right construction of grammatical
rules, or the harmony oi well turned periods, do yet amount to no-
thing but bare sounds, and nothing else.

ir^P

CH. 10. ABUSE OF WORDS. Stl

§ 27. Secondly^ He that has complex ideas, without particular
names for them, would be in no better case than a bookseller, who
had in his warehouse volumes that lay there unbound, and without
titles ; which he could, therefore, make known to others, only by
showing the loose sheets and communicating them only by tale. This
man is hindered 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 fain often
to use twenty words to express what another man signifies in one,

§ 28. Thirdly^ He that puts not constantly the same sign for
the same idea, but uses the same words, sometimes in one, and some-
times in another, signification, ought to pass in the schools and con-
versation, 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 much of it

to others, without defining his terms. For however the sounds are

i such as are familiarly known, and easily enter the ears of those who

I are accustomed to them ; yet standing for other ideas than those

I they usually are annexed to, and are wont to excite in the mind of

the hearers, they cannot make known the thoughts of him who thus

uses them.

§ 30. Fifthly^ He that imagined to himself substances such as
never have been, and filled his head with ideas which have not any
correspondence with the real nature of things, to which yet he gives
j settled and defined names, may fill his discourse, and perhaps another
j 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
I without names for them, wants liberty and dispatch in his expres-
I sions, and is necessitated to use periphrases. He that uses his words
I loosely and unsteadily, will either be not minded, or not understood.
I He that applies his ideas to names different from their common use,
i wants propriety in his language, and speaks gibberish. And he that
; hath the ideas of substances, disagreeing with the real existence of
i things, so far wants the materials of true knowledge in his under-
I standing, and hath instead thereof, chimeras.

1 § 32. How in substances. — In our notions concerning substances,

jwe are liable to all the former inconveniences ; v. g. 1, He that uses

ithe word tarantula^ without having any imagination or idea of what

! it stands for, pronounces a good word ; but so long means nothing

I at all by it. % 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 ahorse, or a stag ; but can speak of them

only by a description, till he shall either take the names the natives

call them by, or give them names himself. 3, He that uses the word

B B 2

373 ABUSE OF WORDS. book 3.

body sometimes for pure extension, and sometimes for extension and
soliaity together, will talk very fallaciously. 4, He that gives the
name horse to that idea which common usage calls mule, talks im-
properly, 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. How in modes and relations — In modes and relations
generally, we are liable only to the four first of these inconveniences,
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 virtues or vices, and names
also, but apply them amiss ; v. g. when I apply the name frugality
to that idea which others call and signify by this sound, covetousness.
4, I may use any of those names with inconsistency. 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 plea-
sure ; and relation being but by way of considering or comparing two
things together, and so also an idea of my own making, these ideas
can scarce be found to disagree with any thing existing ; since they
are not in the mind, as the copies of things, regularly made by na-
ture, nor as properties inseparably flowing from the internal consti-
tution or essence of any substance ; but, as it were, patterns lodged
in my memory with names annexed to them, to denominate actions
and relations by, as they come to exist. But the mistake is com-
monly 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 rela-
tions, any inconsistent ideas together, I fill my head also with chi-
meras ; 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. SeventJdij. figurative language also an abu^e of language. —
Since wit and fancy finds easier entertainment in the world, than drv
truth and real knowledge, figurative speeches, and allusion in Ian
guage, will hardly be admitted as an imperfection or abuse of it. 1
confess, in discourses, where we seek rather pleasure and delight, than
information and improvement, such ornaments as are borrowed froi;
them, can scarce pass for faults. But yet if we would speak of thin<;
as they are we must allow, that all the art of rhetoric, besides ordt
and clearness, all the artificial and figurative application of word
eloquence hath invented, are for nothing else but to insinuate wroni
ideas, move the passions, and thereby mislead the judgment, and so,
indeed, are perfect cheats; and, therefore, however laudable or
allowable oratory may render them in harangues and popular ad-
dresses, they are certainly in all discourses that pretend to inform or

CH.ll. ABUSE OF WORDS. 373

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, it will be superfluous here to take notice ; the books of rhetoric
which abound in the world, will instruct those who want to be in^
formed. Only I cannot but observe, how httle the preservation and
improvement of truth and knowledge, is the care and concern of
mankind ; since the arts of fallacy are endowed and preferred. It is
evident how much men love to deceive, and be deceived, since rhe-
toric, that powerful instrument of error and deceit, has its established
professors, is publicly taught, and has always been had in great repu-
tation ; and I doubt not but it will be thought a 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 itself ever
to be spoken against. And it is in vain to find fault with those arts.
of deceiving, wherein men find pleasure to be deceived.

CHAPTER XI.

OF THE REMEDIES OF THE FOREGOING IMPERFECTIONS AND

ABUSES.

§ 1. They aj^e worth seeking. — The natural and improved imper-
fections of languages, 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. Are not easy. — 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 of his own country, without rendering himself
ridiculous. To require that men should use their words constantly
in the same sense, and for none but determined 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 very little skilled in the world, who thinks
that a voluble tongue shall accompany only a good understanding;
or that men"*s talking much or little, shall hold proportion only to
their knowledge.

§ 3. But yet necessary to philosophy. — But though the market and
exchange must be left to their own ways of talking, and gossipings
not to be robbed of their ancient privilege ; though the schools, and
men of argument, would, perhaps, take it amiss to have any thing

374 REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION book 3.

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 de-
liver themselves without obscurity, doubtfulness, or equivocation, to
which men's words are naturally liable, if care be not taken.

§ 4. Misuse of words y the great cause of errors. — For he that shall
well consider the errors and obscurity, the mistakes and confusion,
that are spread in the world by an ill use of words, will find some
reason to doubt, whether language, as it has been employed, has con-
tributed 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
sucn thoughts and reasonings end in nothing but obscurity and mis-
take, without any clear judgment or knowledge "^

§ 5. Obstinacy, — This inconvenience, in all 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 where-
by men convey their discoveries, reasonings, and knowledge, from
one to another, he that makes an ill use of it, though he does not cor-
rupt 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 public use and advantage of mankind. He that
uses words without any clear and steady meaning, what does he but
lead himself and others into errors ! 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, hav
been so overcharged with obscure and equivocal terms and insigni-
ficant and doubtful expressions, capable to make the most attentivi
or quick -sigh ted very httle, or not at all, the more knowing or orthc
dox ; since subtlety in those who make profession to teach or defen
truth, hath passed, so much for a virtue .? A virtue, indeed, whic
consisting, for the most part, in nothing but the fallacious and illusor^
use of obscure and deceitful terms, is only fit to make men more
conceited in their ignorance, and obstinate in their errors.

§ 6. And wrangling. — Let us look into the books of controversy
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
Hjgree, but barely the sound ; the things that they think on at that
time, as expressed by that word, being quite different.

CH. 11. AND ABUSE OF WORDS. 375

§ 7. Instance, hat and bird. — 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 quahties 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 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 inquirers (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 the other denies, that these twa
names may be affirmed one of another. Were they agreed in the
signification of these two names, it were impossible they should dis-
pute 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 ideas 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
merely verbal, and about the signification of words ; and whether, if
the terms they are made in, were defined and reduced in their signifi-
cation (as they must be, where they signify any thing) to determine
collections of the simple ideas they do, or should, stand for, those
j disputes would not end of themselves, and immediately vanish. I
I leave it then to be considered, what the learning of disputation is,
I and how well they are employed for the advantage of themselves, or
I others, whose business is only the vain ostentation of sounds, i. e.
\ those who spend their lives in disputes and controversies. When I
shall see any of those combatants strip all his terms of ambiguity
and obscurity (which every one may do in the words he uses him-
self) I shall think him a champion for knowledge, truth, and peace,
and not the slave of vain-glory, ambition, or a party.

§ 8. First remedy, to use no word ivithout an idea. — To remedy
the defects of «peech before mentioned, to some degree, and to
' prevent the inconveniences that follow from them, I imagine the
I observation of these following rules may be of use, till some-
: body better able shall judge it worth his while, to think more
I maturely on this matter, and oblige the world with his thoughts
I on it.

I First, A man should take care to use no word without a signi-
I fication, no name without an idea for which he makes it stand,
t This rule will not seem altogether needless, to any one who shall
' take the pains to recollect how often he has met with such words as
instinct, sympathy, antipathy, &c., in the discourse of others, so

376 REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION book 3.

made use of, as he might easily conclude, that those that used them,
had no ideas in their mind to which they applied them ; but spoke
them only as sounds, which usually served instead of reasons, on
the like occasions. Not but that these words, and the like, have
very proper significations in which they may be used ; but there
being no natural connexion between any words, and any ideas,
these, and any other, may be learned by rote, and pronounced or
writ by men who have no ideas in their minds, to which they have
annexed them, and for which they make them stand ; which is
necessary they should, if men would speak intelligibly even to them-
selves alone.

§ 9. Secondlj/^ to have distmct ideas annexed to them in modes —
Second/t/, It is not enough a man uses his words as signs of some
ideas ; those he annexed them to, if they be simple, must be clear
and distinct ; if complex, must be determinate, i. e. the precise
collection of simple ideas settled in the mind, with that sound
annexed to it, as the sign of that precise determined collection, and
no other. This is very necessary in names of modes, and espe-
cially moral words, whicn having no settled objects in nature, from
whence their ideas are taken, as from their original, are apt to be
very confused. Justice is a word in every man's mouth, but most
commonly with a very undetermined loose signification : which will
always be so, unless a man has in his mind a distinct comprehension
of the component parts that complex idea consists of ; and if it be
decompounded, must be able to resolve it still on, till he at last
comes to the simple ideas that make it up ; and unless this be done,
a man makes an ill use of the word ; let it be justice, for example,
or any other. 1 do not say, a man need^ stand to recollect, and
make this analysis at large, every time the word justice comes in his
way ; but this, at least, is necessary, that he have so examined th
signification of that name, and settled the idea of all its parts in
mmd, that he can do it when he pleases If one who makes th:
complex idea of justice to be such a treatment of the person
goods of another, as is according to law, hath not a clear and dis^
tinct idea what law is, which makes a part of his complex idea of
justice, it is plain, his idea of justice itself will be confused and
imperfect. This exactness will, perhaps, be judged very trouble-
some; and therefore most men will think they may be excused
from settling the complex ideas of mixed modes so precisely in their
minds. But yet I must say, till this be done, it must not be won-
dered, that they have a great deal of obscurity and confusion in
their own minds, and a great deal of wrangling in their discourses
with others.

§ 10. Distinct and comformahle in substances, — In the names of
substances, for a right use of them, something more is required
than barely determined ideas; in these, the names must also be
conformable to things, as they exist ; but of this, I shall havt
occasion to speak more at large by-and-by. This exactness is abso-
lutely necessary in inquiries after philosophical knowledge, and in

nis
the ,

I

A

CH. 11. AND ABUSE OF WORDS. 377

controversies about truth. And though it would be well, too, if it
extended itself to common conversation, and the ordinary affairs of
life ; yet I think that is scarce to be expected. Vulgar notions suit
vulgar discourses: and both, though confused enough, yet serve
pretty well the market, and the wake. Merchants and lovers, cooks
and tailors, have words wherewithal to despatch their ordinary affairs ;
and so, I think, might philosophers and disputants too, if they had
a mind to understand, and to be clearly understood.

§ 11. Thirdly^ propriety. — Thirdly, It is not enough that men
have ideas, determined ideas, for which they make these signs stand ;
but they must also take care to apply their words as near as may be,
to such ideas as common use has annexed them to. For words,
especially of languages already framed, being no man's private pos-
session, but the common measure of commerce and communication,
it is not for any one, at pleasure, to change the stamp they are
current in ; nor alter the ideas they are fixed to ; or at least, when
there is a necessity so to do, he is bound to give notice of it. Men's
intentions in speaking are, or at least should be, understood ; which
cannot be without frequent explanations, demands, and other the
like incommodious interruptions, where men do not follow common
use. Propriety of speech is that which gives our thoughts entrance
into other men"'s minds with the greatest ease and advantage, and
therefore deserves some part of our care and study, especially in
the names of moral words. The proper signification and use of
terms, is best to be learned from those, who, in their writings and
discourses, appear to have had the clearest notions, and applied to
them their terms with the exactest choice and fitness. This way of
using a man"'s words, according to the propriety of language, though
it have not always the good fortune to be understood; vet most
commonly leaves the blame of it on him, who is so unskilful in the
language he speaks, as not to understand it, when made use of as it
ought to be.

§ 12. Fourthly, to make known their meaning. — Fourthly, But
because common use has not so visibly annexed any signification to
words, as to make men know always certainly what they precisely
stand for; and because men, in the improvement of their know-
ledge, come to have ideas different from the vulgar and ordinary
received ones, for which they must either make new words (which
men seldom venture to do, for fear of being thought guilty of
affectation, or novelty), or else must use old ones, in a new signifi-
cation. Therefore, after the observation of the foregoing rules, it
is sometimes necessary for the ascertaining the signification of
words, to declare their meaning ; where either common use has left
it uncertain and loose (as it has in most names of very complex
ideas) or where the term being very material in the discourse, and
that upon which it chiefly turns, is liable to any doubtfulness or
mistake.

§ 1»S. And that three ways. — iVs the ideas men'*s words stand
for, are of different sorts ; so the way of making known the ideas

378 REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION book 3.

they stand for, when there is occasion, is also different. For though
defining be thought the proper way to make known the proper signi-
fication of words; yet there are some words that will not be defined,
as there are others, whose precise meaning cannot be made known,
but by definition ; and perhaps a third, which partakes somewhat of
both the other, as we shall see in the names of simple ideas, modes,
and substances.

§ 14. First, in simple ideas hy synonymous terms, or sJiowing. —
First, When a man makes use of the name of any simple idea,
which he perceives is not understood, or is in danger to be mis-
taken, he is obliged, by the laws of ingenuity, and the end of
speech, to declare his meaning, and make known what idea he
makes it stand for. This, as has been shown, cannot be done by
definition; and, therefore, when a synonymous word fails to do it,
there is but one of these ways left. First, Sometimes the naming
the subject, wherein that simple idea is to be found, will make its
name to be understood by those who are acquainted with that sub-
ject, and know it by that name. So to make a countryman under-
stand what Jinille morte colour signifies, it may suffice to tell him,
it is the colour of withered leaves falling in autumn. Secondly, But
the only sure way of making known the signification of the name of
any simple idea, is by presenting to his senses that subject, which
may produce it in his mind, and make him actually have the idea
that word stands for.

§ 15. Secondly, in mixed modes, hy definition. — Secondly, In
mixed modes, especially those belonging to morality, being most
of them such combinations of ideas as the mind puts together of
its own choice ; and whereof there are not always standing patterns
to be found existing; the signification of their names cannot be
made known, as those of simple ideas, by any showing; but in
recompense thereof, may be perfectly and exactly defined. For
they being combinations of several ideas that the mind of man has
arbitrarily put together, without reference to any archetypes, men
may, if they please, exactly know the ideas that go to each com-
position, and so both use these words in a certain and undoubted
signification, and perfectly declare, when there is occasion, what
they stand for. This, if well considered, would lay great blame
on those, who make not their discourses about moral things very
clear and distinct. For since the precise signification of the names
of mixed modes, or, which is all one, the real essence of each
species, is to be known, they being not of nature^s, but man's,
making, it is a great negligence and perverseness to discourse of
moral things with uncertainty and obscurity, which is more par-
donable in treating of natural substances, where doubtful terms are
hardly to be avoided, for a quite contrary reason, as we shall see
by-and-by.

J 16. Morality capable of demcmstratimi. — Upon this ground it
is that I am lK)ld to think, that morality is capable of demonstration,
as well as mathematics: since the precise real essence of the things

CH. 11. AND ABUSE OF WORDS. 379

moral words stand for, may be perfectly known ; and so the con-
gruity, or incongruity, of the things themselves be certainly dis-
covered, in which consists perfect knowledge. Nor let any object,
that the names of substances are often to be made use of in morality,
as well as those of modes, from which will arise obscurity. For
as to substances, when concerned in moral discourses, their divers
natures are not so much inquired into, as supposed ; v. g. when we
say, that man is subject to law ; we mean nothing by man, but a
corporeal rational creature : what the real essence or other qualities
I of that creature are in this case, is no way considered. And there-
I fore, whether a child or changeling be a man in a physical sense
I may amongst the naturalists be as disputable as it will, it concerns
I not at all the moral man, as I may call him, which is this immove-
I able unchangeable idea, a corporeal rational being. For were there
\ a monkey, or any other creature, to be found, that has the use of
] reason, to such a degree, as to be able to understand general signs,
and to deduce consequences about general ideas, he would no doubt
I be subject to law, and in that sense, be a man, how much soever
I he differed in shape from others of that name. The names of sub-
I stances, if they be used in them, as they should, can no more
disturb moral, than they do mathematical, discourses ; where, if
I the mathematician speaks of a cube or globe of gold, or any other
: body, he has his clear settled idea, which varies not, though it
I may, by mistake, be applied to a particular body, to which it
belongs not.

§ 17. Definitions can make moral discourses clear. — This I have
here mentioned by the by, to show of what consequence it is for men,
in their names of mixed modes, and consequently in all their moral
discourses, to define their words when there is occasion : since there-
by moral knowledge may be brought to so great clearness and
certainty. And it must be great want of ingenuity (to say no worse
of it), to refuse to do it : since a definition is the only way whereby
the precise meaning of moral words can be known ; and yet a way
whereby their meaning may be known certainly, and without leaving
any room for any contest about it. And therefore the negligence
or perverseness of mankind cannot be excused, if their discourses in
morality be not much more clear than those in natural philosophy ;
I since they are about ideas in the mind, which are none of them false
( or disproportionate ; they having no external beings for the arche-
I types which they are referred to, and must correspond with. It is
far easier for men to frame in their minds an idea, which shall be the
; standard to which they will give the name justice, with which pattern
: so made, all actions that agree shall pass under that denomination ;
■ than, having seen Aristides, to frame an idea that shall in air things
be exactly like him, who is as he is, let men make what idea they
please of him. For the one, they need but know the combination of
1 ideas that are put together in their own minds ; for the other, they
must inquire into the whole nature, and abstruse hidden constitution,
and various qualities, of a thing existing without them.

380 REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION book 3.

§ 18. And is the cmly way. — Another reason that makes the
defining of mixed modes so necessary, especially of moral words, is
what I mentioned a little before, viz.,* 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 Sov ; the assistance of the
senses in this case not helping us, by the proposal of sensible objects,
to show the ideas which our names of this kind stand for, as it does
often in the names of sensible simple ideas, and also to some degree
in those of substances.

§ 1 9. Thirdly, in substances, hy showing and defining. — Thirdly,
For the explmning the signification of the names of substances, as
they" stand for the ideas we have of their distinct species, both the
before-mentioned ways, viz., of showing 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
ideas, which make up our complex idea of that species, annexed ;
we forwardly give the specific name to that thing, wherein that cha-
racteristical mark is found, which we take to be the most distinguish-
ing idea of that species. These leading or characteristical (as I may
so call them) ideas, in the sorts of animals and vegetables are, (as
has been before remarked, ch. vi. § 29, and ch. ix, § 15.) mostly figure,
and in inanimate bodies, colour, and in some, both together. Now,
§ 20. Ideas of' the leading qualities of substances, are best got by
showing. — These leading sensible qualities are those which make
the chief ingredients of our specific ideas, and consequently the mos^
observable and invariable part in the definitions of our specific nam(
as attributed to sorts of substances coming under our knowled^
For though the sound man, in its own nature, be as apt to signify
complex idea made up of animality and rationality, united in i\
same subject, as to signify any other combination ; yet used as
mark to stand for a sort of creatures we count of our own kind, perha^
the outward shape is as necessary to be taken into our complex id<
signified by the word man, as any other we find in it ; and therefo
why Plato^s animal implume bipes latis unguibus, should not be
good a definition of the name man, standing for that sort of ere
tures, will not be easy to show : for it is the shape, as the leadii
quality, that seems more to determine that species, than a faculty of
reason, which appears not at first, and in some never. And if this
be not allowed to be so, I do not know how they can be excused
from nuirder, 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 bom. And who is it has informed us,
that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such

CH. 11. AND ABUSE OF WORDS. 381

a sort of frontispiece ; or can join itself 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 show-
ing, and can hardly be made known otherwise. For the shape of a
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. The ideas of their powers, best known by definition. — But be-
cause many of the simple ideas that make up our specific ideas of sub-
stances, 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 by showing the
substances itself. For he that, to tne yellow shining colour of gold
got by sight, shall, from my enumerating them, have the ideas of
great ductility, fusibility, fixedness, and solubility in aqua regia, will
have a more perfect idea of gold, than he can have by seeing a piece
of gold, and thereby imprinting in his mind only its obvious quali-
ties. But if the formal constitution of this shining, heavy, ductile
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. A reflection on the knowledge of spirits. — Hence we may
take notice, how much the foundation of all our knowledge of cor-
poreal things lies in our senses. For how spirits, separate from
bodies (whose knowledge and ideas of these things, are 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 percep-
tion. 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 con-
ceptions.

§ 24. Ideas also of substances must be conformable to things. —
But though definitions will serve to explain the names of substances.

382 REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION book 3.

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 men''s 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 must go a little farther, and inquire into the nature and proper-
ties 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 it 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 men's minds, which in their ordinary
acceptation they stand for : therefore to define their names right,
natural history is to be inquired into; and their properties are
with care and examination to be found out. For it is not enough,
for the avoiding inconveniences in discourse and arguings about na-
tural bodies and substantial things, to have learned from the pro-
priety of the language, the common, but confused, or very imperfect,
idea to which each word is applied, and to keep them to that idea
in our use of them ; but we must, by acquainting ourselves with the
history of that sort of things, rectify and settle our complex idea,
belonging to each specific name; and in discourse with others (if
we find them mistake us), we ought to tell what the complex idea is
that we make such a name stand for. This is the more necessary to
be done by all those who search after knowledge and philosophical
verity, in that children being taught words whilst they have but
imperfect notions of things, apply them at random, and without much
thinking, and seldom frame determined ideas to be signified by thei
Which custom (it being easy, and serving well enough for the ordi
nary affairs of life and conversation), they are apt to continue, whe^
they are men : and so begin at the wrong end, learning words firsi
and. perfectly, but make the notions to which they apply those wordi
afterwards, very overtly. By this means it comes to pass, that me|
speaking the proper language of their country, i. e. according
grammar-rules of that language, do yet speat very improperly
things themselves ; and by their arguing one with another, make bi
small progress in the discoveries of useful truths, and the knowled^
of things, as they are to be found in themselves, and not in oi
imaginations ; and it matters not much, for the improvement of oi
knowledge, how they are called.

§ 25. Not easy to he made so. — It were, therefore, to be wishi
that men, versed in physical inquiries, and acquainted with t
several sorts of natural bodies, would set down those simple ide
wherein they observe the individuals of each sort constantly
agree. This would remedy a great deal of that confusion whic
comes from several persons applying the same name to a coUectioi
of a smaller or greater number of sensible qualities, proportionably

I

CH. 11. AND ABUSE OF WORDS. 383

as they have been more or less acquainted with, or accurate in ex-
amining tlie qualities of, any sort of things, which come under one
denomination. But a dictionary of this sort, containing, as it were,
a natural history, requires too many hands, as well as too much
time, cost, pains, and sagacity, ever to be hoped for ; and till that
be done, we must content ourselves with such definitions of the
names of substances, as explain the sense men use them in. And
it would be well, M'here there is occasion, if they would afford us so
much. This yet, is not usually done ; but men talk to one another,
and dispute in words, whose meaning is not agreed between them,
out of a mistake, that the signification of common words are cer-
tainly established, and the precise ideas they stand for, perfectly
known ; and that it is a shame to be ignorant of them. Both which
suppositions are false : no names of complex ideas having so settled
determined significations, that they are constantly used for the same
precise ideas. Nor is it a shame for a man not to have a certain
knowledge of any thing, but by the necessary ways of attaining it ;
and so it is no discredit not to know what precise idea any sound
stands for in another man''s mind, without he declare it to me by
some other way than barely using that sound, there being no other
way, without such a declaration, certainly to know it. Indeed, the
necessity of communication, by language, brings men to an agree-
ment in the signification of common words, within some tolerable
latitude, that may serve for ordinary conversation ; and so a man
cannot be supposed wholly ignorant of the ideas which are annexed
to words by common use, in a langviage familiar to him. But com-
mon use being but a very uncertain rule, which reduces itself at last
to the ideas of particular men, proves often but a very variable
standard. But though such a dictionary, as I have above mentioned,
will require too much time, cost, and pains, to be hoped for in this
age ; yet, methinks, it is not unreasonable to propose, that words
standing for things which are known and distinguished by their out-
ward shapes, should be expressed by little draughts and prints
made of them. A vocabulary made after this fashion would, per-
haps, with more ease, and in less time, teach the true signification
of many terms, especially in languages of remote countries or ages,
and settle truer ideas in men's minds of several things whereof we
read the names in ancient authors, than all the large and laborious
comments of learned critics. Naturalists, that treat of plants and
animals, have found the benefit of this way ; and he that has had
occasion to consult them, will have reason to confess, that he has a
clearer idea of apium or ibex, from a little print of that herb, or
beast, than he could have from a long definition of the names of either
of them. And so, no doubt, he would have of strigil and sistrum, if
instead of a curry-comb and cymbal, which are the English names
dictionaries render them by, he could see stamped in the margin,
small pictures of these instruments, as they were in use amongst the
ancients. Toga, tunica, pallium, are words easily translated by gown,
coat, and cloak ; but we* have thereby no more true ideas of the

S84r REMEDIES OF THE IMPERFECTION, &c. book 3.

fashion of those habits amongst the Romans, than we have of the
faces of the tailors who made them. Such things as these which the
eye distinguishes by their shapes, would be best let into the mind by
drafts made of them, and more determine the signification of such
words, than any other words set for them, or made use of to define
them. But this only by the by.

§ 26. Fifthly^ by constancy in their signification. — Fifthly^ If
men will not be at the pains to declare the meaning of their words,
and definitions of their terms are not to be had ; yet this is the least
that can be expected, that in all discourses, wherein one man pre-
tends to instruct or convince another, he should use the same word
constantly in the same sense ; if this were done (which nobody can
refuse without great disingenuity), many of the books extant might
be spared ; many of the controversies in dispute would be at an end,
'several of those great volumes, swollen with ambiguous words, now
used in one sense, and by^and-by in another, would shrink into a
very narrow compass; and many of the philosophers'* (to mention
no other) as well as poets'* works, might be contained in a nut-
shell.

§ 27. When the variation is to he explained. — But after all, the
provision of words is so scanty in respect of that infinite variety of
thoughts that men, wanting terms to suit their precise notions, will,
notwithstanding their utmost caution, be forced often to use the
same word, in somewhat different senses. And though in the con-
tinuation of a discourse, or the pursuit of an argument, there can 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 show in what sense he there uses
that term.

^5
BOOK IV. CHAPTER I,

OF KNOWLEDGE IN GENERAL.

§ 1. OtirhnOivl edge conversant about our ideas. — Since the mind,
in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object
but its own ideas, wliich it alone does or can contemplate, it is evi-
dent that our knowledge is only conversant about them.

§ 2. KnoTvlcdge is the perception of the agreement or disagireinejit
qftxvo ideas. — 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 fancy, 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 ourselves 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
docs necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from, the three angles
of a triangle *.P

* The placing of certainty, as Mr. Locke does in the perception of the agreement or
disagreement of our ideas, the Bishop of Worcester suspects may be of dangerous conse-
quence to tliat article of faith which he has endeavoured to defend : to which Mr. Locke
answers : (a) " Since your lordship htith not, as I remember, shown, or gone about to
show, how this proposition, viz. that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement
or disagreement of two ideas, is opposite or inconsistent with that article of faith which
your lordship has endeavoured to defend; it is plain, it is but your lordship's fear, that it
may be of dangerous consequence to it, which, as I humbly conceive, is no proof that it is
I any way inconsistent with that article.

I " Nobody, I think, can blame your lordship, or any one else, for being concerned for

. any article of the Christian faith ; but if that concern (as it may, and as we know it has

j done) makes any one apprehend danger, where no danger is, are we, therefore, to give up

and condemn any proposition, because any one, though of the first rank and magnitude,

fears it may be of dangerous consequence to any truth of religion, without showing that*

it is so? If such fears bs the measures whereby to judge of truth and fal.sehood, the

! affnraing that there are antipodes would be still a heresy; and the doctrine of the motion

j of the earth must be rejected, as overthrowing the truth of the scripture, for of that danger-

I ous consequence it has been apprehended to be, by many learned and pious divines, out of

I their great concern for religion. And yet, notwithstanding those great apprehensions of

I what dangerous consequence it might be, it is now universally received by learned men

as an undoubted truth ; and writ for by some, whose belief of the scripture is not at all

questioned ; and particularly, very lately, by a divine of the Church of England, with

great strength of reason, in his wonderfully ingenious New Theory of the Earth.

"The reason your lordship gives of your fears, that it may be of such dangerous con-
sequence to that article of faith, which your lordship endeavours to defend, though it
j occur in more places than one, is only this, viz. That it is made use of by ill men to do
mischief, i. e. to oppose that article of faith, which your lordship hath endeavoured to
defend. But, my lord, if it be a reason to lay by any thing as bad, because it is, or may
be, used to an ill purpose, I know not what will be innocent enough to be kept. Arms,
which were made for our defence, are sometimes made use of to do mischief; and yet

(a) In his second letter to the Bishop of Worcester.

C C

SSG KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

§ 3. This agi'cemcnt fourfold.— 'Qnt to unde^-stand a little more
distinctly, wherein this agreement or disagreement consists, I think
we may reduce it all to these four sorts: 1, Identity or diversity,

they are not thought of dangerous consequence for all that. Nobody lays by his sword
and pistols, or thinks them of such dangerous consequence as to be neglected, or thrown
away, because robbers, and tlie worst of men, sometimes make use of them to take away
honest men's lives or goods. And the reason is, because they were designed, and will
serve, to preserve them. And who knows but this may be the present case? If your
lordship thinks, that placing of certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of ideas, be to be rejected as false, because you apprehend it may be of dangerous
consequence to that article of faith : on the other side, perhaps others, with me, may
think it a defence against error, and .so (as being of good use) to be received and adhered
to.

" I would not, my lord, be hereby thought to set up my own, or any one's, judgment
against your lordship's. But I have said this only to show, whilst the argument lies for
or against the truth of any proposition, barely in an imagination that it may be of con-
sequence to ths supporting or overthrowing of any remote truth; it will be impossible, that
way, to determine of the truth or falsehood of that proposition. For imagination will be set
up against imagination, and the stronger probably will be against your lordship ; the strongest
imaginations being usually in the weakest iieads. The only way, in this case, to put it past
doubt, is to show the inconsistency of the two propositions ; and then it will be seen, that one
overthrows the other ; the true, the false one.

'' Your lordship says, indeed, this is a new method of certainly. I will not say so my-
self, for fear of deservirg a second reproof from your lordship, for being too forward to as-
sume to myself the honour of being an original. But this, I think, gives me occasion, and
will excuse me from being tliought impertMie»)t, if J ask your lordship whether there be any
other, or older, method of certainty ? and what it is ? For if there be no other, nor older;
than this, either this was always the method of certainty, and so mine is no new one ; or else
the world is obliged to me for this new one, after having been so long in the want of so
necessary a thing as a method of certainty. If there be an older, I am sure your lord&hip
dannot but know it ; your condemning mine as new, as well as your thorough insight into
antiquity, cannot but satisfy every body that you do. And therefore, to set the world riglit in
a thing of that great concernment, and to overthrow mine, and thereby prevent the dangerous
consequence there is in my having unreasonably started it, will not, I humbly conceive, mis-
become your lordship's care of that article you have endeavoured to defend, nor the good-will
you bear to truth in general. For I will be answerable for myself, that I shall; and I think
I may be for all others, that they all will give ofi'the placing of certainty in the perception of
the agreement or disagreement of ideas, if your lordship will be pleaded to show that it lies in
any thing else.

" But truly, not to ascribe to myself an invention of what has been as old as knowledge
is in the world, I must own I am not guilty of what your lordship is pleased to call
starting new methods of certainty. Knowledge, ever since there has been an}' in the
world, has consisted in one particular action in the mind ; and so, I conceive, will continue
to do to the end of it. And to start new methods of knowledge, or certainty (for they are to
me the same thing '^j i. e. to find out and propose new methods of attaining knowledge, either
with more ease and quickness, or in things yet unknown, is what I think nobody could blame;
but this is not that which your lordship here means, by new methods of certainty. Your
lordship, I think, means by it, the placing of certainty in something, wherein either it does
not consist, or else wherein it was not placed before now ; if this be to be called a new
method of certainty. As to the latter of these, I shall know whether I am guihy or no,
when your lordship will do me the favour to tell me wherein it was placed before ; which
your lordship knows I professed myself ignorant of, when I writ my book, and so I am still.
But if starting new methods of certainty, be the placing of certainty in something wherein
it doett not consist; whether 1 have done that or no, I must appeal to the experience of man-
kind.

" There are several actions of men's minds, that they are conscious to themselves of per-
forming, as willing, believing, knowing, &c. which they have so particular a sense of, that they
can distinguivh them one from another ; or else they could not say, when they willed, when
they believed, and when they knew any thing. Bui though these actions were dilferent
enough from one another, not to be confounded by those who spoke of them, yet nobody, that
I have met with, had, in their writings, particularly set down wherein the act of knowing pre-
cisely consisted.

CH. 1. KNOWLEDGE. 38T

2, Relation. 3, Co-existence or necessary connexion. 4, Real
existence.

§ 4. First, of identity, or diversity, — First, As to the first sort of

*' To this reflection upon the actions of my own mind, the subject of my Essay con-
cerning Human Understanding naturally led me; wherein if I have done any thing new,
it has been to describe to others, more particularly than had been done before, what it is
their minds do when they perform that action which they call knowing ; and if, upon
examination, they observe I have given a true account of that action of their minds in
all the parts of it, 1 suppose it will be in vain to dispute against what they find and feel
in themselves. And if 1 have not told them right and exactly what they find and feel
iu themselves, when their minds perform the act of knowing, what I have said will be all
in vain ; men will not be persuaded against their senses. Knowledge is an internal per-
ception of their minds ; and if, when they reflect on it, they find that it is not what I have
said it is, my groundless conceit will not be hearkened to, but be exploded by every
body, and die of itself; and nobody need to be at any pains to drive it out of the world.
So impossible is it to find out, or start new methods of certainty, or to have them received
[ if any one places it in any thing, but in that wherein it really consists; much less can
I any one be in danger to be misled into error, by any such new, and to every one visibly,
I senseless project. Can it be supposed, that any one could start a new method of seeing, and
1 persuade men thereby, tliat they do not see what they do see ? Is it to be feared that any
i one can cast such a mist over their eyes, that they should not know when they see, and so be
' led out of their way by it ?

I " Knowledge, I find in myself, and I conceive in others, consists in the perception of

I the agreement or disagreement of the immediate objects of the mind in thinking, which

I call ideas ; but whether it does so in others or no, must be determined by their own

experience, reflecting upon the action of their mind in knowing ; for that I cannot alter,

I nor, I think, they themselves. But whether they will call those immediate objects of

j their minds in thinking, ideas or no, is perfectly in their own choice. If they dislike tliat

name, they may call them notions or conceptions, or how they please; it matters not, if

1 they use them so as to avoid obscurity and confusion. If they are constantly used in

the same and a known sense, every one has the liberty to please himself in his terms ;

there lies neither truth, nor error, nor science, in that: though those that take them for

things, and not for what tliey are, bare arbitrary signs of our ideas, make a great deal ado

' often about them ; as if some greater matter lay in the use of this or that sound. All that

j I know, or can imagine, of difference about them, is that those words are always best,

whose significations are best known in the sense th^ are used ; and so are least apt to breed

(•(infusion.

" My lord, your lordship hath been pleased to find fault with my use of the new term,
ideas, without telling me a better name for the immediate objects of the mind in thinking.
Your lordship also has been pleased to find fault with my definition of knowledge, without
doing me the favour to give me a better. For it is only about my definition of knowledge,
that all this stir concerning certainty is made. For, with me, to know, and to be certain, is
the same thing ; what I know, that I am certain of; and what I am certain of, that I know.
What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty ; and what comes short of
certainty, I think cannot be called knowledge ; as your lordship could not but observe in the
18th section of chap. iv. of my 4th book, which you have quoted.

" My definition of knowledge stands thus : ' Knowledge .seems to me to l)e nothing but

j the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy, of any of

I our ideas.' This definition your lordship dislikes, and apprehends it may be of dangerous

' consequence as to that article of Christian faith which your lordship hath endeavoured to

j defend. For this there is a very easy remedy ; it is but for your lordship to set aside this

definition of knowledge by giving us a better, and this danger is over. But your lordship

chooses rather to have a controversy with vay book for having it in it, and to put me upon the

defence of it ; for which I must acknowledge myself obliged to your lordship for aflPording

me so much of your time, and for allowing me the honour of conversing so much with one so

; far above me in all respects.

I *' Your lordship says, it may be of dangerous consequence to that article ofOiristiao
I faith which you have endeavoured to defend. Though the laws of disputing allow bare
, denial as a sufiicient answer to sayings, without any offer of a proof; yet, my lord, to
I show how willing I am to give your lordship all satisfaction, in what you apprehend may
be of dangerous consequence in my book, as to that article, I shall not stand still sullenly,
and put your lordship upon the difliculty of showing wherein that danger lies ; but shall, oa
Uie other side, endeavour to show your lordship that that definition- of mine, whether tru^

c c 2

M

388 KNOWLEDGE. bqok 4.

»
agreement or disagreement, viz., identity or diversity, it is the first
act of the mind, when it has any sentiments or ideas at all, to per-
ceive 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 itself, 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 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 ap-
plication 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 parti-
cular ideas. A man infallibly knows, as soon as ever he has them
in liis 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

or false, right or wrong, can be of no dangerous consequence to tliat article of faith. The
reason which I shall offer for it is this, because it can be of no consequence to it at all.

" That which your lordship is afraid it m.iy be dangerous to, is an article of fiilli :
that which your lordship labours and is concerned for, is the certainty of faith. Now,
my lord, I humbly conceive the certainty of faith, if your lordship thinks fit to call it so,
has nothing to do with the certainty of knowledge. As to talk of the certainty of faiili, secTiis
all one to me, as to talk of the knowledge of believing, a way of speaking not easy to me to
understand.

" Place knowledge in what you will ; start what new methods of certainty you please,
that are apt to leave men's minds more doubtful than before ; place certainly on such
grounds as will leave little or no knowledge in the world (for these arc the arguments your
lordship uses against my definition of knowledge) : this shakes not at all, nor in the least
concerns, the assurance of faith ; that is quite distinct from if, -neither stands nor falls \\i;!t
knowledge.

" Faith stands by itself, and upon grounds of its own ; nor can be removed from ilin;
and placed on those of knowledge. Their grounds are so far from being the same, or haviii';
any thing common, that when it is brought to certainty, faith is destroyed ; it is knowkdge
then, and faith no longer.

♦• With what assurance soever of believing I assent to any article of faith, so tiiat I
stedfastly venture my all upon it, it is still but believing. Brinn it to certainty, and it ceases
to be faith. ' I believe that Jesus Christ was crucified, dead, and buried, rose again llie tliinl
day from the dead, and ascended into heaven :' let now such methods of knowledge or certainty
be started, as leave men's minds more doubtful than before ; let the grounds of knowledge 1'
resolved into what any one pleases, it touches not my faith ; the foundation of that stands .
•ure as before, and cannot be at all shaken by it; and one may as well say, that any tliii;
that weakens the sight, or casts a mist before the eyes, endangers the hearing ; as that an
thing which alters the nature of knowledge (if that could be done) should be of dangcroi
consequence to an article of faitli.

'* Whether then I am or am not mistaken, in the placing certainty in the perception of
the agreement or disagreement of ideas ; whether tin* account of knowledge be true r-
falte, enlarges or straitens the bounds of it more than it should; faith stands still upon ii
own basis, which is not at all altered by it; and every article of that has just the sam
unmoved foundation, rnd the very same credibility, that it had before. So that, my lord.
whatever I have sai' about certainty, and how much soever I may be out in it, if I am
mittaken, your lordship has no reason to apprehend any danger to any article of faith from
tb«rcc; every one of them stands upon the same bottom it did before, out of the readi ol
whtt belongs to knowledge and certainty. And thus much of my way of certainty by ideas
which, 1 hope, will satisfy your lordbhip how far it is from being dangerous to anv artici
the Chriiiian faith whatsoever."

J

vn. 1. KNOWLEDGE. 389

red or square. Nor can any maxim or proposition in the world
make him know it clearer or surer than he did before, and without
any such general rule. This, then, is the first agreement or dis-
agreement which the mind perceives in its ideas ; which it always
perceives at first sight ; and if there ever happens any doubt about
it, it 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^ relative.— -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
I 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 de-
nied one of another, there could be no room for any positive know-
ledge 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, of co-existence. — Thirdly, Tiie third sort of agree-
ment or disagreement to be found in our ideas, which the perception of
tlie mind is employed 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 accom-
panies, and is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight,
fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in aqua reg'ia, which make
our complex idea signified by the word gold.

§ 7. Fourthly, of real existence. — Fourthy, The fourth and
last sort is, that of actual and 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
inquiries that we can make concerning any of our ideas, all that we
know or can aflfirm 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 bases, 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 agree-
ment, or disagreement of our ideas, that they deserve well to be con-
sidered as distinct heads, and not under relation in general ; since
they are so diflerent groimds of afiirmation 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 not proceed to examine the

390 KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

several degrees of our knowledge, but that it is necessary first to
consider the different acceptations of the word knowledge.

5l 8. Knowledge actual or habitual. — There are several ways
wherein the mind is possessed of truth ; each of which is called

knowledge. , . , . i . ,

First, 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.

Secondly, 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 lodt^ed it in his memory, that whenever that pro]:)osition 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. This,
I think, one may call habitual knowledge ; and thus a man may be
said to know all those truths, which are lodged in his memory by
a foregoing clear and full perception, whereof the mind is assured
past doubt, as often as it has occasion to reflect on them. For our
finite understandings being able to think clearly and distinctly but
on one thing at once, if men had no knowledge of any more than
what they actually thought on, they would all be very ignorant :
and he that knew most, would know but one truth, that being all
he was able to think on at one time.

§ 9. Habitual knowledge two-fold. — Of habitual knowledge^
there are also, vulgarly speaking, two degrees:

Yirst, The one is of such truths laid up in the memory, as when-
ever they occur to the mind, it actually perceives the relation is
between those ideas. And this is in all those truths, whereof we have
an intuitive knowledge, where the ideas themselves, by an immediate
view, discover their agreement or disagreement one with another.

Secondly, The other is of such truths, whereof the mind having
been convinced, it retains the memory of the conviction, withoi
the proofs. Thus a man that remembers certainly, that he on<
perceived the demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle ai
equal to two right ones, is certain that he knows it, because he cai
not doubt the truth of it. In his adherence to a truth, where i\
demonstration, by which it was at first known, is forgot, though]
man may be thought rather to believe his memory, than really
know, and this way of entertaining a truth seemed formerly to
like something between opinion and knowledge, a sort of assuranc
which exceeds bare belief, for that relies on the testimony of
other; yet upon a due examination, I find it conies not short
perfect certainty, and is in effect true knowledge. That which
apt to mislead our first thoughts into a mistake in this matter,
that the agreement or disagreement of the ideas in this case is
perceived, as it was at first, by an actual view of all the in ten
diatc ideas, whereby the agreement or disagreement of those in tin
proixwition was at first perceived ; but by other intermediate ideas,

CH. 1. KNOWLEDGE. 391

that show the agreement or disagreement of the ideas contained in
the proposition whose certainty we remember. For example, in
this proposition, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right ones, one who has seen and clearly perceived the demonstration
of this truth, knows it to be true, when that demonstration is gone
out of his mind ; so that at present it is not actually in view, and
possibly cannot be recollected ; but he knows it in a different way
from what he did before. The agreement of the two ideas joined
in that proposition is perceived, but it is by the intervention of
other ideas than those which at first produced that perception. He
remembers, i. e. he knows (for remembrance is but the reviving of
some past knowledge) that he was once certain of the truth of this
proposition, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two
right ones. The immutability of the same relations between the
same immutable things, is now the idea that shows him, that if the
three angles of a triangle were once equal to two right ones, they
will always be equal to two right ones. And hence he comes to be
certain, that what was once true in the case, is always true ; what
ideas once agreed, will always agree ; and consequently what he
once knew to be true, he will always know to be true, as long as
he can remember that he once knew it. Upon this ground it is,
that particular demonstrations in mathematics aflbrd general know-
ledge. If then the perception that the same ideas will eternally
have the same habitudes and relations, be not a sufficient ground
of knowledge, there could be no knowledge of general propositions
in mathematics ; for no mathematical demonstration would be any
other than particular ; and when a man had demonstrated any pro-
position concerning one triangle or circle, his knowledge would not
reach beyond that particular diagram. If he would extend it far-
ther, he must renew his demonstration in another instance, before
he could know it to be true in another like triangle, and so on ; by
which means, one could never come to the knowledge of any general
propositions. Nobody, I think, can deny that Mr. Newton cer-
tainly knows any proposition, that he now at any time reads in his
book, to be true, though he has not in actual view that admirable
chain of intermediate ideas, whereby he at first discovered it to be
true. Such a memory as that, able to retain such a train of parti-
culars, may be well thought beyond the reach of human faculties :
when the very discovery, perception, and laying together that
wonderful connexion of ideas, is found to surpass most readers'
comprehension. But yet it is evident the author himself knows the
proposition to be true, remembering be once saw the connexion of
those ideas, as certainly as he knows such a man wounded another,
remembering that he saw him run him through. But because the
memory is not always so clear as actual perception, and docs in all
men more or less decay in length of time, this, amongst other
differences, is one, which shows, that demonstrative knowledge is
much more imperfect than intuitive, as we shall see in the following
chapter.

392 DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE DEGREES OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

& 1. Intuitive, — All our knowledge consisting, as I have said,
in the view the mind has of its own ideas, which is the utmost light
and greatest certainty, we with our faculties, and in our way of
knowledge, are capable of, it may not be amiss to consider a little
the degrees of its evidence. The different clearness of our know-
tledge seems to me to lie in the different way^f perception the mind
[lias of the agreement or disagreement"6Fany~of~tts ideas. For if
we will reflect on our own ways of thinking, we shall find, that
sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of
two ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention of
any other : and this, I think, we may call intuitive knowledge. For
in this, the mind is at no pains in proving or examining, but per-
ceives the truth, as the eye doth light, only by being directed
towards it. Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that
a circle is not a triangle, that three are more than two, and equal to
one and two. Such kind of truths the mind perceives at the first
sight of the ideas together, by bare intuition, without the inter-
vention of any other idea ; and this kind of knowledge is the
clearest, and most certain, that human frailty is capable of. This
part of knowledge is irresistible, and like bright sun-shine, forces
itself immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns
its view that way; and leaves no room for hesitation, doubt, or
examination, but the mind is presently filled with the clear light of_
it. It is on this intuition, that depends all the certainty and evidenc
of all our knowledge, which certainty every one finds to be
great, that he cannot imagine, and therefore not require, a greater]
for a man cannot conceive himself capable of a greater certaintj
than to know that any idea in his mind is such as he perceives it t
be; and that two ideas, wherein he perceives a difference, ai
different, and not precisely the same. He that demands a greatc
certainty than this, demands he knows not what, and shows onlj
that he has a mind to be a sceptic, without being able to be
Certainty depends so wholly on this intuition, that in the ne>
degree of knowledge, which I call demonstrative, this intuition
necessary in all the connexions of the intermediate ideas, withoi
which, we cannot attain knowledge and certainty.

§ 2. Demonstrative. — The next degree of knowledge is where
the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any ideas, but
not immediately. Though wherever the mind perceives the agree-
ment or disagreement of any of its ideas, there be certain know-
ledge; yet it does not always happen, tliat the mind sees that
afiTcemcnt or disagreement, whicli there is between them, even
whercit is dibcoverable ; and in that case, remains in ignorance,

CH. 2, DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. 303

and at most, gets no farther than a probable conjecture. The rea*
son wliy (he mind cannot always perceive presently the agreement
or disagreement of two ideas, is because those ideas concerning
whose agreement or disagreement the inquiry is made, cannot by
the mind be so put together, as to show it. In this case, then,
when the mind cannot so bring its ideas together, as by their imme-
diate comparison, and, as it were, juxta-position, or appHcation one
to another, to perceive their agreement or disagreement, it is fain,
by the intervention of other ideas (one or more, as it happens), to
discover the agreement or disagreement which it searches ; and this
is that which we call reasoning. Thus the mind being willing to
know the agreement or disagreement in bigness, between the three
angles of a triangle, and two right ones, cannot by an immediate
view and comparing them, do it ; because the three angles of a
triangle cannot be brought at once, and be compared with any one
or two angles ; and so of this the mind has no immediate, no intui-
tive, knowledge. In this case, the mind is fain to find out some
other angles, to which the three angles of a triangle have an equa-
lity ; and finding those equal to two right ones, comes to know their
equality to two right ones.

§ S. Depends on jiroofs. — Those intervening ideas, which serve
to show the agreement of any two others, are called proofs ; and
where the agreement or disagreement is by this means plainly and
clearly perceived, it is called demonstration, it being shown to the
understanding, and the mind made to see that it is so. A quickness
in the mind to find out these intermediate ideas (that shall discover
the agreement or disagreement of any other), and to apply them
right, is, I suppose, that which is called sagacity.

§ 4. But not so east/. — This knowledge by intervening proofs,
though it be certain, yet the evidence of it is not altogether so clear
and bright, nor the assent so ready, as an intuitive knowledge.
For though in demonstration, the mind does at last perceive the
agreement or disagreement of the ideas it considers, yet it is not
without pains and attention ; there must be more than one transient
view to find it. A steady application and pursuit are required to
this discovery ; and there must be a progression by steps and degrees,
before the mind can in this way arrive at certainty, and come to
perceive the agreement or repugnancy between two ideas that need
proofs, and the use of reason to show it.

§ 5. ^ot without precedent. — Another difference between intui-
tive and demonstrative knowledge, is, that though in the latter all
doubt be removed, when, by the intervention of the intermediate
ideas, the agreement or disagreement is perceived ; yet before the
demonstration there was a doubt, which, in intuitive knowledge,
cannot happen to the mind that has its faculty of perception left to
a degree capable of distinct ideas, no more than it can be a doubt to
the eye (that can distinctly see white and black), whether this ink
and this paper be all of a colour. If there be sight in the eyes, it
will at first glimpse, without hesitation, perceive the words printed

394 DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

on this paper, different from the colour of the paper; and so if the
mind have the faculty of distinct perceptions, it will perceive the
agreement or disagreement of those ideas that produce intuitive
knowledge. If the eyes have lost the faculty of seeing, or the mind
of perceiving, we in vain inquire after the quickness of sight in one,
or clearness of perception in the other.

§ 6. Not so clear, — It is true, the perception produced by de-
monstration is also very clear ; yet it is often with a great abatement
of that evident lustre and full assurance, that always accompany that
which I call intuitive, like a face reflected by several mirrors one to
another, where, as long as it retains the similitude and agreement
with the object, it produces a knowledge; but it is still in every
successive reflection with a lessening of that perfect clearness and
distinctness, which is in the first ; till at last, after many removes, it
has a great mixture of dimness, and is not at first sight so knowablc,
especially to weak eyes. Thus it is with knowledge, made out by a
long train of proofs.

§ 7. Each step must have intuitive evide7ice. — Now, in every step
reason makes in demonstrative knowledge, there is an intuitive
knowledge of that agreement or disagreement, it seeks with the next
intermediate idea, which it uses as a proof: for if it were not so,
that yet would need a proof; since without the perception of such
agreement or disagreement, there is no knowledge produced. If it
be perceived by itself, it is intuitive knowledge ; if it cannot be ])er-
ceived by itself, there is need of some intervening idea, as a connnon
measure to show their agreement or disagreement. By which it is
plain, that every step in reasoning, that produces knowledge, has
intuitive certainty : which when the mind perceives, there is no more
required, but to remember it, to make the agreement or disagree-
ment of the ideas, concerning which we inquire, visible and certain.
So that to make any thing a demonstration, it is necessary to per-
ceive the immediate agreement of the intervening ideas, whereby
the agreement or disagreement of the two ideas under examination
(whereof the one is always the first, and the other the last, in the
account) is found. This intuitive perception of the agreement or
disagreement of the intermediate ideas, in each step and progression
of the demonstration, must also be carried exactly in the mind, and
a man must be sure that no part is left out ; which, because in long
deductions, and the use of many proofs, the memory does not always
so readily and exactly retain ; therefore it comes to pass, that this is
more imperfect than intuitive knowledge, and men embrace often
falsehwKl for demonstrations.

§ 8. Hence the mistaJiC, ex prceco^^nit'is ct proiconccssis — The
necessity of this intuitive knowledge, m each step of scientifical or
demonstrative reasoning, gave occasion, I imagine, to that mistaken
axiom, that all reasoning was ex pi^wcognitis et prwconcessis ; which
how far it is mistaken, I shall have occasion to show more at large,
when I come to consider pro|>ositions, and particularly those ])r()posi-
tions wiiich are called maxims ; and to sihow that it is by a mibtake,

CH. 2. DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. 895

that they are supposed to be the foundations of all our knowledge
and reasonings.

§ 9. Devionstj'ation not limited to quantity. — It has been gene-
rally taken for granted, that mathematics alone are capable of
demonstrative certainty ; but to have such an agreement or disagree-
ment, as may intuitively be perceived, being, as I imagine, not the
privilege of the ideas of number, extension, and figure alone, it may
possibly be the want of due method and application in us, and not
of sufficient evidence in things, that demonstration has been thought
to have so little to do in other parts of knowledge, and been scarce
so much as aimed at by any but mathematicians. For whatever
ideas we have, wherein the mind can perceive the immediate agree-
ment or disagreement that is between them, there the mind is capable
of intuitive knowledge ; and where it can perceive the agreement or
disagreement of any two ideas, by an intuitive perception of the
agreement or disagreement they have with any intermediate ideas,
there the mind is capable of demonstration, which is not limited to
ideas of extension, figure, number, and their modes.

§ 10. Why it has been so thought. — The reason why it has been

fenerally sought for, and supposed to be only in those, I imagine
as been not only the general usefulness of those sciences ; but
because, in comparing their equality or excess, the modes of num-
bers have every the least difference very clear and perceivable ; and
though in extension, every the least excess is not so perceptible ; yet
the mind has found out ways to examine and discover demonstra-
tively the just equality of two angles, or extensions, or figures ; and
both these, i. e. numbers and figures, can be set down by visible and
lasting marks, wherein the ideas under consideration are perfectly
determined, which, for the most part, they are not, where they are
marked only by names and words.

§ 11. J3ut in other simple ideas, whose modes and differences are
made and counted by degrees, and not quantity, we have not so
nice and accurate a distinction of their differences, as to perceive
and find ways to measure their just equality, or the least differences.
For those other simple ideas being appearances or sensations, ])ro-
duced in us by* the size, figure, number, and motion of minute
corpuscles singly insensible, their different degrees also depend upon
the variation of some or all of those causes: which, since it cannot
be observed by us in particles of matter, whereof each is too subtile
to be perceived, it is impossible for us to have any exact measures
of the different degrees of these simple ideas. For supposing the
sensation or idea we name whiteness, be produced in us by a certain
number of globules, which having a verticity about their own centres,
strike upon the retina of the eye with a certain degree of rotation,
as well as progressive swiftness ; it will hence easily follow, that the
more the superficial parts of any body are so ordered, as to reflect the
greater number of globules of light, and to give them the proper
rotation, which is fit to produce this sensation of white in us, the
more white will that body appear, that from an ecj[ual space sends to

396 DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

the retina the greater number of such corpuscles, with that peculiar
sort of motion. I do not say, that the nature of light consists in
A'ery small round globules, nor of whiteness, in such a texture of
parts as gives a certain rotation to these globules, when it reflects
them ; for I am not now treating physically of light or colours :
but this, I think, I may say, that I cannot (and I would be glad any
one would make intelligible that he did) conceive how bodies with-
out us can any ways affect our senses, but by the immediate contact
of the sensible bodies themselves, as in tastmg and feeling, or tlie
impulse of some insensible particles coming from them, as in seeing,
liearing, and smelling; by the different impulse of which parts, caused
by their different size, figure, and motion, the variety of sensations
is produced in us.

§ 1^1. "Whether then they be globules, or no; or whether they
have a verticity about their own centres, that produces the idea of
whiteness in us ; this is certain, that the more particles of light are
reflected from a body, fitted to give them that peculiar motion, which
produces the sensation of whiteness in us ; and possibly, too, the:j
quicker that peculiar motion is, the whiter does the body appear, |
from which the greater number are reflected, as is evident in the
same piece of paper put in the sun beams, in the shade, and in a]
dark hole; in each of which, it will produce in us the idea of white-]
ness in far different degrees.

§ 13. Not .knowing therefore what number of particles, nor what^
motion of them, is fit to produce any precise degree of whiteness,
we cannot demonstrate the certain equality of any two degrees of
whiteness, because we have no certain standard to measure them by,
nor means to distinguish every the least real difference, the only
help we have, being from our senses, which in this point fails us.
But where the difference is so great, as to produce in the mind
clearly distinct ideas, whose differences can be perfectly retained,
there these ideas of colours, as we see in different kinds, as blue and
red, are as capable of demonstration, as ideas of number and exten-
sion "What 1 have here said of whiteness and colours, I think,
holds true in all secondary qualities, and their modes.

§ 14'. Sensitive knozvledge of 2)articular cxiste7we, — These two,
viz. intuition and demonstration, are the degrees of our knowledge ;
whatever comes short of one of these, with what assurance soever
embraced, is but failh, or opinion, but not knowledge, at least in all
\| general truths. There is, indeed, another jKTception of the mind,
employed about the ])articular existence of finite beings without us;
w Inch going beyond bare probability, and yet not reaching perfectly
to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes under the
name of knowledge, 'rhere can be riothinjy more certain, than that
the jdca we receive from an externajjb)ectislL_our m"mdi; this i»
intuitive kjiowledge. 13ut whether there be any thing more than*
barely that ulea in our minds, whether we can thence certainly infer
the existence of any thing without us, which corresponds to that

1

!i. 2. DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE. 397

idea, is lliat, whereof some men think there maybe a question made,
because men may have such ideas in their minds, when no such
thing exists, no such object affects their senses. But yet here, I
think, we are provided with an evidence, that puts us past doubt-
ing: for I ask any one, whether he be not invincibly conscious to
himself of a different perception, when he looks on the sun by day,
and thinks on it by night; when he actually tastes wormwood, or
smells a rose, or only thinks on that savour, or odour ? We as
plainly find the difference there is between an idea revived in our
minds by our own memory, and actually coming in our minds by
our senses, as we do between any two distinct ideas. If any one
say, a dream may do the same thing, and all these ideas may be
produced in us without any external objects, he may please to
dream that I make him this answer : Fi>st^ That it is no great mat-
ter, whether I remove this scruple, or no : where all is but dream,
reasoning and arguments are of no use ; truth and knowledge no-
thing. Secondly^ That I believe he will allow a very manifest dif-
ference between dreaming of being in the fire, and being actually
in it. But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical as to main-
tain, that what I call being actually in the fire, is nothing but a
dream ; and we cannot thereby certainly know, that any such thing
as fire actually exists without us ; I answer, that we certainly find-
ing, that pleasure or pain follows upon the application of certain ob-
jects to us, whose existence we perceive, or dream that we perceive,
by our senses : this certainly is as great as our happiness or misery,
beyotid which, we have no concernment to know, or to be. So that,
I think, we may add to the two former sorts of knowledge this also,
of the existence of particular external objects, by that perception and
consciousness we have of the actual entrance of ideas from them, and
allow these three degrees of knowledge, viz. intuitive, demonstrative,
and sensitive : in each of which, there are different degrees and ways
of evidence and certainty.

§ 15. Knoidedge not alicay^ clear, zchere the ideas are so. — But
since our knowledge is founded on, and employed about, our ideas
only, will it not follow from thence, that it is conformable to our
ideas ; and that where our ideas are clear and distinct, or obscure
and confused, our knowledge will be so too ? To which I answer,
* No : for our knowledge consisting in the perception of the agree-
ment or disagreement of any two ideas, its clearness or obscurity,
consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, and not in W
the clearness or obscurity of the ideas themselves : v. g. a man that
has as clear ideas of the angles of a triangle, and of equality to two
right ones, as any mathematician in the world, may yet have but a
very obscure perception of their agreement, and so have but a very
obscure knowledge of it. But ideas which, by reason of their ol)-
scurity or otherwise, are confused, cannot produce any clear or dis- .
tinct knowledge; because as far as any ideas are confused, so far
the mind cannot perceive clearly, whether they agree or disagree.

398 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

Or to express the same thing in a way less apt to be misunderstood.
He that liath not determined ideas to the words he uses, cannot
make projxjsitions of them, of whose truth he can be certain.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

S 1. Knowledge, as has been said, lying in the perception of
the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, it follows from
hence, that.

First, no farther than we have ideas, — First, We can have know-
ledge no farther than we have ideas.

§ 2. Secondly, no farther than xve can perceive their agreement or
disagreement, — Secondly, That we can have no knowledge farther
than we can have perception of their agreement or disagreement :
which perception being, 1, Either by intuition, or the immediate
comparing any two ideas ; or, 2, ]}y reason, examining the agree-'
ment or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of some
others: or 3, By sensation, perceiving the existence of particular
things. Hence it also follows,

§ 3. Thirdly, intuitive hnoidedge extends itself not to all the re-
lidions of all our ideas. — Thirdly, That we cannot have an intuitive
knowledge, that shall extend itself to all our ideas, and all that we
would know about them ; because we cannot examine and perceive
all the relations they have one to another by juxta-position, or an
immediate comparison one with another. Thus having the ideas of
an obtuse and an acute angled triangle, both drawn from equal
bases, and between parallels, I can, by intuitive knowledge, perceive
the one not to be the other ; but cannot that way know, whether
they be equal, or no ; because their agreement Or disagreement in
equality can never be perceived by an immediate comparing them :
the difterence of figure makes their parts incapable of an exact im-
mediate a])plication ; and therefore there is need of some interven-
ing qualities to measure them by, which is demonstration, or
rational knowledge.

§ 4. Fourthly, nor demonstrative knowledge, — Fourthly, It fol-
lows also, from what is above observed, that our rational knowledge
cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas : because between two
different ideas we would examine, we cannot always find sucli me-
diums, as we can connect one to another with an intuitive know-
ledge, in all the parts of the deduction ; and wherever that fails, we
come short of kiiowledge and demonstration.

§ 5. Ffllily, sen sit tie k?iowled<rc narrower than either. — Ffthly,
Sensitive knowledge reaching no farlhcr than the existence of things

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 399

actually present to onr senses, is yet much narrower than either of
the former.

§ 6. Sixthli/y our knowledge therefore narroxoer than our ideas, —
Sixthly, From all which, it is evident, that the extent of our know-
ledge comes not only short of the reality of things, but even of the
extent of our own ideas. Though our knowledge be limited to our
ideas, and cannot exceed them either in extent or perfection ; and
though these be very narrow bounds, in respect of the extent of
All-Being, and far short of what we may justly imagine to be in
some even created understandings, not tied down to the dull and
narrow information which is to be received from some few, and not
very acute, ways of perception, such as are our senses ; yet it would
be well widi us, if our knowledge were but as large as our ideas,
and there were not many doubts and inquiries concerning the ideas
we have, whereof we are not, nor I believe ever shall be in this
world, resolved. Nevertheless, I do not question but that human
knowledge, under the present circumstances of our beings and con-
stitutions, may be carried much farther than it hitherto has been, if
men would sincerely, and with freedom of mind, employ all that in-
dustry and labour of thought, in improving the means of discovering
truth, which they do for the colouring or support of falsehood, to
maintain a system, interest, or party, they are once engaged in. But
yet, after all, I think I may, without injury to human perfection, be
confident, that our knowledge would never reach to all we might
desire to know concerning those ideas we have ; nor be able to sur-
mount all the difficulties, and resolve all the questions, that might
arise concerning any of them. We have the ideas of a square, a
circle, and equality ; and yet, perhaps, shall never be able to find a
circle equal to a square, and certainly know that it is so. We have
the ideas of matter and thinking*, but possibly shall never be able

* Against that assertion of Mr. liocke, that " possibly we ishall never be able to know,
whether any mere material being thinks or no," &c. the Bishop of Worcester argues thus :
" If this be true, then, for all that we can know by our ideas of matter and tiiinking, matter
may have a power of thinking : and, if this hold, then it is impossible to prove a spiritual
substance in us from the idea of thinking : for how can we be assured by our ideas, that God
halh not given such a power of thinking to matter so di>posed as our bodies are? especially
since it is said [a), • That, in respect of our notions, it is not much more remote from our
comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to our idea of matter a fa-
culty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance, with a faculty of
thinking.' Whoever asserts this, can never prove a spiritual substance in us from a faculty
of thinking, because he cannot know, from the idea of matter and thinking, that matter so
disposed cannot think : and he cannot be certain, that God hath not framed the matter of our
bodies so as to be capable of it."

To which Mr. Locke (6) answers thus : " Here your Lordship argues, that upon my
principles it cannot be proved thai there is a spiritual substance in us. To which, give me
leave, with submission, to say, that I think it may be proved from my principles, and 1 think
I have done it ; and the proof in my book stands thus : Firsts we experiment in ourselves
tiiinking. The idea of this action, or mode of thinking, is inconsistent with the idea of self-
subsistence, and, therefore, has a necessary connexion with a suppori; or salject of inhesion ;
the idea of that support is what we call substance ; and so from thinking experimented in us,
we have a proof of a thinking substance in us, which in my sense is a spirit. Against this

(r/) Essay on Human Understanding, b. 4. c. 3. § C.
{J)) In ills first letter to the Bishop of Worcester.

400 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

to know, whether any mere material being thinks or no ; it being
im|X)ssible for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without
revelation, to discover, whether Omnipotency has not given to some

j-our lordship will argue, that, by what I have said of the possibility that God may, if he
pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, it can never be proved that there is a spi-
ritual substance in us, because, upon that supposition, it is possible it may be a material sub-
stance that thinks in us. I grant it; but add, that the general idea of substance being the
same every where, the modification of thinking, or the power of thinking, joined to it, makes
it a spirit, without considering what other modifications it has, as whether it has the modifica-
tion of solidity or no. As, on the other side, substance, that has the modification of sohdity,
is matter, whether it has the modification of thinking, or no. And, therefore, if your lord-
ship means by a spiritual, an immaterial, substance, I grant I have not proved, nor upon my
principles can it be proved (your lordship meaning, as I think you do, demonstratively
iiroved\ that there is an imnatcrial substance in us that thinks. Though, I presume, from
what I have said about this supposition of a system of matter, thinking (a) (which there de-
monstrates that God is immaterial), will prove it in the highest degree probable, that the
thinkin<T substance in us is immaterial. But your lordship thinks not probably enough, and
by charging the want of demonstration upon my principle, that the thinking thing in us is im-
material, your lordship seems to conclude it demonstrable from principles of philosophy. The
demonstration I should with joy receive from your lordship, or any one. For though all
the great ends of morality and religion are well enough secured without it, as I have shown (i),
yet it would be a great advance of our knowledge in nature and philosophy.

" To what I have said in my book, to show that all the great ends of religion and morality
are secured barely by the immortality of the soul, without a necessary supposition that the soul
is immaterial, I crave leave to add, that immortality may, and shall be, annexed to that,
which in its own nature is neither immaterial nor immortal, as the apostle expressly declares
in these words (c), ' For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put
on immortality.'

'♦ Perhaps my using the word spirit for a thinking substance, without excluding ma-
teriality out of it, will be thought too great a liberty, and such as deserves censure, be-
cause I leave immateriality out of the idea I make it a sign of. I readily own, that words
should be sparingly ventured on in a sense wholly new ; and nothing but absolute neces-
sity can excuse the boldness of using any term in a sense whereof we can produce no
example. But, in the present case, I think I have great authorities to justify me. The
soul is agreed, on all hands, to be that in us which thinks. And he that will look into
the back of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, and into the sixth book of Virgil's ^neid, will
find, that these two great men, who, of all the Romans, best understood philosophy,
thought, or at least did not deny, the soul to be a subtile matter, which might come under
the name of <77/ra, or ignis, or ccther ; and this soul, they both of them called spiritus : in
the notion of which, it is plain, they included only thought and active motion, without
the total exclusion of matter. Whether they thought right in tliis, I do not say ; that is
not the question ; but whether they spoke properly, when they called an active, thinking,
subtile substance, out of which they excluded only gross and palpable matter, spiritus^
spirit. I think that nobody will deny, tliat if any among the llomans can be allowed to
speak properly, TuUy and Virgil are the two who may most securely be depended on for
it : and one of them, speaking of the soul, says, Dinn spiritus hos rcget at ins ; and the
other, Vita contitietcr corpore ct spintu. Where it is plain by corpus^ he means (as gene-
rally every where) only gross matter that may be felt and handled, as appears by these
words ; Si cor, aut sanguis, nnt ccrehrnm est animus : certc^ quoniam est corpus, inicrihit
cum rcliquo corpore ; si auima est, forte dissipahilur : si ignis, extingmter, Tusc. Quacst.
1. 1. c. 11. Here Cicero opposes co/y;//* to ignis and anhna, i.e. aura, or breath. And
the foundation of that his distinction of the soul, from that which he calls corpus or body,
he gives a little lower in these words : Tanta ejus tenuitas utfugiat acicm, ibid. c. 22.
Nor was it the heathen world alone that had this notion of spirit; the most enlightened.
of kU the ancient people of God. Solomon himself, speaks after the same manner (J) :
•That which brfiUcth ihc sons of men, bcfallcth beasts; even one thing befalleth them ;
ns the one dielh, so dielh the other; yea, they have all one spirit.' So I translate the
Hebrew word rrn, here, for so I find it translated the very next verse but one (r); « Who

(ff) B. 4. c. 10. § in. {h) B. 4. c. ?,. § 0. (r) I Cor. xv. 53.

(rf) Keel. Hi. 19. (r) I bid. 21.

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 401

systems of matter fitly disposed, a power to j^erceive and think, or
else joined and fixed to matter so disposed, a thinking immaterial
substance : it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote

knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth down-
wards to the earth?' In which places, it is plain, that Solomon applies the word mi, and
our translators of him the word spirit, to a substance, out of which materiality was not wholly
excluded, unless the spirit of a beast that goeth downwards to the earth, be immaterial. Nor
did the way of speaking in our Saviour's time vary from this: St. Luke tells us (a\ ' That
when our Saviour, after his resurrection, stood in the midst of them, they were affrighted,
and supposed that they had seen ^rvstJ^a,' the Greek word which always answers spirit in
Enghsh : and so the translators of the Bible render it here, they supposed that they had seen
a spirit. But our Saviour says to them, ' Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself;
handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have.' Which
words of our Saviour put the same distinction between body and spirit, that Cicero did in the
place above cited, viz., That the one was a gross compages that could be felt and handled ;
and the other such as Virgil describes the ghost or soul ol Anchises.

' Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum,
|| Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,

I Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.' (6).

'. " I would not be thought hereby to say, that spirit never does signify a purely imma-
ji terial substance. In that sense the scripture, I take it, speaks, when it says Gcd is a
spirit; and in that sense I have used it; and in that sense I have proved from my prin-
ciples that there is a spiritual substance, and am certain that there is a spiritual imma-
terial substance : which is, I humbly conceive, a direct answer to your lordship's question
in the beginning of this argument, viz., ' How we come to be certain that there are spiritual
substances, supposing this principle to be true, that the simple ideas by sensation and
reflection, are the sole matter and foundation of all our reasoning? But this hinders not,
I but that if God, that infinite, omnipotent, and perfectly immaterial Spirit, should please
[ to give to a system of very subtile matter, sense and motion, it might with propriety of
j speech be called spirit, though materiality were not excluded out of its complex idea.
I Your lordship proceeds : ' It is said, indeed, elsewhere (c), that it is repugnant to the idea
' of senseless matter, that it should put into itself sense, perception, and knowledge. But this
j doth not reach the present case: which is not what matter can do of itself, but what matter
I prepared by an omnipotent hand can do. And what certainly can we have that he hath not
j done it ? We can have none from the ideas, for those are given up in this case, and conse-
j quently we can have no certainty, upon these principles, whether we have any spiritual sub-
1 stance within us or not.'

I " Your lordship in this paragraph proves, that, from what I say, we can have no cer-
' tainty whether we have any spiritual substance in us or not. If by spiritual substance,
your lordship means an immaterial substance in us, as you speak, I grant what your lord-
1 ship says is true, that it cannot upon these principles be demonstrated. Eut I must crave
j leave to say at the same time, that upon these principles it can be proved, to the highest
I degree of probability. If by spiritual substance, your lordship means a thinking substance,
! I must dissent from your lordship, and say, that we can have a certainty, upon my prin-
ciples, that there is a spiritual substance in us. In short, my lord, upon my principles,
i. e. from the idea of thinking, we can have a certainty that there is a thinking substance
I in us; from hence we have a certainly that there is an eternal thinking substance. This
i thinking substance, which has been from eternity, I have proved to be immaterial This
: eternal, immaterial, thinking substance, has put into us a thinking substance, which, whe-
ther it be a material or immaterial substance, cannot be infallibly demonstrated from our
ideas : though from them it may be proved, that it is to the highest degree probable that it is
immaterial."

Again, the Bishop of Worcester undertakes to prove from Mr. Locke's principles, that we
I may be certain, " That the first eternal thinking Being, or omnipotent Spirit, cannot, if he
i would, give to certain systems of created sensible matter, put together as he sees fit, some
' degrees of sense, perception, and thought."

To which, Mr. Locke has made the following answer in his third letter.
' " Your first argument I take to be this ; that according to me, the knowledge we have
being by our ideas, and our idea of matter in general being a solid substance, and our idea

(ff) Chap. xxiv. 37. (b) Lib. vi. (c) B. 4. c. 10. $ 5.

D D

402 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

from our comprehension to conceive, that God can, if he pleases,
superadd to matter a faculty of tliinking, than that he should super-
add to it another substance, with a faculty of thinking ; since we

of body a solid extended figured substance ; if I admit matter to be capable of thinking, ]
confound the idea of matter with the idea of a spirit ; to which I answer, No ; no more thai
I confound the idea of matter with the idea of a horse, when I say that matter in general is i
solid extended substance ; and that a horse is a material animal, or an extended solid sub
stance, with sense and spontaneous motion.

•' The idea of matter is an extended solid substance ; wherever there is such a substan
there is matter ; and the essence of matter whatever other qualities, not contained in tha
essence, it shall please God to superadd to it. For example : God creates an extended soil
substance, without the superadding any thing else to it, and so we may consider it at rest
to some parts of it he superadds motion, but it has still the essence of matter; other parts c
it he frames into plants, with all the excellencies of vegetation, life, and beauty, which is to
be found in a rose or peach tree, &c., above the essence of matter in general, but it is still
but matter : to other parts he adds sense and spontaneous motion, and those other properties
that are to be found in an elephant. Hitherto it is not doubted but the power of God may
go, and that the properties of a rose, a peach, or an elephant, superadded to matter, change
not the properties of matter; but matter is in these things matter still. But if one venture
to go one step farther, and say, God may give to matter thought, reason, and volition, as
well as sense and spontaneous motions, there are men ready presently to limit the power of
the omnipotent Creator, and tell us he cannot do it ; because it destroys the essence, or
changes the essential properties of matter. To make good which assertion, they have no
more to say, but that thought and reason are not included in the essence of matter. I grant
it ; but whatever excellency, not contained in its essence, be superadded to matter, it does
not destroy the essence of matter, if it leaves it an extended solid subsiance : wherever that
is, there is the essence of matter : and if every thing of greater perfection, superadded to
such a substance, destroys the essence of matter, what will become of the essence of matter
in a plant or an animal, whose properties far exceed those of a mere extended solid substance.
" But it is farther urged, that we cannot conceive how matter can think. I grant it: but
to argue from thence, that God, therefore, cannot give to matter a faculty of thinking, is to
say, God's omnipotency is limited to a narrow compass, because man's understanding is so i
and brings down God's infinite power to the size of our capacities. If God can give no
power to any parts of matter, but what men can account for from the essence of matter in
general ; if all such qualities and properties must destroy the essence, or change the essential
properties, of matter, which are to our conceptions above it, and we cannot conceive to be the
natural consequence of that essence; it is plain, that the essence of matter is destroyed, and
its essential properties changed, in most of the sensible parts of this our system. For it is
visible, that all the planets have revolutions about certain remote centres, which I would have
any one explain, or make conceivable by the bare essence, or natural powers depending on the
essence of matter in general, without something added to that essence, which we cannot coi
ceive; for the moving of matter in a crooked line, or the attraction of matter by matter, is
that can be said in the case; either of which it is above our reach to derive from the essei
of matter or body in general ; though one of these two must unavoidably be allowed to
superadded in this instance to the essence of matter in general. The omnipotent Creator ad-
vised not with us in the making of the world, and his ways are not the less excellent, because
they are past finding out.

" In the next place, the vegetable part of the creation is not doubted to be wholly ma-
terial ; and yet he that will look into it will observe excellencies and operations in this part
of matter, which he will not find contained in the essence of matter in general, nor be
able to conceive how they can be produced by it. And will he therefore say, that the
essence of matter is destroyed in them, because they have properties and operations not
contained in the essential properties of matter as matter, nor explicable by the essence of
matter in general?

" Let us advance one step farther, and we shall in the animal world meet with yet greater
perfections and properties, no ways explicable by the essence of matter in general. If the
omnipotent Creator had not superadded to the earth, which produced the irrational animals,
qualities far surpassing those of the dull dead earth, out of which they were made, life,
sense, and spontaneous motion, nobler qualities than were before in it, it had still remained
rude senseless matter; and if to the individuals of each fpecies he had not superadded
a power of propagation, the species had perished with those individuals: but by these
eucnces or properties of each species, superadded to the matter which they were made of,

I

r. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 403

know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances
the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be
in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of

the essence or properties of matter in general were not destroj'ed or changed any more than
any thing that was in the individuals before, was destroyed or changed by the power of
generation, superadded to them by tlie first benediction of the Almighty.

" In all such cases, the superinducement of greater perfections and nobler qualities
destroys nothing of the essence or perfections that were there before ; unless there can be
showed a manifest repugnancy between them : but all the proof offered for that, is only,
that we cannot conceive how matter, without such superadded perfections, can produce
such effects ; which is, in truth, no more than to say, matter in general, or every part
of matter, as matter, has them not ; but is no reason to prove, that God, if he pleases,
cannot superadd them to some parts of matter, unless it can be proved to be a contradiction,
that God should give to some parts of matter qualities and perfections, which matter in
general has not ; though we cannot conceive how matter is invested with them, or how it
operates by virtue of those new endowments ; nor is it to be wondered that we cannot, whilst -
we limit all its operations to those qualities it had before, and would explain them by the
known properties of matter in general, without any such induced perfections. For, if this be
a right rule of reasoning, to deny a thing to be, because we cannot conceive the manner how
it comes to be ; I shall desire them who use it, to stick to this rule, and see what work it
will make both in divinity as well as philosophy : and whether they can advance any thing
more in favour of scepticism.

" For to keep within the present subject of the power of thinking and self-motion, bestowed
by omnipotent Power in some parts of matter : the objection to this is, I cannot conceive how
matter should think. What is the consequence? ergo, God cannot give it a power to think.
Let this stand for a good reason, and then proceed in other cases by the same. You cannot
conceive how matter can attract matter at any distance, much less at the distance of 1,000,000
of miles; ergo^ God cannot give it such a power: you cannot conceive how matter should
feel, or move itself, or affect an immaterial being, or be moved by it ; ergo, God cannot give
it such powers : which is, in effect, to deny gravity, and the revolution of the planets about
the sun ; to make brutes mere machines, without sense or .spontaneous motion ; and to allow
man neither sense nor voluntary motion.

" Let us apply this rule one degree farther. You cannot conceive how an extended solid

substance should think ; therefore God cannot make it think : can you conceive how your own

I soul, or any substance, thinks? You find indeed that you do think, and so do I ; but I

j want to be told how the action of thinking is performed : this, I confess, is beyond my con-

I ception ; and I would be glad any one, who conceives it, would explain it to me. God, I

I find, has given me this faculty ; and since I cannot but be convinced of his power in this

instance, which though I every moment experiment in myself, yet I cannot conceive the

' manner of; what would it be less than an insolent absurdity, to deny his power in other like

I cases, only for this reason, because I cannot conceive the manner how ?

I " To explain this matter a little farther: God has created a substance; let it be, for

j example, a solid extended substance. Is God bound to give it, besides being, a power of

j action ? that, I think, nobody will say: he, therefore, may leave it in a state of inactivity,

■ and it will be nevertheless a substance ; for action is not necessary to the being of any

; substance that God does create. God has likewise created and made to exist, de novo, an

j immaterial substance, which will not lose its being of a substance, though God should lestow

j on it nothing more but this bare being, without giving it any activity at all. Here are

I now two distinct substances, the one material, the other immaterial, both in a state of

I perfect inactivity. Now I ask, what power God can give to one of these substances (sup-

> posing them to retain the same distinct natures that they had as substances in their state

of inactivity), which he cannot give to the other? In that state, it is plain, neither of

jtheni thinks; for thinking being an action, it cannot be denied, that God can put an end

; to an action of any created substance, without annihilating of the substance whereof it is

ian action ; and if it be so, he can also create or give existence to such a substance, without ,

giving that substance any action at all. By the same reason it is plain, that neither of

them can move itself: now I would ask, why Omnipotency cannot give to either of these

substances, which are equally in a state of perfect inactivity, the same power that it can

give to the other? Let it be, for example, that of spontaneous or self-motion, which is a

power that it is supposed God can give to an unsolid substance, but denied that he can give

to solid substance.

" If it be asked, why thev limit the omnipotency of God in reference to the one rather

D D S

404 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first eternal
thinking Being should, if he pleased, give to certain systems of
created senseless matter, put together as lie thinks fit, some degrees

than the other of these substances ? all that can be said to it is, that they cannot conceive,
how the solid substance should ever be able to move itself. And as little, say I, are they
able to conceive how a created unsolid substance should move itself. But there may be
something in an immaterial substance, that you do not know. I grant it ; and in a material
one too: for example, gravitation of matter towards matter, and in the several proportions
observable, inevitably shows, that there is something in matter that we do not understand,
unless we can conceive self-motion in matter; or an inexplicable and inconceivable attraction
in matter, at immense, almost incomprehensible, distances ; it must, therefore, be confessed,
that there is something in solid, as well as unsolid, substances, that we do not understand.
But this we know, that they may each of them have their distinct beings, without any
activity superadded to them, unless you will deny, that God can take from any being its
power of acting, which it is probable will be thought too presumptuous for any one to do;
and, I say, it is as hard to conceive self-motion in a created immaterial, as in a material being,
consider it how you will: and, therefore, this is no reason to deny Omnipotency to be able
to give a power of self-motion to a material substance, if he pleases, as well to an immaterial ;
since neither of them can have it from themselves, nor can we conceive how it can be in
either of them.

The same is visible in the other operation of thinking : both these substances may be made
and exist without thought ; neither of them has, or can have, the power of thinking from
itself; God may give it to either of them, according to the good pleasure of his omnipotency ;
and in whichever of them it is, it is equally beyond our capacity to conceive, how either of
these substances thinks. But for that reason, to deny that God, who had power' enough to
give them both a being out of nothing, can, by the same omnipotency, give them what other
powers and perfections he pleases, has no better foundation than to deny his power of creation,
because we cannot conceive how it is performed : and there, at last, this way of reasoning
must terminate.

" That Omnipotency cannot make a substance to be solid and not solid at the same time,
I think with due reverence we may say ; but that a solid substance may not have qualities,
perfections, and powers, which have no natural or visibly necessary connexion with solidity
and extension is too much for us fwho are but of yesterday, and know nothing) to be
positive in. If God cannot join things together by connexions inconceivable to us, we
must deny even the consistency and being of matter itself; since every particle of it having
some bulk, has its parts connected by ways inconceivable 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 prove 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 shown, that it contains a contradiction to suppose it. ;

•■' Though to me sensation be comprehended under thinking in general, jet, in the fore*
going discourse, I have spoke of sense in brutes, as distinct from thinking; because your lord-
ship, as I rememl)er, speaks of sense in brutes. But here I take liberty to observe, that tf
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 im-
material, 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.

** 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 con-
sider whether sometin)e8 they are not more due to their own ; and that they may be per-
suaded 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 fully examine the grounds they stand upon. For talking with a supposition and
insinuations, that truth and knowledge, nay, and religion too, stand and fall with their
systems, is at best but an imperious way of begging the question, and assuming to them-i
selves, under the pretence of zeal for the cause of God, a title to infallibility. It is veiy
becoming that men's zeal for truth should go as for as their proofs, but not go for proo/s
themselves. He that attacks received opinions with any thing but fair arguments, may, I
own, be justly susp. ricd 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 Hh« worse for having lain neglected j and if it were put to the vote any

e H. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 405

of sense, perception, and thought: though, as I think, I have
proved, lib. 4. c. 10. !^ 14. it is no less than a contradiction to sup-
})ose matter (which is evidently in its own nature void of sense and

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 mea-
sure. 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 tiling said
to it, to make it distinguish between your lordship's and my design in writing, which there-
fore, 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, of identity, and from th^ power of abstracting.
You ask, (a) ' How can my idea of liberty agree with the idea that bodies can operate
only by motion and impulse?' Ans. By the omnipotency of God, who can make all
tilings agree, that involve not a contradiction. It is true, I say, (6) That bodies operate
by impulse, and nothing else. And so I thought when I writ it, and can yet conceive
no other way of their operation. But I am since convinced by the judicious Mr. Newton's
incomparable book, that it 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
lie has done so. And, therefore, in the next edition of my book, I will take care to have that
passage rectified.

" As to self-consciousness, your lordship asks, (c) * What is there like self-consciousness
in matter?' Nothing at all in matter, as matter. But that God cannot bestow en some
parcels of matter a power of thinking, and with it self-consciousness, will never be proved
by asking (rf), how is it possible to apprehend that mere body should perceive that it doth
perceive ? The weakness of our apprthension, 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
tiiinks; but this weakness of our apprehensions reaches not the power of God, whose weak-
ness is stronger than any thing in men.

" Your argument from abstraction, we have in this question, (c) ' If it may be in the
power of matter to think, how comes it to bs so impossible for such organized bodies as
the brutes have, to enlarge their ideas by abstraction ?' Ans. This seems to suppose, that
I place thinking within the natural power of matter. If that be your meaning, my lord,
I never 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 easy; since, if omnipotency can give thought to any solid substance, it is not
hard to conceive, that God may give that faculty in a iiigher or lower degree, as it pleases
him, who knows what disposition of the subject is suited to such a particular way or decree of
thinking.

" Another argument to prove, that God cannot endue any parcel of matter with the
faculty of thinking, it is taken from those words of mine, (jf ) where I show, by what con-
nexion 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: (g) ' Here the want of per-
ception is owned to be so essential to matter, that God is therefore concluded to be imma-
terial.' Ans. Perception and knowledge in that one eternal Being, where it has its
source, it is visible must be essentially inseparable from it : therefore the actual want of
perception in so great a part of the particular parcels of matter, is a demonstration, that
the first being, from whom perception and knowledge are inseparable, is not matter : how •
far this makes the want of perfection an essential property of matter, I will not dispute;
it suffices that it shows, that perception is not an essential property of matter ; and there-
fore matter cannot be that eternal original being to which perception and knowledge are
essential Matter, I say, naturally is without perception : e7-go, says your lordship, ' want

(a) First answer. (6) Essay, b. 2. c. 8. § II. (c) First answer.

{(i) Ibid. ' (<r) Ibid. (/) First letter. (g) First answer.

406 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4j

thought) should be that eternal first-thinking Being. What cer-
tainty of knowledge can any one have that some perceptions, such as,
V. g. pleasure and pain, should not be in some bodies themselves,

of perception is an essential property of matter, and God does 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 logic, 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 first came
to the university, would not hold. For I never said God did; but {a) * That I see no con-
tradiction in it, that he should, if he pleased, give to some systems of senseless matter, a
faculty of thinking ;' and I know nobody before Des Cartes, that ever pretended to show
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 besto\y 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 demonstrate, 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 Balaam's ass a power to speak to his master, as he did, for the
want of rational discourse being natural to that species ;' it 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 (6) my lord, ' You do not set bounds to God's omnipotency. For he may,
if he please, change a body into an immaterial substance,' i. e. take away from a sub-
stance 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 a 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 these 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 imma-
terial 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
a 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 a higher and belter: unless any one will say,
that cogitation, or the power of thinking, results from the nature of substance itself; which
if it do, then wherever there is substance, there must be cogitation, or a power of thinking.'
Here, then, upon your lordship's own principles, is an immaterial substance 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 mai
immaterial ; whereby you allow, that the same numerical substance may be sometimes wholl
incogitative, or without a power of thinking, and at other times perfectly cogitative, or ind
with a power of thinking.

" Further, you will not deny, but God can give it solidity, and make it material ag;
For I conclude it will not be denied, that God can make it again what it was beforeT
Now I crave leave to ask your lordship, why God having given to this substance the fa-
culty 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 itself possible; which, as I humbly conceive, is
visibly to set bounds to God's omnipotency, though you say here (c), ' you do not set
bounds to God's omnipotency.'

** If I should imitate your lordship's way of writing, I should not omit to bring in Epi-
curus here, and take notice, that this was his way, Dcnm verbis potierc, re tollerc ; and
then add, that I am certain you do not think he promoted the great ends of religion and
morality. For it is with such candid and kind insinuations as these, that you bring in

(a) B. 4. c. 3. $ 6. {h) First answer. (t) Ibid.

ived

i

CH. 3. EXTENT OP HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 407

after a certain manner, modified and moved, as well as that they
should be in an immaterial substance, upon the motion of the parts
of body? Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to

both (ff) Hobbes and (b) 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 passage 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 inquire what measure of zeal, nor for what, guides your lordship's
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 hath truth on his side, is thereby authorised, without proof, to insinuate
whatever may serve to prejudice men's minds against the other side, there will be a
great ravage made on charily and practice, without any gain to truth and knowledge:
and that the liberties frequently taken by disputants to do so, may have been the cause that
the world in all ages has received so much harm, and so little^ advantage, from controversies
in religion.

•' These are the arguments which your lordship has brought to confute one saying in

my book, by other passages in it ; which therefore being all but argumenta ad hominem,

if they did prove what they do not, are of no other use, than to gain a victory over me : a

thing methinks so much beneatii your lordship, that it does not deserve one of your

pages. The question is, whether God can, if he pleases, bestow on any parcel of matter,

ordered as he thinks fit, a faculty of perception and thinking. You say (c), * you look

upon a mistake herein to be of dangerous consequence as to the great ends of religion

and morality.' If this be so, my lord, I think one may well wonder, why your lordship

has brought no arguments to establish the truth itself, which you look on to be of such

dangerous consequence to be mistaken in : but have spent so many pages only in a

personal matter, in endeavouring to show, that I had inconsistencies in my book ; which

if any such thing had been shown, the question would be still as far from being decided^

and the danger of mistaking about it as little prevented, as if nothing of all this had

I been said. If therefore your lordship's care of the great ends of religion and morality

j have made you think it necessary to clear this question, the world has reason to conclude

; there is little to be said against that proposition which is to be found in my book, con-

cerning the possibility, that some parcels of matter might be so ordered by Omnipotence,

as to be endured with a faculty of thinking, if God so pleased ; since your lordship's con-

I cern for the promoting the great ends of religion and morality, has not enabled you to

i produce one argument against a proposition that you think of so dangerous consequence

; to them.

" And here I crave leave to observe, that though in your title page you promise to prove,
that my notion of ideas is inconsistent with itself (which if it were, it could hardly be
proved to be inconsistent with any thing else), and with the articles of the Christian faith;
yet your attempts all along have been to prove me, in some passages of my book, incon-
sistent with myself, without having shown any proposition in my book inconsistent with any
article of the Christian faith.

•' I think your lordship has indeed made use of one argument of your own : but it is

such an one, that I confess I do not see how it is apt much to promote religion, espe-

i cially the Christian religion, founded on revelation. I shall set down your lordship's

! words, that they may be considered : you say (rf) ' that you are of opinion, that the great

i ends of religion and morality are best secured by the proofs of the immortality of the

i soul, from its nature and properties; and which you think prove it immaterial.' Your

lordship does not question whether God can give immortality to a material substance :

' but you say it takes off very much from the evidence of immortality, if it depend wholly

' upon God's giving that, which of its own nature it is not capable of, &c. So likewise you

I say, (e) ' If a man cannot be certain, but that matter may think (as I affirm), then what

I becomes of the soul's immateriality, (and consequently immortality) from its operations ?

' But for all this, say I, his assurance of faith remains on its own basis. Now you

appeal to any man of sense, whether the finding the uncertainty of his own principled,

(«) First answer. (6) Ibid. (c) Ibid. {d) Ibid. (e) Second answer.

408 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

strike and affect bociy ; and motion, according to the utmost reach
of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion ; so that
wlien we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour,

which he went upon, in point of leason, doth not weaken the credibility of these funda-
mental articles, when they are considered purely as matters of faith? For before, there
was a natural credibility in them on account of reason ; but by going on wrong grounds
of certainty, all that is lost ; and instead of being certain, he is more doubtful tlian ever.
And if the evidence of faith falls so much short of that of reason, it must needs have less
effect upon men's minds, when the subserviency of reason is taken away ; as it must
be when the grounds of certainty by reason are vanished. Is it at all probable, that
he who finds his reason deceive him in such fundamental points, shall have his faith
stand firm and unmovable on the account of revelation? For in matters of revelation,
there must be some antecedent principles supposed, before we can believe any thing on the
account of it.

*' More to the same purpose we have some pages farther, where, from some of my
words, your lordship says, (a) / You cannot but observe, that we have no certainty upon
my grounds, that self-consciousness depends upon an individual immaterial substance, and
consequently that a material substance may, according to my principles, have self-conscious-
ness in it; at least, that I am not certain of the contrary.' Whereupon your lordship bids
me consider, whether this does not a little affect the whole article of the resurrection ? What
does all this tend to, but to make the world believe, that I have lessened the credibility of the
immortality of the soul, and the resurrection, by saying, that though it be most highly
probable that the soul is immaterial, yet upon my principles it cannot be demonstrated ;
because it is not impossible to God's omnipolency, if he pleases, to bestow upon some parcels
of matter, disposed as he sees fit, a faculty of thinking?

" This, your accusation of my lessening the credibility of these articles of faith, is
founded on this, that the article of the imjiiortality of the soul abates of its credibility,
if it be allowed, that its immateriality (which is the supposed proof from reason and phi-
losophy of its immortality) cannot be demonstrated from natural reason : which argument
of your lordship's bottoms, as I humbly conceive, on this, that divine revelation abates of
its credibility in all those articles it proposes, proportionably as human reason fails to
support the testimony of God. And all that your lordship in those passages has said,
when examined, will, I suppose, be found to import thus much, viz., does God propose
any thing to mankind to be believed ? It is very fit and credible to be believed, if reason
can demonstrate it to be true. But if human reason comes short in the case, and
cannot make it out, its credibility is thereby lessened ; which is, in effect, to say, thj
the veracity of God is not a firm and sure foundation of faith to rely upon, without
concurrent testimony of reason, i. e. with reverence be it spoken, God is not to be believi
on his own word, unless what he reveals be in itself credible, and might be believed witho^
him.

" If thib be a way to promote religion, the Christian religion, in all its articles, I
not sorry that it is not a way to be found in any of my writings ; for I imagine any thix
like this would (and I should think deserve to) have other titles that bare scepticis
bestowed upon it, and would have raised no small outcry against any one, who is not
be supposed to bj in the right in all that he says, and so may securely say what he please
Such as I, the prophamim valgus^ who take too much upon us, if we should examine, hai
nothing to do but to hearken and believe, though what he said should subvert the vei
foundations of the Christian faith.

" What I have above observed, is so visibly contained in your lordship's argument, tli
when I met with it in your answer to my first letter, it seemed so strange for a man
your lordship's character, and in a dispute in defence of the doctiine of the Trinity, that"
could hardly persuade myself, but it was a slip of your pen : but when I found it in your
second letter (6) mude use of again, and seriously enlarged as an argument of weight to
be insisted upon, I was convinced that it was a principle that you heartily embraced, how
JiUle favourable soever it was to the articles of the Christian religion, and particularly those
which you undertook to defend.

*• I desire my reader to peruse the passages as they stand in your letters themselves, and
see whether what you say in them does not amount to this, that a revelation from God is
more or less credible, according as it has a stronger or weaker confirmation from human
reason. For,

("') Second answer. (b) Ibid.

i

CH. S. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 409

or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas,
and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our Maker. For
since we must allow he has annexed effects to motion, which we can

•' I, Your lordship says, (a) ' You do not question whether God can give immortality
to a material substance ; but you say it takes off very much from the evidence of im-
mortality, if it depends wholly upon God's giving that which of its own nature, it is not
capable of.'

" To which I reply, any one's not being able to demonstrate the soul to be immaterial,
takes off not very much, nor at all, from the evidence of its immortality, if God has
revealed, that it shall be immortal ; because the veracity of God is a demonstration of the
truth of what he has revealed, and the want of another demonstration of a proposition,
that is demonstratively true, takes not off from the evidence of it. For where there is a
clear demonstration, there is as much evidence as any truth can have, that is not self-
evident. God has revealed, that the souls of men should live for ever. ' But,' says yoUr
lordship, ' from this evidence, it takes off very much, if it depends wholly upon God's
giving that, which of its own nature it is not capable of,' i. e. the revelation and testimony
of God loses much of its evidence, if this depends wholly upon the good pleasure of God,
and cannot be demonstratively made out by natural reason, that the soul is immaterial,
and consequently in its own nature immortal. For that is all that here is or can be
meant by these words, * which of its own nature it is not capable of,' to make them to the
purpose. For the whole of your lordship's discourse here, is to prove, that the soul cannot
be material, because then the evidence of its being immortal would be very much lessened.
Which is to say, that it is not as credible upon divine revelation, that a material substance
should be immortal, as an immaterial ; or, which is all one, that God is not equally to be
believed, when he declares, that a material substance shall be immortal as when he declares,
that an immaterial shall be so, because the immortality of a material substance cannot be de-
monstrated from natural reason.

" Let us try this rule of your lordship's a little farther : God hath revealed, that the
bodies men shall have after the resurrection, as well as their souls, shall live to eternity.
Does your lordship believe the eternal life of the one of these, more than of the other,
because you think you can prove it of one of them by natural reason, and of the other
not? Or can any one, who admits of divine revelation in the case, doubt of one of them
more than the other? Or think this proposition less credible, that the bodies of men, after
the resurrection, shall live for ever? than this, that the souls of men shall, after the resur-
rection, live for ever ? For that he must do, if he thinks either of them is less credible
than the other. If this be so, reason is to be consulted, how far God is to be believed, and
the credit of divine testimony must receive its force from the evidence of reason ; which is
evidently to take away the credibility of divine revelation, in all supernatural truths wherein
the evidence of reason fails. And how much such a principle as this tends to the support of
the doctrine of the Trinity, or the promoting the Christian religion, I shall leave it to your
lordship to consider.

♦' I am not so well read in Hobbes or Spinosa, as to be able to say, what were their
opinions in this matter. But possibly there be those, who will think your lordship's au-
thority of more use to them in the case, than those justly decried names : and be glad to
find your lordship a patron of the oracles of reason, so little to the advantage of the
oracles of divine revelation. This at least, I think, may be subjoined to the words ak the
bottom of the next page, (b) That those who have gone about to lessen the credibility of
the articles of faith, which evidently they do, who say they are less credible, because they
cannot be made out demonstratively by natural reason, have not been thought to secure
several of the articles of the Christian faith, especially those of the trinity, incarnation, and
resurrection of the body, which are those upon the account of which I am brought by your
lordship into this dispute.

" I shall not trouble the reader with your lordship's endeavours, in the following words,
to prove, ' That if the soul be not an immaterial substance it can be nothing but life ;' your
very first words visibly confuting all that you allege to that purpose. They are, (c) ' If the
soul be a material substance, it is really nothing but life ;' which is to say, that if the soul be
really a substance, it is not really a substance, but really nothing else but an aflfection of a
substance ; for the life, whether of a material or immaterial substance, is not the substance
itself, but an affection of it.

" 2, You say (d) ' Although we think the separate state of the soul after death, is
sufficiently revealed in the scripture ; yet it creates a great difficulty in understanding it,

(«) First answer. (6) Ibid. (c) Ibid. d) Ibid.

410 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we to
conclude, that he could not order them as well to be produced in a
subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject

if the soul be nothing but life, or a material substance, which must be dissolved when life
is ended. For if the soul be a material substance, it must be made up, as others are, of
the cohesion of solid and separate parts, how minute and invisible soever they be. And
what is it which should keep them together, when life is gone? So that it is no easy matter
to give an account, how the soul should be capable of immortality, unless it be an immaterial
substance ; and then we know the solution and texture of bodies cannot reach the soul, being
of a different nature.'

*' Let it be as hard a matter as it will to give an account what it is that should keep
the parts of a material soul together, after it is separated from the body ; yet it will be
always as easy to give an account of it, as to give an account what it is that shall keep
together a material and immaterial substance. And yet the difficulty that there is to give an
account of that, I hope does not, with your lordship, weaken the credibility of the
inseparable union of soul and body to eternity : and I persuade myself, that the men of
sense, to whom your lordship appeals in the case, do not find their belief of tliis
fundamental point much weakened by that difficulty. I thought heretofore (and by your
lordship's permission, would think so still), that the union of the parts of matter, one with
another, is as much in the hands of God, as the union of a material and immaterial
substance; and that it does not take off very much, or at all, from the evidence of
immortality, which depends on that union, that it is no easy matter to give an account
what it is that should keep them together: though its depending wholly upon the gift
and good pleasure of God, where the manner creates great difficulty in the understanding,
and our reason cannot discover in the nature of things how it is, be that which, your
lordship so positively says, lessens the credibility of the fundamental articles of the resur-
rection and immortality.

*' But, my lord, to remove this objection a little, and to show of how small force it is
even with yourself; give me leave to presume, that your lordship as firmly believes the im-
mortality of the body after the resurrection, as any other article of faith: if so, then it
being no easy matter to give an account, what it is that shall keep together the parts of a
material soul, to one that believes it is material, can no more weaken the credibility of its
immortality, than the like difficulty weakens the credibility of the immortality of the body.
For when your lordship shall find it an easy matter to give an account what it is, besides the
good pleasure of God, which shall keep together the parts of our material bodies to eternity,
or even soul and body ; I doubt not but any one, who shall think the soul material, will also
find it as easy to give an account what it is that shall keep those parts of matter also together!
to eternity.

" Were it not that warmth of controversy is apt to make men so far forget, as to take uj
those principles themselves (when they will serve their turn) which they have highly con.
demned in others, I should wonder to find your lordship to argue, that because it is a dif^
ficulty to understand what shall keep together the minute parts of a material soul, when life i|
gone ; and because it is not an easy matter to give an account how the soul shall be capabU
of immortality, unless it be an immaterial substance : therefore it is not so credible as if ifj
were easy to give an account by natural reason, how it could be. For to this it is, that
this your discourse tends, as is evident by what is already set down ; and will be more fullj
made out by what your lordship says in other places, though here needs no such proofs, sine
it would all be nothing against me in any other sense.

** I thought your lordship had in other places asserted, and insisted on this truth, Ihj
no part of divine revelation was the less to be believed because the thing itself create
great difficulty in the understanding, and the manner of it was hard to be explained ; an^
it was no easy matter to give an account how it was. This, as I take it, your lordshi]
condemned in others, as a very unreasonable principle, and such as would subvert all th^
articles of the Christian religion, that were mere matters of faith, as I think it will: an^
is it possible, that you should make use of it here yourself, against the article of life ar
immortality, that Christ hath brought to light through the gospel, and neither was, n(
could be, made out by natural reason without revelation? But you will say, you speal
only of the soul ; and your words are, • That it is no easy matter to give an account how
the soul should be capable of immortality, unless it be an immaterial substance.' I grant
it; but crave leave to say, that there is not any one of those difficulties, that are, or can be,
raised about the manner how a material soul can be immortal, which do not as well reach the
immortality of the body.

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 411

we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate
upon ? I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the
souFs immateriality; I am not here speaking of probability, but

" But, if it were not so, I am sure this principle of your lordship's would reach other
articles of faith, wherein our natural reason finds it not so easy to give an account how
those mysteries are : and which therefore, according to your principles, must be less
credible than other articles, that create less difficulties to the understanding. For your
lordship says, (a) * That you appeal to any man of sense, whether to a man who thought
by his principles, he could from natural grounds demonstrate the immortality of the soul,
the finding the uncertainty of those principles he went upon in point of reason,' i. e. the
finding he could not certainly prove it by natural reason, doth not weaken the credibility
of that fundamental article, when it is considered purely as a matter of faith. Which in
effect, I humbly conceive, amounts to this, that a proposition divinely revealed, that cannot
be proved by natural reason, is less credible than one that can : which seems to me to
come very little short of this, with due reverence be it spoken, that God is less to be
believed when he affirms a proposition that cannot be proved by natural reason, than when
he proposes what can be proved by it. The direct contrary to which is my opinion, though
you endeavour to make it good by these following words, (b) ' If the evidence of faith falls
too much short of that of reason, it must needs have less effect upon men's minds, when
the subserviency of reason is taken away ; as it must be when the grounds of certainty
by reason are vanished. Is it at all probable, that he who finds his reason deceive him in
such fundamental points, should have his faith stand firm and unmoveable on the account of
revelation ?' Than which I think there are hardly plainer words to be found out to declare,
that the credibility of God's testimony depends on the natural evidence or probability of the
things we receive from revelation ; and rises and falls with it; and that the truths of God, or
the articles of mere faith, lose so much of their credibility, as they want proof from reason;
which, if true, revelation may come to have no credibility at all. For if, in this present case,
the credibility of this proposition, ' the souls of men shall live for ever,' revealed in the Scripture,
be lessened by confessing it cannot be demonstratively proved from reason ; though it be
asserted to be most highly probable; must not, by the same rule, its credibility dwindles
away to nothing, if natural reason should not be able to make it out to be so much as probable ;
or should place the probability from natural principles on the other side ? For if mere want
of demonstration lessens the credibility of any proposition divinely revealed, must not want of
probability, or contrary probability from natural reason, quite take away its credibility?
Here at last it must end, if in any one case the veracity of God, and the credibility of the
truths we receive from him by revelation, be subjected to the verdicts of human reason,
and be allowed to receive any accession or diminution from other proofs, or want of other
proofs of its certainty or probability.

" If this be your lordship's way to promote religion, or defend its articles, I know not
what argument the greatest enemies of it could use more effectual for the subversion of those
you have undertaken to defend ; this being to resolve all revelation perfectly and purely
into natural reason, to bound its credibility by that, and leave no room for faith in other
things, than what can be accounted for by natural reason without revelation.

*' Your lordship (c) insists much upon it, as if I had contradicted what I had said in
my Essay (d), by saying, ' That upon my principles it cannot be demonstratively proved,
that it is an immaterial substance in us that thinks, however probable it be.' He that will
be at the pains to read that chapter of mine, and consider it, will find, that my business
there was to show, that it was no harder to conceive an immaterial than a material sub-
stance ; and that from the ideas of thought, and a power of moving of matter, which we
experienced in ourselves (ideas originally not belonging to matter as matter), there was no
more difficulty to conclude there was an immaterial substance in us, than that we had ma-
terial parts. These ideas of thinking, and power of moving of matter, I, in another place,
showed, did demonstratively lead us to the certain knowledge of the existence of an im-
material thinking being, in whom we have the idea of spirit in the strictest sense; in
which sense I also applied it to the soul, in that 23rd chap, of my Essay; the easily con-
ceivable possibility, nay, great probability, that the thinking substance in us is immaterial,
giving me sufficient ground for it. In which sense I shall think I may safely attribute it
to the thinking substance in us, till your lordship shall have better proved from my words,
that it is impossible it should be immaterial. For I only say, that it is possible, i. e. in-
volves no contradiction, that God, the omnipotent immaterial Spirit, should, if he pleases,

(rt) Second answer. (fi) Ibid. (c) First answer. {d} B. 2, c 23.

412 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 1.

knowledge : and I think not only, that it becomes the modesty of
philosophy not to pronounce magisterially, where we want that
evidence that can produce knowledge ; but also, that it is of use to

give to some parcels of matter, disposed as he thinks fit, a power of thitikirifi and moving ;
which parcels of matter so endued with a power of thinking and motion, might properly be
called spirits, in contradistinction to unthinking matter, in all which, I presume, there is no
manner of contradiction.

'* I justified my use of the word spirit, in that sense, from the authorities of Cicero and
Virgil, applying the Latin word spiritus from whence spirit is derived to the soul as a
thinking thing, without excluding materiality out of it. To which your lordship replies,
(a) ' That Cicero, in his Tusculan Questions, supposes the soul not to be a finer sort of
body, but of a different nature from the body — that he calls the body, the prison of the
soul — and says. That a wise man's business is to draw off his soul from his body.' And
then your lordship concludes, as is usual, with a question, ' Is it possible now to think so
great a man looked on the soul but as a modification of the body, which must be at an end
with life ?' Answer, No ; it is impossible that a man of so good sense as TuUy, wh en
he uses the word corpus^ or body, for the gross and visible parts of a man, which he ac-
knowledges to be mortal, should look on the soul to be a modification of that body ; in a
discourse wherein he was endeavouring to persuade another, that it was immortal. It is
to be acknowledged, that truly great men, such as he was, are not wont so manifestly to
contradict themselves. He had therefore no thought concerning the modification of the
body of a man in the case. He was not such a trifler as to examine, whether the modifica-
tion of the body of a man was immortal, when that body itself was mortal. And there-
fore that which he reports as Dicaearchus's opinion, he dismisses in the beginning without
any more ado, c. 1 1 . But Cicero's was a direct, plain, and sensible enquiry, viz.. What
the soul was ; to see whether from thence he could discover its immortality. But in all
that discourse in his first book of Tusculan Questions, where he lays out so much of his
reading and reason, there is not one syllable showing the least thought that the soul was
an immaterial substance j but many things directly to the contrary.

** Indeed (1) he shuts out the body, taken in the sense he uses (6) corpus all along, for
the sensible organical parts of a man ; and is positive that is not the soul : and body in this
sense, taken for the human body, he calls the prison of the soul : and says a wise man, in-
stancing in Socrates and Cato, is glad of a fair opportunity to get out of it. But he no
where says any such thing of matter; he calls not matter in general the prison of the soul,
nor talks a word of being separate from it

" 2, He concludes, that the soul is not, like other things here below, made up of a com-
position of the elements, c. 27.

'* He excludes the two gross elements, earth and water, from being the soul, c. 26.

" So far he is clear and positive : but beyond this, he is uncertain ; beyond this, he could
not get. For, in some places, he speaks doubtfully, whether the soul be not air or fire,
Anima sit animus^ ignisve, ncscio^ c. 25. And therefore he agrees with Panaetius, that, if it
be at all elementary, it is, as he calls it, injlammata anima^ inflamed air ; and for this he
gives several reasons, c. 18, 19- And though he thinks it to be of a peculiar nature of its
own, yet he is so far from thinking it immaterial, that he says, c. 19, that the admitting it to
be of an aerial or igneous nature, will not be inconsistent with any thing he had said,

" That which he seems most to incline to, is, that the soul was not at all elementary,
but was of the same substance with the heavens; which Aristotle, to distinguish from the
four elements, and the changeable bodies here below, which he supposed made up of them,
called quinta essentia. That this was TuUy's opinion, is plain, from these words : Ergo
animus (qui, ut ego dico, divinus) est, ut Euripides audct dicere, Deus : et quidcm, si
Deus aut anima aut ignis est, idem est animus hominis. Nam tit ilia natura ccelestts et
Urr& vacat et humore ; sic tUriusque hartim rerum humanus animus est expcrs. Sin autem
est quinta qucedam natura ah Aristotele inducta ; primum hcec et deorum est et animornm.
Hanc nos sententiam secuti, his ipsis verbis in consolatione hcec cxpressimus, c. 29. And
tbeo he goes on, c. 27, to repeat those, his own, words, which your lordship has quoted out
of him, wherein he had affirmed, in his treatise De Consolatione, the soul not to have its
original from the earth, or to be mixed or made of any thing earthly ; but had said, Singularis
est igitur qtusdam natura et vis animi, sejuncta ab his usitatis notisque naturis : whereby,
be tells us, he meant nothing but Aristotle's quinta essentia ; which being unmixed, being
that of which the gods and souls consisted, he calls it divinum ca:lestc, and concludes it

(«) First answer. (&) C. 19, 22, 30, 31, &c.

cH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 41S

us, to discern how far our knowledge does reach : for the state we
are at present in, not being that of vision, we must, in many things,
content ourselves with faith and probabiUty : and in the present

eternal, it being, as he speaks, sejuncta ab ovini mortali concretione. From which it is clear,
that in all his enquiry about the substance of the soul, his thoughts went not beyond the four
elements, or Aristotle's quinta essentia, to look for it. In all which, there is nothing of
immateriality, but quite the contrary.

" He was willing to believe (as good and wise men have always been), that the soul
was immortal ; but for that it is plain he never thought of its immateriality, but as the
eastern people do, who believe the soul to be immortal, but have nevertheless no thought,
no conception, of its immateriality. It is remarkable what a very considerable and judi-
cious author says {a) in the case. * No opinion,' says he, ' has been so universally
received, as that of the immortality of the soul ; but its immateriality is a truth, the
knowledge whereof has not spread so far. And indeed it is extremely difficult to let into the
mind of a Siamite, the idea of a pure spirit. This the missionaries, who have been longest
among them, are positive in. All the Pagans of the East do truly believe, that there
remains something of a man after his death, which subsists independently and separately
from his body. But they give extension and figure to that which remains, and attribute
to it all the same members, all the same substances, both solid and liquid, which our
bodies are composed of. They only suppose that the souls are of a matter subtile
enough to escape being seen or handled. Such were the shades and the manes of the
Greeks and the Romans. And it is by these figures of the souls, answerable to those of
the bodies, that Virgil supposed iEneas knew Palinurus, Dido, and Anchises, in the other
world.

« This gentleman was not a man that travelled into those parts for his pleasure, and to
have the opportunity to tell strange stories, collected by chance, when he returned ; but
one chosen for the purpose (and he seems well chosen for the purpose), to enquire into
the singularities of Siam. And he has so well acquitted himself of the commission which
his Epistle Dedicator}' tells us he had, to inform himself exactly of what was most remarkable
there, that had we but such an account of other countries of the East, as he has given us of
this kingdom, which he was an envoy to, we should be much better acquainted than we
are, with the manners, notions, and religions of that part of the world, inhabited by civilized
nations, who want neither good sense nor acuteness of reason, though not cast into the mould
of the logic and philosophy of our schools.

" But, to return to Cicero, it is plain, that in his enquiries about the soul, his thoughts
went not at all beyond matter. Thus the expressions that drop from him in several
places of this book, evidently show. For example, ' That the souls of excellent men and
women ascended into heaven ; of others, that they remained here on earth,' c. 1 2. ' That
the soul is hot, and warms the body ; that at its leaving the body, it penetrates and
divides, and breaks through our thick, cloudy, moist air; that it stops in the region of
fire, and ascends no farther, the equality of warmth and weight making that its proper place,
where it is nourished and sustained with the same thing wherewith the stars are nourished
and sustained, and that by the convenience of its neighbourhood it shall there have a clearer
view and fuller knowledge of the heavenly bodies, c. 19.' 'That the soul also, from this
height, shall have a pleasant and fairer prospect of the globe of the earth, the disposition of
whose parts will then he before it in one view,' c. 20. * That it is hard to determine what
confirmation, size, and place, the soul has in the body ; that it is too subtile to be seen ;
that it is in the human body, as in a house or a vessel, or a receptacle,' c. 22. All which are
expressions that sufficiently evidence, that he who used them, had not in his mind separated
materiality from the idea of the soul.

" It may perhaps be replied, that a great part of this which we find in c. 19. is said
upon the principles of those who would have the soul to be anima inflammata, inflamed
air. I grant it But it is also to be observed, that in this 19th and the two following
chapters, he does not only not deny, but even admits, that so material a thing as inflamed air
may think.

" The truth of the case, in short, is this ; Cicero was willing to believe the soul immortal ;
but when he sought in the nature of the soul itself, something to establish this his belief
into a certainty of it, he found himself at a loss. He confessed he knew not what the
■oul was ; but the not knowing what it was, he argues, c. 22. was no reason to conclude it
was not. And thereupon he proceeds to the repetition of what he had said in his 6th
book, de Repub. concerning the soul. The argument, which, borrowed from Plato, he there

(<?) Loubere du Royaunie de Siam, t. 1, c. 19, § 4.

414 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

question about the immateriality of the soul, if our faculties cannot
arrive at demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All
the great* ends of morality and religion are well enough secured,

makes use of, if it have any force in it, not only proves the soul to be immortal, but more
than, I think, your lordship will allow to be true : for it proves it to be eternal, and without
beginning, as well as without end : Neque nata ccrtc est, et arterna est, says he.

*' Indeed, from the faculties of the soul, he concludes right, ' That it is of divine original.'
But as to the substance of the soul, he at the end of this discourse concerning its faculties,
c 25., as well as at this beginning of it, c. 22., is not ashamed to own his ignorance of what
it is: Anima sit animus, ignisve, nescio; ncc me pudet, ut istos, fateri ncscire quod
netciam. Illud si ulla alia de re obscura affirmarc possem, sive anima, sive ignis sit
animus, eum jurarem esse divinum, c. 25. So that all the certainty he could attain to about
the soul, was, that he was confident there was something divine in it, i. e. there were faculties
in the soul that could not result from the nature of matter, but must have their original from
a divine power ; but yet those qualities, as divine as they were, he acknowledged might be
placed in breath or fire, which your lordship will not deny to be material substances. So that
all those diyine qualities, which he so much and justly extols in the soul, led him not, as
appears, so much as to any the least thought of immateriality. This is demonstration, that
he built them not upon an exclusion of materiality out of the soul ; for he avowedly professes
he does not know, but breath or fire might be this thinking thing in us : and in all his con-
siderations about the substance of the soul itself, he stuck in air or fire, or Aristotle's quinta
essentia : for beyond those, it is evident he went not.

" But with all his proofs out of Plato, to whose authority he defers so much, with all the
arguments his vast reading and great parts could furnish him with for the immortality of the
soul, he was so little satisfied, so far from being certain, so far from any thought that he had
or could prove it, that he over and over again professes his ignorance and doubt of it. In the
beginning, he enumerates the several opinions of the philosophers, which he had well studied,
about it. And then, full of uncertainty, says, Harum sententiarum qua; vera sit, Deus
aliqiiis vide r it ; qua: verisimillima magna qua;stio, c. II. And towards tlie latter end,
having gone them all over again, and one after another examined them, he professes himself
still at a loss, not knowing on which to pitch, nor what to determine. Mentis acies, says
he, scipsam intuens, nonnunquam hebescit, ob eamque causam cofitemplandi diligcntiayn
amittimus. Itaque duhilans, circumspectans, hwsitans, multa adversa revertens, iauquam
in rate in mart immcnso, nostra vehitur oratio, c. 30. And to conclude this argument,
when the person he introduces as discoursing with him, tells him he is resolved to keep firm
to the belief of immortality, Tully answers, c. 32. Laudo id quidem, et si nihil animis oportet
considere : movemur enim scepe aliquo acute concluso ; laba7nus, miitatnusqiie scntcntiam
elarioribus etium in rebus ; in his est enim aliqua obscuritas.

" So unmoveable is that truth delivered by the spirit of truth, that though the light of
nature gave some obscure glimmering, some uncertain hopes, of a future state ; yet human
reason could attain to no clearness, no certainty, about it, but that it was JESUS CHRIST
alone who had brought life and immortality to light, through the gospel, (a) Though we
are now told, that to own the inability of natural reason, to bring immortality to light, or,
which passes for the same, to own principles upon which the immateriality of the soul (and as
it is urged consequently, its immortality,) cannot be demonstratively proved, does lessen the
belief of this article of revelation, which JESUS CHRIST alone has brought to light, and
which consequently the Scripture assures us is established and made certain only by revelation.
This would not perhaps have seemed strange from those who are justly complained of, for
slighting the revelation of the Gospel, and therefore would not be much regarded, if they
should contradict so plain a text of Scripture, in favour of their all-jufiicient reason. But
what use the promoters of scepticism and infidelity, in an age so much suspected by your
lordship, may make of what comes from one of your great authority and learning, may deserve
your consideration.

" And thus, ray lord, I hope I have satisfied you concerning Cicero's opinion about the
soul, in his first book of Tusculan Questions ; which, though I easily believe, as your lordship
uys, you are no stranger to, yet I humbly conceive you have not shown (and upon a careful
perusal of that treatise again, I think I may boldly say you cannot show) one word in it, that
expresses any thing like a notion in Tully of the soul's immateriality, or its being .an imma-
terial substance.

" From what you bring oilt of Virgil, your lordship (b) concludes, ' That he, no more than
Cicero, does me any kindness in this matter, being both asserters of the soul's immortality>'

(a) 2 Tim. i. 10. (h) First answer.

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 415

without philosophical proofs of the souFs immateriality ; since it is
evident, that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sen-
sible, intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such

My lord, were not the question of the soul's immateriality, according to custom, changed here
into that of its immortality, which I am no less an asserter of than either of them, Cicero and
Virgil do me all the kindness I desired of them in this matter ; and that was, to show that
they attributed the word spiritus to the soul of man, without any thought of its immateriality ;
and this the verses you yourself bring out of Virgil, (a)

' Et cum frigida mors anima seduxerit artus,
Omnibus umbra locis adero, dabis, improbe, poenas ;'

confirm, as well as those I quoted out of his 6th book ; and for this, M. de la Loubere shall
be my witness, in the words above set down out of him ; where he shows, there be those
amongst the heathens of our days, as well as Virgil and others amongst the ancient Greeks
and Romans, who thought the souls or ghosts of men departed, did not die with the body,
without thinking them to be perfectly immaterial ; the latter being much more incompre-
hensible to them than the former. And what Virgil's notion of the soul is, and that corpus^
when put in contradistinction to the soul, signifies nothing but the gross tenement of flesh and
bones, is evident from this verse of his iEneid 6, where he calls the souls which yet were
visible,

■ ' Tenues sine corpore vitas.'

«* Your lordship's (6) answer concerning what is said, Eccles. iii., turns wholly upon
Solomon's taking the soul to be immortal, which was not what I question ; all that I quoted
that place for, was to show, that spirit in English might properly be applied to the soul, with-
out any notion of its immateriality, as mi was by Solomon, which, whether he thought the souls
of men to be immaterial, does little appear in that passage where he speaks of the souls of men
and beasts together, as he does. But farther, what I contended for is evident from that place,
in that the word spirit is there applied by our translators, to the souls of beasts, which your
lordship, I think, does not rank amongst the immaterial, and consequently immortal, spirits,
though they have sense and spontaneous motion.

" But you say, (c) ' If the soul be not of itself a free thinking substance you do not see
what foundation there is in nature for a day of judgment.' Ans. Though the heathen world
did not of old, nor do to this day, see a foundation in nature for a day of judgment ; yet in
revelation, if that will satisfy your lordship, every one may see a foundation for a day of
judgment, because God has positively declared it ; though God has not, by that revelation,
taught us what the substance of the soul is ; nor has any where said, that the soul of itself is
a free agent. Whatsoever any created substance is, it is not of itself, but is by the good
pleasure of its Creator : whatever degrees of perfection it has, it has from the bountiful hand
of its Maker. For it is true in a natural, as well as a spiritual, sense, what St. Paul says, (J)
* Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves, but our sufiiciency
is of God.'

" But your lordship, as I guess by your following words, -would argue, that a material
substance cannot be a free agent ; whereby I suppose you only mean, that you cannot see or
conceive how a solid substance should begin, stop, or change its own motion. To which,
give me leave to answer, that when you can make it conceivable, how any created, finite,
dependant substance can move itself, or alter or stop its own motion, which it must to be a
free agent; I suppose you will find it no harder for God to bestow this power on a solid, than
an unsolid, created substance. TuUy, in the place above-quoted, {e) could not conceive this
power to be in any thing but what was from eternity ; Cum pateat igitur ceternum id esse
quod seipsum moveat quis est qui hanc naturam animis esse tributam neget ?■ But though
you cannot see how any created substance, solid or not solid, can be a free agent (pardon me,
my lord, if I put in both, till your lordship please to explain it of either, and show the manner
how either of them can, of itself, move itself or any thing else), yet I do not think you will
so far deny men to be free agents, from the difficulty there is to see how they are free agents,
as to doubt whether there be foundation enough for a day of judgment.

" It is not for me to judge how far your lordship's speculations reached; but finding in
myself nothing to be truer than what the wise Solomon tells me, (/) ' As thou knowest not
what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with
child; even so thou knowest not the works of God, who maketh all things; I gratefully

(a) uEneid vi. 385. {h) First answer. ~ (c) First answer.

{d) 2 Cor. iii. 5. (e) Tus. Quaest. 1. i. c. 23. (/) Eccles. xi. 5.

416 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

a state, can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in an-
other world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he
has designed to men, according to their doings in this life. And
therefore it is not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or
the other, as some over zealous for or against the immateriality of
the soul, have been forward to make the world believe. Who, either
on the one side, indulging too much their thoughts, immersed alto-
gether in matter, can allow no existence to what is not material : or
who, on the other side, finding not cogitation within the natural
powers of matter, examined over and over again by the utmost in-
tention of mind, have the confidence to conclude, that omnipotency
itself cannot give perception and thought to a substance which has the
modification of solidity. He that considers how hardly sensation is,
in our thoughts, reconcileable to extended matter ; or existence to
any thing that hath no extension at all, will confess, that he is very
far from certainly knowing what his soul is. It is a point, which
seems to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge : and he
who will give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark
and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able
to determine him fixedly for or against the soul's materiality. Since
on which side soever he views it, either as an unextended substance,
or as a thinking extended matter ; the difficulty to conceive either,
will, whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the
contrary side. An unfair way which some men take with them-
selves: who, because of the inconceivableness of something they
find in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary hypothesis,
though altogether as uninteUigible to an unbiassed understanding.

receive and rejoice in the light of revelation, which sets me at rest in many things, the
manner whereof my poor reason can by no means make out to me : Omnipotency, I know,
can do any thing that contains in it no contradiction : so that I readily bt'lieve whatever God
has declared, though my reason find difficulties in it which it cannot master. As in the
present case, God having revealed that there shall be a day of judgment, I think that foun-
dation enough to conclude men are free enough to be made answerable for their actions, and
to receive according to what they have done ; though how man is a free agent, surpasses my
explication or comprehension.

" In answer to the place I brought out of St. Luke, («) your lordship asks, (/;) ' Whether
from these words of our Saviour it follows, that a spirit is only the appearance?' I answer,
No; nor do I know who drew such an inference from them: but it follows, that in apparitions
there is something that appears, and that which appears is ni;t wholly immaterial ; and yet
this was properly called trvswjtta, and was often looked upon, by those who called it TviZfj^a. in
Greek, and now call it spirit in English, to be the ghost or soul of one departed ; which, I
humbly conceive, justifies my use of the word spirit, for a thinking voluntary agent, whether
material or immaterial.

" Your lordkhip says, (c) ' That I grant, that it cannot upon these principles be demon-
strated, that the spiritual substance in us is immaterial :' from whence you conclude, "• That
then my grounds of certainty from ideas are plainly given up. This being a way of arguing
that you often make use of, I have often had occasion to consider it, and cannot after all see
the force of this argument. I acknowledge that this or that proposition cannot upon my
principles be demonstrated; ergo, I grant this proposition to be false, that certainty consists
in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas. For that is my ground of cer^
Uinty, and till that be given up, my grounds of certainty are not given up.

(o) C. xxiv., V. 32. {h) First answer. (r) Ibid.

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 417

This serves not only to show the weakness and the scantiness of
our knowledge, but the insignificant triumph of such sort of argu-
ments, which drawn from our own views, may satisfy us that we
can find no certainty on one side of the question ; but do not at all
thereby help us to truth, by running into the opposite opinion,
which, on examination, will be found clogged with equal difficulties.
For what safety, what advantage, to any one is it, for the avoiding
the seeming absurdities, and, to him, insurmountable rubs he meets
with in one opinion, to take refuge in the contrary, which is built
on something altogether as inexplicable, and as far remote from his
comprehension ? It is past controversy, that we have in us some-
thing that thinks ; our very doubts about what it is, confirm the
certainty of its being, though we must content ourselves in the
ignorance of what kind of being it is : and it is in vain to go about
to be sceptical in this, as it is unreasonable in most other cases to
be positive against the being of any thing, because we cannot com-
prehend its nature. For I would fain know what substance exists
that has not something in it, which manifestly baffles our under-
standings. Other spirits, who see and know the nature and inward
constitution of things, how much must they exceed us in know-
ledge ? To which if we add larger comprehension, which enables
them at one glance to see the connexion and agreement of very
many ideas, and readily supplies to them the intermediate proofs,
which we by single and slow steps, and long poring in the dark,
hardly at last find out, and are often ready to forget one, before we
have hunted out another : we may guess at some part of the happi-
ness of superior ranks of spirits, who have a quicker and more
penetrating sight, as well as a larger field of knowledge. But to
return to the argument in hand, our knowledge, I say, is not only

I limited to the paucity and imperfections of the ideas we have, and
, which we employ it about, but even comes short of that too : but
how far it reaches, let us now inquire.

I § 7. How far our 'knowledge readies. — The affirmations or
negations we make concerning the ideas we have, may, as I have
jbefore intimated in general, be reduced to these four sorts, viz.
identity, co-existence, relation, and real existence. I shall examine
jhow far our knowledge extends in each of these.
I § 8. Firsts our knowledge of identity and diversity^ as far as
\our ideas. — Firsts As to identity and diversity, in this way of
agreement or disagreement of our ideas, our intuitive knowledge

, is as far extended as our ideas themselves; and there can be no
idea in the mind, which it does not presently, by an intuitive

• knowledge, perceive to be what it is, and to be different from any
pther.

i ; § 9. Secondly, of co-existence a very little way. — Secondly, As

■to the second sort, which is tlie agreement or disagreement of our
ideas in co-existence ; in this our knowledge is very short, though
n this consists the greatest and most material part of our know-
edge concerning substances. For our ideas of the species of sub-

E E

418 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

stances being, as I have shown, nothing but certain collections of
simple ideas united in one subject, and so co-existing together:
v.g. our idea of flame is a body hot, luminous, and moving upward ;
of gold, a body heavy to a certain degree, yellow, malleable, and
fusible. These, or some such complex ideas as these in men's
minds, do these two names of the different substances, flame and
gold, stand for. When we would know any thing farther concerning
these, or any other sort of substances, v/hat do we inquire, but what
other quahties, or power, these substances have, or have not ? Which
is nothing else but to know, what other simple ideas do, or do not,
co-exist with those that make up that complex idea ?

§ 10. Because the connexion between most simple ideas is mi-
Jcnozcn. — This, how weighty and considerable a part soever of human
science, is yet very narrow, and scarce any at all. The reason
whereof is, that the simple ideas, whereof our complex ideas of sub-
stances are made up, are, for the most part, such as carry with them,
in their own nature, no visible necessary connexion, or inconsistency,
with any other simple ideas, whose co-existence with them we would
inform ourselves about.

§ 11. Especially of secondary qualities. — The ideas that our
complex ones of substances are made up of, and about which our
knowledge, concerning substances, is most employed, are those of
their secondary qualities ; which depending all (as has been shown)
upon the primary qualities of their minute and insensible parts ; or
ii not upon them, upon something yet more remote from our com-
prehension, it is impossible we should know which have a necessary
union or inconsistency one with another : for not knowing the root
they spring from, not knowing what size, figure, and texture of
parts they are, on which depend, and from which result, thoi
qualities which make our complex idea of gold, it is impossible
should know what other qualities result from, or are incompatib!
with, the same constitution of the insensible parts of gold ; and
consequently must always co-exist with that complex idea we ha
of it, or else are inconsistent with it.

§ 12. Because all corinexion between any secondary and prima',
qualities, is undiscoverable, — Besides this ignorance of the prima
qualities of the insensible parts of bodies, on which depend all their
secondary qualities, there is yet another and more incurable part of
ignorance, which sets us more remote from a certain knowledge of
the co-existence or inco-existence (if I may so say) of different iden'^
in the same subject; and that is, that there is no discoverable con
nexion between any secondary quality, and those prinitlry qualitic
which it depends on.

§ 13. That the size, figure, and motion of one body, should
cause a change in the size, figure, and motion of another body, is
not beyond our conception : the separation of the parts of om*
body, upon the intrusion of another ; and the change from rest to
moUon, upon impulse; these, and the Hke, seem to us to hav*
tome connexion one with another. And if we knew these primanj

II

[

EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 419

qualities of bodies, we might have reason to hope, we might be able
to know a great deal more of these operations of them one with
another ; but our minds not being able to discover any connexion
between these primary qualities of bodies, and the sensations that
are produced in us by them, we can never be able to establish cer-
tain and undoubted rules of the consequences or co-existence of any
secondary qualities, though we could discover the size, figure, or
motion of those invisible parts which immediately produce them.
We are so far from knowing what figure, size, or motion of parts
produce a yellow colour, a sweet taste, or a sharp sound, that we can
I by no means conceive how any size, figure, or motion of any particles,
, can possibly produce in us the idea of any colour, taste, or sound
I whatsoever ; there is no conceivable connexion between the one and
I the other.

I § 14. In vain, therefore, shall we endeavour to discover by our
!l ideas (the only true way of certain and universal knowledge), what
i other ideas are to be found constantly joined with that of our com-
plex idea of any substance ; since we neither know the real consti-
tution of the minute parts on which their qualities do depend ; nor,
did we know them, could we discover any necessary connexion
between them, and any of the secondary qualities ; which is neces-
sary to be done, before we can certainly know their necessary co-
existence. So that, let our complex idea of any species of sub-
stances be what it will, we can hardly, from the simple ideas con-
tained in it, certainly determine the necessary co-existence of any
other quality whatsoever. Our knowledge in all these inquiries,
Ireaches very little farther than our expedence. Indeed, some few
of the primary qualities have a necessary dependence, and visible
connexion, one with another, as figure necessarily supposes exten-
ision ; receiving or communicating motion by impulse, supposes
jSolidity. But though these, and perhaps some other of our ideas,
ihave, yet there are so few of them, that have a visible connexion
lone with another, that we can by intuition or demonstration dis-
jcover the co-existence of very few of the qualities that are to be
found united in substances : and we are left only to the assistance
of our senses, to make known to us what qualities they contain.
iFor of all the qualities that are co-existent in any subject, without
this dependence and evident connexion of their ideas one with
linother, we cannot know certainly any two to co-exist any farther,
than experience, by our senses, informs us. Thus, though we see
the yellow colour, and upon trial find the weight, malleableness,
^usibility, and fixedness, that are united, in a piece of gold; yet
jecause no one of these ideas has any evident dependence, or
accessary connexion with the other, we cannot certainly know, that
^vhere any four of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly
probable soever it may be ; because the highest probability amounts
lot to certainty; without which there can be no true knowledge.
For this co-existence can be no farther known, than it is perceived ;
md it cannot be perceived but either in particular subjects, by the

E E 2 .

420 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

observation of our senses, or in general, by the necessary connexion
of the ideas themselves.

§ 15. Of repugnancy to co-exist larger. — As to the incompati-
bility or repugnancy to co-existence, we may know, that any subject
may have of each sort of primary qualities but one particular at once,
V. ^. each particular extension, figure, number of parts, motion,
excludes all other of each kind. The like also is certain of all sensi-
ble ideas peculiar to each sense ; for whatever of each kind is present
in any subject, excludes all other of that sort ; v. g. no one subject
can have two smells, or two colours at the same time. To this,
perhaps, will be said, Has not an opal, or the infusion of lignum
nephriticum, two colours at the same time ? To which I answer,
that these bodies, to eyes differently placed, may at the same time
afford different colours ; but I take liberty also to say, that to eyes
differently placed, it is different parts of the object that reflect the
particles of light ; and therefore it is not the same part of the object,
and so not the very same subject, which at the same time appears
both yellow and azure. For it is as impossible that the very same
particle of any body should, at the same time, differently modify or
reflect the rays of light, as that it should have two different figures
and textures at the same time.

§ 16. Of the co-existence of powers a very little xvay. — But as to
the powers of substances to change the sensible qualities of other
bodies, which make a great part of our inquiries about them, and is
no considerable branch of our knowledge; I doubt, as to thescv,
whether our knowledge reaches much farther than our experience ;
or whether we can come to the discovery of most of these powers,
and be certain that they are in any subject, by the connexion wath
any of those ideas which to us make its essence. Because the active
and passive powers of bodies, and their ways of operating, consisting
in a texture and motion of parts, which we cannot by any means come
to discover : it is but in very few cases we can be able to perceive
their dependence on, or repugnance to, 'any of those ideas, which
make our complex one of that sort of things. I have here instanced
in the corpuscularian hypothesis, as that which is thought to go
farthest in an intelligible explication of those qualities of bodies^
and I fear the weakness of human understanding is scarce able
substitute another, which will afford us a fuller and clearer discove!
of the necessary connexion and co-existence of the powers which _
to be observed united in several sorts of them. This at least i"
certain, that whichever hypothesis be clearest and truest (for of th;i
it is not my business to determine), our knowledge concerning cor-
poreal substances, will be very little advanced by any of them, till
we are made to see what qualities and powers of bodies have a
necessary connexion or repugnancy one with another ; which in the
present state of philosophy, I think, we know but to a very small
degree : and I doubt whether with those faculties we have, wc
shall ever be able to carry our general knowledge (I say not
particular experience) in this part much farther. Experience is

I

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 421

that which in this part we must depend on. And it were to be
wished, that it were more improved. We find the advantages some
men's generous pains have this way brought to the stock of natural
knowledge. And if others, especially the philosophers by fire, who
pretend to it, had been so wary in their observations, and sincere in
their reports, as those who call themselves philosophers ought to
have been ; our acquaintance with the bodies here about us, and
our insight into their powers and operations, had been yet much
greater.

§ 1 7. Of spirits yet narrower.— If we are at a loss in respect
of the powers and operations of bodies, I think it is easy to con-
clude, we are much more in the dark in reference to the spirits ;
whereof we naturally have no ideas, but what we draw from that of
our own, by reflecting on the operations of our own souls within us,
as far as they can come within our observation. But how inconsi-
derable a rank the spirits that inhabit our bodies, hold amongst
those various, and possibly innumerable, kinds of nobler beings;
and how far short they come of the endowments and perfections of
cherubims and seraphims, and infinite sorts of spirits above us ; is
what by a transient hint, in another place, I have offered to my
reader's consideration.

§ 18. Thirdly^ qf^ other relations it is not easy to say liowfar. —
As to the third sort of our knowledge, viz., the agreement or dis-
agreement of any of our ideas in any other relation : this, as it is the
largest field of our knowledge, so it is hard to determine how far it
may extend ; because the advances that are made in this part of
knowledge, depending on our sagacity in finding intermediate ideas,
that may show the relations and habitudes of ideas, whose co-existence
is not considered, it is a hard matter to tell when we are at an end of
such discoveries ; and when reason has all the helps it is capable of,
for the finding of proofs, or examining the agreement or disagreement
of remote ideas. They that are ignorant of algebra, cannot imagine
the wonders in this kind are to be done by it ; and what farther im-
provements and helps, advantageous to other parts of knowledge,
the sagacious mind of man may yet find out, it is not easy to deter-
mine. This, at least, I believe, that the ideas of quantity are not those
alone that are capable of demonstration and knowledge ; and that
other, and perhaps more useful, parts of contemplation, would af-
ford us certainty, if vices, passions, and domineering interest, did
not oppose or menace such endeavours.

Morality cupable of denionslration. — The idea of a Supreme
Being, infinite in power, goodness and wisdom, whose workmanship
we are, and on whom we depend ; and the idea of ourselves, as un-
derstanding rational beings, being such as are clear in us, \vould, I
suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such foundations of
our duty and rules of action, as might place morality amongst the
sciences capable of demonstration ; wherein I doubt not, but from
self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences, as incontestable
as those in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be

422 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

made out, to any one that will apply himself with the same indif-
ferency and attention to the one, as he does to the other of these
sciences. The relation of other modes may certainly be perceived,
as well as those of number and extension ; and I cannot see why
they should not also be capable of demonstration, if due methods
were thought on to examine, or pursue, their agreement or disagree-
ment. Where there is no property, there is no injustice, is a pro-
position as certain as any demonstration in Euclid : for the idea of
property, being a right to any thing, and the idea to which the
name injustice is given, being the invasion or violation of that right;
it is evident, that these ideas being thus established, and these names
annexed to them, I can as certainly know this proposition to be true,
as that a triangle has three angles equal to two right ones. Again,
" no government allows absolute liberty ;'"* the idea of government
being the establishment of society upon certain rules or laws, which
require conformity to them ; and the idea of absolute liberty being
for any one to do whatever he pleases ; I am as capable of being
certain of the truth of this proposition, as of any in the mathe-
matics.

§ 19. Tzvo things have made moral ideas thought incapable of demon-
stration,- their complexedness, and want of i>ensib(e representations. —
That which in this respect has given the advantage to the ideas of
quantity, and made them thought more capable of certainty and
demonstration, is.

First, That they can be set down and represented by sensible
marks, which have a greater and nearer correspondence with them,
than any words or sounds whatsoever. Diagrams drawn on paper,
are copies of the ideas in the mind, and not liable to the uncertainty
that words carry in their signification. An angle, circle, or square
drawn in lines, lies open to the view, and cannot be mistaken ; it r
mains unchangeable, and may, at leisure, be considered and exami
ed, and the demonstration be revised, and all the parts of it may b
gone over more than once, without any danger of the least change i
the ideas. This cannot be thus done in moral ideas ; we have n
sensible marks that resemble them, whereby we can set them down
we have nothing but words to express them by; which though,
when written, they remain the same, yet the ideas they stand for,
may change in the same man ; and it is very seldom that they are
not different in different persons.

Secondly, Another thing that makes the greater difficulty in ethics,
is, that moral ideas are commonly more complex than those of the
figures ordinarily considered in mathematics. From whence these
two inconveniences follow. 1. That their names are of more un-
certain signification, the precise collection of simple ideas they stand
for not being so easily agreed on, and so the sign that is used for
them in communication always, and in thinking often, does not
steadily carry with it the same idea. Upon which the same disorder,
confusion, and error follow, as would, if a man going to demon-
strate something of an heptagon, should in the diagram he took to do

CH.3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 4^3

it, leave out one of the angles, or, by oversight, make the figure with
one angle more than the name ordinarily imported, or he intended
it should, when at first he thought of his demonstration. This often
happens, and is hardly avoidable in very complex moral ideas,
where the same name being retained, one angle, i. e. one simple idea,
is left out of, or put in, the complex one (still called by the
same name), more at one time than another. 2. From the complex-
edness of these moral ideas, there follows another inconvenience,
viz. that the mind cannot easily retain those precise combinations so
exactly and perfectly as is necessary in the examination of the habi-
tudes and correspondencies, agreements or disagreements, of several
of them, one with another ; especially where it is to be judged of by
long deductions, and the intervention of several other complex
ideas to show the agreement or disagreement of two remote ones.

The great help against this, which mathematicians find in dia-
grams and figures, which remain unalterable in their draughts, is
very apparent ; and the memory would often have great difficulty
otherwise to retain them so exactly, whilst the mind went over the
parts of them, step by step, to examine their several correspon-
dencies ; and though, in casting up a long sum, either in addition,
multiplication, or division, every part be only a progression of the
mind, taking a view of its own ideas, and considering their agree-
ment or disagreement ; and the resolution of the question be
nothing but the result of the whole, made up of such particulars,
j whereof the mind has a clear perception ; yet without setting down
I the several parts by marks, whose precise significations are known,
and by marks that last and remain in view when the memory had
I let them go, it would be almost impossible to carry so many different
I ideas in the mind, without confounding or letting slip, some parts
I of the reckoning, and thereby make all our reasonings about it use-
less. In which case, the ciphers, or marks, help not the mind at all
to perceive the agreement of any two or more numbers, their equali-
i ties or proportions ; that the mind has only by intuition of its own
I ideas of the numbers themselves. But the numerical characters are
I helps to the memory, to record and retain the several ideas about
' which the demonstration is made, whereby a man may know how
j far his intuitive knowledge, in surveying several of the particulars,
I has proceeded ; that so he may, without confusion, go on to what is
j yet unknown, and at last have in one view before him the result of
! all his perceptions and reasonings.

; §20. Remedies of those difficulties. — One part of these disadvan-

; tages in moral ideas, which has made them be thought not capable

of demonstration, may in a good measure be remedied by definitions,

\ setting down that collection of simple ideas which every term shall

' stand for, and then using the terms steadily and constantly for that

i precise collection. And what methods algebra, or something of

that kind, may hereafter suggest, to remove the other difiicuities, it

is not easy to foretel. Confident I am, that if men would, in the

same method, and with the same indifferency, search after moral.

424 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

as they do mathematical, truths, they would find them have a
stronger connexion one with another, and a more necessary conse-
quence from our clear and distinct ideas, and to come nearer perfect
demonstration, than is commonly imagined. But much of this is
not to be expected, whilst the desire of esteem, riches, or power,
makes men espouse the well-endowed opinions in fashion, and then
seek arguments, either to make good their beauty, or varnish over
and cover their deformity : nothing being so beautiful to the eye,
as truth is to the mind ; nothing so deformed and irreconcilable to
the understanding, as a lie. For though many a man can with
satisfaction enough own a no very handsome wife in his bosom : yet
who is bold enough openly to avow, that he has espoused a false-
hood, and received into his breast so ugly a thing as a lie? whilst
the parties of men cram their tenets down all men's throats, whom
they can get into their power, without permitting them to examine
their truth or falsehood, and will not let truth have fair play in the
w orld, nor men the liberty to search after it ; what improvements
can be expected of this kind? What greater light can be hoped for
in the moral sciences ? The subject part of mankind, in most places,
might, instead thereof, with Egyptian bondage, expect Egyptian
darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's
minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly
to extinguish.

§ 21. Fourthly, of real existence : we have an intuitive knowledg^e
of our own ; demonstrative, of GocTs ; sensitive, of some fezv other
things. — As to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz., of the real
actual existence of things, we have an intuitive knowledge of our
own existence ; and a demonstrative knowledge of the existence of
a God : of the existence of any thing else, we have no other but a
sensitive knowledge, which extends not beyond the objects preseni
to our senses.

^ 22. Our ignorance great. — Our knowledge being so narrow
as I have shown, it will, perhaps, give us some light into the presei
state of our minds, if we look a little into the dark side, and take
view of our ignorance: which, being infinitely larger than oi
knowledge, may serve much to the quieting of disputes, and ir
provement of useful knowledge; if discovering how far we hai
clear and distinct ideas, we confine our thoughts within the cor
templation of those things that are within the reach of our unde^
standings, and launch not out into that abyss of darkness (whei
we have not eyes to see, nor faculties to perceive, any thing), out
a presumption, that nothing is beyond our comprehension. But
be satisfied of the folly of such a conceit, we need not go far.
that knows any thing, knows this in the first place, that he need nc
seek long for instances of his ignorance. The meanest and most
obvious things that come in our way, have dark sides, that the
quickest sight cannot penetrate into. The clearest and most en-
larged understandings of thinking men, find themselves puzzled,
ana at a loss, in every particle of matter. We shall the less

( H. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 425

wonder to find it so, when we consider the causes of our ignorance,
which, from what has been said, I suppose will be found to be these
three :

Firsts Want of ideas.

Secondly^ Want of a discoverable connexion between the ideas we
have.

Thirdly, Want of tracing and examining our ideas.

§ 23. Firsts one cause of'H, want of ideas, either such as we have
no conception of, or such as particidarly we have not. — First, There
are some things, and those not a few, that we are ignorant of, for
want of ideas.

1. All the simple ideas we have, are confined (as I have shown)
to those we receive from corporeal objects by sensation, and from
the operation of our own minds as the objects of reflection- But
how much these few and narrow inlets are disproportionate to the
vast whole extent of all beings, will not be hard to persuade those
who are not so foolish as to think their span the measure of all
things. What other simple ideas it is possible the creatures in other
parts of the universe may have, by the assistance of senses and
faculties more, or perfecter, than we have, or different from ours, it
is not for us to determine ; but to say or think there are no such,
because we conceive nothing of them, is no better an argument, than
if a blind man should be positive in it, that there was no such thing
as sight and colours, because he had no manner of idea of any such
thing, nor could by any means frame to himself any notions about
seeing. TJTejgnorance and darkness that is in us, no more hinders
nor confinestheToiowTccToc that is in others, than the blindness of
V-mole is an 'argmiient against the quick-sightedness of an eagle.
He that will consider the iniinite power, wisdom, and goodness of
the Creator of all things, will find reason to think it was not all laid
out upon so inconsiderable, mean, and impotent a creature as he will
find man to be ; who, in all probability, is one of the lowest of all
intellectual beings. What faculties therefore other species of creatures
have, to penetrate into the nature and inmost constitutions of things ;
what ideas they may receive of them, far different from ours, we
know not. This we know, and certainly find, that we want several
other views of them, besides those we have, to make discoveries of
them more perfect. And we may be convinced that the ideas we can
attain to by our faculties, are very disproportionate to things them-
selves, when a positive, clear, distinct one of substance itself, which
is the foundation of all the rest, is concealed from us. But want of
ideas of this kind, being a part as well as cause of our ignorance,
cannot be described. Only this I think I may confidently say of it,
that the intellectual and sensible world, are in this perfectly alike;
that that part, which we see of either of them, holds no proportion
with what we see not ; and whatsoever we can reach with our eyes,
or our thoughts, of either of them, is but a point, almost nothing, in
comparison with the rest.

§ 24. Because of their remoteness ; — % Another great cause of

426 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

ignorance, is the want of ideas we are capable of. As the want of
ideas, which our faculties are not able to give us, shuts us wholly
from those views of things which it is reasonable to think other
beings, more perfect than we, have, of which we know nothing ;
so the want of ideas I now speak of, keeps us in ignorance of things
we conceive capable of being known to us. Bulk, figure, and
motion, we have ideas of. But though we are not without ideas of
these primary qualities of bodies in general ; yet not knowing what
is the particular bulk, figure, and motion of the greatest part of the
bodies of the universe, we are ignorant of the several powers,
efficacies, and ways of operation, whereby the effects, which we
daily see, are produced. These are hid from us in some things, by
being too remote; and in others, by being too minute. When
we consider the vast distance of the known and visible parts of the
world, and the reasons we have to think, that what lies within our
ken, is but a small part of the universe, we shall then discover a
huge abyss of ignorance. What are the particular fabrics of the
great masses of matter, which make up the whole stupendous frame
of corporeal beings; how far they are extended, what is their
motion, and how continued or communicated, and what influence
they have one upon another; are contemplations that, at first
glimpse, our thoughts lose themselves in. If we narrow our contem-
plations, and confine our thoughts to this little canton, I mean this
system of our sun, and the grosser masses of matter that visibly
move about it ; what several sorts of vegetables, animals, and intel-
lectual corporeal beings, infinitely different from those of our little
spot of earth, may there probably be in the other planets, to the
knowledge of which, even of their outward figures and parts, we
can no way attain, whilst we are confined to this earth, there being
no natural means, either by sensation or reflection, to convey their
certain ideas into our minds ? They are out of the reach of those
inlets of all our knowledge : and what sorts of furniture and inha-
bitants those mansions contain in them, we cannot so much as guess,
much less have clear and distinct ideas of them.

§ 25. Or, because of their minuteness. — If a great, nay, far the
greatest, part of the several ranks of bodies in the universe, escape
our notice by their remoteness, there are others that are no less con-
cealed from us by their minuteness. These insensible corpuscles,
being the active parts of matter, and the great instruments of nature,
on which depend not only all their secondary qualities, but also
most of their natural operations, our want of precise distinct ideas
of their primary qualities, keeps us in an incurable ignorance of
what we desire to Know about them. I doubt not but if we could
discover the figure, size, texture, and motion of the minute consti-
tuent parts of any two bodies, we should know, without trial, several
of their operations one upon another, as we do now the properties
of a square, or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical affections
of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man ; as a
watch-maker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its oper-

■

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 427

ations, and of a file which, by rubbing on them, will alter the figure
of any of the wheels ; we should be able to tell before-hand, that
rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep ; as
well as a watch-maker can, that a little piece of paper laid on the
balance, will keep the watch from going, till it be removed ; or that
some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine would quite
lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dissolving of silver
in aquafortis^ and gold in aqua regia, and not vice versa, would be
then perhaps no more difficult to know, than it is to a smith to un-
derstand why the turning of one key will open a lock, and not the
turning of another. But whilst we are destitute of senses acute
enough to discover the minute particles of bodies, and to give us
ideas of their mechanical affections, we must be content to be igno-
rant of their properties and ways of operation ; nor can we be assured
about them, any farther than some few trials we make are able to
reach. But whether they will succeed again another time, we cannot
be certain. This hinders our certain knowledge of universal truths
concerning natural bodies; and our reason carries us herein very
little beyond particular matter of fact.

§ 26. Hence no science of bodies ; — And therefore I am apt to
doubt, that how far soever human industry may advance useful and
experimental philosophy in physical things, scientifical will still be
out of our reach ; because we want perfect and adequate ideas of
those very bodies which are nearest to us, and most under our com-
mand. Those which we have ranked into classes under names, and
we think ourselves best acquainted with, we have but very imperfect
and incomplete ideas of. Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies
that fall under the examination of our senses, perhaps we may have;
but adequate ideas, I suspect, we may have not of any one amongst
them. And though the former of these will serve us for common
use and discourse, yet whilst we want the latter, we are not capable
of scientifical knowledge ; nor shall ever be able to discover general,
instructive, unquestionable truths concerning them. Certainty and
demonstration, are things we must not, in these matters, pretend to.
By the colour, figure, taste, and smell, and other sensible qualities,
we have as clear and distinct ideas of sage and hemlock, as we
have of a circle and a triangle : but having no ideas of the par-
ticular primary qualities of the minute parts of either of these
plants, nor of other bodies which we would apply them to, we
cannot tell what eff*ects they will produce ; nor when we see those
effects, can we so much as guess, much less know, their manner of
production. Thus having no ideas of the particular mechanical
affections of the minute parts of bodies, that are within our view
and reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and opera-
tions : and of bodies more remote we are yet more ignorant, not
knowing so much as their very outward shapes, or the sensible and
grosser parts of their constitutions.

§ 27. Much less of spirits. — This, at first sight, will show us
how disproportionate our knowledge is to the whole extent even of

428 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

material beings ; to which, if we add the consideration of that in-
finite number of spirits tliat may be, and probably are, which are yet
more remote from our knowledge, whereof we have no cognizance,
nor can frame to ourselves any distinct ideas of their several ranks
and sorts, we shall find this cause of ignorance conceal from us, in
an impenetrable obscurity, almost the whole intellectual world ; a
greater certainly, and more beautiful world than the material. For
bating some very few, and those, if I may so call them, superficial,
ideas of spirit, which by reflection we get of our own, and from
thence, the best we can collect, of the Father of all Spirits, the
eternal independent Author of them, and us, and all things ; we
have no certain information, so much as of the existence of other
spirits, but by revelation. Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond
our discovery : and all those intelligences, whereof it is likely there
are more orders than of corporeal substances, are things whereof
our natural faculties give us no certain account at all. That there
are minds and thinking beings in other men as well as himself,
every man has a reason, from their words and actions, to be satisfied :
and the knowledge of his own mind cannot suffer a man, that con-
siders, to be ignorant that there is a God. But that there are
degrees of spiritual beings between us and the great God, who is
there that by his own search and ability can come to know ?
IMuch less have we distinct ideas of their different natures, con-
ditions, states, powers, and several constitutions, wherein they agree
or differ from one another, and from us. And therefore in what
concerns their different species and properties, we are under an
absolute ignorance.

§ 28. Secondly, want of a discoverable cminejcion between ideas

ue have Secondly, What a small part of the substantial beings, that

are in the universe, the want of ideas leaves open to our knowledge
we have seen. In the next place, another cause of ignorance, of n<
less moment, is a want of a discoverable connexion between thos
ideas we have. For wherever we want that, we are utterly incapabl
of universal and certain knowledge; and are, in the former cas
left only to observation and experiment ; which, how narrow an^
confined it is, how far from general knowledge, we need not be to\C
I shall give some few instances of this cause of our ignorance, an<
so leave it. It is evident that the bulk, figure, and motion of severa
bodies about us, produce in us several sensations, as of colours, sounds
tastes, smells, pleasure and pain, &c. These mechanical affectioi
of bodies, having no affinity at all with those ideas they produce il
us (there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse o
any sort of body, and any perception of a colour or smell, which we
find in our minds), we can have no distinct knowledge of such
operations beyond our experience ; and can reason no otherwise
amut them, than as effects produced by the appointment of an in-
finitely Wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our comprehensions.
As the ideas of sensible secondary qualities, which we have in our
minds, can, by us, be no way detluced from bodily causes, nor any

CH. 3. EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 429

correspondence or connexion be found between them and those
primary qualities which (experience shows us) produce them in us ;
so, on the other side, the o[)eration of our minds upon our bodies is
as inconceivable. How any thought should produce a motion in
body, is as remote from the nature of our ideas, as how any body
should produce any thought in the mind. That it is so, if experience
did not convince us, the consideration of the things themselves would
never be able, in the least, to discover to us. These, and the like,
though they have a constant and regular connexion, in the ordinary
course of things : yet that connexion being not discoverable in the
ideas themselves, which appearing to have no necessary dependence
one on another, we can attribute their connexion to nothing else, but
the arbitrary determination of that All-wise Agent, who has made
them to be, and to operate as they do, in a way wholly above our
weak understanding to conceive.

§ 29. Instances. — In some of our ideas there are certain relations,
habitudes, and connexions, so visibly included in the nature of the
ideas themselves, that we cannot conceive them separable from them,
by any power whatsoever. And in these only, we are capable of
certain and universal knowledge. Thus the idea of a right-lined
triangle, necessarily carries with it an equahty of its angles to two
right ones. Nor can we conceive this relation, this connexion of
these two ideas, to be possibly mutable, or to depend on any arbi-
trary power, which of choice made it thus, or could make it other-
wise. But the coherence and continuity of the parts of matter ; the
production of sensation in us of colours and sounds, &c., by impulse
and motion ; nay, the original rules and communication of motion
being such, wherein we can discover no natural connexion with any
ideas we have, we cannot but ascribe them to the arbitrary will and
good pleasure of the Wise Architect. I need not, I think, here
mention the resurrection of the dead, the future state of this globe
of earth, and such other things, which are by every one acknow-
ledged to depend wholly on the determination of a free agent. The
things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to
proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a law set them ; but
yet by a law that we know not ; whereby, though causes work
steadily, and effects constantly flow from them, yet their connexions and
dependencies being not discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an
experimental knowledge of them. From all which it is easy to per-
ceive what a darkness we are involved in, how little it is of being,
and the things are, that we are capable to know. And therefore we
shall do no injury to our knowledge, when we modestly think with
ourselves, that we are so far from being able to comprehend the
whole nature of the universe, and all the things contained in it, that
we are not capable of a philosophical knowledge of the bodies that
are about us, and make a part of us : concerning their secondary
qualities, powers, and operations, we can have no universal certainty.
Several effects come every day within the notice of our senses, of
which we have so far sensitive knowledge : but the causes, manner.

4^0 EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

and certainty of their production, for the two foregoing reasons, we
must be content to be very ignorant of. In these we can go no far-
ther than particular experience informs us of matter of fact, and by
analogy to guess what effects the like bodies are, upon other trials,
like to produce. But as to a perfect science of natural bodies (not
to mention spiritual beings), we are, I think, so far from being capable
of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it.

§ 30. Thirdly^ isoaiit of tracing our ideas. — Thirdly, Where we
have adequate ideas, and where there is a certain and discoverable
connexion between them, yet we are often ignorant, for want of tracing
those ideas which we have, or may have, and for want of finding
out those intermediate ideas, which may show us what habitude of
agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And thus
many are ignorant of mathematical truths, not put of any imperfec-
tion of their faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for
want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways com-
paring those ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the
due tracing of our ideas, and finding out their relations, and agree-
ments or disagreements one with another, has been, I suppose, the
ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly seek,
or certainly discover, the agreement or disagreement of ideas them-
selves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in, sounds of
doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians abstracting
their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to set be-
fore their minds the ideas themselves that they would consider, and
not sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a great part of that
perplexity, puddering, and confusion, which have so much hindered
men's progress in other parts of knowledge. For whilst they stick ,
in words of undetermined and uncertain signification, they are un-
able to distinguish true from false, certain from probable, consistent
from inconsistent, in their own opinions. This having been the fat(
or misfortune of a great part of men of letters, the increase brought
into the stock of real knowledge, has been very little, in proportioi
to the sch(x>ls, disputes, and writings, the world has been filled with
whilst students, being lost in the great wood of words, knew noj
whereabouts they were, how far their discoveries were advanced, oil
what was wanting in their own, or the general stock of knowledge*
Had men, in the discoveries of the material, done as they have in
those of the intellectual, world, involved in all the obscurity of un^
certain and doubtful ways of talking, volumes writ of navigation an^
voyages, theories and stories of zones and tides, multiplied and d\i
puted ; nay, ships built, and fleets sent out, would never have taught"
us the way beyond the line ; and the antipodes would be still as much
unknown, as when it was declared heresy to hold there were any.
But having spoken sufficiently of words, and the ill or careless use
that is commonly made of them, I shall not say any thing more of it
here.

§ 31. Extent, in respect of universality. — Hitherto we have
examined the extent of our knowledge, in respect of the several sortsM

CH. 4. REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 431

of beings that are. There is another extent of it, in respect of uni-
versahty, which will also deserve to be considered ; and in this re-
gard, our knowledge follows the nature of our ideas. If the ideas
are abstract, whose agreement or disagreement we perceive, our
knowledge is universal. For what is known of such general ideas,
will be true of every particular thing, in whom that essence, i. e. that
abstract idea, is to be found ; and what is once known of such ideas,
will be perpetually and for ever true. So that as to all general
knowledge, we must search and find it only in our minds ; and it is
only the examining of our own ideas, that furnisheth us with that.
Truths belonging to essences of things (that is, to abstract ideas), are
eternal, and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those
essences : as the existences of things is to be known only from ex-
perience. But having more to say of this in the chapters where I
shall speak of general and real knowledge, this may here suffice as
to the universality of our knowledge in general.

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Objection, Knoivledge placed in ideas ^ may he all hare
vision. — I doubt not but my reader by this time may be apt to think,
that I have been all this while only building a castle in the air ; and
be ready to say to me, " To what purpose all this stir ? Knowledge,
say you, is only the perception of the agreement or disagreement of
our own ideas : but who knows what those ideas may be ? Is there
any thing so extravagant, as the imaginations of men's brains?
Where is the head that has no chimeras in it ? Or, if there be a
sober and a wise man, what difference will there be, by your rules,
between his knowledge, and that of the most extravagant fancy in
the world ? They both have their ideas, and perceive their agree-
ment and disagreement one with another. If there be any difference
between them, the advantage will be on the warm-headed man's side,
as having the more ideas, and the more lively. And so, by your
rules, he will be the more 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, wall be equally certain. It 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 a 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 imagina-
tions, to a man that inquires after the reality of things ? It matters
not what men's fancies are, it is the knowledge of things that is
only to be prized ; it is this alone gives a value to our reasonings,

432 REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

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. Answer, not so, where ideas agree with things. — 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 will be of httle more use, than the reveries of
a crazy brain ; and the truths built thereon, of no more weight, than
the discourse of a man, who sees tilings 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. It 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 seems
not to want difficulty, yet I think there be two sorts of ideas, that,
we may be assured, agree with things.

§ 4. As, first, all simple ideas do. — First, The first are simple
ideas, which since the mmd, as has been shown, can by no means
make to itself, must necessarily be the product of things operating
on the mind in a natural way, and producing therein those percep-
tions 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 which is intended, or which our state requires ;
for they represent to us things under those appearances which they
are fitted to produce in us ; whereby we are enabled to distinguish
the sorts of particular substances, to discern the states they are in,
and so to take them for our necessities, and to 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, witli
things without us. And this conformity between our simple ideas,
and the existence of things, is sufficient for real knowledge.

?5. Secondly, all cornplex ideas, except of substances. — Secondly,
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 itself, can never be
capable of a wrong representation, nor mislead us from the true ap-
prehension of any thing, by its dislikeness to it : and such, excepting
those of substances, are all our complex ideas. Which, as I have
shown in another place, are combinations of ideas, which the mind,

CH. 4. REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE.

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 concern-
ing 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 and undoubted reality.

§ 6. Hence the reality of mathematical knowledge. — I doubt not
but it will be easily granted, that the knowledge we have of mathe-
matical truths, is not only certain, but real, knowledge; and not
the bare empty vision of vain insignificant chimeras of the brain ; 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
it 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 exist-
ing : 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, wherever it really exists. Whatever other figure exists,
that is not exactly answerable to the idea of a triangle in his mind,
is not at all concerned in that proposition. And therefore he is cer-
tain all his knowledge concerning such ideas is real knowledge : be-
cause, 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, wherever, or how-
ever, they exist.
I § 7. And of moral. — And hence it follows, that moral know-
i I ledge is as capable of real certainty, as mathematics. For certainty
j being but the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our
I ideas ; and demonstration nothing but the perception of such agree-
I ment, by the intervention of other ideas, or mediums, our moral
; ideas, as well as mathematical, being archetypes themselves, and so
\ adequate and complete ideas ; all the agreement or disagreement
i which we shall find in them, will produce real knowledge, as well as
in mathematical figures.

§ 8. Existence not required to make it real. — For the attaining

i of knowledge and certainty, it is requisite that we have determined

I ideas : and to make our knowledge real, it is requisite that the ideas

answer their archetypes. Nor let it be wondered, that I place the

certainty of cur knowledge in the consideration of our ideas, with

so little care and regard (as it may seem) to the real existence of

F F

434 REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

things: since most of those discourses, which take up the thoughts,
and engage the disputes, of those who pretend to make it their busi-
ness to inquire after truth and certainty, will I presume, upon
examination, be found to be general propositions, and notions in
which existence is not at all concernea. All the discourses of the
mathematicians, about the squai'ing of a circle, conic sections, or
any otlier part of mathematics, concern not the existence of any of
these figures, but their demonstrations, which depend on their ideas,
are the same, whether there be any square or circle existing in the
world or no. In the same manner, the truth and certainty of moral
discourses abstracts from the lives of men, and the existence of those
virtues in the world whereof they treat : nor are Tully'*s Offices less
true, because there is nobody in the world that exactly practises his •
rules, and lives up to that pattern of a virtuous man, which he has
given us, and which existed no where, when he writ, but in idea.
If it be true in speculation, i. t. in idea, that murder deserves death,
it will also be true in reality of any action that exists conformable to
that idea of murder. As for other actions, the truth of that propo-
sition concerns them not. And. thus it is of all other species of
things, which have no other essences, but those ideas which are in
the minds of men.

§ 9. Nor will it he less true or certain, because moral ideas are qf\
our oivn making and naming. — But it will here be said, that if moral
knowledge be placed in the contemplation of our own moral ideas, '
and those, as other modes, be of our own making, what strange no-
tions will there be of justice and temperance? What confusion of
virtues and vices, if every one may make what ideas of them he
pleases ? no confusion nor disorder in the things themselves, nor in
the reasonings about them ; no more than (in mathematics) there |
would be a disturbance in the demonstration, or a change in the
properties of figures, and their relations one to another, if a man
should make a triangle with four corners, or a trapezinm with four
right angles: that is, in plain English, change the names of tl ~
figures, and call that by one name, which mathematicians call on
narily by another. For let a man make to himself the idea of]
figure with three angles, whereof one is a right one, and call it, if
please cquilatei'um or trapezium, or any thing else, the properties
and demonstrations about, that idea will be the same, as if he had
called it a rectangular triangle. I confess, the change of the name,
by the impropriety of speech, will at first disturb him who knows not
what idea it stands for ; but as soon as the figure is drawn, the con-
Becjuences and demonstration are plain and clear. Just the same i^
it m moral knowledge ; let a man have the idea of taking from others
without their consent, what their honest industry has possessed them
of, and call this justice, if he please. He that takes the name here
without the idea put to it, will be mistaken, by joining another ide.i
of his own to that name; but strip the idea of that name, or take it,
such as it is, in the speaker's mind, and the same things will agrct-
to it, as if you called it injustice. Indeed, wrong names in moral

out

CH. 4. REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 435

discourses breed usually more disorder, because they are not so
easily rectified as in mathematics, where the figure once drawn and
seen, makes the name useless and of no force. For what need of a
sign, when the thing signified is present and in view ? But in moral
names, that cannot be so easily and shortly done, because of the
many decompositions that go to the making up the complex ideas
of those modes. But yet for all this, miscalling of any of those ideas,
contrary to the usual signification of the words of that language,
hinders not but that we may have certain and demonstrative know-
ledge of their several agreements and disagreements, if we will care-
fully, as in mathematics, keep to the same precise ideas, and trace
them in their several relations one to another, without being led
away by their names. If we but separate the idea under that con-
sideration from the sign that stands for it, our knowledge goes equally
on in the discovery of real truth and certainty, whatever sounds we
make use of,

§ 10. Misnaming, disturbs not the certainty of the knozvledge. —
One thing more we are to take notice of, that where God, or any
other law-maker, hath defined any moral names, there they have
made the essence of that species to which that name belongs ; and
there it is not safe to apply or use them otherwise. But in other
cases, it is bare impropriety of speech to apply them contrary to the
common usage of the country. But yet even this too disturbs not
the certainty of that knowledge, which is still to be had by a due
contemplation and comparing of those even nick-named ideas.
- § 11. Ideas of substances have their archetypes without us. —
Thirdly, There is another sort of complex ideas, which being re-
ferred to archetypes without us, may differ from them, and so our
knowledge about them may come short of being real. Such are our
ideas of substances, which consisting of a collection of simple ideas,
supposed taken from the works of nature, may yet vary from them,
by having more or different ideas united in them, than are to be
found united in the things themselves ; from whence it comes to pass,
that they may, and often do, fail of being exactly conformable to
things themselves.

§ 12. So far as they agree with those, so far our knowledge concern-
ing them is real. — I say then, that to have ideas of substances, which
by being conformable to things, may afford us real knowledge, it is
not enough, as in modes, to put together such ideas as have no in-
consistence, though they did never before so exist ; v. g. the ideas of
sacrilege or perjury, &c., were as real and true ideas before, as after,
the existence of any such fact. But our ideas of substances being
supposed copies, and referred to archetypes without us, must still be
taken from something that does or has existed ; they must not con-
sist of ideas put together at the pleasure of our thoughts, without
any real pattern they were taken from, though we can perceive no
inconsistence in such a combination. The reason whereof is, be-
cause we knowing not what real constitution it is of substances, where-
on our simple ideas depend, and which really is the cause of the

F F 2

436 REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

strict union of some of them one with another, and the exclusion of
others ; there are very few of tliem that we can be sure are, or are
not, inconsistent in nature, any farther than experience and sensible
observation reach. Herein, therefore, is founded the reality of our
knowledge concerning substances, that all our complex ideas of them j
must be such, and such only, as are made up of such simple ones, as 1
have been discovered to co-exist in nature. And our ideas being
thus true, though not, perhaps, very exact, copies, are yet the sub- „
jects of real (as far as we have any) knowledge of them. Which (as 1
has been already shown) will not be found to reach very far: but
so far as it does, it will still be real knowledge. Whatever ideas we
have, the agreement we find they have with others, will still be
knowledge. If those ideas be abstract, it will be general knowledge.
But to make it real concerning substances, the ideas must be taken
from the real existence of things. Whatever simple ideas have been
found to co-exist in any substance, these we may, with confidence,
join together again, and so make abstract ideas of substances. For
whatever have once had an union in nature, may be united again.

§ 13. In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas,
aud not ccnifine our thoughts to names or species supposed set out by
names. — This if we rightly consider, and confine not our thoughts
and abstract ideas to names, as if there were, or could be, no other
sorts of things, than what known names had already determined, and,
as it were, set out, we should think of things with greater freedom,
and less confusion than perhaps we do. It would possibly be thought
a bold paradox, if not a very dangerous falsehood, if I should say,
that some changelings, who have lived forty years together, without
any appearance of reason, are something between a man and a beast :
which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a false supposition,
that these two names, man and beast, stand for distinct species so
set out by real essences, that there can come no other species be-
tween them : whereas, if we will abstract from those names, and the
supposition, of such specific essences made by nature, wherein all
thnigs of the same denominations did exactly and equally partake;
if we would not fancy that there were a certain number of tiiese es-
senses, wherein all things, as in moulds, were cast and formed, we
should find that the idea of the shape, motion, and life of a man,
without reason, is as much a distinct idea, and makes as much a
distinct sort of thing from man and beast, as the idea of the shape
of an ass with reason, would be different from either that of man or
beast, and be a species of an animal between, or distinct from, both,

§ 14. Objection against a changeling bei?ig something belxvcen
a man and beast ^ answered. — Here every body will be ready to ask,
If changelings may be supposed something between man and beast,
pray what are they ? I answer, changelings, which is as good a word
to signify something different from the signification of man or beast,
as the names man and beast are to have significations different
one from the other. This, well considered, would resolve this matter,
and show my meaning without any more ado. But I am not so

CH. 4. REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. 437

unacquainted with the zeal of some men, which enables them to spin
consequences, and to see religion threatened, whenever any one ven-
tures to quit their forms of speaking, as not to foresee what names
such a proposition as this is hke to be charged with ; and without
doubt it will be asked, If changelings are something between man
and beast, what will become of them in the other world ? To which
I answer. First, It concerns me not to know or inquire. To their
own master they stand or fall. It will make their state neither bet-
ter nor worse, whether we determine any thing of it, or no. They
are in the hands of a faithful Creator, and a bountiful Father, who
disposes not of his creatures according to our narrow thoughts or
opinions, nor distinguishes them according to names and species of
our contrivance. And we that know so little of this present world
we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being peremptory
in defining the different states which creatures shall come into, when
they go off* this stage. It may suffice us, that he hath made known
to all those who are capable of instruction, discoursing, and reason-
ing, that they shall come to an account, and receiye according to what
they have done in this body.

§ 15. But, Secondly, I answer, the force of these men's question
(viz. will you deprive changelings of a future state ?) is founded on
one of these two suppositions, which are both false. * The first is,
that all things that have the outward shape and appearance of a man,
must necessarily be designed to an immortal future being after this
life. Or, secondly, that whatever is of human birth, must be so.
Take away these imaginations, and such questions will be groundless
and ridiculous. I desire, then, those who think there is no more
but an accidental difference between themselves and changelings,
the essence in both being exactly the same, to consider, whether
they can imagine immortality annexed to any outward shape of the
body ; the very proposing it, is, I suppose, enough to make them dis-
own it. No one yet, that ever I heard of, how much soever im-
mersed in matter, allowed that excellenc}^ to any figure of the gross
sensible outward parts, as to affirm eternal life due to it, or a neces-
sary consequence of it ; or that any mass of matter should, after its
dissolution here, be again restored hereafter to an everlasting state of
sense, perception, and knowledge, only because it was moulded into
this or that figure, and had such a particular frame of its visible
parts. Such an opinion as this, placing immortality in a certain
superficial figure, turns out of doors all consideration of soul or
spirit, upon whose account alone, some corporeal beings have hither-
to been concluded immortal, and others not. This is to attribute
more to the outside, than inside, of things ; to place the excellency
of a man, more in the external shape of his body, than internal per-
fections of his soul ; which is but little better than to annex the great
and inestimable advantage of immortality and life everlasting, which
he has above other material beings, to annex it, I say, to the cut of
his beard, or the fashion of his coat. For this or that outward mark
of our bodies, no more carries with it the hope of an eternal dura-

488 REALITY OF KNOWLEDGE. book 4.

tion, than the fashion of a man's suit gives him reasonable grounds
to imagine it will never wear out, or that it will make him immortal.
It will perhaps be said, that nobody thinks that the shape makes
any thing immortal ; but it is the shape is the sign of a rational soul
within, which is immortal. I wonder who made it the sign of any
such thing ; for barely saying it, will not make it so. It would re-
quire some proofs to persuade one of it. No figure that I know
speaks any such language. For it may as rationally be concluded,
tfiat the dead body of a man, wherein there is to be found no more
appearance or action of life, than there is in a statue, has yet never-
theless a living soul in it, because of its shape ; as that there is a
rational soul in a changeling, because he has tne outside of a rational
creature, when his actions carry far less marks of reason with them,
in the whole coui*se of his life, than what are to be found in many a
beast.

§ 16. Monsters. — But it is the issue of rational parents, and must
therefore be concluded to have a rational soul. I know not by what
logic you must so conclude. I am 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 pro-
ductions. Ay, but these are monsters. Let them be so ; what will
your driveling, unintelligent, intractable changeling be? Shall a de-
fect 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 outside. To show 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 l)e, 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 ap-
pear not ; this is past doubt, say you. Make the ears a little longer,
and more pointea, 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 are at a stand ; add still more and more of th(
likeness of a brute to it, and let the head be perfectly that of some
other animal, then presently it is a monster ; and it is demonstration
with you that it hath no rational soul, and must be destroyed.
"Where now, I ask, shall be the just measure of the utmost bounds
of that shape, that carries with it a rational soul ? for since there'
have been human foetuses produced, half beast, and half man ; and
others, three parts one, and one part the other; and so it is-
possible they may be in all the variety of approaches to the one*
or the other shape, and may have several degrees of mixture of
the likeness of a man or a brute ; I would gladly know what are

CH. 5. TRUTH IN GENERAL. 439

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 inhabi-
tant within ? For till that be done, we talk at random of man ; and
shall always, I fear, do so, as long as we give ourselves up to certain
sounds, and the imaginations of settled 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 signifies 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, that have been
taken up about them.

§ 17. Words and species, — I have mentioned this here, because I
think we cannot be too cautious that words and species, in the ordi-
nary notions which 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 risen a great part of the difficulties about truth and
certainty. Would we accustom ourselves to separate contemplations,
and our 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. Recapitulation. — Wherever we perceive the agreement or
disagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge ; and
wherever we are sure those ideas agree with the reality of things,
there is certain real knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas
with the reaUty of things, having here given the marks, I think, I
have shown wherein it is, that certainty, real certainty, consists.
Which, whatever it was to others, was, 1 confess, to me, heretofore,
one of those desiderata which I found great want of.

CHAPTER V.

OF TRUTH IN GENERAL.

§ 1. What tridh «5.— What is truth ? was an inquiry 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

440 TRUTH IN GENERAL. book 4,

wherein it consists ; and so acquaint ourselves with the nature of it,
as to observe how the mind distinguishes it from falsehood.

^ 2. A right joining or separating of signs, i. e. idea^ or zvords. —
Truth then seems to me, in the proper import of the word, to signify
nothing but the joining or separating of signs, as the things signified
by them, to agree or disagree one with another. The joining or
separating of signs here meant, is what by another name 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. Which make mental or ve7'hal propositions. — 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 dif-
ficult 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 stripped of
names, they lose the nature of purely mental propositions, as soon as
they are put into words.

§ 4. Mental propositions are very, hard to he treated of. — And
that which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal propo-
sitions 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 show us what are those things we have clear and per-
fect established ideas of, and what not. For if we will curiously ob-
serve the way our mind takes in thinking and reasoning, we shj
find, I suppose, that when we make any propositions within our om
thoughts, about white or black, sweet or bitter, a triangle or a circle
we can, and often do, frame in our minds the ideas themselves, witl
out reflecting on the names. But when we would consider or mal
propositions about the more complex ideas, as of a man, vitric
fortitude, glory, we usually put the name for the idea ; because tl
ideas these names stand for, being for the most part imperfect, coi
fused and undetermined, we reflect on the names themselves, becauj
they are more clear, certain, and distinct, and readier occur to oi
thoughts than the pure ideas ; and so we make use of these won
instead of the ideas themselves, even when we would meditate an)
reason within ourselves, and make tacit and mental propositions, ij
substances, as has been already noticed, this is occasioned by th
im}K'rfection of our ideas ; we making the name stand for the ret
essence, of which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is occasione
bjy the great number of simple ideas that go to the making them u|
For many of them being compounded, the name occurs much easie
than the complex idea itself, which requires time and attention t"
be recollected, and exactly represented to the mind, even in those

GH. 5. TRUTH IN GENERAL. 441

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
I their memory the greatest part of the common words of that lan-
guage, yet perhaps never troubled themselves, in all their lives, to
consider what precise ideas the most of them stood for. Some con-
fused 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
l)v those words, with which they so often confound others, and not
seldom themselves also.

§ 5. Being nothing hut the joining or separating ideas without
icords. — 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 with-
out the use of words put together or separated by the mind, per-
ceiving 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.
V>y which way of affirming or denying, these signs made by sounds
are, as it were, put together or separated one from another. So that
]iroposition consists in joining or separating signs, and truth con-
sists in the putting togedier or separating those signs, according as
the things which they stand for agree or disagree.

§ 6. IVhen mental propositions contain real truth, and when

TL'rbal. — Every one's experience will satisfy him, that the mind,

either by perceiving or supposing the agreement or disagreement

j of any of its ideas, does tacitly within itself put them into a kind of

i proposition affirmative or negative, which I have endeavoured to ex-

])ress 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 affirm or deny, than to be explained by words. When a man has in

liis head 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

i 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

j 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. 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

442 TRUTH IN GENERAL. book 4.

affirming or denying of words one of another, as the ideas they
stand for agree or disagree ; and this again is twofold ; either
purely verbal and trifling, which I shall speak of, eh. 8, or real and
instructive; which is the object of that real knowledge which we
have spoken of already.

§ 7. Objection against verbal truths that thus it may all be chi-
merical.— But here again will be apt to occur 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 minds, the
knowledge of truth is not so valuable a thing as it is taken to be ;
nor worth the pains and time men employ in the search of it ; since,
by this account, it amounts to no more than the conformity of words
to the chimeras of men^s brains. Who knows not what odd notions
many men's heads are filled 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 words 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 disagree-
ment there, as well as the ideas of real beings, and so have as true
propositions made about them. And it 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. Ansx^ered, real truth is about ideas agreeing to things. —
Though what has been said in the foregoing chapter, to distinguish
real from imaginary knowledge, might suffice here, in answer U
this doubt, to distinguish real truth from chimerical, or (if yot
please) barely nominal, they depending both on the same found:
tion ; yet it may not be amiss here again to consider, that thougl
our words signify nothing but our ideas, yet being designed by thei
to signify things, the truth they contain, when put into propositions
will be only verbal, when they stand for ideas in the mind, that havi
not an agreement with the reality of things. And, therefore, trutl
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 existence in nature. Bat 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.

GH

. 6. UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS. 443

f § 9. Falsehood is the joining of names otherwise than their ideas
r 'agree. — Truth is the marking down in words, the agreement or dis-
i lagreement of ideas as it is. Falsehood is the marking down in
? i 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 truth real. The knowledge of this truth
! consists in knowing what ideas the words stand for, and the percep-
tion of the agreement or disagreement of those ideas, according as it
, is marked by those words.

? I § 10. General propositions to be treated of more at large. — But

; 'because words are looked on as the great conduits of truth, and

. [knowledge, and that in conveying and receiving of truth, and com-

« imonly in reasoning about it, we make use of words and propositions,

s 1 1 shall more at large inquire, wherein the certainty of real truths,

contained in propositions, consists, and where it is to be had; and

[endeavour to show in what sort of universal propositions we are ca-

1 jpable of being certain of their real truth or falsehood.

; I 1 shall begin with general propositions, as those which most em-

, I ploy 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 ance

of many particulars, enlarge our view, and shorten our way to

knowledge.

§11. Moral and metaphysical truth. — Besides truth, taken in
the strict sense before mentioned, there are other sorts of truths;
as. First, Moral truth, which is speaking of things according to the
persuasion of our own minds, though the proposition we speak agree
I not to the reality of things. Secondly^ 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 con-
sist 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 settled 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.

CHAPTER VI.

OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY.

§ 1. Treating of words necessary to Tcnozvledgr. — 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. 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

444 UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, book 4.

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 know-
ledge, that it is very hard to speak intelligibly of the one, without
explaining the other.

§ 2. General truths hardly to he understood^ but in verbal propo-
sitions.— All the knowledge we have, being only of particular or
general truths, it 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,
hut as conceived and expressed in words. It is not, therefore, out of
our way, in the examination of our knowledge, to inquire into the
truth and certainty of universal propositions.

§ 3. Certainty twofold, of truth and qflxuowledge. — But that we
may not be misled in this case, by that which is the danger every
where, I mean by the doubtfulness of terms, it is fit to observe, that
certainty is two-fold ; certainty of truth, and certainty of knowledge.
Certainty of truth is, when words are so put together in propositions,
as exactly to express the 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. A^o proposition can be knozvn to be true, ivhere the essence of
each species mentioned is not Jcnozvn. — 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 which
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, it is evident, are all that have an exact
conformity with the idea it stands for, and no other. But in sub-
stances, wherein a real essence distinct from the nominal is sup-
posed to constitute, determine, and bound the species, the extent
of the general word is very uncertain ; because not knowing this
real essence, we cannot know what is, or what is not, of that species,
and consequently what may, or may not, with certainty be affirmedl
of it. And thus speaking of a man, or gold, or any other species ofi
natural substances, as supposed constituted by a precise and reali
essence which nature regularly imparts to every individual of that
kind, whereby it is made to be of that species, we cannot be certain!
of the truth of any affirmation or negation made of it. For man,r
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 theij
speaker, stand for we know not what ; and the extent of these species,;

(II. 6. THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY. 445

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
clanger to mistake the bounds of each species, nor can be in doubt,
on this account, whether any proposition be true, or no. I have
chosen to explain this uncertainty of propositions in this scholastic
way, and have made use of the terms of essences and species, on
]HU'pose to show the absurdity and inconvenience there is to think
of them, as of any other sort of realities, than barely abstract ideas
w ith names to them. To suppose that the species of things are any
tiling but the sorting of them under general names, according as
they 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 scholastic learning,
be treated of in a better and clearer way ; yet those wrong notions
of essences or species, having got root in most people's minds, who
liave I'eceived 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. This more particulariij concerns substances. — The names
of substances, then, whenever 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 understanding ; of the truth
of general propositions made up of such terms, we cannot be sure.
The reason whereof is plain. For how can we be sure that this or
that quality is in gold, when we know not what is or is not gold ?
Since in this way of speaking, nothing is gold, but what partakes
of an essence, which we not knowing, cannot know where it is, or
is not, and so cannot be sure that any parcel of matter in the world,
is, or is not, in this sense gold ; being incurably ignorant, whether
it has, or has not, that which makes any thing to be called gold,
/. e. that real essence of gold whereof we have no idea at all. This
being as impossible for us to know, as it is for a blind man to tell
ill what flower the colour of a pansy is, or is not, to be found,
whilst he has no idea of the colour of a pansy at all. Or, if we
could (which is impossible) certainly know where a real essence,
which we know not, is ; v. g-. in what parcels of matter the real
essence of gold is; yet could we not be sure, that this or that
quality could with truth be affirmed of gold ; since it is impossible
for us to know, that this or that quality or idea has a necessary
connexion with a real essence, of which we have no idea at all,
whatever species that supposed real essence may be imagined to
constitute.

§ 6. The truth of few universal propositions coricerning sub-
stances^ is to be knoxim, — On the other side, the names of substances,

446 UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, book 4.

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 propositions, 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. Because co-existence of ideas in few cases is to be 7c?io'wn. —
The complex ideas that our names of the species of substances pro-
perly stand for, are collections of such qualities as have been ob-
served to co-exist in an unknown substratum, which we call sub-
stance ; but what other qualities necessarily co-exist with such com-
binations, 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 secondary qualities, we can
discover no connexion at all, for the reasons mentioned, ch. iii. ; viz.,
1. Because we know not the real constitutions of substances, on which
each secondary 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 secondary quality, and any modification whatsoever of any of the
primary ones. Andf therefore there are very few general proposi-
tions to be made concerning substances, which can carry with them
undoubted certainty.

§ 8. Instance in gold. — 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, it is evident he knows not
what particular substances are of that species ; and so cannot, witli
certainty, affirm any thing universally of gold. Rut if he makes
gold stand for a species, determined by its nominal essence, let the ,
nominal essence, for example, be the complex idea of a body, of M
certain yellow colour, malleable, fusible, and heavier than any othHI
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 im-
possible that we should certainly know the truth of this proposition,
that all gold is fixed. '

§ 9. As there is no discoverable connexion between fixednes«
and the colour, weight, and other simple ideas of that nominn'
essence of gold ; so if we make our complex idea of gold, a bod
yellow, fusible, ductile, weighty, and fixed, we shall be at the sami

CH. 6. THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY. 447

uncertainty concerning solubility in aqua regia ; and for the same
reason ; since we can never, from consideration of the ideas them-
selves, 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 aqua 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 malleable ?" 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 malleable-
ness is contained : and such a sort of truth and certainty as this, it
is, to say a centaur is four-footed. But if malleableness makes
not a part of the specific essence the name gold stands for, it is
plain, " all gold is malleable," is not a certain proposition. Be-
cause let the complex idea of gold be made up of which soever 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, it is impossible we
should perceive that connexion, unless we could discover that which
tics them together.
§ 10, As far as any such co-existence can he known, so Jar uni-
; versal propositions may be certain. But this will go hid a little way,
I hecause— The more, indeed, of these co-existing quahties we unite
I into one complex idea, under one name, the more precise and de-
! terminate we make the signification of that word : but yet never
' make it thereby more capable of universal certainty, in respect of
j other qualities, not contained in our complex idea; since we per-
i ceive not their connexion or dependence on one 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 know-
] ledge concerning substances, is not, as in other things, barely of
the relation of two ideas that may exist separately : but it is of the
I necessary connexion and co-existence of several distinct ideas in the
jsame subject, or of their repugnances so to co-exist. Could we begin
lat 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 l}c 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 pro-
positions, that should carry general truth and certainty with them.
But whilst our complex ideas of the sorts of substances, are so remote
Trom that internal real constitution, on which their sensible qualities

448 UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, book 4.

depend, and are made up of nothing but an imperfect collection of
those apparent qualities our senses can discover, there can be very
few general propositions concerning substances, of whose real truth
we can be certainly assured ; since there are but few simple ideas,
of whose connexion and necessary co-existence we can have certain
and undoubted knowledge. I imagine, amongst all the secondary
qualities of substances, and the powers relating to them, there
cannot any two be named, whose necessary co-existence, or repug-
nance to co-exist, can certainly be known, unless in those of the
same sense, which necessarily exclude one another, as I have else-
where shown. No one, I think, by the colour that is in any body,
can certainly know what smell, taste, sound, or tangible qualities it
has, nor what alterations it is capable to make or receive, on, or
from, other bodies. The same may be said of the sound or taste,
&c. Our specific names of substances standing for any collections
of such ideas, it is not to be wondered, that we can, with them,
make very few general propositions of undoubted real certainty.
But yet, so far as any complex idea, of any sort of substances,
contains in it any simple idea, whose necessary co-existence with
any other may be discovered, so far universal propositions may with
certainty be made concerning it ; v. g. could any one discover a
necessary connexion between malleableness, and the colour or
weight of gold, or any other part of the complex idea, signified
by that name, he might make a certain universal proposition
concerning gold in this respect ; and the real truth of this proposi-
tion, " that all gold is malleable," would be as certain as of this,
" the thi-ee angles of all right-lined triangles, are equal to two right
ones."

§ 11. The qualities which make our complea? idea of substances
depend mostly/ o?i external, remote, and unperceived causes. — Had wc
such ideas of substances, as to know what real constitutions produ<
those sensible qualities we find in them, and how those qualiti<
flowed from thence, we could, by the specific ideas of their re
essences in our own minds, more certainly find out their properti<
and discover what qualities they had, or had not, than we can nc
by our senses ; and to know the properties of gold, it would be
more necessary that gold should exist, and that we should mal
experiments upon it, than it is necessary for the knowing the pi
perties of a triangle, that a triangle should exist in any mattei
the idea in our minds would serve for the one, as well as the other.
But we are so far from being admitted into the secrets of nature.
that we scarce so much as ever approach the first entrance toward>
them. For we are wont to consider the substances we meet with,
each of them as an entire thing by itself, having all its qualities in
itself, and independent of other things : overlooking, for the most
part, the operations of those invisible fluids they are encompassed i
with; and upon whose motions and operations depend the greatest)
part of those qualities which are taken notice of in them, and arei]
made by us the inherent marks of distinction, whereby we know

r

CH. 6. THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY. 449

and denominate them. Put a piece of gold any where by itself,
separate from the reach and influence of all other bodies, it will
immediately lose all its colour and weight, and, perhaps, malleable-
ness too ; which, for aught I know, would be changed into a per-
fect friability. Water, in which to us fluidity is an essential quality,
left to itself, would cease to be fluid. But if inanimate bodies owe
so much of their present state to other bodies, without them, that
they would not be what they appear to us, were those bodies that
environ them removed, it is yet more so in vegetables, which are
nourished, grow, and produce leaves, flowers, and seeds, in a con-
stant succession. And if we look a little nearer into the state of
animals, we shall find, that their dependence, as to life, motion,
and the most considerable qualities to be observed in them, is so
wholly on extrinsical causes and qualities of other bodies, that make
no part of them, that they cannot subsist a moment without them ;
though yet those bodies on which they depend, are little taken
notice of, and make no part of the complex ideas we frame of those
animals. Take the air but a minute from the greatest part of living
creatures, and they presently lose sense, life, and motion. This the
necessity of breathing has forced into our knowledge. But how
many other extrinsical, and possibly very remote bodies, do the
springs of these admirable machines depend on, which are not
vulgarly observed, or so much as thought on ; and how many are
there, Avhich the severest inquiry can never discover .? The inha-
bitants of this spot of the universe, though removed so many rail-
lions of miles from the sun, yet depend so much on the duly tem-
pered motion of particles coming from, or agitated by it, that were
tins earth removed but a small part of that distance out of its pre-
sent situation, and placed a little farther or nearer that source of
beat, it is more than probable that the greatest part of the animals
in it would immediately perish ; since we find them so often de-
i stroyed by an excess or defect of the sun''s warmth, which an acci-
; dental position, in some parts of this, our little globe, exposes them
to. The qualities observed in a loadstone, must needs have their
I source far beyond the confines of that body ; and the ravage made
'often on several sorts of animals, by invisible causes, the certain
j death (as we are told) of some of them, by barely passing the line,
or, as it is certain, of others, by being removed into a neighbouring
(Country, evidently show, that the concurrence and operations of
'several bodies, with which they are seldom thought to have any
: thing to do, is absolutely necessary to make them be what they ap-
j pear to us, and to preserve those qualities by which we know and
i distinguish them. We are then quite out of the way, when we
i think that things contain within themselves the quahties that appear
I to us in them ; and we in vain search for that constitution within
jthe body of a fly, or an elephant, upon which depend those qualities
and powers we observe in them. For which, perhaps, to understand
them aright, we ought to look, not only beyond this our earth and
atmosphere, but even beyond the sun, or remotest star our eyes have

G G

450 UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, book 4.

yet discovered. For how much the being and operation of particular
substances in this our globe, depends on causes utterly beyond our
view, is impossible for us to determine. We see and perceive some
of the motions, and grosser operations, of things here about us;
but whence the streams come that keep all these curious machines in
motion and repair, how conveyed and modified, is beyond our notice
and apprehension ; and the great parts and wheels, as I may so say,
of this stupendous structure of the universe, may, for aught we
know, have such a connexion and dependence in then- influences and
operations one upon another, that, perhaps, things in this, our man-
sion, would put on quite another face, and cease to be what they are,
if some one of the stars or great bodies incomprehensibly remote from
us, should cease to be or move as it does. This is certain, things
however absolute and entire they seem in themselves, are but re-
tainers to other parts of nature, for that which they are most taken
notice of by us. Their observable qualities, actions, and powers,
are owing to something without them ; and there is not so complete
and perfect a part that we know of nature, which does not owe the
being it has, and the excellencies of it, to its neighbours ; and we
must not confine our thoughts within the surface of any body, but
look a great deal farther, to comprehend perfectly those qualities
that are in it.

§ 12. If this be so, it is not to be wondered, that we have very
imperfect ideas of substances ; and that the real essences on which
depend their properties and operations, are unknown to us. We
cannot discover so much as that size, figure, and texture, of their
minute and active parts, which is really in them ; much less the dif-
ferent motions and impulses made in and upon them by bodies from
without, upon which depends, and by which is formed, the greatest
and most remarkable part of those quahties we observe in them, and
of which our complex ideas of them are made up. This consider-
ation alone is enough to put an end to all our hopes of ever having
the ideas of their real essences; which whilst we want, the nominal
essences we make use of instead of them, will be able to furnish us
but very sparingly with any general knowledge, or universal propo-
sitions, capable of real certainty.

§ 13. Judgment may reach farther^ hut that is not hiozvledge, —
We are not, therefore, to wonder, if certainty be to be found in
very few general propositions made concerning substances ; our
knowledge of their qualities and properties go very seldom farther
than our senses reach and inform us. Possibly inquisitive and ob-
serving men may, by strength of judgment, penetrate farther, and on
probabilities taken from wary observation, and hints well laid toge-
ther, often guess right at what experience has not yet discovered to
them. But this is but guessing still ; it amounts only to opinion,
and has not that certainty which is requisite to knowledge. For all
general knowledge lies only in our own thoughts, and consists barely
in the contemplation of our own abstract ideas. Wherever we per-
ceive any agreement or disagreement amongst them, there we have

cH. 6. THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY. 451

general knowledge ; and by putting the names of those ideas toge-
ther accordingly in propositions, can with certainty pronounce
general truths. But because the abstract ideas of substances, for
which their specific names stand, whenever they have any distinct
and determinate signification, have a discoverable connexion or in-
consistency witli but a very few other ideas : the certainty of universal
propositions concerning substances, is very narrow and scanty in that
part which is our principal inquiry concerning them ; and there are
scarce any of the names of substances, let the idea it is applied to be
what it will, of which we can generally, and with certainty, pro-
nounce, that it has, or has not, this or that other quality belonging
to it, and constantly co-existing or inconsistent with that idea,
wherever it is to be found.

§ 14. What is requisite Ji)r our knowledge of substances. — Before
we can have any tolerable knowledge of this kind, we must first
know what changes the primary qualities of one body do regularly
produce in the primary qualities of another, and how. Secondly,
We must know what primary qualities of any body, produce certain
sensations or ideas in us. This is, in truth, no less than to know
all the effects of matter, under its divers modifications of bulk,
figure, cohesion of parts, motion, and rest. Which, I think, every
body will allow, is utterly impossible to be known by us, without
revelation. Now if it were revealed to us, what sort of figure, bulk,
and motion of corpuscles, would produce in us the sensation of a
yellow colour, and what sort of figure, bulk, and texture of parts in
the superficies of any body, were fit to give such corpuscles their
due motion to produce that colour ; would that be enough to make
universal propositions with certainty, concerning the several sorts of
them, unless we had faculties acute enough to perceive the precise
bulk, figure, texture, and motion of bodies in those minute parts,
by which they operate on our senses, so that we might by those
frame our abstract ideas of them ? I have mentioned here only cor-
poreal substances, whose operations seem to lie more level to our
understandings ; for as to the operations of spirits, both their think-
ing and moving of bodies, we, at first sight, find ourselves at a loss ;
though, perhaps, when we have applied our thoughts a little nearer
to the consideration of bodies, and their operations, and examined
how far our notions, even in these, reach, with any clearness, beyond
sensible matter of fact, we shall be bound to confess, that even in
these too, our discoveries amount to very little beyond perfect
ignorance and incapacity.

§ 15. Whilst our ideas of substances contain not their real con-
stitutions, we can make but few general certain propositions concern-
iiig them. — This is evident, the abstract complex ideas of substances,
for which their general names stand, not comprehending their real
constitutions, can afford us very little universal certainty. Because
our ideas of them are not made up of that on which those qualities
we observe in them, and would inform ourselves about, do depend,
or with which they have any certain connexion ; v. g. let the ideas

G g2

452 UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, &c. book 4.

to which we give the name man, be, as it commonly is, a body of
the ordinary shape, with sense, vokmtary motion, andi reason joined
to it. This being the abstract idea, and consequently the essence
of our species man, we can make but very few general certain pro-
positions concerning man, standing for such an idea. Because not
knowing the real constitution on which sensation, power of motion,
and reasoning, with that peculiar shape, depend, and whereby they
are united together in the same subject, there are very few other
qualities, with which we can perceive them to have a necessary
connexion ; and, therefore, we cannot, with certainty, affirm, that
all men sleep by intervals ; that no man can be nourished by wood
or stones ; that all men will be poisoned by hemlock ; because
these ideas have no connexion nor repugnancy with this our nominal
essence of man, with this abstract idea that name stands for. We
must in these, and the like, appeal to trial in particular subjects,
which can reach but a little way. We must content ourselves with
probability in the rest: but can have no general certainty, whilst
our specific idea of man contains not that real constitution, which
is the root wherein all his inseparable qualities are united, and
from whence they flow. Whilst our idea the word man stands for,
is only an imperfect collection of some sensible qualities and powers
in him, there is no discernible connexion or repugnance between
our specific idea, and the operation of either the parts of hemlock
or stones, upon his constitution. There are animals that safely eat
hemlock, and others that are nourished by wood and stones; but
as long as we want ideas of those real constitutions of different sorts
of animals, whereon these, and the like, qualities and powers depend,
we must not hope to reach certainty in universal propositions con-
cerning them. Those few ideas only, which have a discernible con-
nexion 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 sub-
stances, as almost none at all.

§ 16. Wherein lies the general certainty of propositions. — 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
falsehood, when we perceive the ideas the terms 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 seelc it elsewhere in
experiment or observations without us, our knowledge goes not be-
yond particulars. It is the contemplation of our own abstract ideas,!
that alone is able to afford us general knowledge.

^H. T. MAXIMS. 45i]

CHAPTER VII.

OF MAXIMS.

§ 1. They are self-evident— 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, although nobody (that I know) ever went about
to show the reason and foundation of their clearness or cogency.
It may, however, be worth while to inquire 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. Wherein that self-evidence consists. — Knowledge, as has
been shown, consists in the perception of the agreement or dis-
agreement of ideas : now, where that agreement or disagreement is
perceived immediately by itself, 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 those propositions,
which, without any proof, he assents to at first sight ; for in all of
them he will find, that the reason of his assent, is from that agree-
ment or disagreement which the mind, by an immediate comparing
them, finds in those ideas answering the affirmation or negation in
the proposition.

§ 3. Self-evidence^ not peculiar to received axioms. — This being
so, in the next place let us consider, whether this self-evidence be
peculiar only to those propositions, which commonly pass under the
name of maxims, and have the dignity of axioms allowed them.
And here it is plain, that several other truths, not allowed 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 disagree-
ment 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 man}^, even almost an infinite number,
of other propositions are such.

§ 4. Firsts as to identity and diversity^ all propositions are
equally self-evident. — For, Firsts 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 propo-
sitions, as we have distinct ideas. Every one that has any know-^
ledge 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 itself,
and distinguish it from others. Every one finds in himself, that
he knows the ideas he has ; that he knows also, when any one is in
his understanding, and what it is ; and that when more than one

454 MAXIMS. book 4.

are there, he knows them distinctly and confusedly one from an-
other. 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 under-
stood ; that is, as soon as we have in our minds, determined ideas,
which the terms in the proposition stand for. And, therefore,
whenever the mind with attention considers any proposition, so as
to perceive the two ideas signified by the terms, and affirmed or
denied one of another, to be the same or different, it is presently
and infallibly certain of the truth of such a proposition ; and this
equally, whether these propositions be in terms standing for more
general ideas, or such as are less so, v. g. whether the general idea
of being, be affirmed of itself, as in this proposition, " whatsoever
is, is ;"" or a more particular idea be affirmed of itself, as a man is
a man, or whatsoever is white, is white. Or whether the idea of
being, in general be denied of not being, which is the only (if I
may so call it) idea different from it, as in this other proposition,
" It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be ;*" or any
idea of any particular being be denied of another different from it ;
as a man is not a horse ; red is not blue. The difference of the
ideas, as soon as the terms are understood, makes the truth of the
proposition presently visible, and that with an equal certainty and
easiness in the less, as well as the more general propositions, and all
for the same reason, viz., because the mind perceives in any ideas
that it has, the same ideas to be the same with itself; and two dif-
ferent ideas to be different and not the same. And this it is equally
certain of, whether these ideas be more or less general, abstract,
and comprehensive. It is not therefore alone to these two genera"
propositions, " Whatsoever is, is ;" and '' It is impossible for th
same thing to be, and not to be ;'' that this sort of self-evideno
belongs to any peculiar right. The perception of being, or noi
being, belongs no more to these vague ideas, signified by the terms
whatsoever and thing, than it does to any other ideas. These two
general maxims, amounting to no more, in short, but this, that the
same is the same, and same is not different, are truths known in
more particular instances, as well as in these general maxims, and
known also in particular instances, before these general maxims are
ever thought on, and draw all their force from the discernment of
the mind employed about particular ideas. There is nothing more
visible, than that the mind, without the help of any proof or reflec-
tion on either of these general propositions, perceives so clearly,
and knows so 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 ;'" that the consideration
these axioms can add nothing to the evidence or certainty of

]

off

]

CH. 7. MAXIMS. 455

knowledge. Just so it is (as every one may experiment in himself)
in all the ideas a man has in his mind ; he knows each to be itself,
and not to be another ; and to be in his mind, and not away, when
it is there, with a certainty that cannot be greater ; and, therefore,
the truth of no general proposition can be known with a greater
certainty, nor add any thing to this. So that in respect of identity,
our intuitive knowledge reaches as far as our ideas. And we are
capable of making as many self-evident propositions, as we have
names for distinct ideas. And I appeal to every one's own mind,
whether this proposition, " A circle, is a circle," be not as self-
evident a proposition, as that consisting of more general terms,
" Whatsoever is, is ;" and again, whether this proposition, " Blue
is not red," be not a proposition that the mind can no more doubt
of, as soon as it understands the words, than it does of that axiom,
" It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be ;" and so
of all the like.

§ 5. Secondly, ifi co-e listencef we have few self-evident proposi-
tions.— Secondly, As to co-existence, or such necessary connexion
between two ideas, that in the subject where one of them is sup-
posed, there the other must certainly 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 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. Tliirdly, in other relations we may have. — Thirdly, As to
the relation of modes, mathematicians have framed many axioms
concerning that one relation of equality. i\s, " equals taken from
equals, the remainder will be equal ;" which, with the rest of that
kind, however they are received from maxims by the mathematicians,
and are unquestionable truths ; yet, I think, that any one who con-
siders them, will not find that they have a clearer self-evidence than
these, that " One and one are equal to two ;" that, " If you take
from the five fingers of one hand, two, and from the five fingers
of the other hand, two, the remaining numbers will be equal."
These, and a thousand other such propositions, may be found in
numbers, which, at the very first hearing, force the assent, and
carry with them an equal, if not greater, clearness, than those ma-
thematical axioms.

§ 7. Fourthly, concerning real Ccvistence, we have none. — Fourthly,
As to real existence, since that has no connexion with any other of"
our ideas, but that of ourselves, and of a first being, we have in
that, concerning the real existence of all other beings, not so much
as demonstrative, much less a self-evident, knowledge ; and, there-
fore, concerning those there are no maxims.

55 8. These axioms do not much injiuence our other knowledge. —
In the next place, let us consider what influence these received

456 MAXIMS. book 4

maxims have upon the other parts of our knowledge. The rules
established in the schools, that all reasonings are ex prccco^nitis et
prceconcessis, seem to lay the foundation of all other knowledge in
these maxims, and to suppose them to be prcBcognita ; whereby, I
think, are meant these two things; Firsts That these axioms are
those truths that are first known to the mind. And, Secondly^
Thfjiajipon them the other parts of our knowledgo depend.

& 9/) Because they are not the truths toe first knew, — First, That
the^^re not the truths first known to the mind, is evident to ex-
perience, as we have shown in another place, b. 1, c. 2. Who
perceives not, that a child certainly knows that a stranger is not its
mother ; (hat its sucking bottle is not the rod, long before he
knows that " It is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to
be ?■" And how many truths are there about numbers, which it is
obvious to observe, that the mind is perfectly acquainted with, and
fully convinced of, before it ever thought on these general maxims,
to which mathematicians, in their arguings, do sometimes refer
them ? Whereof the reason is very plain ; fnr_thatwVjjcli_ makes
the m_ind_ assent to such_propositions^ being nothing else but the

'perception it has of tHe agreeiriehT or'""disa|preenreM"oT~tfs'ideas7
according as it finds tliem affirmed or denied one of ariotTier, m

"^ords it understands ; and every idea being known to be what it is,
and every two distinct ideas being known not to be the same, it
must necessarily follow, that such self-evident truths must be first
known, which consist of ideas that are first in the mind ; and the
ideas first in the mind, it is evident, are those of particular things,
from whence, by slow degrees, the understanding proceeds to some
iew general ones ; which being taken from the ordinary and fami-
liar objects of sense, are settled in the mind, with general names to
them. Thus particular ideas are first received and distinguished,
and so knowledge got about them ; and next to them, the less
general or specific, which are next to particular ; for abstract ideas
are not so obvious or easy to children, or the yet unexercised mind
as particular ones. If they seem so to grown men, it is only be-
cause by constant and familiar use they are made so ; for when we
nicely reflect upon them, we shall find, that general ideas are
fictions and contrivances of the mind, that carry difficulty with
them, and do not so easily offer themselves, as we are apt to
imagine. For example, does it not require some pains and SKill to
form the^eneral ijci of a trinngW (which is yet none of the most
abstract, comprehensive and difficult) for it must be neither oblique
nor rectangle, neither equilateral, equicrural, nor scalenon : but all

'and none of these at once. In effect, it is something imperfect,
that cannot cxistj an idea wherein some'pafts of 'sever aToifrerent
and IhconsisTent ideas are put together. It is true, the mind, in
this imperfect state, has need of such ideas, and makes all the haste
to them it can, for the convenicncy of communication, and enlarge-
ment of knowledge ; to both which it is naturally very much m-
clined. But yet one has reason to suspect such ideas are marks ot

CH. 7. MAXIMS. 457

our imperfection ; at least, this is enough to show, that the most
abstract and general ideas are not those that the mind is first and
most easily acquainted with, nor such as its earliest knowledge is
conversant about.

§ 10. Because on them the other parts of our knowledge do not
depend. — Secondly, From what has been said, it plainly follows,
that these magnified maxims are not the principles and foundations
of all our other knowledge. For if there be a great many other
truths, which have as much self-evidence as they, and a great many
that we know before them, it is impossible they should be the prin-
ciples from which we deduce all other truths. It is impossible to
know that " one and two are equal to three,'"* but by virtue of this,
or some such axiom, viz. " the whole is equal to all its parts taken
together."" Many a one knows that " one and two are equal to
three,"" without having heard, or thought on that or any other
axiom, by which it might be proved ; and knows it as certainly as
any other man knows that " the whole is equal to all its parts," or
any other maxim, and all from the same reason of self-evidence;
the equality of those ideas being as visible and certain to him
without that or any other axiom, as with it, in needing no proof to
make it perceived. Nor after the knowledge, " that the whole is
equal to all its parts,"" does he know that " one and two are equal
to three,"" better, or more certainly, than he did before. For if
there be any odds in those ideas, the whole and parts are more
obscure, or at least more difficult to be settled in the mind, than
those of " one, two, and three." And, indeed, I think I may ask
these men, who will needs have all knowledge, besides those general
principles themselves, to depend on general, innate, and self-evident
principles. What principle is requisite to prove, that " one and
one are two," that " two and two are four," that " three times two
are six .^" Which being known without any proof, do evince, that
either all knowledge does not depend on certain prcBcognita, or
general maxims, called principles, or else that these are principles ;
and if these are to be counted principles, a great part of numeration
will be so. To which, if we add all the self-evident propositions
which may be made about all our distinct ideas, principles will be
almost infinite, at least innumerable, which men arrive to the know-
ledge of at different ages ; and a great many of these innate prin-
ciples, they never come to know all their lives. But whether they
come in view of the mind earlier or later, this is true of them, that
they are all known by their native evidence, are wholly independent,
receive no light, nor are capable of any proof one from another ;
much less the more particular from the more general, or the more
simple from the more compounded : the more simple, and less
abstract, being the most familiar, and the easier and earlier appre-
hended. But whichever be the clearest ideas, the evidence and
certainty of all such propositions is in this, that a man sees the
same idea to be the same idea, and infallibly perceives two different
ideas to be different ideas. For when a man has in his under-

458 MAXIMS. book 4.

standing 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 itself, 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 hesitation or need of proof, or regarding those made
in more general terms, and called maxims.

§ 11. What use these general maxims have. — What shall we
then say .? Are these general maxims of no use .? By no means ;
though perhaps their use is not that which it is commonly taken to
be. But since doubting in the least of what hath been by some
men ascribed to these maxims, may be apt to be cried out against,
as overturning the foundations of all the sciences, it may be worth
while to consider them, witli respect to other parts of our knowledge,
and examine more particularly to what purposes they serve, and to
what not.

1. It is evident, from what has been already said, that they are of
no use to prove or confirm less general self-evident propositions.

2. It is as plain that they are not, nor have been, the foundations
whereon any science hath been built. There is, I know, a great
deal of talk, propagated from scholastic men, of sciences, and the
maxims on which they are built ; but it has been my ill luck, never
to meet with any such sciences, much less any one built upon these
two maxims, " what is, is;"" and " it is impossible for the same
thing to be, and not to be." And I would be glad to be shown
where any such science, erected upon these, or any other, general
axioms, is to be found ; and should be obliged to any one who
would lay before me the frame and system of any science so built
on these, or any such like, maxims, that could not be shown to
stand as firm without any consideration of them. I ask, whether
these general maxims have not the same use in the study of divinity,
and in theological questions, that they have in other sciences .^ They
serve here, too, to silence wranglers, and put an end to dispute.
But I think that nobody will therefore say, that the Christian reli-
gion is built upon these maxims, or that the knowledge we have of
It, is derived from these principles. It is from revelation we have
received it, and without revelation, these maxims had never been
able to help us to it. When we find out an idea, by whose inter-
vention we discover the connexion of two others, this is a revelation
from God to us, by the voice of reason. For we then come to
know a truth that we did not know before. When God declares
any truth to us, this is a revelation to us by the voice of his spirit,
and we are advanced in our knowledge. But in neither of these

CH. 7. MAXIMS. 459

do we receive our light or knowledge from maxims. But in the
one, the things themselves afford it, and we see the truth in them
by perceiving their agreement or disagreement. In the other, God
himself affords it immediately to us, and we see the truth of what
he says in his unerring veracity.

3. They are not of use to help men forward in the advancement
of sciences, or new discoveries of yet unknown truths. Mr. Newton,
in his never enough to be admired book, has demonstrated several
propositions, which are so many new truths, before unknown to the
world, and are farther advances in mathematical knowledge ; but
for the discovery of these, it was not the general maxims, " what
is, is ;" or " the whole is bigger than a part," or the like, that helped
him. These were not the clues that led him into the discovery of
the truth and certainty of those propositions. Nor was it by them
that he got th^ knowledge of those demonstrations ; but by finding
out intermediate ideas, that showed the agreement or disagreement
of the ideas, as expressed in the propositions he demonstrated.
This is the greatest exercise and improvement of human under-
standing in the enlarging of knowledge, and advancing the sciences ;
wherein they are far enough from receiving any help from the con-
templation of these, or the like, magnified maxims. Would those
who have this traditional admiration of these propositions, that they
think no step can be made in knowledge without the support of an
axiom, no stone laid in the building of the sciences without a

feneral maxim, but distinguish between the method of acquiring
nowledge, and of communicating ; between the method of raising
any science, and that of teaching it to others as far as it is advanced ;
they would see that those general maxims were not the foundations
on which the first discoverers raised their admirable structures, nor
the keys that unlocked and opened those secrets of knowledge.
Though afterwards, when schools were erected, and sciences had
their professors to teach what others had found out, they often made
j use of maxims, i. e. laid down certain propositions which were self-
I evident, or to be received for true ; which being settled in the minds
of their scholars, as unquestionable verities, they on occasion made
use of, to convince them of truths in particular instances, that were
not so familiar to their minds as those general axioms which had
before been inculcated to them, and carefully settled in their minds.
i| Though these particular instances, when well reflected on, are no
less self-evident to the understanding, than the general maxims
brought to confirm them ; and it was in those particular instances
that the first discoverer found the truth, without the help of the
general maxims : and so may any one else do, who with attention
considers them.

To come therefore to the use that is made of maxims.

1. They are of use, as has been observed, in the ordinary methods
of teaching sciences as far as they are advanced : but of little or none
in advancing them farther.

2. They are of use in disputes, for the silencing of obstinate

4G0 MAXIMS. BOOK 4.

wranglers, and bringing those contests to some conclusion. Whether
a need of them to that end, came not in, in the manner following,
I crave leave to inquire. The schools having made disputation the
touchstone of men's abilities, and the criterion of knowledge, ad-
judged victory to him that kept the field ; and he that had the last
word,-was concluded to have the better of the argument, if not of the
cause. But because by this means there was like to be no decision
between skilful combatants, whilst one never failed of a medius ter-
minus to prove any proposition ; and the other could as constantly,
without, or with a distinction, deny the major or minor: to prevent,
as much as could be, running out of disputes into an endless train
of syllogisms, certain general propositions, most of them indeed self-
evident, were introduced into the schools; which being such as all
men allowed and agreed in, were looked on as general measures of
truth, and served instead of principles (where the disputants had
not laid down any other between them), beyond which there was
no going, and which must not be receded from by either side. And
thus these maxims getting the name of principles, beyond which men
in dispute could not retreat, were by mistake taken to be originals
and sources, from whence all knowledge began, and the foundations
whereon the sciences were built : because when in their disputes
they came to any of these, they stopped there, and went no farther,
the matter was determined. But how much this is a mistake, hath
been already shown.

This method of the schools, which have been thought the foun-
tains of knowledge, introduced, as I suppose, the like use of these
maxims, into a great part of conversation out of the schools, to stop
the mouths of cavillers ; whom any one is excused from arguing any
longer with, when they deny these general self-evident principles re-
ceived by all reasonable men, who have once thought of them ; but
yet their use herein is but to put an end to wrangling. They in
truth, when urged in such cases, teach nothing : that is already Jone
by the intermediate ideas made use of in the debate,* whose connexion
may be seen without the help of those maxims, and so the truth i
known before the maxim is produced, and the argument brought!
to a first principle. Men would give off a wrong argument before
it came to that, if in their disputes they proposed to themselves the i
finding and embracing of truth, and not a contest for victory. Andl
thus maxims have their use to put a stop to their perverseness,
whose ingenuity should have yielded sooner. But the method of'
these schools having allowed and encouraged men to oppose andl
resist evident truth, till they are baffled, i. e, till they are reduced tOt
contradict themselves, or some established principle ; it is no wonder
that they should not, in civil conversation, be ashamed of that which
in the schools is counted a virtue and a glory ; obstinately to maintain!
that side of the question they have chosen, whether true or false, to*
the last extremity, even after conviction ; a strange way to attaini
truth and knowledge ; and that which I think the rational part oil
mankind, not corrupted by education, could scarce believe should!

en. 7. MAXIMS. 461

ever be admitted amongst the lovers of truth, and students of reli-
gion or nature, or introduced into the seminaries of those who are to
propagate the truths of religion or philosophy amongst the ignorant
and unconvinced. How much such a way of learning is likely to
turn young men's minds from the sincere search and love of truth ;
nay, and to make them doubt whether there is any such thing, or at
least worth the adhering to ; I shall not now inquire. This I think,
that bating those places which brought the peripatetic philosophy
into their schools, where it continued many ages, without teaching
the world any thing but the art of wrangling ; these maxims were
nowhere thought the foundations on which the sciences were built,
nor the great helps to the advancement of knowledge.

As to these general maxims, therefore, they are, as I have said, of
great use in disputes, to stop the mouths of wranglers ; but not of
much use to the discovery of unknown truths, or to help the mind
in its search after knowledge ; for whoever began to build his know-
ledge on this general proposition, " What is, is ;" or, " It is impos-
sible 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 show whither
they lead. But yet, however fit to lay open the absurdity or mis-
take of a man''s reasoning or opinion, they are of very little use for
enlightening 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. It is true, as I have said, they
sometimes serve in argumentation to stop a wrangler's mouth, by
showing the absurdity of what he saith, and by exposing him to the
shame of contradicting what all the world knows, and he himself
cannot but own to be true. But it is one thing to show 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 two 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
itself, if attended to, as either of these general ones ; only these
general ones, as serving in all cases, are therefore more inculcated
and insisted on. 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 itself 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 pro-

MAXIMS. BOOK 4.

position, " A hill is higher than a valley," and several the like, may
also pass for maxims. But yet masters of mathematics, when they
would, as teachers of what they know, initiate others in that science,
do not, without reason, place this, and some other such maxims, at
the entrance of their systems ; that their scholars, having in the be-
ginning perfectly acquainted their thoughts with these propositions,
made in such general terms, may be used to make such reflections,
and have these more general propositions, as formed rules and say-
ings, 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 satisfy the under-
standing. But this, I say, is more from our custom of using them,
and the establishment they have got in our minds, by our often think-
ing of them, than from the different evidence of the things. But
before custom has settled methods of thinking and reasoning in our
minds, I am apt to imagine it is quite otherwise ; and that the child,
when part of his apple is taken away, knows it better in that parti-
cular instance, than by this general proposition, " The whole is
equal to all its parts ;"" and that if one of these have need to be con-
firmed 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 itself by de-
grees, to generals ; though afterwards the mind takes the quite con-
trary course, and having drawn its knowledge into as general pro-
positions as it can, makes those familiar to its thoughts, and accus-
toms itself to have recourse to them, as to the standards of truth and
falsehood. 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 con-
formity to these more general ones, which, in discourse and argu^
mentation, are so frequently urged, and constantly admitted. Am
this I think to be the reason why among so many self-evident pre
positions, the most general only have had the title of maxims.

§ 12. Ma vims, if care he not taken in the use of words, may provi
contradictioiis, — One thing farther, I think, it may not be amiss t<
observe concerning these general maxims, that they are so far froi
improving or estabhshing our minds in true knowledge, that if oui
notions be wrong, loose, or unsteady, and we resign up our thoughts,
to the sound of words, rather than fix them on settled determined
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 com-
mon, will serve lo prove contradictions: v. g. he that with Des
Cartes shall frame in his mind an idea of what he calls body, to be
nothing })ut extension, may easily demonstrate, that there is no
vaci.um, 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 exten-
sion, his knowledge that space cannot be without body, is certain :
for he knows his own idea of extension clearly and distincdy, and

CH. 7. MAXIMS. 463

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 itself:
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 signi-
fication, that space is body, as this predication is true and identical,
that body is body, both in signification and sound.

8 13. Instance in vacuum. — But if another should come, and
make to himself another idea, different from Des Cartes's, of the
thing, which yet, with Des Cartes, he calls by the same name body ;
and make his idea, which he expresses by the word body, to be of a
thing that hath both extension and solidity together ; he will as easily
demonstrate, that there may be a vacuum, or space, without a body,
as Des Cartes demonstrated the contrary. Because the idea to
which he gives the name space, being barely the simple one of ex-
tension ; and the idea to which he gives the name body, being the
complex idea of extension and resistibility or solidity together in the
same subject, 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 bar-
barous 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 ; viz. this proposition, " Extension or space is
not body,"" is as true and evidently certain, as this maxim, " It is
impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be,"' can make any
proposition.

§ 14. Thei/ pi'ove 7iot the existence of things xvithout us. — But
yet, though both these propositions (as you see) may be equally de-
monstrated, viz. that there may be a vacuum, and that there cannot
be a A^acuum, by these two certain principles, viz. " What is, is,"
and " The same thing cannot be, and be;"" yet neither of these
principles will serve to prove to us, that any, or what, bodies do
exist : for that we are left 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 know-
ledge we have of each idea by itself, and of its distinction from
others ; about which we cannot be mistaken whilst they are in our
minds, though we may be, 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 force of
these axioms, reaching only to the sound, and not the significa-
tion, of the words, serves only to lead us into confusion, mistake,
and error. It is to show men, that these maxims, however cried
up for the great guards of truth, will not secure them from error in
a careless loose use of their words, that I have made this remark.
In all that is here suggested concerning their little use for the im-

464 MAXIMS. book 4.

provement of knowledge, or dangerous use in undetermined ideas, I
nave been far enough from saying or intending they should be laid
aside, as some have been too forward to charge me. I affirm them
to be truths, self-evident truths ; and so cannot be laid aside. As
far as their influence will reach, it is in vain to endeavour, nor will
I attempt, to abridge it. But yet, without any injury to truth or
knowleage, I may have reason to think their use is not answerable
to the great stress which seems to be laid on them ; and I may warn
men not to make an ill use of them, for the confirming themselves
in errors.

§ 15. Their application dangerous about complex ideas. — 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 sub-
stances, as they are found and exist without us, any farther than
grounded on experience. A^id though the consequence of these two
propositions, called principles, be very clear, and their use not
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 them-
selves without them, viz. where our ideas are determined, 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, where-
in are words standing for complex ideas, v. g. man, horse, gold,
virtue ; there they are of infinite danger, and most commonly make
men receive and retain falsehood for manifest truth, and uncertainty
for demonstration : upon which follow error, obstinacy, and all the
mischiefs that can happen from wrong reasoning. The reason
whereof is not, that these principles are less true, or of less force in
proving propositions made of terms standing for complex ideas, than
where the propositions are about simple ideas. But because men
mistake generally , thinking that where the same terms are preserved,
the propositions are about the same things, though the ideas they
stand for, are in truth different. Therefore these maxims are made
use of to support those, which in sound and appearance are contra-
dictory propositions ; as is clear in the demonstrations above-men-
tioned about a vacuum. So that whilst men take words for things,
as usually they do, these maxims may and do commonly serve to.
prove contradictory propositions: as shall yet be farther made
manifest.

§ 16. Instance In man. — For instance : let man be that concern-
ing 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. Firsts 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 complication of ideas together in hi»
understanding, makes up the simple complex idea wnich he calli
man, wliereof white or flesh-colour in England, being one, the child

CH. 7. MAXIMS. 465

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 mis-
take 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 up 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 joined, that
was a man : because having a clear knowledge of such a cpmplex
idea, it is certain that " what is, is.""

§ 19. Little use of these maxims in proofs where we have clear

and distinct ideas. — So that, if rightly considered, I think we may

say, that where our ideas are determined in our minds, and have

annexed to them by us known and steady names under those settled

determinations, 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 falsehood 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 the truth

of others, without proof, which are as self-evident as these. Upon

this ground it is, that intuitive knowledge neither requires nor ad-

; mits any proof, one part of it more than another. He that will sup-

; pose it does, takes away the foundation of all knowledge and cer-

i tainty : and he that needs any proof to make him certain, and give

! his assent to this proposition, " that two are equal to two,**' will also

have need of a proof to make him admit, that " what is, is." He

that needs a probation to convince him, that two are not three, that

white is not black, .that a triangle is not a circle, &c., or any other

two determined distinct ideas, are not one and the same, will need

H H

466 TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. book 4.

also a demonstration to convince him, " that it is impossible for the
same thing to be, and not to be.""

§ 20. Their use dangerous where our ideas are confused. — And
as these maxims are of little use where we have determined ideas, so
they are, as I have shown, of dangerous use where our ideas are not ■
determined ; and where we use words that are not annexed to de- f
termined ideas, but such as are of a loose and wandering signification,
sometimes standing for one, and sometimes for another, idea : from
which follows mistake and error, which these maxims (brought as
proofs to establish propositions, wherein the terms stand for unde-
termined ideas) do by their authority confirm and rivet.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS.

§1 I. Some propositiofis bring no increase to our knozc/edge.-
Whether the maxims treated of in the foregoing chapter be of thai
use to real knowledge as is generally supposed, I leave to be con-
sidered. This, I think, may confidently be affirmed, that there ai
universal propositions, which, though they be certainly true, yet
they add no light to our understandings, bring no increase to ouf
knowledge. Such are,

^ 2. As first, identical propositions. — Firsts All purely identical*
propositions. These obviously, and at first blush, appear to con-
tain no instruction in them : for when we affirm the said term of it-
self, whether it be barely verbal, or whether it contains any clear and
real idea, it shows us nothing but what we must certainly know be-
fore, whether such a proposition be either made by, or proposed to,
us. Indeed, that most general one, " what is, is," may serve some-
times to show a man the absurdity he is guilty of, when by circum-
locution or ecjuivocal terms, he would, in particular instances, deny
the same thing of itself ; because nobody will so openly bid defiance
to common sense, as to affirm visible and direct contradictions in
plain words : or if he does, a man is excused if he breaks off any
farther discourse with him. But yet, I think, I may say, that neither
that received maxim, nor any otlicr identical proposition, teaches us
any thing : and though in such kind of piopositions, this great and
magnified maxim, boasted to be the foundation of demonstration,
may be, and often is, made use of to confirm them ; yet all it proves,
amounts to no more than this, that the same word may with great
certainty be affirmed of itself, without any doubt of the truth of any
such proposition; and let me add also, without any real knowk^dge.

§ 3. For at this rate, any very ignorant person, who can but
make a proposition, and knows what he means when he says. Ay,
or No, may make a million of propositions, of whose truth he may
be infallibly certain, and yet not know one thing. in the world there-
by ; v.g. what is a soul is a soul ; or a soul is a soul ; a spirit is a

:.J

CH. 8. TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. 467

spirit; a fetiche is a fetiche, &c. These all being equivalent to this
proposition, viz. " what is, is ;"' i. e. what hath existence, hath ex-
istence ; or who hath a soul, hath a soul. What is this more than
trifling with words ? It is but like a monkey shifting his oyster from
one hand to the other ; and had he had but words, might, no doubt,
have said, " Oyster in right hand is subject, and oyster in left hand
is predicate C and so might have made a self-evident proposition of
oysters, i. e, 03/ster is oyster ; and yet with all this, have not been
one whit the wiser, or more knowing : and that way of handling the
matter, would much at once have satisfied the monkey's hunger, or
a man's understanding ; and they would have improved in know-
ledge and bulk together.

I know there are some, who, because identical propositions are
self-evident, show a great concern for them, and think they do great
service to philosophy by crying them up, as if in them was contained
all knowledge, and the understanding were led into all truth by them
only. I grant, as forwardly as any one, that they are all true and
self-evident. I grant farther, that the foundation of all our knowledge
lies in the faculty we have of perceiving the same idea to be the same,
and of discerning it from those that are different, as I have shown in
the foregoing chapter. But how that vindicates the making use of
identical propositions, for the improvement of know ledge, from the
imputation of trifling, I do not see. Let any one repeat, as often as
he pleases, that the will is the will, or lay what stress on it he thinks
fit ; of what use is this, and an infinite the like propositions, for the
enlarging our knowledge ? Let a man abound as much as the plenty
of words which he has will permit, in such propositions as these ;
a " law is a law,""* and " obligation is obligation \' " right is right,""
and " wrong is wrong ;"" will these and the like, ever help him to an
acquaintance with ethics ? Or instruct him or others in the know-
ledge of morality ? Those who know not, nor perhaps ever will know,
what is right, and what is wrong, nor the measures of them, can with
as much assurance make, and infallibly know the truth of, these, and
all such propositions, as he that is best instructed in morality can do.
But what advance do such propositions give in the knowledge of any
thing necessary or useful for their conduct ?

He would be thought to do little less than trifle, who, for the en-
lightening the understanding in any part of knowledge, should be
busy with identical propositions, and insist on such maxims as these ;
substance is substance, and body is body ; a vacuum is a vacuum,
and a vortex is a vortex ; a centaur is a centaur, and a chimera is a
chimera, &c. For these, and all such, are equally true, equally
certain, and equally self-evident. But yet they cannot but be counted
trifling, when made use of as principles of instruction, and stress lai
on them, as helps to knowledge ; since they teach nothing but what
every one, who is capable of discourse, knows without being told,
viz. that the same term is the same term, and the savne idea the same
idea. And upon J;his account it was that I formerly did, and do
still, think, the offering and inculcating such propositions, in order

H H 2

468 TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. book 4.

to give the understanding any new light or inlet into the knowledge
of things, no better than trifling.

Instruction lies in souiething very different ; and he tliat would
enlarge his own or another's mind to truths he does not yet know,
must find out intermediate ideas, and then lay them in such order one
by another, that the understanding may see the agreement or disagree-
ment of those in question. Propositions tliat do this, are instructive :
but they are far from such as affirm the same term of itself; which is
no way to advance one's self or others in any sort of knowledge. It
no more helps to that, than it would help any one in his learning to
read, to have such propositions as these inculcated to him : an A is
an A, and a B is a B ; which a man may know as well as any school-
master, and yet never be able to read a word as long as he lives. Nor
do these, or any such, identical propositions, help him one jot for-
wards in the skill of reading, let him make what use of them he can.

If those who blame my caUing them trifling propositions, had but
read, and been at the pains to understand, what I have above writ
in very plain English, they could not but have seen that by identical
propositions, I mean only such wherein the same term importing
the same idea, is affirmed of itself; which I take to be the proper
signification of identical propositions ; and concerning all such, I
think I may continue safely to say, that to propose them as instruc-
tive, is no better than trifling. For no one who has the use of rea-
son can miss them, where it is necessary they should be taken
notice of; nor doubt of their truth, when he does take notice of
them.

But if men will call propositions identical, wherein the same term
is not affirmed of itself, whether they speak more properly than I,
others must judge; this is certain, all that they say of propositions
that are not identical, in my sense, concerns not me, nor what I have
said ; all that I have said relating to those propositions wherein the
same term is affirmed of itself. And I would fain see an instance,
wherein any such can be made use of, to the advantage and improve-
ment of any one's knowledge. Instances of other kinds, whatever
use may be made of them, concern not me, as not being such as I
call identical.

§ 4. Secondly^ when a part of any complex idea is predicated of
the ivhole. — Secondly^ Another sort of trifling propositions is, when a
part of the complex idea is predicated of the name of the wliole ; a
part of the definition of the word defined. Such are all propositions
wherein the ^'enus is predicated of the species^ or more comprehensive
of less comprehensive terms; for what information, what know-
ledge, carries this proposition in it, viz. " lead is a metal,"" to a man
who knows the complex idea the name lead stands for.? All the
simple ideas that go to the com])lex one signified by the term metal,
being nothin^ij but what he before comprehended, and signified by
the name leacl. Indeed, to a man that knows the signification of tlie
word metal, and not of the word lead, it is a shorter way to explain
the signification of the word lead, by saying, it is a metal, which at

cii. 8. TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. 469

once expresses several of its simple ideas, than to enumerate them
one by one, telling him it is a body very heavy, fusible, and malle-
able.

§ 5. As part of the definition of the term defined. — A hke trifling
it is, to predicate any other part of the definition of the term defined,
or to affirm any one of the simple ideas of a complex one, of the
name of the whole complex idea ; as " All gold is fusible/'' For
fusibility being one of the simple ideas that goes to the making up
the complex one the sound gold stands for, what can it be but play-
ing with sounds, to affirm that of the name gold, which is compre-
hended in its received signification ? It would be thought little better
than ridiculous, to affirm gravely, as a truth of moment, that " gold
is yellow ;" and I see not how it is any jot more material to say, " It
is fusible,"" unless that quality be left out of the complex idea of
which the sound gold is the mark in ordinary speech. What in-
struction can it carry with it, to tell one that which he hath been
told already, or he is supposed to know before ? For I am supposed
to know the signification of the word another uses to me, or else he
is to tell me. And if I know that the name gold stands for this
complex idea of body, yellow, heavy, fusible, malleable, it will not
much instruct me to put it solemnly afterwards in a proposition, and
gravely say, " All gold is fusible."" Such propositions can only serve
to show the disingenuity of one, who will go from the definition of
his own terms, by reminding him sometimes of it ; but carry no
knowledge with them, but of the signification of words, however
certain they be.

§ 6. Instance, man and palfry. — Every man is an animal, or
living body, is as certain a proposition as can be ; but no more con-
ducing to the knowledge of things, than to say, " A palfry 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 ideas that I always comprehend and signify 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 a certain way of going, with a certain kind of voice, are some of
those ideas which I always comprehend and signify by the word
palfry ; and when they are not to be found together, the name palfry
belongs not to that thing. It 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 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 corporietas,
sensihitifa^, potentia se movendi, ratioiialitas, 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 legged, with

470 TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. book 4.

sense, motion, ambling, neighing, white, used to have a woman on
his back ; might witli 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
these were w^anting. 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 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. For this teaches but the signification of words. — 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 which he has learnt of others ;
but not as a rational creature, using them for signs of ideas which
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 unintelligible noise. And therefore he trifles witli words, who
makes such a proposition, whicli, 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. BtU no real Jcnozvled^e. — 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 it is
only a verbal certainty, but not instructive. And, Second ij/, we can
know the truth, and so may be certain in propositions, which affirm
something of another, which is a necessary consequence of its pn
cise complex idea, but not contained in it. As that the extern
angle of ail triangles, is bigger than either of the opposite interna
angles ; which relation of the outward angle, to either of the oppo
site internal angles, making no part of the complex idea sigmfie
by the name triangle ; this is a real truth, and conveys with it in
structive real knowledge.

^ 9. General propositions concerning substances, are often trifiin^^
— We having little or 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

CH. 8. ^TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. 471

no knowledge of their real truth, how much soever constant observa-
tion and analogy may assist our judgment in guessing. Hence it
comes to pass, that one may often meet with very clear and coherent
discourses that amount yet to nothing. For it is plain, that names
of substantial beings, as well as others, as far as they have relative
significations affixed to them, may, with great truth, be joined nega-
tively and affirmatively in propositions, as their relative definitions
make them fit to be so joined ; and propositions consisting of such
terms, 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 pro-
positions in words, and yet thereby advance not one jot in the know-
ledge of the truth of things ; v. g. he that having learned these
following words, with their ordinary mutual relative 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 metaphysics, 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. And why. — He that hath liberty to define, i. e. determine,
the signification of his names of substances (as certainly every one
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 fancies, and not from an examination or inquiry into the nature
of things themselves, may, with little trouble, demonstrate them one
of another, according to those several respects, and mutual relations,
he has given them one to another ; wherein, however things agree or
disagree in their own nature, he needs 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 sum, 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 contained in the other twenty times, and contains
the other twelve ; which a man may also do in the signification of
Words, by making them in respect of one another more or less, or
Equally comprehensive.

%\\. Thirdly^ using xvords variously is trijling with them. —
Though yet concerning most words used in discourses, especially
argumentative and controversial, there is this more to be complained
of, which is the worst sort of trifling, and which sets us yet farther
from the certainty of knowledge we hope to attain by them, or find
in them, viz. that most writers are so far from instructing us in the

47S TRIFLING PROPOSITIONS. book 4.

nature and knowledge of things, that they use their words loosely
and uncertainly, and do not, by using them constantly and steadily
in the same significations, make plain and clear deductions of words
one from another, and make their discourses coherent and clear (how
little soever they were instructive), which were not difficult to do, did
they not find it convenient to shelter their ignorance or obstinacy
unaer the obscurity and perplexedness of their terms : to which,
perhaps, inadvertency and ill custom do in many men much con-
tribute.

§ 12. Maries of verbal propositions. — To conclude : barely verbal
propositions may be known by these following marks :

First, predication in abstract. — First, All propositions, wherein
two abstract terms are affirmed one of another, are barely about the
signification of sounds. For since no abstract idea can be the same
with any other but itself, when its abstract name is affirmed of any
other term, it can signify no more but this, that it may, or ought to
be called by that name; or that these two names signify the same
idea. Thus should any one say, that parsimony is frugality ; that
gratitude is justice ; that this or that action is or is not temperate;
however specious these and the like propositions may at first sight
seem, yet when we come to press them, and examine nicely what
they contain, we shall find, that it all amounts to nothing but the
signification of those terms.

§ 13. Secondly, a part of the definition predicated of any term. —
Secondly, All propositions, wherein a part of the complex idea which
any term stands for, is predicated of that term, are only verbal, v. g.
to say that gold is a metal, or heavy. And thus all propositions,
wherein more comprehensive words, called genera, are affirmed of
subordinate, or less comprehensive, called species or individuals, are^
barely verbal.

When, by these two rules, we have examined the propositions that
make up the discourses we ordinarily meet with, both in and out oi
books, we shall perhaps find, that a greater part of them, than is
usually suspected, are purely about the signification of words, an('
contain nothing in them, but the use and application of thes
signs.

This, I think, I may lay down for an infallible rule, that where
ever the distinct idea any word stands for is not known and consi-
dered, and something not contained in the idea is not affirmed, oi
denied of it, there our thoughts stick wholly in sounds, and are able
to attain no real truth or falsehood. This perhaps, if well heeded,
might save us a great deal of useless amusement and dispute ; and
very much shorten our trouble and wandering in the search of real
ana true knowledge.

CH. 9. KNOWLEDGE OF EXISTENCE. 473

CHAPTER IX.

OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF EXISTENCE.

§ 1 . General certain propositions concern not existence. — Hitherto
we have only considered the essences of things, which being only ab-
stract ideas, and thereby removed in our thoughts from particular
existence (that being the proper operation of the mind, in ab-
straction, to consider an idea under no other existence but what
it has in the understanding), gives us no knowledge of real exist-
ence at all. Where, by the way, we may take notice that universal
propositions, of whose truth or falsehood we can have certain
knowledge, concern not existence; and farther, that all particular
affirmations or negations that would not be certain, if they were
made general, are only concerning existence; they declaring only
the accidental union or separation of ideas in things existing,
which, in their abstract natures, have no known necessary union or
repugnancy.

^2. A three-fold knowledge of existence. — But, leaving the nature
of propositions, and different ways of predication, to be considered
more at large in another place, let us proceed now to inquire con-
cerning our knowledge of the existence of things, and how we come
by it. I say then, that we have the knowledge of our own existence,
by intuition ; of the existence of God, by demonstration ; and of other
things, by sensation.

§ 3. Our knowledge of our own existence is intuitive. — As for
our own existence, we perceive it so plainly, and so certainly, that
it neither needs, nor is capable of, any proof. For nothing can
be more evident to us, than our own existence. I think, I reason,
I feel pleasure and pain ; can any of these be more evident to me,
than my own existence ? If I doubt of all other things, that
very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will not
suffer me to doubt of that. For if I know I feel pain, it is
evident I have as certain perception of my own existence, as of
the existence of the pain I feel : or if I know I doubt, I have as
certain perception of the existence of the thing doubting, as of that
thought which I call doubt. Experience then convinces us, that we
have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and an internal
infallible perception that we are. In every act of sensation, reason-
ing, or thinking, we are conscious to ourselves of our own being ;
and, in this matter, come not short of the highest degree of
certainty.

474 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

CHAPTER X.

OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD.

§ 1. We are capable qfknowing certainly that there is a God. —
Though God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he
has stamped no original characters in our minds, wherein we may
read his being ; yet having furnished us with those faculties our
minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness ;
since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a
clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about us. Nor
can we justly complain of our ignorance in this great point, since
lie has so plentifully provided us with the means to discover and
know him, so far as is necessary, to the end of our being, and the
great concernment of our happiness. But though this be the most
obvious truth that reason discovers, and though its evidence be (if I
mistake not) equal to mathematical certainty ; yet it requires thought
and attention, and the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction
of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be
as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are
in themselves capable of clear demonstration. To show, therefore,
that we are capable of knowing, i. e. being certain that there is a God,
and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no
farther than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of
our own existence.

§ 2. Man knows that he himself is. — I think it is beyond question,
that man has a clear idea of his own being ; he knows certainly that
he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt, whether
he be any thing or no, I speak not to ; no more than I would argue
with pure nothing, or endeavour to convince non-entity, that it were
something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical, as to deny his
own existence (for really to doubt of it, is manifestly impossible),
let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, unl
hunger, or some other pain convince him of the contrary. This thei
I think, I may take for a truth, which every one'*s certain knowledg
assures him of beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is som(
thing that actually exists.

§ S. He knows also, that nothing cannot produce a being, then
fore something eternal. — In the next place, man knows by an inj
tuitive certainty, that bare nothing can no more produce any real
bein^, than it can be equal to two right angles. If a man knows
not that non-entity, or the absence of all being, cannot be equal to
two right angles, it is impossible he should know any demonstration
in Euclid. If therefore we know there is some real being, and that
non-entity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstra-
tion, that from eternity there has been something; since what was
not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must
be produced by something else.

CH. 10. THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 475

§ 4. That eternal being must he most powerful. — Next it is evi-
dent, that what had its being and beginning from another, must also
have all that which is in, and belongs to its being from another too.
All the powers it has must be owing to, and receive from, the same
source. This eternal source, then, of all being, must also be the
source and original of all power ; and so this eternal being must be
also the most powerful.

§ 5. And most knowing. — Again, a man finds in himself per-
ception and knowledge. We have then got one step farther ; and
we are certain now, that tliere is not only some being, but some
knowing intelligent being, in the world.

There was a time then, when there was no knowing being, and
when knowledge began to be ; or else, there has been also a knowing
being from eternity. If it be said, there was a time when no being
had any knowledge, when that eternal being was void of all under-
standing ; I reply, that then it was impossible there should ever have
been any knowledge. It being as impossible that things wholly void
of knowledge, and operating blindly, and without any perception,
should produce a knowing being ; as it is impossible, that a triangle
should make itself three angles bigger than two right ones. For it
is as repugnant to the idea of senseless matter, that it should put into
itself sense, perception, and knowledge ; as it is repugnant to the idea
of a triangle, that it should put into itself greater angles than two
right ones.

§ 6. And therefore God. — Thus from the consideration of our-
selves, and what we infallibly find in our own constitutions, our
reason leads us to the knowledge of this certain and evident truth,
that there is an eternal, most powerful, and most knowing Being ;
which, whether any one will please to call God, it matters not. The
thing is evident ; and from this idea duly considered, will easily be
deduced all those other attributes which we ought to ascribe to this
eternal Being. If, nevertheless, any one should be found so sense-
lessly arrogant, as to suppose man alone, knowing and wise, but yet
the product of mere ignorance and chance ; and that all the rest of
the universe acted only by that blind hap-hazard ; I shall leave
with him that very rational and emphatical rebuke of Tully, 1. 2,
de Leg. to be considered at his leisure : " What can be more sillily
arrogant and misbecoming, than for a man to think that he has a
mind and understanding in him, but yet in all the universe beside,
there is no such thing ? Or that those things, which with the utmost
stretch of his reason, he can scarce comprehend, should be moved
and managed without any reason, at all ?" — " Quid est enim verius,
quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte arrogantem, ut in se men-
tem et rationem putet inesse, in coelo mundoque non putet ? Aut ea
qua2 vix summa ingenii ratione comprehendat, nulla ratione moveri

putet r

From what has been said, it is plain to me we have a more certain
knowledge of the existence of a God, than of any thing our senses
have not immediately discovered to us. Nay, I presume I may say,

«i

476 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

that we may more certainly know that there is a God, than that
there is any thing else without us. When I say we know, I mean
there is such a knowledge within our reach, which we cannot miss,
if we will but apply our minds to that, as we do to several other
inquiries.

§ 7. Our idea of a most perfect being, not the sole proof of a
God. — How far the idea of a r^ost perfect being, which a man may
frame in his mind, does or does not prove the existence of a God,
I will not here examine. For in the different make of men's tempers,
and application of their thoughts, some arguments prevail more on
one, and some on another, for the confirmation of the same truth.
But yet, I think, this I may say, that it is an ill way of esta-
bhshing this truth, and silencing Atheists, to lay the whole stress
of so important a point as this, upon that sole foundation : and
take some men's having that idea of God in their minds (for it
is evident, some men have none, and some worse than none, and
the most very different), for the only proof of a Deity ; and out
of an over fondness of that darling invention, cashier, or at least
endeavour to invalidate, all other arguments, and forbid us to
hearken to those proofs, as being weak or fallacious, which our own
existence, and the sensible parts of the universe, offer so clearly and
cogently to our thoughts, that I deem it impossible for a considering
man to withstand them : for I judge it as certain and clear a truth,
as can any where be delivered, that " the invisible things of God are
clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood by the
things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.''' Though
our own being furnishes us, as I have shown, with an evident and
incontestible proof of a Deity ; and I believe nobody can avoid the
cogency of it ; who will but as carefully attend to it, as to any other
demonstration of so many parts ; yet this being so fundamental a
truth, and of that consequence that all religion and genuine morality
depend thereon, 1 doubt not but I shall be forgiven by my reader,
if I go over some parts of this argument again, and enlarge a little
more upon them. j

§ 8. SometJiiiig from eternity. — There is no truth more evident^l
than that something must be from eternity. I never yet heard o"|
any one so unreasonable, or that could suppose so manifest a con-
tradiction, as a time wherein there was perfectly nothing. This
being of ail absurdities the greatest, to imagine that pure nothing,
the perfect negation and absence of all beings, should ever produce
any real existence.

It being then unavoidable for all rational creatures to conclude
that something has existed from eternity, let us next see what kind
of thing that must be.

§ 9 Two sorts of beings cogitative and incogitotive. — There
are but two sorts of beings in the world, that man knows or
conceives.

Fjr.sfy Such as are purely material, without sense, perception, or
tliought, as tlje clippings of our beards, and parings of our nails.

CH. 10. THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 477

Secondly^ Sensible, thinking, perceiving beings, such as we find
ourselves to be ; which, if you please, we will hereafter call cogi-
tative and incogitative beings; which to our present purpose, if
for nothing else, are perhaps better terms than material and im-
material.

§ 10. Incogitative being cannot produce a cogitative. — If then
there must be something eternal, let us see what sort of being it
must be. And so that, it is wery obvious to reason, that it must
necessarily be a cogitative being. For it is as impossible to conceive
that ever bare incogitative matter should produce a thinking intel-
ligent being, as that nothing should of itself produce matter. Let
us suppose any parcel of matter eternal, great or small, we shall
find it, in itself, able to produce nothing. For example, let us
suppose the matter of the next pebble we meet with, eternal, closely
united, and the parts firmly at rest together ; if there were no other
being in the world, must it not eternally remain so, a dead, inactive
lump ? Is it possible to conceive it can add motion to itself,
being purely matter, or produce any thing ? Matter then, by its
own strength, cannot produce in itself so much as motion : the
motion it has, must also be from eternity, or else be produced,
and added to matter by some other being more powerful than
matter : matter, as is evident, having not power to produce motion
m itself. But let us suppose motion eternal too ; yet matter, inco-
gitative matter and motion, whatever changes it might produce of
figure and bulk, could never produce thought. Knowledge will
stijl be as far beyond the power of motion and matter to produce,
as matter is beyond the power of nothing, or non-entity to produce.
And I appeal to every one's own thoughts, whether he cannot as
easily conceive matter produced by nothing, as thought to be pro-
duced by pure matter, when before there was no such thing as
thought, or an intelligent being existing ? Divide matter into as
minute parts as you will (which we are apt to imagine a sort of
spiritualizing, or making a thinking thing of it), vary the figure and
motion of it as much as you please ; a globe, cube, cone, prism,
cylinder, &c., whose diameters are but 1000000th part of a gry *,
will operate no otherwise upon other bodies of proportionable bulk,
than those of an inch or foot diameter ; and you may as rationally
expect to produce sense, thought, and knowledge, by putting to-
gether, in a certain figure and motion, gross particles of matter, as
by those that are the very minutest, that do any where exist. They
knock, impel, and resist one another, just as the greater do, and
that is all they can do. So that if we will suppose nothing first.

* A gry is one tenth of a line, a line one-tenth of an inch, an inch one-tenth of a philo-
sophical foot, a philosophical foot one-third of a pendulum, whose diadroms, in the latitude
of 45 degrees, are each equal to one second of time, or one-sixtieth of a niinute. I have
affectedly made use of this measure here, and the parts of it, under a decimal division, with
names to them ; because I think it would be of general convenience, that this should be the
common measure, in the commonwealth of letters.

478 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

or eternal, matter can never begin to be : if we suppose bare matter,
without motion, eternal motion can never begin to be : if we suppose
only matter and motion first, or eternal, thought can never begin to
be. For it is impossible to conceive that matter, either with or
without motion, could have originally in, and from, itself, sense,
perception, and knowledge, as is evident from hence, that then
sense, perception, and knowledge, must be a property eternally in-
separable from matter, and every particle of it. Not to add, that
though our general or specific conception of matter makes us speak
of it as one thing, yet really all matter is not one individual thing,
neither is there any such thmg existing as one material being, or one
single body, that we know or can conceive. And therefore if matter
were the eternal first cogitative Being, there would not be one
eternal infinite cogitative Being, but an infinite number of eternal
finite cogitative beings, independent one of another, of limited force,
and distinct thoughts, which could never produce that order, har-
mony, and beauty, which are to be found in nature. Since, there-
fore, whatsoever is the first eternal being, must necessarily be cogi-
tative ; and whatsoever is first of all things, must necessarily contain
in it, and actually have, at least, all the perfections that can ever
after exist : nor can it ever give to another any perfection that it
hath not, either actually in itself, or at least in a higher degree : it
necessarily follows, that the first eternal being cannot be matter.

§ 11. Therefore there has been an eternal wisdom. — If therefore
it be evident, that something necessarily must exist from eternity, it
is also as evident, that that something must necessarily be a cogita-
tive Being : for it is as impossible, that incogitative matter should
produce a cogitative Being, as that nothing, or the negation of all
being, should produce a positive being or matter.

§ 12. Though this discovery of the necessary existence of an
eternal mind, does sufficiently lead us into the knowledge of God,
since it will hence follow, that all other knowing beings that have a
beginning, must depend on him, and have no other ways of know
ledge, or extent of power, than what he gives them ; and therefor
if he made those, he made also the less excellent pieces of this un'
verse, all inanimate beings, whereby his omniscience, power, an
providence, will be established, and all his other attributes neces?
sarily follow : yet to clear up this a little farther, we will see what
doubts can be raised against it.

§ 13. Whether matci'ial or no. — First, Perhaps it will be said
that though it be as clear as demonstration can make it, that there
must be an eternal Being, and that Being must also be knowing ;
yet it does not follow, but that thinking Being may also be material.
Let it be so ; it equally still follows, that there is a God ; for if there
be an eternal, onmiscient, omnipotent Being, it is certain that there
is a God, whether you imagine that Being to be material or no.
But herein, 1 suppose, lies the danger and deceit of that supposi-
tion : there being no way to avoid the demonstration, that there is
an eternal knowing Being, men, devoted to matter, would willingly

1^- I

I

CH. 10. THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 479

have it granted, that this knowing Being is material ; and then let-
ting slide out of their minds, or the discourse, the demonstration
whereby an eternal knowing Being was proved necessarily to exist,
would argue all to be matter, and so deny a God, that is, an eternal
cogitative Being; whereby they are so far from establishing, that
they destroy, their own hypothesis. For if there can be, in their
opinion, eternal matter, without any eternal cogitative Being, they
manifestly separate matter and thinking, and suppose no necessary
connexion of the one with the other ; and so establish the necessity
of an eternal spirit, but not of matter, since it has been proved al-
ready, that an eternal cogitative being is unavoidably to be granted.
Now, if thinking and matter may be separated, the eternal existence
of matter will not follow from the eternal existence of a cogitative
Being, and they suppose it to no purpose.

§ 14. Not material, Jirst^ because every particle of matter is not
cogitative. — But now let us see how they can satisfy themselves or
others, that this eternal thinking Being is material.

First, I would ask them, whether they imagine that all matter,
every particle of matter, thinks ? This I suppose, they will scarce
say, since then there would be as many eternal thinking beings, as
there are particles of matter, and so an infinity of gods. And yet,
if they will not allow matter as matter, that is, every particle of
matter to be as well cogitative as extended, they will have as hard a
task to make out to their own reasons, a cogitative being out of in-
cogitative particles, as an extended being out of unextended parts,
if I may so speak.

§ 15. Secondhj, one 'particle alone of matter, cannol he cogitative.
— Secondly, If all matter does not think, I next ask, whether it be
only one atom that does so ? This has as many absurdities as the
other ; for then this atom of matter must be alone eternal or not.
If this alone be eternal, then this alone, by its powerful thought or
will, made all the rest of matter. And so we have the creation of
matter by a powerful thought, which is that the materialists stick at :
for if they suppose one single thinking atom to have produced all
the rest of matter, they cannot ascribe that pre-eminency to it upon
any other account, than that of its thinking ; the only supposed dif-
ference. But allow it to be by some other way, which is above our
conception, it must be still creation, and these men must give up
their great maxim. Ex nihilo nil fit. If it be said, that all the rest
of matter is equally eternal, as that thinking atom, it will be to say
any thing at pleasure, though ever so absurd : for to suppose all
matter eternal, and yet one small particle in knowledge and power
infinitely above all the rest, is without any the least appearance of
reason to frame any hypothesis. Every particle of matter, as matter,
is capable of all the same figures and motions of any other ; and I
challenge any one, in his thoughts, to add any thing else to one
above another.

§ 16. Thirdly, a system of incogitative matter, cannot be cogita-
tive.— Thirdly, If then neither one peculiar atom alone can be this

480 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

eternal thinking Being, nor all matter, as matter, i. e. every parti-
cle of matter can be it, it only remains, that it is some certain system
of matter duly put together, that is this thinking eternal Being.
This is that which, I imagine, is that notion which men are aptest
to have of God ; who would have him a material Being, as most
readily suggested to them, by the ordinary conceit they have of
themselves, and other men, which they take to be material thinking
beings. But this imagination, however more natural, is no less ab-
surd than the other : for to suppose the eternal thinking Being, to
be nothing else but a composition of particles of matter, each whereof
is cogitative, is to ascribe all the wisdom and knowledge of that
eternal Being only to the juxta-position of parts; than which, no-
thing can be more absurd. For unthinking particles of matter,
however put together, can have nothing thereby added to them, but
a new relation of position, which it is impossible should give thought
and knowledge to them.

§ 17. Whether in motion, or at rest. — But farther, this corporeal
system either has all its parts at rest, or it is a certain motion of
the parts wherein its thinking consists. If it be perfectly at rest, it
is but one lump, and so can have no privileges above one atom.

If it be the motion of its parts on which its thinking depends, all
the thoughts there must be unavoidably accidental and limited,
since all the particles that by motion cause thought, being each of
them in itself without any thought, cannot regulate its own motions,
much less be regulated by the thought of the whole, since that
thought is not the cause of motion (for then it must be antecedent
to it, and so without it), but the consequence of it, whereby freedom,
power, choice, and all rational and wise thinking or acting, will be
quite taken away : so that such a thinking being will be no better,
nor wiser, than pure blind matter, since to resolve all into the acci-
dental unguided motions of blind matter, or into thought depending
on unguided motions of blind matter, is the same thing ; not to
mention the narrowness of such thoughts and knowledge that must
depend on the motion of such parts. But there needs no enumera-
tion of any more absurdities and impossibilities in this hypothesis
(however full of them it be), than that before-mentioned ; since lei
this thinking system be all, or a part of, the matter of the universe^
it is impossible that any one particle should either know its own, oB
the motion of any other, particle, or the whole know the motion of^
every particle : and so regulate its own thoughts or motions, or in-
deed have any thought resulting from such motion.

§ 18. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal mind. — Others
would have matter to be eternal, notwithstanding that they allow an
eternal, cogitative, immaterial Being. This, though it take not
away the being of a God, yet since it denies one and the first great
piece of his workmanship, the creation, let us consider it a little.
Matter must be allowed eternal ; why ? because you cannot conceive
how it can be made out of nothing ; why do you not also think your-
self eternal ? You will answer, j)erhaps, because about twenty or

CH. 10. THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 481

forty years since, you began to be. But if I ask you what that you
is, which began then to be ? you can scarce tell me. The matter
whereof you are made, began not then to be ; for if it did, then it is
not eternal ; but it began to be put together in such a fashion and
frame as makes up your body ; but yet that frame of particles is not
you, it makes not that thinking thing you are (for I have now to do
with one, who allows an eternal, immaterial, thinking Being, but
would have unthinking matter eternal too) ; therefore when did that
thinking thing begin to be ? If it did never begin to be, then have
you always been a thinking thing from eternity; the absurdity
whereof I need not confute, till I meet with one who is so void of
understanding as to own it. If, therefore, you can allow a think-
ing thing to be made out of nothing (as all things that are not eter-
nal must be), why also can you not allow it possible for a material
Being to be made out of nothing, by an equal power, but that you
have the experience of the one in view, and not of the other ?
Though, when well considered, creation of a spirit will be found to
require no less power than the creation of matter. Nay, possibly,
if we would emancipate ourselves from vulgar notions, and raise our
thoughts as far as they would reach, to a closer contemplation of
things, we might be able to aim at some dim and seeming concep-
tion how matter might at first be made, and begin to exist, by tne
power of that eternal first Being ; but to give beginning and being
to a spirit, would be found a more inconceivable effect of omnipo-
tent power. But this being what would perhaps lead us too far
from the notions on which the philosophy now in the world is built,
it would not be pardonable to deviate so far from them, or to in-
quire so far as grammar itself would authorize, if the common settled
opinion opposes it ; especially in this place, where the received
doctrine serves well enough to our present purpose, and leaves this
past doubt, that the creation or beginning of any one substance out

I of nothing, being once admitted, the creation of all other, but the
Creator himself, may, with the same ease, be supposed.

§ 19. But you will say, is it not impossible to admit of the

I making any thing out of nothing, since we cannot possibly conceive
it? I answer. No; 1. Because it is not reasonable to deny the
power of an infinite Being, because we cannot comprehend its
operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, be-

{ cause we cannot possibly conceive the manner of their production.
We cannot conceive how any thing but impulse of body can move
body ; and yet that is not a reason sufficient to make us deny it

i possible, against the constant experience we have of it in ourselves,
in all our voluntary motions, which are produced in us only by the
free action or thought of our own minds ; and are not, nor can be,
the effects of the impulse or determination of the motion of blind

1 matter, in or upon our bodies; for then it could not be in our power
or choice to alter it. For example: my right hand writes whilst
my left hand is still; what causes rest in one, and motion in the
other ? Nothing but my will, a thought of my mind ; my thought

I I

KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

only changing, the right hand rests, and the left hand moves. This
is matter of fact, which cannot be denied : explain this, and make it
intelligible, and then the next step will be to understand creation :
for the giving a new determination to the motion of the animal
spirits (which some make use of to explain voluntary motion), clears
not the difficulty one jot : to alter the determination of motion, being
in this case no easier nor less than to give motion itself; since the
new determination given to the animal spirits, must be either im-
mediately by thought, or by some other body put in their way by
thought, which was not in their way before, and so must owe its
motion to thought ; either of which leaves voluntary motion as unin-
telligible as it was before. In the mean time, it is an over-valuing'
ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities ; an(
to conclude all things impossible to be done, whose manner of doin^
exceeds our comprehension. This is to make our comprehensior
infinite, or God finite, when what he can do, is limited to what w<
can conceive of it. If you do not understand the operations of youi
own finite mind, that thinking thing within you, do not deem V
strange that you cannot comprehend the operations of that etcrnf
infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and whom th<
heaven of heavens cannot contain.

CHAPTER XI.

OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS.

§ 1. It is to he had only by sensation, — The knowledge of our
own being, we have by intuition. The existence of a God, reason
clearly makes known to us, as has been shown.

The knowledge of the existence of any other thing, 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 itself perceived
by liim. 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.

§ 2. Instance, wJdteness of this jiape?'. — It is therefore the actual
receiving of ideas from without, that gives us notice of the existence
of other things, and makes us know, that something doth exist at
that time without us, which causes that idea in us, though j^erliaps
we neither know nor consider how it does it : for it takes not from
the certainty of our senses, and the ideas we receive by them, that
we know not the manner wherein they are produced ; v. g. whilst
I write tins, I have, by the paper affecting my eyes, that idea pro-

cH.ll. THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS. 483

duced in my mind, which, whatever object causes, I call white ; by
which I know that that quality or accident (i. e. whose appearance
before my eyes always causes that idea) doth really exist, and hath
a being without me. And of this the greatest assurance I can pos-
sibly have, and to which my faculties can attain, is the testimony of
my eyes, which are the proper and sole judges of this thing, whose
testimony I have reason to rely on, as so certain, that I can no more
doubt, whilst I write this, that I see white and black, and that some-
thing really exists that causes that sensation in me, than that I write
or move my hand ; which is a certainty as great as human nature is
capable of, concerning the existence of any thing, but a man's self
alone, and of God.

§ 3. This, though fiot so certain as demonstration, yet may he
called hnozvledge, and proves the existence of things without ns. —
The notice we have by our senses, of the existing of things without
us, though it be not altogether so certain as our intuitive knowledge,
or the deductions of our reason, employed about the clear abstract
ideas of our own minds ; yet it is an assurance that deserves the name
of knowledge. If we persuade ourselves, that our faculties act and
inform us right concerning the existence of those objects that affect
them, it cannot pass for an ill-grounded confidence: for I think no-
body can, in earnest, be so sceptical, as to be uncertain of the exist-
ence of those things which he sees and feels. At least, he that can
doubt so far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts), will
never have any controversy with me ; since he can never be sure I
say any thing contrary to his own opinion. As to myself, I think
God has given me assurance enough of the existence of things with-
out me ; since by their different application, I can produce in myself
both pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of my pre-
sent state. This is certain, the confidence that our faculties do not
herein deceive us, is the greatest assurance we are capable of, con-
cerning the existence of material beings. For we cannot act any
thing, but by our faculties : nor talk of knowledge itself, but by the
helps of those faculties which are fitted to apprehend even what
knowledge is. But besides the assurance we have from our senses
themselves, that they do not err in the information they give us of the
existence of things without us, when they are aifected by them, we
are farther confirmed in this assurance, by other concurrent reasons.
§ 4. First, because zve caniiot have them hut by the inlet of the
senses. — First, It is plain those perceptions are produced in us by
t i exterior causes affecting our senses ; because those that want the
organs of any sense, never can have the ideas belonging to that sense
produced in their minds. This is too evident to be doubted ; and
therefore we cannot but be assured, that they come in by the organs
I of that sense, and no other way. The organs themselves, it is plain,
' do not produce them ; for then the eyes of a man in the dark, would
produce colours, and his nose smell roses in the winter : but we see
nobody gets the relish of a pine-apple, till he goes to the Indies,
where it is, and tastes it.

I I ^

484 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

§ 5. Secondly, because an ideafroni actual sensation, and another
from memory, are very distinct perceptions, — Secondly, Because
sometimes I find, that I cannot avoid the having those ideas pro-
duced in my mind : for though when my eyes are shut, or windows
fast, I can at pleasure recal to my mind the ideas of light, or the
sun, which former sensations had lodged in my memory ; so I can
at pleasure lay by that idea, and take into my view that of the smell
of a rose, or taste of sugar. But if I turn my eyes at noon towards
the sun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light or the sun then
produces in me. So that there is a manifest difference between the
ideas laid up in my memory (over which, if they were there only,
I should have constantly the same power to dispose of them, and lay
them by at pleasure,) and those which force themselves upon me, and
I cannot avoid having. And therefore it must needs be some ex-
terior cause, and the brisk acting of some objects without me, whose
efficacy I cannot resist, that produces those ideas in my mind,
whether I will or no. Besides, there is nobody who doth not per-
ceive the difference in himself, between contemplating the sun, as he
hath the idea of it in his memory, and actually looking upon it : of
which two, his perception is so distinct, that few of his ideas are
more distinguishable one from another : and therefore he hath cer-
tain knowledge, that they are not both memory, or the actions of hi
mind, and fancies only within him ; but that actual seeing hath
cause without.

§ 6. Thirdly, pleasure or pain, which accompanies actual se
sation, accompanies not the returniiig of those ideas without the ex-
ternal objects, — Thirdly, Add to this, that many of those ideas are,
produced in us with pain, whicli afterwards we remember without
the least offence. Thus the pain of heat or cold, when the idea o"
it is revived in our minds, gives us no disturbance; which, whe
felt, was very troublesome, and is again, when actually repeated
which is occasioned by the disorder the external object causes i
our bodies, when applied to it. And we remember the pains o;
hunger, thirst, or the head-ach, without any pain at all ; whic'
would either never disturb us, or else constantly do it, as often
we thought of it, were there nothing more than ideas floating in ou
minds, and appearances entertaining our fancies, without the real
existence of things affecting us from abroad. The same may be
said of pleasure, accom}:>anying several actual sensations ; and though
mathematical demonstrations depend not upon sense, yet the examining
them by diagrams, gives great credit to the evidence of our sight,
and seems to give it a certainty approaching to that of demonstration
itself. For it would be very strange, that a man should allow it for
an undeniable truth, that two angles of a figure, which he measures
by lines and angles of a diagram, should be bigger one than the
other ; and yet doubt of the existence of those lines and angles, which
by lcK>king on, he makes use of to measure that by.

J 7. Fourthly, our senses assist one another\'i testimony of ^//^l
existence of outward things, — Fourthly, Our senses, in many cases.

CH.ll. THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS. 485

bear witness to the truth of each other's report, concerning the exist-
ence of sensible things without us. He that sees a fire, may, if he
doubt whether it be any thing more than a bare fancy, feel it too ;
and be convinced, by putting his hand in it. Which certainly could
never be put into such exquisite pain by a bare idea or phantom,
unless that the pain be a fancy too ; which yet he cannot, when the
burn is well, by raising the idea of it, bring upon himself again.

Thus I see whilst I write this, I can change the appearance of the
paper ; and by designing the letters, tell before-hand, what new idea
it shall exhibit the very next moment, by barely drawing my pen
over it ; which will neither appear (let me fancy as much as I will),
if my hand stand still ; or though I move my pen, if my eyes be shut ;
nor when those characters are once made on the paper, can I choose
afterwards but see them as they are ; that is, have the ideas of such
letters as I have made. Whence it is manifest, that they are not
barely the sport and play of my own imagination, when I find that
the characters that were made at the pleasure of my own thought, do
not obey them ; nor yet cease to be, whenever I shall fancy it, but
continue to affect the senses constantly and regularly, according to
the figures I made them. To which if we will add, that the sight of
those shall, from another man, draw such sounds as I before-hand
design they shall stand for, there will be little reason left to doubt
that those words I write do really exist without me, when they cause
a long series of regular sounds to affect my ears, which could not be
the effect of my imagination, nor could my memory retain them in
that order.

§ 8. This certainty is as great as our condition needs, — But yet,
if after all this, any one will be so sceptical as to distrust his sensed,
and to affirm, that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do,
during our whole being, is but the series and deluding appearances
of a long dream, whereof there is no reality, and therefore will
question the existence of all things, or our knowledge of any thing ;
1 must desire him to consider, that if all be a dream, that he doth
but dream that he makes the question ; and so it is not much matter
that a waking man should answer him. But yet, if he pleases, he
may dream that I make him this answer, That the certainty of things
existing in rerum natura, when we have the testimony of our senses
for it, is not only as great as our frame can attain to, but as our
condition needs. For our faculties being suited not to the full ex-
tent of being, nor to a perfect, clear, comprehensive knowledge of
things, free from all doubt and scruple, but to the preservation of us,
in whom they are, and accommodated to the use of life ; they serve
to our purpose well enough, if they Avill but give us certain notice of
those things which are convenient or inconvenient to us. For he
that sees a candle burning, and hath experimented the force of its
flame, by putting his finger in it, will little doubt that this is some-
thing existing without him, which does him harm, and puts him to
great pain ; which is assurance enough, when no man requires greater
certainty to govern his actions by, than what is as certain as his

486 KNOWLEDGE OF book 4.

actions themselves. And if our dreamer pleases to try whether the
glowmg heat of a glass funiace, be barely a wandering imagination
in a drowsy man'^s fancy, by putting his hand into it, he may, per-
haps, be wakened into a certainty greater than he could wish, that it
is something more than bare imagination. So that this evidence is
as great as we can desire, being as certain to us as our pleasure or
pain, i. e. happiness or misery : beyond which we have no concern-
ment, either of knowing or bemg. Such an assurance of the existence
of things without us, is sufficient to direct us in the attaining the good,
and avoiding the evil, which is caused by them ; which is tlie im-
portant concernment we have of being made acquainted with them.

§ 9. But reaches no farther than actual sensation. — In fine, then,
when our senses do actually convey into our understandings any idea,
we cannot but be satisfied that there doth something at that time
really exist without us, which doth affect our senses, and by them
give notice of itself to our apprehensive faculties, and actually pro-
duce that idea which we then perceive ; and we cannot so far dis-
trust their testimony, as to doubt that such collections of simple ideas,
as we have observed by our senses to be united together, do really
exist together. But this knowledge extends as far as the present
testimony of our senses, employed about particular objects, that do
then affect them, and no farther. For if I saw such a collection of
simple ideas, as is wont to be called man, existing together one
minute since, and am now alone, I cannot be certain that the same
man exists now, since there is no necessary connexion of his existence
a minute since, with his existence now. By a thousand ways he may
cease to be, since I had the testimony of my senses for his existence.
And if I cannot be certain that the man I saw last to-day, is now in
being, I can less be certain that he is so, who hath been longer
removed from my senses, and I have not seen since yesterday, or since
the last year ; and much less can I be certain of the existence of men
that I never saw. And, therefore, though it be highly probable that
millions of men do now exist, yet whilst I am alone writing this, I
have not that certainty of it, which we strictly call knowledge ; though
the great likelihood of it puts me past doubt, and it be reasonable
for me to do several things upon the confidence that there are men
(and men also of my acquaintance, with whom I have to do) now in
the world : but this is but probability, not knowledge.

J 10. Folly to expect demo7istration in every thing. — Whereby
yet we may observe how foolish and vain a thing it is for a man of a
narrow knowledge, who having reason given him to judge of the
different evidence and probability of things, and to be swayed ac-
cordingly; how vain, I say, it is to expect demonstration and cer-
tainty in things not capable of it, and refuse assent to very rational
propositions, and act contrary to very plain and clear truths, because
they cannot be made out so evident, as to surmount every the least
(I will not say reason, but) pretence of doubting. He that in the ordi-
nary affairs of life would admit of nothing but direct plain demon-
stration, would be sure of nothing in this world, but of perishing

cH. 11. THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS. 487

(luickly. The wholesomeness of his meat or drink would not give
him reason to venture on it ; and I would fain know what it is he
could do upon such grounds as were capable of no doubt, no objection.

§11. Past existence is known by memory. — As when our senses
^re actually employed about any object, we do know that it does
exist ; so by our memory, we may be assured, that heretofore things
that affected our senses have existed. And thus we have knowledge
of the past existence of several things, whereof our senses having in-
formed us, our memories still retain the ideas : and of this we are
past all doubt, so long as we remember well. But this knowledo-e
also reaches no farther than our senses have formerly assured us.
Thus seeing water at this instant, it is an unquestionable truth to me,
that water doth exist : and remembering that I saw it yesterday,
it will also be always true ; and as long as my memory retains it,
always an undoubted proposition to me, that water did exist on the
10th of July, 1688 ; as it will also be equally true, that a number
of very fine colours did exist, which at the same time I saw upon a
bubble of that water : but being now quite out of the sight both of the
water and bubbles too, it is no more certainly known to me, that the
water doth now exist, than that the bubbles or colours therein do so ;
it being no more necessary that water should exist to-day, because
it existed yesterday, than that the colours or bubbles exist to-day,
because they existed yesterday; though it be exceedingly much more
probable, because water hath been observed to continue long in
existence, but bubbles, and the colours on them, quickly cease to be.

§ 12. The existence of spirits not hnowable, — What ideas we have
of spirits, and how we come by them, I have already shown. But
though we have those ideas in our minds, and know we have them
there, the having the ideas of spirits does not make us know that -any
such things do exist without us, or that there are any finite spirits, or
any other spiritual beings, but the eternal God. We have ground
from revelation, and several other reasons, to believe with assurance,
that there are such creatures ; but our senses not being able to dis-
cover them, we want the means of knowing their particular existences.
For we can no more know that there are finite spirits really existing,
by the idea we have of such beings in our minds, than by the ideas
any one has of fairies, or centaurs, he can come to know that things
answering those ideas do really exist.

And therefore concerning the existence of finite spirits, as well as
several other things, we must content ourselves with the evidence of
faith ; but universal certain propositions concerning this matter, are
beyond our reach. For however true it may be, v. g. that all the in-
telligent spirits that God ever created, do still exist ; yet it can never
make a part of our certain knowledge. These, and the like propo-
sitions, we may assent to, as highly probable ; but are not, I fear, in
this state, capable of knowing. We are not then to put others upon
demonstrating, nor ourselves upon search of universal certainty in all
those matters wherein we are not capable of any other knowledge, but
what our senses give us in this or that particular.

488 KNOWLEDGE OF, &c. book 4.

§ 13. Particular propositions concerning existence^ are knawahle,
— By which it appears, that there are two sorts of propositions. 1.
There is one sort of propositions concerning the existence of any
thing answerable to such an idea ; as having the idea of an elephant,
phcenix, motion, or an angel, in my mind, the first and natural in-
quiry is, whether such a thing does any where exist ? And this know-
ledge is only of particulars. No existence of any thing without us,
but only of God, can certainly be known farther than our senses in- i
form us. 2. There is another sort of propositions, wherein is ex-
pressed the agreement or disagreement of our abstract ideas, and
their dependence on one another. Such propositions may be universal
or certam. So having the idea of God and myself, of fear and obe-
dience, T cannot but be sure that God is to be feared and obeyed by
me : and this proposition will be certain concerning man in general,
if I have made an abstract idea of such a species, whereof I am one
particular. But yet this proposition, how certain soever, that men
ought to fear and obey God, proves not to me the existence of men
in the world, but will be true of all such creatures, whenever they do
exist : which certainty of such general propositions, depends on the
agreement or disagreement to be discovered in those abstract ideas.

§ 14. And general propositions concerning abstract ideas. — In the
former case, our knowledge is the consequence of the existence of
things producing ideas in our minds by our senses : in the latter,
knowleage is the consequence of the ideas (be they what they will)
that are in our minds producing their general certain propositions.
Many of these are called cBternce veritates, and all of them indeed are
so ; not from being written all or any of them in the minds of all
men, or that they were any of them propositions in one"*s mind, till
he, having got the abstract ideas, joined or separated them by
affirmation or negation. But wheresoever we can suppose such a crea-
ture as man is, endowed with such faculties, and thereby furnished
with such ideas, as we have, we must conclude, he must needs,
when he applies his thoughts to the consideration of his ideas, know
the truth of certain propositions, that will arise from the agreement
or disagreement which he will perceive in his own ideas. Such pro-
positions are therefore called eternal truths, not because they are
eternal propositions actually formed, and antecedent to the under-
standing that at any time makes them : nor because they are im-
printed on the mind from any patterns that are any where out of the
mind, and existed before : but because being once made about
abstract ideas, so as to be true, they will, whenever they can be sup-
posed to be made again at any time past or to come, by a mind
naving those ideas, always actually be true. For names being sup-
posed to stand perpetually for the same ideas ; and the same ideas
naving immutaoly the same habitudes one to another; propositions
concerning any abstract ideas, that are once true, must needs
be eternal verities.

cH. 12. IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 489
CHAPTER Xir.

OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Knowledge is not from maxims. — It having been the com-
mon received opinion among men of letters, that maxims were the
foundation of all knowledge ; and that the sciences were each of
them built upon certain prcecognita, from whence the understanding
was to take its rise, and by which it was to conduct itself, in its in-
quiries into the matters belonging to that science ; the beaten road
of the schools has been to lay down in the beginning, one or more
general propositions, as foundations whereon to build the knowledge
that was to be had of that subject. These doctrines thus laid down
for foundations of any science, were called principles, as the be-
ginnings from which we must set out, and look no farther backwards
in our inquiries, as we have already observed.

§ 2. The occasion of thai opinion, — One thing which might pro-
bably give an occasion to this way of proceeding in other sciences,
was (as I suppose) the good success it seemed to have in mathe-
matics, wherein men being observed to attain a great certainty of
knowledge, these sciences came by pre-eminence to be called
MudijfxocToc and Madriaig, learning, or things learned, thoroughly
learned, as having, of all others, the greatest certainty, clearness,
and evidence, in them.

§ 3. But from the comparing clear and distinct ideas. — But if any
one will consider, he will (I guess) find that the great advancement
and certainty of real knowledge, which men arrived to in these
sciences, was not owing to the influence of these principles, nor
derived from any peculiar advantage they received from two or three
general maxims laid down in the beginning; but from the clear,
distinct, complete ideas their thoughts were employed about, and
the relation of equality and excess so clear between some of them,
that they had an intuitive knowledge, and by that, a way to discover
it in others, and this without the help of those maxims. For I ask,
is it not possible for a young lad to know that his whole body is
bigger than his little finger, but by virtue of this axiom, " that the
whole is bigger than a part;" nor be assured of it, until he has
learned that maxim ? Or cannot a country wench know, that having
received a shilling from one that owes her three, and a shilling also
from another that owes her three, the remaining debts in each
of their hands are equal ? Cannot she know this, I say, unless she
fetch the certainty of it from this maxim, that " if you take equals
from equals, the remainder will be equals ?" a maxim which possibly
she never heard or thought of. I desire any one to consider, from
what has been elsewhere said, which is known first and clearest by
most people, the particular instance, or the general rule ; and which
it is that gives life and birth to the other. These general rules are
but the comparing our more general and abstract ideas, which are

490 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

the workmanship of the mind made, and names given to them, for
the easier despatch in its reasonings, and drawing into comprehensive
terms, and short rules, its various and multipHed observations. But
knowledge began in the mind, and was founded on particulars ;
though afterwards, perhaps, no notice be taken thereof; it being
natural for the mind (forward still to enlarge its knowledge) most
attentively to lay up those general notions, and make the proper use
of them, which is to disburthen the memory of the cumbersome load
of particulars. For I desire it may be considered what more cer-
tainty there is to a child, or any one, that his body, little finger and
all, is bigger than his little finger ajone, after you have given to his
body the name whole, and to his little finger the name part, than he
could have had before ; or what new knowledge concerning his body,
can these two relative terms give him, which he could not have with-
out them.'^ Could he not know that his body was bigger than his
little finger, if his language were yet so imperfect, that he had no
such relative terms as whole and part ? I ask farther, when he has
got these names, how is he more certain that his body is a whole,
and his little finger a part, than he was, or might be, certain, before
he learned those terms, that his body was bigger than his little finger ?
Any one may as reasonably doubt or deny, that his little finger is a
part of his body, as that it is less than his body. And he that can
doubt whether it be less, will as certainly doubt whether it be apart.
So that the maxim, " the whole is bigger than a part," can never be
made use of to prove the little finger is less than the body ; but when
it is useless, by being brought to C(mvince one of a truth which he
knows already. For he that does not certainly know that any parcel
of matter, with another parcel of matter joined to it, is bigger than
either of them alone, will never be able to know it by the helj) of
these two relative terms, whole and part, make of them what maxim
you please.

§ 4. Dangerous to build upon precarious m-inciplcs. — But be it
in the mathematics as it will, whether it be clearer, that taking an
inch from a black line of two inches, and an inch from a red line of
two inches, the remaining parts of the two lines will be equal ; or
that if you take equals from equals, the remainder will be equals ;
which, I say, of these two is the clearer and first known, I leave it
to any one to determine, it not being material to my present occa-
sion. That which I have here to do, is to inquire, whether if it be
the readiest way to knowledge, to begin with general maxims, and
build upon them, it be yet a safe way to take the principles, which
are laid down in any other science, as unquestionable truths ; and so
receive them without examination, and adhere to them without suf-
fering them to be doubted, because mathematicians have been so
hai)py, or so fair, to use none but self-evident and undeniable ? If
this be so, I know not what may not pass for truth in morality, what
may not be intnnluced and proved in natural jjhilosophy.

Let that principle of some of the philosophers, that all is matter,.
and that there is nothing else, be received for certain and indubitable,

CH. 12. IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 491

and it will be easy to be seen by the writings of some that have re-
vived it again in our days, what consequences it will lead us into.
Let any one, with Polemo, take the world : or with the stoics, the
aether, or the sun ; or with Anaximenes, the air ; to be a God ; and
what a divinity, religion, and worship, must we needs have ! Nothing
can be so dangerous as principles thus taken up without questioning
or examination ; especially if they be such as concern morality, which
influence men's lives, and give a bias to all their actions. Who
might not justly expect another kind of life in Aristippus, who
placed happiness in bodily pleasure ; and in Antisthenes, who made
virtue sufficient to felicity ? And he who, with Plato, shall place
beatitude in the knowledge of God, will have his thoughts raised to
other contemplations than those who look not beyond this spot of
earth, and those perishing things which are to be had in it. He that,
with Archelaus, shall lay it down as a principle, that right and wrong,
honest and dishonest, are defined only by laws, and not by nature,
will have other measures of moral rectitude and pravity, than those
who take it for granted, that we are under obligations antecedent to
all human constitutions.

§ 5. This is no certain zcay to truth. — If therefore those that pass
for principles, are not certain (which we must have some way to
know, that we may be able to distinguish them from those that are
doubtful), but are only made so to us by our blind assent, we are
liable to be misled by them ; and instead of being guided into truth,
we shall, by principles, be only confirmed in mistake and error.

§ 6. But to compare clear complete ideas under steady names. —
But since the knowledge of the certainty of principles, as well as of
all other truths, depends only upon the perception v/e have of the
agreement or disagreement of our ideas, the way to improve our
knowledge is not, I am sure, blindly, and with an implicit faith, to
receive and swallow principles ; but is, I think, to get and fix in our
minds clear, distinct, and complete ideas, as far as they are to be had,
and annex to them proper and constant names. And thus, perhaps,
without any other principles, but barely considering those ideas, and
by comparing them one with another, finding their agreement or
disagreement, and their several relations and habitudes, we shall get
more true and clear knowledge by the conduct of this one rule, than
by taking up principles, and thereby putting our minds into the dis-
posal of others.

§ 7. The true method of advancing Jinowledge, is by considering
our abstract ideas. — We must therefore, if we will proceed as reason
advises, adapt our methods of inquiry to the nature of the ideas we
examine, and the truth we search after. General and certain truths
are only founded in the habitudes and relations of abstract ideas. A
sagacious and methodical application of our thoughts, for the finding
out these relations, is the only way to discover all that can be put
with truth and certainty concerning them, into general propositions.
By what steps we are to proceed in these, is to be learned in the
schools of the mathematicians, who, from very plain and easy

492 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

beginnings, by gentle degrees, and a continued chain of reasonings,
proceed to the discovery and demonstration of truths that appear at
first sight beyond human capacity. The art of finding proofs, and
the admirable methods they have invented for the singling out, and
laying in order, those intermediate ideas that demonstratively show
the equality or inequality of unapplicable quantities, is that which
has carried them so far, and produced such wonderful and unex-
pected discoveries : but whether something like this, in respect of
other ideas, as well as those of magnitude, may not in time be found
out, I will not determine. This, I think, I may say, that if other
ideas, that are the real as well as nominal essences of their species,
were pursued in the way familiar to mathematicians, they would
carry our thoughts farther, and with greater evidence and clearness,
than possibly we are apt to imagine.

§ 8. Bij which morality also may he made clearer. — This gave
me the confidence to advance that conjecture which I suggest, chap. 3.
viz. " That morality is capable of demonstration, as well as mathe-
matics."" For the ideas that ethics are conversant about, being all
real essences, and such as, I imagine, have a discoverable connexion
and agreement one with another ; so far as we can find their habitudes
and relations, so far we shall be possessed of certain, real, and gene-
ral truths; and I doubt not, but if a right method were taken, a
great part of morality might be made out with that clearness, that
could leave, to a considering man, no more reason to doubt, than he
could have to doubt of the truth of propositions in mathematics,
which have been demonstrated to him.

§ 9. But knowledge of bodies is to be improved only by expe-
rience.— In our search after the knowledge of substances, our want
of ideas, that are suitable to such a way of proceeding, obliges us to
a ((uite different method. We advance not here, as in the other
(where our abstract ideas are real, as well as nominal, essences),,
by contemplating our ideas, and considering their relations and corJ
respondencies ; that helps us very little, for the reasons that ii
another place we have at large set down. By which, I think, it is
evident, that substances afford matter of very little general knowJ
ledge; and the bare contemplation of their abstract ideas, will carr^
us but a very little way in the search of truth and certainty. What
then are we to do for the improvement of our knowledge in substan-
tial beings ? Here we are to take a quite contrary course ; the want
of ideas of their real essences, sends us from our own thoughts, to
the things themselves, as they exist. Experience here must teach
me what reason cannot ; and it is by trying alone, that I can cer-
tainly know what other qualities co-exist with those of my complex
idea, v. g. whether that yellow, heavy, fusible body, I call gold, be
malleable or no ? which experience (which way ever it prove in that
particular body I examine) makes me not certain that it is so in all
or any other yellow, heavy, fusible bodies, but that which I have
tried. Because it is no consequence one way or the other, from my
complex idea ; the necessity or inconsistence of malleability hath no

cir. 12. IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 493

\ isible connexion with the combination of that colour, weight, and
fusibility in any body. What I have said here of the nominal
essence of gold, supposed to consist of a body of such a determinate
colour, weight, and fusibility, will hold true,"if malleableness, fixed-
ness, and solubihty in aqua regia, be added to it. Our reasonings
from these ideas will carry us but a little way in the certain discovery
of the other properties in those masses of matter, wherein all these
are to be found. Because the other properties of such bodies de-
])ending not on these, but on that unknown real essence, on which
these also depend, we cannot by them discover the rest; we can go
no farther than the simple ideas of our nominal essence will carry
us, which is very little beyond themselves ; and so afford us but very
sparingly any certain, universal, and useful truths. For upon trial,
having found that particular piece (and all others of that colour,
weight and fusibihty, that I ever tried) malleable, that also makes
now, perhaps, a part of my complex idea, part of my nominal
essence, of gold ; whereby, though I make my complex idea, to
which I affix the name gold, to consist of more simple ideas than
])efore; yet still, it not containing the real essence of any species of
bodies, it helps me not certainly to know (I say to know, perhaps it
may to conjecture) the other remaining properties of that body,
farther than they iiave a visible connexion with some or all of the
simple ideas that make up my nominal essence. For example ; I
cannot be certain from this complex idea, whether gold be fixed or
lu) ; because, as before, there is no necessary connexion or inconsis-
tence to be discovered betwixt a complex idea of a body yellow,
heavy, fusible, malleable, betwixt these, I say, and fixedness ; so that
I may certainly know, that in whatsoever body these are found, there
fixedness is sure to be. Here again, for assurance, I must apply
myself to experience ; as far as that reaches, I may have certain
knowledge, but no farther.

§ 10. This may procure us convenience, not science. — I deny not
but a man accustomed to rational and regular experiments, shall be
a})le to see farther into the nature of bodies, and guess righter at
their yet unknown properties, than one that is a stranger to them ;
but yet, as I have said, this is but judgment and opinion, not know-
ledge and certainty. This way of getting and improving our know-
ledge in substances only by experience and history, which is all that
the weakness of our faculties in this state of mediocrity, which we
are in in this world, can attain to, makes me suspect that natural
philosophy is not capable of being made a science. We are able,
I imagine, to reach very little general knowledge concerning the
species of bodies, and their several properties. Experiments and
historical observations we may have, from which we may draw ad-
vantages of ease and health, and thereby increase our stock of con-
veniences for this life ; but beyond this, I fear our talents reach not,
nor are our faculties, as I guess, able to advance.

§ 11. We ar-e fitted for moral knoxvledge and natural improve-
ments.— From whence it is obvious to conclude, that since our facul-

494 IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE, book 4.

ties are not fitted to penetrate into the internal fabric and real
essences of bodies ; but yet plainly discover to us the being of a God,
and the knowledge of ourselves, enough to lead us into a full and
clear discovery of our duty and great concernment ; it will become
us, as rational creatures, to employ those faculties we have, about
what they are most adapted to, and follow the direction of nature,
where it seems to point us out the way. For it is rational to con-
clude, that our proper employment lies in those inquiries, and in
that sort of knowledge which is most suited to our natural capacities,
and carries in it our greatest interest, i. e. the condition of our eter-
nal state. Hence I think I may conclude, that morality is the pro-
per science and business of mankind in general (who are both con-
cerned and fitted to search out their summum bonum), as several
arts, conversant about several parts of nature, are the lot and pri-
vate talent of particular men, for the common use of human life,
and their own particular subsistence in this world. Of what conse-
quence the discovery of one natural body and its properties may be
to human life, the whole great continent of America is a convincing
instance; whose ignorance in useful arts, and want of the greatest
part of the conveniences of life, in a country that abounded with all
sorts of natural plenty, I think may be attributed to their ignorance
of what was to be found in a very ordinary despicable stone, I mean
the mineral of iron. And whatever we think of our parts or im-
provements in this part of the world, where knowledge and plenty
seem to vie with each other ; yet to any one that will seriously reflect
on it, I suppose it will appear past doubt, that were the use of iron
lost amongst lis, we should in a few ages be unavoidably reduced to
the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans, whose
natural endowments and provisions come no way short of those of* the
most flourishing and polite nations ; so that he who first made known
the use of that contemptible mineral, may be truly styled the father
of arts, and author of plenty.

§ 12. Bui must beware of hypotheses^ and wrong principles. —
I would not therefore be thought to disesteem or dissuade the study
of nature. I readily agree, the contemplation of his works gives us
occasion to admire, revere, and glorify their Author : and if rightly
directed, may be of greater benefit to mankind, than the monuments
of exemplary charity that have, at so great charge, been raised by
the founders of hospitals and alms-houses. He that first invented
printing, discovered the use of the compass, or made public the vir-
tue and right use of kinkino, did more for the propagation of know-
ledge, for the supply and increase of useful conmiodities, and saved
more from the grave, than those who built colleges, work-houses,
and hospitals. All that I would s.ay, is, that we should not be too
forward ly possessed with the opinion or expectation of knowledge,
where it is not to be had, or by ways that will not attain to it : that
we should not take doubtful systems to complete sciences ; nor iin
inteIHgible notions for scientifical demonstrations. In the know-
ledge of liodies, we must be content to glean what we can from par-

CH. 12. IMPROVEMENT OF OUR KNOWLEDGE. 495

tjicular experiments ; since we cannot, from a discovery of their real
essences, grasp at a time whole sheaves ; and in bundles compre-
hend the nature and properties of whole species together. Where
our inquiry is concerning co-existence, or repugnancy to co-exist,
which by contemplation of our ideas we cannot discover ; there ex-
perience, observation, and natural history, must give us by our senses,
and by retail, an insight into corporeal substances. The knowledge
of bodies we must get by our senses, warily employed in taking
notice of their qualities and operations on one another ; and what
we hope to know of separate spirits in this world, we must, I think,
expect only from revelation. He that shall consider how little
general maxims, precarious principles, and hypotheses laid down at
pleasure, have promoted true knowledge, or helped to satisfy the
inquiries of rational men after real improvements ; how little, I say,
the setting out at that end has, for many ages together, advanced
men'*s progress towards the knowledge of natural philosophy ; will
think we have reason to thank those, who in this latter age have
taken another course, and have trod out to us, though not an easier
way to learned ignorance, yet a surer way to profitable knowledge.

§ 13. The true use oj hypotheses. — Not that we may not, to ex-
plain any phenomena of nature, make use of any probable hypotheses
whatsoever. Hypotheses, if they are well made, are at least great
helps to the memory, and often direct us to new discoveries. But
my meaning is, that we should not take up any one too hastily
(which the mind, that would always penetrate into the causes of
things, and have principles to rest on, is very apt to do), till we have
very well examined particulars, and made several experiments in
that thing which we would explain by our hypotheses, and see whe-
ther it will agree to them all ; whether our principles will carry us
quite through, and not be as inconsistent with one phenomenon of
nature, as they seem to accommodate and explain another. And at
least that we take care that the name of principles deceive us not,
nor impose upon us, by making us receive that for an unquestionable
truth, which is really, at best, but a very doubtful conjecture : such
as are most (I had almost said all) of the hypotheses in natural phi-
losophy.

§ 14. Clear and distinct ideas with settled names, and the finding
of those which show their agreement or disagreemeiit, are the ways to
enlarge our knowledge. — But whether natural philosophy be capable
of certainty or no, the ways to enlarge our knowledge, as far as we
are capable, seem to me, in short, to be these two :

First, The first is to get and settle in our minds determined ideas
of those things, whereof we have general or specific names ; at least
so many of them as we would consider and improve our knowledge
in, or reason about. And if they be specific ideas of substances, we
should endeavour also to make them as complete as we can, whereby
I mean, that we should put together as many simple ideas, as being
constantly observed to co-exist, may perfectly determine the species ;
and each of those simple ideas, which are the ingredients of our com-

496 FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS book 4.

plex ones, should be clear and distinct in our minds : for it being
evident that our knowledge cannot exceed our ideas, as far as they
are either imperfect, confused, or obscure, we cannot expect to have
certain, perfect, or clear knowledge.

Secondly, The other is the art of finding out those intermediate
ideas, which may show us the agreement or repugnancy of other
ideas, which cannot be immediately compared.

§ 15. Mathematics an instance of it. — That these two (and not
the relying on maxims, and drawing consequences from some gene-
ral propositions) are the right methods of improving our knowledge
in the ideas of other modes, besides those of quantity, the considera-
tion of mathematical knowledge will easily inform us. Where first
we shall find, that he that has not a perfect and clear idea of those
angles or figures of which he desires to know any thing, is utterly
thereby incapable of any knowledge about them. Suppose but a
man not to have a perfect exact idea of a right angle, a scalenum,
or trapezium ; and there is nothing more certain, than that he will
in vain seek any demonstration about them. Farther it is evident,
that it was not the influence of those maxims which are taken for
principles in mathematics, that hath led the masters of that science
into those wonderful discoveries they have made. Let a man of
good parts know all the maxims generally made use of in mathema-
tics ever so perfectly, and contemplate their extent and consequences
as much as he pleases, he will, by their assistance, I suppose, scarce
ever come to know, that the square of the hypothenuse in a right-
angled triangle, is equal to the squares of the two other sides. The
knowledge that " the whole is equal to all its parts,*" and " if you
take equals from equals, the remainder will be equal," &c., helped
him not, I presume, to this demonstration : and a man may, I think,
pore long enough on those axioms, without ever seeing one jot the
more of mathematical truths. Thev have been discovered b}^ the
truths otherwise applied ; the mind liad other objects, other views,
before it, far different from those maxims, when it first got the
knowledge of such kind of truths in mathematics, which men, well
enough acquainted with those received axioms, but ignorant of their
method who first made those demonstrations, can never sufficiently
admire. And who knows what methods, to enlarge our knowledge
in other parts of science, may hereafter be invented, answering that
of algebra in mathematics, which so readily finds out the ideas of
quantities to measure others by, whose equality or proportion we
could otherwise very hardly, or perhaps never, come to know.

CHAPTER XIII.

SOME FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Our knowledge partly necessary^ partly voluntary. — Ou
knowledge, as in other things, so in this, has so great a conformit

1

CH. 13. FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS. 497

with our sight, that it is neither wholly necessary, nor wholly volun-
tary. If our knowledge were altogether necessary, all men's know-
ledge would not only be aHke, but every man would know all that
is knowable ; and if it were wholly voluntary, some men so little re-
gard or value it, that they would have extreme little, or none at all.
Men that have senses, cannot choose but receive some ideas by them ;
and if they have memory, they cannot but retain some of them ;
and if they have any distinguishing faculty, cannot but perceive the
agreement or disagreement of some of them one with another; as
he that has eyes, if he will open them by day, cannot but see some
objects, and perceive a difference in them. But though a man, with
his eyes open in the light, cannot but see ; yet there be certain ob-
jects, which he may choose whether he will turn his eyes to ; there
may be in his reach a book containing pictures and discourses capa-
ble to delight or instruct him, which yet he may never have the will
to open, never take the pains to look into.

§ 2. The application voluntary ; but xve know as things are, not as
we 2^lease. — There is also another thing in a man's power, and that
is, though he turns his eyes sometimes towards an object, yet he may
choose whether he will curiously survey it, and with an intent ap-
plication endeavour to observe accurately all that is visible in it.
But yet, what he dees see, he cannot see otherwise than he does. It
depends not on his will to see that black which appears yellow ; nor
to persuade himself, that what actually scalds him, feels cold ; the
earth will not appear painted with flowers, nor the fields covered
with verdure, whenever he has a mind to it : in the cold winter, he
cannot help seeing it white and hoary, if he will look abroad. Just
thus is it with our understanding ; all that is voluntary in our
knowledge, is the employing, or withholding, any of our faculties,
from this or that sort of objects, and a more or less accucate survey
of them ; but they being employed, our will hath no power to
determine the knowledge of the mind one way or other ; that is
done only by the objects themselves, as far as they are clearly dis-
covered. And therefore, as far as men's senses are conversant
about external objects, the mind cannot but receive those ideas,
which are presented by them, and be informed of the existence of
things without ; and so far as men's thoughts converse with their
own determined ideas, they cannot but, in some measure, observe
the agreement or disagreement that is to be found amongst some of
them, which is so far knowledge : and if they have names for those
; ideas which they have thus considered, they must needs be assured
I of the truth of those propositions, which express that agreement or
disagreement they perceive in them, and be undoubtedly convinced
! of those truths. For what a man sees, he cannot but see ; and what
he perceives, he cannot but know that he perceives.

§ 3. Instance in numbers. — Thus, he that has got the ideas of
numbers, and hath taken the pains to compare one, two, and
three, to six, cannot choose but know that they are equal. He
that hath got the idea of a triangle, and found the ways to measure

K K

498 JUDGMENT. «ook 4.

its angles, and their magnitudes, is certain that its three angles
are equal to two right ones : and can as little doubt of that, as of
this truth, that " it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not
to be."

In natural religion. — He also that hath the idea of an intelligent,
but frail and weak, being, made by and depending on another,
who is eternal, omnipotent, perfectly wise and good, will as certainly
know that man is to honour, fear, and obey God, as that the sun
shines when he sees it. For if he hath but the ideas of two such
beings in his mind, and will turn his thoughts that way, and consider
them, he will as certainly find, that the inferior, finite, and dependent,
is under an obligation to obey the Supreme and Infinite, as he is
certain to find, that three, four, and seven, are less than fifteen, if he
will consider and compute those numbers; nor can he be surer in a
clear morning that the sun is risen, if he will but open his eyes, and
turn them that way. But yet these truths being ever so certain,
ever so clear, he may be ignorant of either, or of all of them, who
will never take the pains to employ his faculties as he should, to in-
form himself about them.

CHAPTER XIV.

OF JUDGMENT.

§ 1 . Our knowledge being short, zoe want something else. — The
understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for specula-
tion, but also for the conduct of his life, man would be at a great
loss, if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty
of true knowledge. For that being very short and scanty, as we
have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of
the actions of his life, perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to
guide him in the absence of clear and certain knowledge. He
that will not eat, till he has demonstration that it will nourish hin
he that will not stir, till he infallibly knows the business he g
about will succeed ; will have but little else to do, but to sit still a
perish.

§ 2. What use to he made of this twilight state. — Therefore,
God has set some things in broad day-light, as he has given
some certain knowledge, though hmited to a few things in co;
parison, probably, as a taste of what intellectual creatures t
capable of, to excite in us a desire and endeavour after a liettei
state ; so, in the greatest part of our concernments, he has afforded
us only the twilight, as I may so say, of probability, suitable, I
presume, to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been
pleased to place us in here ; wherein, to check our over-confidcnc(
and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be mad
sensible of our short-sightedness, and liableness to error ; the sens.

CH. 14. JUDGMENT. 499

whereof might be a constant admonition to us, to spend the days of
this our pilgrimage with industry and care, in the search and fol-
lowing of that way which might lead us to a state of greater per-
fection. It being highly rational to think, even were revelation
silent in the case, that as men employ those talents God has given
them here, they shall accordingly receive their rewards at the
close of the day, when their sun shall set, and night shall put an end
to their kbours.

§ 3. Judgment supplies the want of knowledge. — The faculty
which God has given man to supply the want of clear and certain
knowledge, in cases where that cannot be had, is judgment: where-
by the mind takes its ideas to agree or disagree ; or, which is the
same, any proposition to be true or false, without perceiving a
demonstrative evidence in the proofs. The mind sometimes exer-
cises this judgment out of necessity, where demonstrative proofs,
and certain knowledge, are not to be had ; and sometimes out of
laziness, unskilfulness, or haste, even where demonstrative and
certain proofs are to be had. Men often stay not warily to exa-
mine the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, which they are
desirous or concerned to know ; but either incapable of such atten-
tion as is requisite in a long train of gradations, or impatient of
delay, lightly cast their eyes on, or wholly pass by, 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 judgment ; 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. Judgment is the presuming thifigs to be so, without per-
ceiving it. — Thus the mind has two faculties conversant about truth
and falsehood.

First, Knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives, and is un-
doubtedly 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 judgment.

K K

500 ^ TROBABILITY. hook 4

CHAPTER XV.

OF PROBABILITY.

^ 1. Probability is the appearance of agreement upon fallible
piXKxfs. — As demonstration is the showing the agreement or dis-
agreement of two ideas, by the intervention of one or more proofs,
wliich 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 per-
ceived 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 demonstra-
tion of it, a man perceives the certain immutable connexion there is
of equality between the three angles of a triangle, and those inter-
mediate ones, which are made use of to show 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 pro-
gress, the whole series is continued with an evidence which clearly
shows the agreement or disagreement of those three angles in
equality to two right ones: and thus hfe has certain knowledge
that it is so. But another man, who never took the pains to ob-
serve 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 founda-
tion 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 contrai
to, or besides, his knowledge, especially in matters of this kind. S^
that which causes his assent to this proposition, that the three angli
of a triangle are equal to two rJgnt ones, that which makes lii
take these ideas to agree, without knowing them to do so, is tl
wonted veracity of the speaker in other cases, or his suppoi
veracity in this.

§ 2. It is to supply the want of knoidedgc, — Our knowledge,
has been shown, being very narrow, and we not happy enough
find certain truth in every thing which we have occasion to o
sider, most of the propositions we think, reason, discourse, nay, art
upon, are such as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their
truth ; yet some of them border so near upon certainty, that w^
make no doubt at all about them, but assent to them as firmly, arm
act, according to that assent, as resolutely, as if they were iiifallibw
demonstrated, and that our knowledge of tbem was perfect atra
certain. But there being degrees herein, from the very neighlK)ur-
ho<xl of certainty and demonstration, quite down to improbability
and unlikeliness, even to the confines of impossibility ; and also de-i

I

c 11.15. PROBABILITY. 501

i^rees of assent, from full assurance and confidence, quite down to
conjecture, doubt, and distrust ; I shall come now, (havino-, as I
think, found out the bounds of human knowledge and certainty), in
the next place, to consider the several degrees and grounds of pro-
l)ability, and assent or faith.

§ 3. Beings that wJiich mahes us presume things to he true he/ore
we hnoxv them to he so. — Probability 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 tliat 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 behef, not so. That which makes me
believe, is something extraneous to the thing I believe ; some-
thing not evidently joined on both sides to, and so not manifestly
showing the agreement or disagreement of those ideas that are under
consideration.

§ 4. The grounds of prohahility are two ; conformity with our
own experience, or the testimony of others' experience. — Probability,
then, being to supply the defect of our knowledge, and to guide us
where that fails, is always conversant about propositions whereof we
have no certainty, but only some inducements to receive them for
true. The grounds of it are, in short, these two following :

First, The conformity of any thing with our own knowledge, ob-
servation, 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. In this, all the arguments pro and con ought to he examined,
before wp come to a judgment. — Probability wanting that intuitive
evidence which infallibly determines the understanding, and pro-
duces certain knowledge, the mind, if it would proceed rationally,
ought to examine all the grounds of probability, and see how they
make more or less for or against any proposition, before it assents
I to, or dissents from it ; and upon a due balancing the whole, reject
\ or receive it, with a more or less firm assent, proportionably to the
j preponderancy of the greater grounds of probability on one side or .
I the other. For example :

I If I myself see a man walk on the ice, it is past probability ; it

i is knowledge : but if another tells me, he saw a man in England,

in the midst of a sharp winter, walk upon water hardened with

cold; this has so great conformity with what is usually observed

502 DEGREES OF ASSENT. book 4.

to happen, that I am disposed, by the nature of the thing itself,
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 tropics, who never saw nor heard of any such thing
before, there the whole probabihty rehes on testimony : and as the
relators are more in number, and of more credit, and have no
interest to speak contrary to the truth ; so that matter of fact is like
to find more or less belief. Though to a man, whose experience
has always been quite contrary, and has never heard of any thing
like it, the most untainted credit of a witness will scarce be able to
find belief. As it happened to a Dutch ambassador, who entertain-
ing the King of Siam with the particularities of Holland, which he
was inquisitive after, amongst other things, told him, that the water
in his country would sometimes, in cold weather, be so hard, that
men walked upon it, and that it would bear an elephant, if he were
there. To which the king replied, " Hitherto I have believed the
strange things you have told me, because I look upon you as a sober
fair man ; but now I am sure you lie.''

§ 6. Theij being capable of great variety. — Upon these grounds
depends the probability of any proposition : and as the conformity
of our knowledge, as the certamty of observations, as the frequency
and constancy of experience, and the number and credibility of
testimonies, do more or less agree or disagree with it, so is any
proposition in itself more or less probable. There is another, I
confess, which, though by itself it be no true ground of probability,
yet is often made use of for one, by which men most commonly
regulate their assent, and upon which they pin their faith more
than any thing else, and that is the opinion of others: though
there cannot be a more dangerous thing to rely on, nor more hkely
to mislead one, since there is much more falsehood and error among
men, than truth and knowledge. And if the opinions and persua-
sions of others, whom we know and think well of, be a ground
assent, men have reason to be Heathens in Japan, Mahometans
Turkey, Papists in Spain, Protestants in England, and Lutherai
in Sweden. But of this wrong ground of assent, I shall have occi
sion to speak more at large in another place.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE DEGREES OF ASSENT.

§ 1. Our assent ought to he regulated by the grounds of proba-
bility.— The grounds of probability we have laid down in the fore-
foing chapter ; as they are the foundations on which our assent is
uilt, so are they also the measure whereby its several degrees are,
or ought to be, regulated : only we are to take notice, that whatever
grounds of probability there may be, they yet operate no farther on

r. 16. DEGREES OF ASSENT. 503

ihc mind, which searches after truth, and endeavours to judge right,
tlian they appear, at least in the first judgment or search that the
mind makes. I confess, in the opinions men have, and firmly stick
to, in the world, their assent is not always from an actual view of
tlie reasons that at first prevailed with them ; it being in many cases
ahnost impossible, and in most very hard, even for those who have
very admirable memories, to retain all the proofs, which, upon a
due examination, made them embrace that side of the question. It
suffices that they have once, with care and fairness, sifted the matter
as far as they could ; and that they have searched into all the par-
ticulars that they could imagine, to give any light to the question,
[ind with the best of their skill, cast up the account upon the whole
evidence ; and thus having once found on which side the probability
a})peared to them, after as full and exact an inquiry as they can
make, they lay up the conclusion in their memories, as a truth they
have discovered ; and for the future they remain satisfied with the
testimony of their memories, that this is the opinion that, by the
]iroofs they have once seen of it, deserve such a degree of their
assent as they afford it.

§ 2, These cannot always be actually in view, and then we must
content ourselves with the remembrance that we once saw ground for
such a degree of assent. — This is all that the greatest part of men
are capable of doing, in regulating their opinions and judgments,
unless a man will exact of them, either to retain distinctly in their
memories all the proofs concerning any probable truth, and that
too in the same order, and regular deduction of consequences, in
which they have formerly placed or seen them ; which sometimes is
enough to fill a large volume upon one single question: or else
i they must require a man, for every opinion that he embraces, every
I day to examine the proofs ; both which are impossible. It is un-
avoidable, therefore, that the memory be reHed on in the case, and
that men be persuaded of several opinions, whereof the proofs are
not actually in their thoughts ; nay, which perhaps they are not
, able actually to recal. Without this, the greatest part of men miist
be either very sceptics, or change every moment, and yield them-
selves up to whoever, having lately studied the question, offers them
arguments ; which, for want of memory, they are not able presently
to answer.

§3. The ill consequence of this, if our former judgments were
not righthj made.— I cannot but own, that men's sticking to their
past judgment, and adhering firmly to conclusions formerly made,
is often the cause of great obstinacy in error and mistake. But the
fault is not that they rely on their memories for what they have
before well judged, but because they judged before they had well
examined. May we not find a great number (not to say the great-
est part) of men, that think they have formed right judgments of
several matters, and that for no other reason, but because they
never thought otherwise? Who imagine themselves to have judged
right, only because they never questioned, never examined, their

504 DEGREES OF ASSENT. book 4.

own opinions ? Which is indeed to think they judged right, because
they never judged at all : ^and yet these, of all men, hold their
opinions with the greatest stiffness ; those being generally the most
fierce and firm in their tenets, who have least examined them.
What we once know, we are certain is so ; and we may be secure
that there are no latent proofs undiscovered, which may overturn
our knowledge, or bring it in doubt. But in matters of probability,
it is not in every case we can be sure that we have all the particulars
before us, that any way concern the question ; and that there is no
evidence behind, and yet unseen, which may cast the probability on
the other side, and out- weigh all that at present seems to prepon-
derate with us. Who almost is there that hath the leisure, patience,
and means to collect togethfer all the proofs concerning most of the
opinions he has, so as safely to conclude, that he hath a clear and
full view, and that there is no more to be alleged for his better
information.'* and yet we are forced to determine ourselves on the
one side or other. The conduct of our lives, and the management
of our great concerns, will not bear delay ; for those depend, for
the most part, on the determination of our judgment in points
wherein we are not capable of certain and demonstrative knowledge,
and wherein it is necessary for us to embrace the one side or the
other.

§ 4 Tlie right use of it, is mutual charity and forbearance . —
Since therefore it is unavoidable to the greatest part of men, if not
all, to have several opinions, without certain and indubitable proofs
of their truths ; and it carries too great an imputation of ignorance,
lightness, or folly, for men to quit and renounce their former tenets
presently upon the offer of an argument which they cannot imme-
diately answer, and show the sufficiency of: it would, methinks,
become all men to maintain peace, and the common offices o^
humanity and friendship, in the diversity of opinions, since wi
cannot reasonably expect that any one should readily and obsf
quiously quit his own opinion, and embrace ours, with a blind n
signation to an authority which the understanding of man acknoi
ledges not. For however it may often mistake, it can own no othi
guide but reason, nor blindly submit to the will and dictates
another. If he you would bring over to your sentiments, be onj
that examines before he assents, you must give him leave at hi
leisure to go over the account again, and recalling what is out
his mind, examine all the particulars, to see on which side tl
advantage lies ; and if he will not think our arguments of weigW
enough to engage him anew in* o much pains, it is but what we
often do ourselves in the like case ; and we should take it amiss, if
others should prescribe to us what points we should study : and if
he be one who takes his opinions upon trust, how can we imagine
that he should so renounce those tenets, which time and custom have
so settled in his mind, that he thinks them self-evident, and of an
unquestionable certainty ; or which he takes to be impressions he
has received from God himself, or from men sent by him .? How

CH. 16 DEGREES OF ASSENT. 505

can we expect, 1 say, that opinions thus settled, should be given up
to the arguments or authority of a stranger or adversary, especially
if there be any suspicion of interest or design, as there never fails
to be where men find themselves ill-treated ? We should do well
to commiserate our mutual ignorance, and endeavour to remove it
in all the gentle and fair ways of information, and not instantly
treat others ill as obstinate and perverse, because they will not
renounce their own, and receive our, opinions, or at least those we
would force upon them, when it is more than probable that we are
no less obstinate in not embracing some of theirs. For where is
the man that has incontestible evidence of the truth of all that lie
holds, or of the falsehood of all he condemns; or can say, that he
has examined to the bottom, all his own, or other men"'s, opinions ?
The necessity of believing, without knowledge, nay, often upon
very slight grounds, in this fleeting state of action and blindness we
are in, should make us more busy and careful to inform ourselves,
than constrain others; at least those who have not thoroughly
examined to the bottom of all their own tenets, must confess they
are unfit to prescribe to others, and are unreasonable in imposing
that as truth on other men's belief, which they themselves have not
searched into, nor weighed the arguments of probability on which
they should receive or reject it. Those who have fairly and truly
examined, and are thereby got past doubt in all the doctrines they
profess and govern themselves by, would have a more just pretence
to require others to follow them : but these are so few in number,
and find so little reason to be magisterial in their opinions, that
nothing insolent and imperious is to be expected from them ; and
there is reason to think, that if men were better instructed them-
selves, they would be less imposing on others.

§ 5. Probability is either of matter of fact ^ or speculation, — But
to return to the grounds of assent, and the several degrees of it, we
are to take notice, that the propositions we receive upon induce-
ments of probability, are of two sorts, either concerning some parti-
cular existence, or, as it is usually termed, matter of fact, which
falling under observation, is capable of human testimony, or else
concerning things, which being beyond the discovery of our senses,
are not capable of any such testinaony.

§ 6. The concurrent experience of all other men with ours, pro^
duces assurance approaching to knowledge. — Concerning the first
of these, viz. particular matter of fact.

First, Where any particular thing, consonant to the constant
observation of ourselves and others in the like case, comes attested
by the concurrent reports of all that mention it, we receive it as
easily, and build as firmly upon it, as if it were certain knowledge ;
and we reason and act thereupon with as little doubt, as if it were
perfect demonstration. Thus if all Englishmen, who have occasion
to mention it, should affirm, that it froze in England the last winter,
or that there were swallows seen there in the summer, I think a
man could almost as little doubt of it, as that seven and four are

506 DEGREES OF ASSENT. book 4.

eleven. The first, therefore, and highest degree of probability, is,
when the general consent of all men, in all ages, as far as it can be
known, concurs with a man's constant and never-failing experience
in like cases, to confirm the truth of any particular matter of fact
attested by fair witnesses ; such are all the stated constitutions and
properties of bodies, and the regular proceedings of causes and
effects in the ordinary course of nature. This we call an argument
from the nature of things themselves ; for what our own and other
men's constant observation has found always to be after the same
manner, that we with reason conclude to be the effect of steady and
regular causes, though they come not within the reach of our know-
ledge. Thus, that fire warmed a man, made lead fluid, and changed
the colour or consistency in wood or charcoal ; that iron sank in
water, and swam in quicksilver: these, and the like propositions
about particular facts, being agreeable to our constant experience,
as often as we have to do with these matters, and being generally
spoken of (when mentioned by others) as things found constantly to
be so, and therefore not so much as controverted by any body, we
are put past doubt, that a relation affirming any such thing to have
been, or any predication that it will happen again in the same
manner, is very true. These probabilities rise so near to a cer-
tainty, that they govern our thoughts as absolutely, and influence
all our actions as fully, as the most evident demonstration ; and in
what concerns us, we make little or no difference between them
and certain knowledge. Our belief thus grounded, rises to assu-
rance.

§ 7. Unquesticniahle testimonij and experience for the most part
jn'oduce confidence. — Secondly^ The next degree of probability is,
when I find by my own experience, and the agreement of all others
that mention it, a thing to be for the most part so ; and that the
particular instance of it is attested by many and undoubted wit-
nesses, V. g. history giving us such an account of men in all ages,
and my own experience, as far as I had an opportunity to observe,
confirming it, that most men prefer their private advantage to the
public. If all historians that write of Tiberius, say that Tiberius
did so, it is extremely probable. And in this case, our assent has a
sufficient foundation to raise itself to a degree which we may call
confidence.

§ 8. Fair testimony, and the nature of the thing indifferent^ pro-
duce also confident belief. — Thirdly^ In things that happen indiffer-
ently, as that a bird should fly tliis or that way, that it should
thunder on a man's right or left hand, &c. when any particular
matter of fact is vouched by the concurrent testimony of unsuspected
witnesses, there our assent is also unavoidable. Thus, that there is
such a city in Italy as Rome ; that about 1700 years ago, there lived
in it a man called Julius Caesar ; that he was a general, and that he
won a battle against another called Pompey : this, though in the
nature of the thing there be nothing for nor against it, yet being
related by historians of credit, and contradicted by no one writer, a

CH. 16. DEGREES OF ASSENT. 607

man cannot avoid believing it, and can as little doubt of it, as he
does of the being and actions of his own acquaintance, whereof he
himself is a witness.

§ 9. Experiences and testimonies clashing, infinitely vary the
degrees of probability. — Thus far the matter goes easy enough.
Probability upon such grounds carries so much evidence with it,
that it naturally determines the judgment, and leaves us as little
liberty to believe or disbelieve, as a demonstration does, whether
we will know or be ignorant. The difficulty is, when testimonies
contradict common experience, and the reports of history and
witnesses clash with the ordinary course of nature, or with one
another ; there it is, where diligence, attention, and exactness are
required to form a right judgment, and to proportion the assent to
the different evidence and probability of the thing, which rises and
falls according as those two foundations of credibility, viz. common
observation in like cases, and particular testimonies in that parti-
cular instance, favour or contradict it. These are liable to so great
a variety of contrary observations, circumstances, reports, different
qualifications, tempers, designs, oversights, &c. of the reporters,
that it is impossible to reduce to precise rules, the various degrees
wherein men give their assent. This only may be said in general,
tliat as the arguments and proofs, pro and. con, upon due examina-
tion, nicely weighing every particular circumstance, shall to any
one appear, upon the whole matter, in a greater or less degree, to
preponderate on either side, so they are fitted to produce in the
mind such different entertainment, as we call belief, conjecture,
guess, doubt, wavering, distrust, disbelief, Sec.

§ 10. Traditional testimonies, the farther removed, the less their
proofs. — This is what concerns assent in matters wherein testimony
is made use of; concerning which, I think it may not be amiss to
take notice of a rule observed in the law of England, which is, that
though the attested copy of a record be good proof, yet the copy of
a copy ever so well attested, and by ever so credible witnesses, will
not be admitted as a proof in judicature. This is so generally
approved as reasonable, and suited to the wisdom and caution to be
used in our inquiry after material truths, that I never yet heard of
any one that blamed it. This practice, if it be allowable in the
decisions of right and wrong, carries this observation along with it,
viz. that any testimony, the farther off it is from the original truth,
the less force and proof it has. The being and existence of the
thing itself, is what I call the original truth. A credible man
vouching his knowledge of it, is a good proof; but if another,
equally credible, do witness it from his report, the testimony is
weaker ; and a third that attests the hear-say of a hear-say, is yet
less considerable. So that in traditional truths, each remove
weakens the force of the proof; and the more hands the tradition
has successively passed through, the less strength and evidence does
it receive from them. This I thought necessary to be taken notice
of, because I find amongst some men the quite contrary commonly

508 DEGREES OF ASSENT. book 4.

practised, who look on opinions to gain force by growing older;
and what a thousand years since would not, to a rational man, con-
temporary with the first voucher, have appeared at all probable, is
now urged as certain, beyond all question, only because several have
since, from him, said it one after another. Upon this ground, pro-
positions evidently false or doubtful enough in their first beginnmg,
come bv an inverted rule of probability to pass for authentic truths ;
and those which found or deserved little credit from the mouths of
their first authors, are thought to grow venerable by age, and are
urged as undeniable.

§ 11. Yet history is of great use, — I would not be thought here
to lessen the credit and use of history ; it is all the light we have in
many cases ; and we receive from it a great part of the useful truths
we have, with a convincing evidence. I think nothing more valuable
than the records of antiquity ; I wish we had more of them, and
more uncorrupted. But this truth itself forces me to say, that no
probability can arise higher than its first original. What has no
other evidence than the single testimony of one only witness, must
stand or fall by his only testimony, whether good, bad, or indifferent ;
and though cited afterwards by hundreds of others, one after another,
is so far from receiving any strength thereby, that it is only the
weaker. Passion, interest, inadvertency, mistake of his meaning,
and a thousand odd reasons or capricios, men''s minds are acted by
(impossible to be discovered), may make one man quote another
man's words or meaning wrong. He that has but ever so little
examined the citations of writers, cannot doubt how little credit
the quotations deserve, where the originals are wanting; and con-
sequently how much less, quotations of quotations can be relied on.
This is certain, that what in one age was affirmed upon slight
grounds, can never after come to be more valid in future ages, by
l>eing often repeated. But the farther still it is from the original,
the less valid it is, and has always less force in the mouth or writing
of him that last made use of it, than in his from whom he received
it.

§ 12. In things zvltich sense cannot discover ^ analogy is the great
rule of 'probability, — The probabilities we have hitherto mentioned,
are only such as concern matter of fact, and such things as are ca-
])able of observation and testimony. There remains that other sort,
concerning which men entertain opinions with variety of assent,
though the things be such, that falling not under the reach of our
senses, they are not capable of testimony. Such are, 1 . The exist-
ence, nature, and operations of finite immaterial beings without us ;
as spirits, angels, devils, &c., or the existence of material beings;
which either for their smallness in themselves, or remoteness from
lis, our senses" cannot take notice of, as whether there be any plants,
animals, and intelligent inhabitants in the planets, and other man-
sions of the vast universe. 2. Concerning the manner of operation
in most ])arts of the works of nature ; wherein, though we see the
sensible effects, yet their causes are unknown, and we perceive not

cii. 16. DEGREES OF ASSENT. 509

the ways and manner how they are produced. We see 'animals are
generated, nourished, and move; the loadstone draws iron ; and the
parts of a candle successively melting, turn into flame, and give us
i)oth 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 human 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 propor-
tion to other parts of our knowledge and observation.* Analogy, in
these matters, is the only help we have, and it 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 itself, we have reason to think, that what we call
heat and fire, consists in a violent agitation of the imperceptible
minute parts of the burning matter : observing, likewise, that the dif-
ferent refractions of pellucid bodies, produce in our eyes the dif-
ferent 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 tlie different arrangement
and refraction of their minute and insensible parts. Thus finding
in all parts of the creation, that fall under human observation,
that there is a gradual connexion of one with another, without any
great or discernible 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 easy to discover the bounds
betwixt them ; we have reason to be persuaded, that by such gentle
steps, things ascend upwards in degrees of perfection. It is a hard
matter to say where sensible and rational begin, and where in-
sensible 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 who 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
diameter at a remote distance, yet the difference between the upper
and under, where they touch one another, is hardly discernible.
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 it
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 to-
wards the infinite perfection of the Creator, by gentle steps and dif-
ferences, that are every one at no great distance from the next to it.

510 DEGREES OF ASSENT. book 4.

This sort of probability, which is the best conduct of rational expe-
riments, and the rise of hypotheses, 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 con-
cealed.

§ 13. One case where contrary experience lessens not the testimony.
— Though the common experience, and the ordinary course of
things, have justly a mighty mfluence 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 superna-
tural events are suitable to ends aimed 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 pro-
per case of miracles, which, well attested, do not only find credit
themselves, but give it also to other truths, which need such con-
firmation.

§ 14. The hare testimony of revelation, is the highest certainty. —
Besides those we have hitherto mentioned, there is one sort of pro-
positions that challenge the highest degree of our assent upon bare
testimony, whether the thing proposed agree or disagree with com-
mon experience, and the ordinary course of things, or no. The rea-
son whereof is, because the testimony is of such a one as cannot de-
ceive, nor be deceived, and that is of God himself. This carries with
it an assurance beyond doubt, evidence beyond exception. This is
called by a peculiar name, revelation ; and our assent to it, faith ;
which as absolutely determines our minds, and as perfectly excludes
all wavering, as our knowledge itself ; 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 settled 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 ourselves 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 is 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 persua-
sion, I shall speak more hereafter, where I treat of it, as it is ordi-
narily placed, in contradistinction to reason; though, in truth, it be
nothing else but an assent founded on the highest reason.

cH. 17. REASON. 511

CHAPTER XVII.

OF REASON.

§ 1. Various significations of the word reason. — The word rea-
son, 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 that he
surpasses them.

§ 2. Wherein reasoning consists. — If general knowledge, as has
been shown, consists in a perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of our own ideas, and the knowledge of the existence of all
things without us (except only of a God, whose existence every man
may certainly know and demonstrate to himself i'rom his own
existence), be had only by our senses ; what room is there for the
exercise of any other faculty, but outward sense, and inward percep-
tion ? What need is there of reason ? Very much ; both for the en-
largement of our knowledge, and regulating our assent : for it hath to
do both in knowledge and opinion, and is necessary and assisting to
all our other intellectual faculties, and, indeed, contains two of them,
viz. sagacity and illation. By the erne it finds out ; and by the
other, it so orders the intermediate ideas, as to discover what con-
nexion there is in each link of the chain, whereby the extremes are
held together ; and thereby, as it were, to draw into view the truth
sought for, which is that which we call illation or inference, and
consists in nothing but the perception of the connexion there is be-
tween the ideas in each step of the deduction, whereby the mind
comes to see either the certain agreement or disagreement of any
two ideas, as of demonstration, in which it arrives at knowledge ; or
their probable connexion, on which it gives or withholds its assent,
as in opinion. Sense and intuition reach but a very little wa}^
The greatest part of knowledge depends upon deductions and inter-
mediate ideas ; and in those cases where we are fain to substitute
assent instead of knowledge, and take propositions for true without
being certain they are so, we have need to find out, examine, and
compare the grounds of their probability. In both these cases, the
faculty which finds out the means, and rightly applies them to dis-
cover certainty in the one, and probability in the other, is that
which we call reason. For as reason perceives the necessary and
indubitable connexion of all the ideas or proofs one to another, in
each step of any demonstration that produces knowledge ; so it like-
wise perceives the probable connexion of all the ideas or proofs one
to another, in every step of a discourse to which it will think assent

512 REASON. book 4.

due. This is the lowest degree of that which can be truly called
reason. For where the mind does not perceive this probable con-
nexion ; where it does not discern whether there be any such con-
nexion or no ; there men's opinions are not the product of judg-*
ment, or the consequence of reason, but the effects of chance and
hazard of a mind floating at all adventures, without choice and with-
out direction.

§ 3. Its four parts. — So that we may in reason consider these
four degrees ; the first, and highest, is the discovering and finding
out of truths ; the second, the regular and methodical disposition of
them, and laying them in a clear and fit order, to make their con-
nexion and force be plainly and easily perceived ; the third, is the
perceiving their connexion ; and the fourth, a making a right con-
clusion. These several degrees may be observed in any mathemati-
cal demonstration ; it being one thing to perceive the connexion of
each part, as the demonstration is made by another ; another to per-
ceive the dependence of the conclusion on all the parts ; a third, to
make out a demonstration clearly and neatly one''s self; and some-
thing different from all these, to have first found out those interme-
diate ideas or proofs by which it is made.

§ 4. Syllogism not the great instnime7it of reason. — There is one
thing more which I shall desire to be considered concerning reason ;
and that is, whether syllogism, as is generally thought, be the proper
instrument of it, and the most useful way oi exercising this faculty.'^
The causes I have to doubt, are these :

First, Because syllogism serves our reason but in one only of the
fore-mentioned parts of it ; and that is, to show the connexion of the
proofs in any one instance, and no more ; but in this it is of no great
use, since the mind can conceive such connexion where it really is,
as easily, nay, perhaps better, without it.

If we will observe the actings of our own minds, we shall find
that we reason best and clearest, when we only observe the con-
nexion of the proof, without reducing our thoughts to any rule of
syllogism. And, therefore, we may take notice, that there are
many men that reason exceeding clear and rightly, who know not
how to make a syllogism. He that will look into many parts of
Asia and America, will find men reason there, perhaps, as acutely
as himself, who yet never heard of a syllogism, nor can reduce any
one argument to those forms ; and I believe scarce any one makes
syllogisms in reasoning within himself. Indeed, syllogism is made
use of on occasion to discover a fallacy hid in a rhetorical flourish,
or cunningly wrapped up in a smooth period; and stripping an
absurdity of the cover of wit and good language, show it in its
naked deformity. But the weakness or fallacy of such a loose dis-
course, it shows by the artificial form it is put into, only to those
who have thoroughly studied mode and figures, and have so exa-
mined the many ways that three propositions may l)c put together,
as to know which of them does certainly conclude right, and which
not, and upon what grounds it is that they do so. AH who have so

II. 17. REASON. 513

far considered syllogism, as to see the reason why, in three proposi-
tions laid together, in one form, the conclusion will be certainly
riobt ; but in another, not certainly so ; I grant are certain of the
conclusion they draw from the premises in the allowed modes and
ligures. But they who have not so far looked into those forms,
are not sure, by virtue of syllogism, that the conclusion certainly
follows from the premises ; they only take it to be so by an implicit
faidi in their teachers, and a confidence in those forms of argu-
mentation ; but this is still but believing, not being certain. Now,
if of all mankind, those who can make syllogisms, are extremely
few in comparison of those who cannot ; and if, of those few who
have been taught logic, there is but a very small number who do
any more than believe that syllogisms in the allowed modes and
iigures do conclude right, without knowing certainly that they do
so ; if syllogisms must be taken for the only proper instrument of
reason and means of knowledge ; it will follow, that before Aristotle,
there was not one man that did, or could, know any thing by reason,
and that since the invention of syllogisms, there is not one of ten
thousand that doth.

But God has not been so sparing to men to make them barely
two-legged creatures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational,
/. c. those few of them that he could get so to examine the grounds
of syllogisms, as to see, that in above threescore ways that three
propositions may be laid together, there are but about fourteen
^vlierein one may be sure that the conclusion is right ; and upon
what grounds it is, that in these few the conclusion is certain, and
in the other not. God has been more bountiful to mankind than
so ; he has given them a mind that can reason without being in-
structed in methods of syllogizing: the understanding is not taught
to reason by these rules ; it has a native faculty to perceive the
colierence or incoherence of its ideas, and can range them right,
without any such perplexing repetitions. I say not this any way
to lessen Aristotle, whom I look on as one of the greatest men
amongst the ancients ; whose large views, acuteness, and penetration
of thought, and strength of judgment, few have equalled; and who
in this very invention of forms of argumentation, wherein the con-
clusion may be shown to be rightly inferred, did great service
against those who were not ashamed to deny any thing. And I
readily own, that all right reasoning may be reduced to his forms
of syllogism. But yet 1 think, without any diminution to him, I
may truly say, that they are not only not the best way of reasoning,
for the leading of those into truth w^ho are willing to find it,
and desire to make the best use they may of their reason, for the at-
tainment of knowledge. And he himself, it is plain, found out
some forms to be conclusive, and others not; not by the forms
themselves, but by the original way of knowledge, i. e. by the
visible agreement of ideas. Tell a country gentlewoman, that the
wind is south-west, and the weather louring, and like to rain, and
she will easily understand it is not safe for her to go abroad thin

514 REASON. book 4.

clad, in such a day, after a fever; she clearly sees the probable
connexion of all these, viz., south-west wind, and clouds, rain,
wetting, taking cold, relapse, and danger of death, without tying them
too-ether in those artificial and cumbersome fetters of several syllo-
gisms, that clog and hinder the mind, which proceeds from one part
to another quicker and clearer without them : and the probability
which she easily perceives in things thus in their native state, would
be quite lost, if this argument were managed learnedly, and proposal
in mode and figure. For it very often confounds the connexion :
and, I think, every one will perceive in mathematical demonstrations,
that the knowledge gained thereby, comes shortest and clearest without
syllogisms.

Inference is looked on as the great act of the rational faculty, and
so it is, when it is rightly made ; but the mind, either very desirous
to enlarge its knowledge, or very apt to favour the sentiments it has
once imbibed, is very forward to make inferences, and therefore often
makes too much haste, before it perceives the connexion of the ideas
that must hold the extremes together.

To infer, is nothing but by virtue of one proposition, laid down
as true, to draw in another as true, i, e. to see or suppose such a
connexion of the two ideas of the inferred proposition : v. ^\ let this
be the proposition laid down, " men shall be punished ni another
world," and from thence be inferred this other, '* then men can
determine themselves."' The question now is to know, whether the
mind has made this inference right, or no .'' If it lias made it by
finding out the intermediate ideas, and taking a view of the con-
nexion of them, placed in a due order, it has proceeded rationally,
and made a right inference. If it has done it without such a view,
it has not so much made an inference that will hold, or an inference
of right reason, as shown a willingness to have it be, or to be taken
for such. But in neither case is it syllogism that discovered those
ideas, or showed the connexion of them, for they must be both foiuul
out, and the connexion every where perceived, before they can
rationally be made use of in syllogism ; unless it can be said, that
any idea, without considering what connexion it hath with the two
other, whose agreement should be shown by it, will do well enougli
in a syllogism, and may be taken at a venture for the mecDus ter-
minus, to prove any. conclusion. But this nobody will say, becausi
it is by virtue of the perceived agreement of the intermediate idea,
with tne extremes, that the extremes are concluded to agree, and
therefore each intermediate idea must be such, as in the w hole chain
hath a visible connexion with those two it has been placed between,
or else thereby the conclusion cannot be inferred or drawn in ; for
wherever any link of the chain is loose, and without connexion
there the whole strength of it is lost, and it hath no force to inf»
or draw in any thing. In the instance above-mentioned, what i>
it shows the force of the inference, and consequently tlie reasonable-
ness of it, but a view of the connexion of all the intermediate ide.*i>
that draw in the conclusion or proposition inferred ; v. g. " men
shall be punished T' *' God the punisher;" "just punishment;'"

n. 17. REASON. 515

' the punished guilty ;'' " could have done otherwise ;" " free-
dom ;" " self-determination :" by which chain of ideas thus visibly
linked together in train, i. e. each intermediate idea agreeing on each
side with those two it is immediately placed between, the ideas of men
and self-determination appear to be connected, i. e. this proposition,
" men can determine themselves," is drawn in or inferred from this,
" that they shall be punished in the other world.'' For here the
mind seeing the connexion there is between the idea of men's punish-
ment in the other world and the idea of God punishing ; between
God punishing, and the justice of the punishment; between the
justice of the punishment, and guilt; between guilt, and a power to
do otherwise ; between a power to do otherwise, and freedom, and
between freedom, and self-determination, sees the connexion between
men, and self-determination.

Now, I ask, whether the connexion of the extremes be not more
clearly seen in this simple and natural disposition, than in the per-
plexed repetitions, and jumble of five or six syllogisms ? I must
beg pardon for calling it jumble, till somebody shall put these ideas
into so many syllogisms, and then say, that they are less jumbled,
and their connexion more visible, when they are transposed and
repeated, and spun out to a greater length in artificial forms, than
in that short and natural plain order they are laid down in here,
wherein every one may see it, and wherein they must be seen,
before they can be put into a train of syllogisms. For the natural
order of the connecting ideas, must direct the order of the syllo-
gisms ; and a man must see the connexion of each intermediate
idea with those that it connects, before he can with reason make
use of it in a syllogism. And when all those syllogisms are made,
neither those that are, nor those that are not, logicians, will see the
force of the argumentation, i. e, the connexion of the extremes, one
jot the better. [For those that are not men of art, not knowing
the true forms of syllogism, nor the reason of them, cannot know
whether they are made in right and conclusive modes and figures
or no, and so are not at all helped by the forms they are put into,
though by them the natural order, wherein the mind could judge
of their respective connexion, being disturbed, renders the illation
much more uncertain than without them.] And as for the logi-
cians themselves, they see the connexion of each intermediate idea
with those it stands between (on which the force of the inference
depends), as well before as after the syllogism is made, or else they
do not see it at all. For a syllogism neither shows nor strengthens
the connexion of any two ideas immediately put together, but only by
the connexion seen in them, shows what connexion the extremes
have with one another. But what connexion the intermediate has
with either of the extremes in that syllogism, that no syllogism
does or can show. That the mind only doth or can perceive as
they stand there in that juxta-position, only by its own view, to
which the syl logistical form it happens to be in gives no help or
light at all; it only shows, that if the intermediate idea agrees

L L 2

516 REASON. book 4.

with those it is on both sides immediately applied to ; then those
two remote ones, or as they are called extremes, do certainly
agree, and therefore the immediate connexion of each idea to that
which it is applied to on each side, on which the force of the
reasoning depends, is as well seen before as after the syllogism is
made, or else he that makes the syllogism could never see it at
all. This, as has been already observed, is seen only by the eye,
or the perceptive faculty of the mind, taking a view of them laid
together, in a juxta-position ; which view of any two it has
equally, whenever they are laid together in any proposition, whether
that proposition be placed as a major, or a minor, in a syllogism,
or no.

Of what use then are syllogisms.? I answer, their chief and
main use is in the schools, where men are allowed, without shame,
to deny the agreement of ideas that do manifestly agree ; or out of
the schools, to those who from thence have learned, without shame,,
to deny the connexion of ideas, which even to themselves is visible,
But to an ingenious searcher after truth, who has no otheri
aim but to find it, there is no need of any such form to force the
allowing of the inference: the truth and reasonableness of it is
better seen in ranging of the ideas in a simple and plain order..
And hence it is, that men in their own inquiries after truth, never
use syllogisms to convince themselves [or in teaching others t(
instruct willing learners], because before they can put them int(
syllogism, they must see the connexion that is between the inter-
mediate idea, and the two other ideas it is set between, and ap-
plied to, to show their agreement ; and when they see that, they
see whether the inference be good or no, and so syllogism comes too
late to settle it. For, to make use again of the former instance, I
ask whether the mind, considering the idea of justice, placed as an
intermediate idea between the punishment of men and the guilt of
the punished (and till it does so consider it, the mind cannot make
use of it as a medius terminus), does not as plainly see the force and
strength of the inference, as when it is formed into syllogism ? To
show it in a very plain and easy example : let animal be the
intermediate idea, or medius terminus, that the mind makes use
of to show the connexion of Jiomo and -civ ens ; I ask, whether
the mind does not more readily and plainly see the connexion in
the simple and proper position of the connecting idea in the
middle ? thus,

Homo Animal Vivens,

than in this perplexed one.

Animal Vivens Homo Animal ;

which is the position these ideas have in a syllogism, to show the
connexion between homo and vivens by the intervention of animal.

CH. 17. REASON. 517

Indeed, syllogism is thought to be of necessary use, even to the
lovers of truth, to show them the fallacies that are often concealed
in florid, witty, or involved discourses. But that this is a mistake,
will appear, if we consider that the reason why sometimes men,
who sincerely aim at truth, are imposed upon by such loose, and
as they are called, rhetorical, discourses, is, that their fancies being
struck with some lively metaphorical representations, they neglect
to observe, or do not easily perceive, what are the true ideas upon
which the inference depends. Now to show such men the weakness
of such an argumentation, there needs no more but to strip it of the
superfluous ideas, which, blended and confounded with those on
which the inference depends, seem to show a connexion where there
is none, or at least to hinder the discovery of the want of it ; and
then to lay the naked ideas on which the force of the argumentation
depends in their due order, in which position the mind taking a view
of them, sees what connexion they have, and so is able to judge of
the inference, without any need of a syllogism at all.

I grant that mode and figure is commonly made use of in such
cases, as if the detection of the incoherence of such loose discourses,
were wholly owing to the syllogistical form ; and so I myself form-
erly thought, till upon a stricter examination, I now find that laying
the intermediate ideas naked in their due order, shows the incoher-
ence of the argumentation better than syllogism ; not only as sub-
jecting each link of the chain to the immediate view of the mind in
its proper place, whereby its connexion is best observed ; but also
because syllogism shows the incoherence only to those (who are not
one of ten thousand) who perfectly understand mode and figure, and
the reason upon which those forms are established ; whereas a due
and orderly placing of the ideas, upon which the inference is made,
makes every one, Avhether logician or not logician, who understands
the terms, and hath the faculty to perceive the agreement or dis-
agreement of such ideas (without which, in or out of syllogism, he
cannot perceive the strength or weakness, coherence or incoherence
of the discourse), see the want of connexion in the argumentation,
and the absurdity of the inference.

And thus I have known a man unskilful in syllogism, who at first
hearing could perceive the weakness and inconclusiveness of a long,
artificial, and plausible discourse, wherewith others better skilled in
syllogism have been misled; and I believe there are few of my
readers who do not know such. And indeed, if it were not so, the
debates of most princes'* councils, and the business of assemblies,
would be in danger to be mismanaged, since those who are relied
upon, and have usually a great stroke in them, are not always such,
who liave the good luck to be perfectly knowing in the forms of
syllogism, or expert in mode and figure. And if syllogism were the
only, or so much as the surest, w^ay to detect the fallacies of artifi-
cial discourses, I do not think that all mankind, even princes in
matters that concern their crowns and dignities, are so much in love
with falsehood and mistake, that they would every where have ne-

518 REASON. book 4.

glected to bring syllogism into the debates of moment, or thought it
ridiculous so much as to offer them in affairs of consequence ; a plain
evidence to me, that men of parts and penetration, who were not
idly to dispute at their ease, but were to act according to the result
of their debates, and often pay for their mistakes with their heads or
fortunes, found those scholastic forms were of little use to discover
truth or fallacy, whilst both the one and the other might be shown,
and better shown, without them, to those who would not refuse to
see what was visibly shown them.

Secondly, Another reason that makes me doubt whether syllogism
be the only proper instrument of reason in the discovery of truth, is,
that of whatsoever use mode and figure is pretended to be in the
laying open of fallacy (which has been above considered), those
scholastic forms of discourse are not less liable to fallacies, than the
plainer ways of argumentation ; and for this I appeal to common ob-
servation, which has always found these artificial methods of reason-
ing more adapted to catch and entangle the mind, than to instruct
anpl inform the understanding. And hence it is, that men, even
when they are baffled and silenced in this scholastic way, are seldom
or never convinced, and so brought over to the conquering side :
they perhaps acknowledge their adversary to be the more skilful
disputant, but rest nevertheless persuaded of the truth on their side ;
and go away, worsted as they are, with the same opinion they
brought with them, which they could not do, if this way of argu-
mentation carried light and conviction with it, and made men see
where the truth lay ; and therefore syllogism has been thought more
proper for the attaining victory in dispute, than for the discovery or
confirmation of truth, in fair inquiries : and if it be certain, that
fallacy can be couched in syllogisms, as it cannot be denied, it must
be something else, and not syllogism, that must discover them.

I have had experience how ready some men are, when all the
use which they have been wont to ascribe to any thing is not allowed,
to cry out, that I am for laying it wholly aside. But to prevent
such unjust and groundless imputations, 1 tell them, that I am not
for taking away any helps to the understanding, in the attainment
of knowledge. And if men skilled in, and used to, syllogisms, and
find them assisting to their reason in the discovery of truth, I think
they ought to make use of them. All that I aim at is, that they
should not ascribe more to those forms, than belongs to them ; and
think, that men have no use, or not so full a use, of their reasoning
faculty, without them. Some eyes want spectacles to see things
clearly and distinctly ; but let not those that use them therefore say
nobody can see clearly without them : those who do so, will be
thought in favour with art (which perhaps they are beholding to) a
little too much to depress and discredit nature. Reason, by its own
penetration, where it is strong and exercised, usually sees quicker
and clearer without syllogism. If use of those spectacles has so
dimmed its sight, that it cannot without them see consequences or
inconse(iuences in argumentation, I am not so unreasonable as to

cH. 17. REASON. 519

be against the using them. Every one knows what best fits his own
sight : but let him not thence conclude all in the dark, who use not
just the same helps that he finds a need of.

§ 5. Helps little in demonstration, less in probability. — But how-
ever it be in knowledge, I think I may truly say it is of far less, or
no use at all, in probabilities. For the assent there being to be de-
termined by the preponderancy, after a due weighing of all the proof,
with all circumstances on both sides, nothing is so unfit to assist the
mind in that, as syllogism ; which running away with one assumed
probability, or one topical argument, pursues that till it has led the
mind quite out of sight of the thing under consideration ; and forc-
ing it upon some remote difficulty, holds it fast there entangled per-
haps, and as it were manacled in the chain of syllogisms, without
allowing it the liberty, much less affording it the helps, requisite to
sliow on which side, all things considered, is the greater probability.

§ 6. Serves not to increase our knowledge., but fence xmih it. —
But let it help us, (as perhaps may be said) in convincing men of
their errors and mistakes (and yet I would fain see the man that was
forced out of his opinion by dint of syllogism) : yet still it fails our
reason in that part, which, if not its highest perfection, is yet cer-
tainly its hardest task, and that which we most need its help in ; and
that is, the finding out of proofs, and making new discoveries. The
rules of syllogism serve not to furnish the mind Avith those interme-
diate ideas that may show the connexion of remote ones. This way
of reasoning discovers no new proofs, but is the art of marshaUing
and ranging the old ones we have already. The forty-seventh pro-
position of the first book of Euclid, is very true ; but the discovery
of it, I think, not owing to any rules of common logic. A man
knows fil-st, and then he is able to prove syllogistically ; so that
syllogism comes after knowledge, and then a man has little or no
need of it. But it is chiefly by the finding out those ideas that
show the connexion of distant ones, that our stock of knowledge is
increased, and that useful arts and sciences are advanced. Syllo-
gism, at best, is but the art of fencing with the little knowledge we
have, without making any addition to it. And if a man should em-
ploy his reason all this way, he will not do much otherwise than
he, who having got some iron out of the bowels of the earth, should
have it beaten up all into swords, and put it into his servants' hands
to fence with, and bang one another. Had the King of Spam em-
ployed the hands of his people, and his Spanish iron so, he had
brought to light but little of that treasure that lay so long hid in
the entrails of America. And I am apt to think, that he who shall
employ all the force of his reason only in brandishing of syllogisms,
will discover very little of that mass of knowledge which lies yet
concealed in the secret recesses of nature ; and which, I am apt to
think, native rustic reason (as it formerly has done) is likelier to
open a way to, and add to the common stock of mankind, rather
than any scholastic proceeding by the strict rules of mode and
figure.

520 ' REASON. book 4.

§ 7. Other helps should he sought. — I doubt not, nevertheless,
but there are ways to be found to assist our reason in this most
useful part ; and this the judicious Hooker encourages me to say,
who in his Eccl. Pol. 1. 1. § 6, speaks thus: " If there might be
added the right helps of true art and learning (which helps I must
plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned
age, doth neither much know, nor generally regard), there would
undoubtedly be almost as much difference in maturity of judgment
between men therewith inured, and that which men now are, as be-
tween men that are now, and innocents.*" I do not pretend to have
found or discovered here any of those right helps of art this great
man of deep thought mentions : but this is plain, that syllogism,
and the logic now in use, which were as well known in his days, can
be none of those he means. It is sufficient for me, if by a discourse
perhaps something out of the way, I am sure as to me wholly new
and unborrowed, I shall have given occasion to others to cast
about for new discoveries, and to seek in their own thoughts for
those right helps of art which will scarce be found, I fear, by those
who servilely confine themselves to the rules and dictates of others :
for beaten tracks lead this sort of cattle (as an observing Roman calls
them), whose thoughts reach only to imitation, non quo eundum est,
sed quo ituj: But I can be bold to say, that this age is adorned
with some men of that strength of judgment, and largeness of com-
prehension, that if they would employ their thoughts on this subject,
could open new and undiscovered ways to the advancement of know-
ledge.

§ 8. We reason about particulars. — Having here had an occasion
to speak of syllogism in general, and the use of it in reasoning, and
the improvement of our knowledge, it is fit, before I leave this sub-
ject, to take notice of one manifest mistake in the rules of syllogism
viz. that no syllogistical reasoning can be right and conclusive, bul
what has, at least, one general proposition in it : as if we could nol
reason, and have knowledge about particulars ! Whereas, in truth
the matter rightly considered, the immediate object of all our reaso
ing and knowledge, is nothing but particulars. Every man's reasoi
ing and knowledge is only about the ideas existing in his own min
which are truly, every one of them, particular existences; and ou
knowledge and reason about other things, is only as they correspond
with those of our particular ideas. So that the perception of the
agreement or disagreement of our particular ideas, is the whole and
utmost of all our knowledge. Universality is but accidental to it,
and consists only in this, that the particular ideas about which it is,
are such, as more than one particular thing can correspond with, and
be represented by. But the perception of the agreement or disagree-
ment of any two ideas, consequently our own knowledge, is equally
clear and certain, whether either, or both, or neither, of those ideas
be capable of representing more real beings than one, or no. One
thing more I crave leave to offer about syllogism, before I leave it,
viz. may one not upon just ground inquire whether the form syllogism

CH. IT. REASON. 521

now has, is that which in reason it ought to have ? For the medlus
.terminus being to join the extremes, i. e. the intermediate idea by
its intervention, to show the agreement or disagreement of the two in
question ; would not the position of the medius termifius be more
natural, and show the agreement or disagreement of the extremes
clearer and better, if it were placed in the middle between them ?
Which might be easily done by transposing the propositions, and
making the medius terminus the predicate of the first, and the sub-
ject of the second. As thus :

" Omnis homo est animal,
Omne animal est vivens,.
Ergo omnis homo est vivens."

" Omne corpus est extensum ct solidum.
Nullum extensum et solidum est pura extcnsio,
Ergo corpus non est pura extensio."

I need not trouble my reader with instances in syllogisms, whose
conclusions are particular. The same reason holds for the same
form in them, as well as in the general.

§ 9. Firsts reason fails us for xmnt of ideas. — Reason, though it
penetrates into the depths of the sea and earth, elevates our thoughts
as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast spaces and large
rooms of this mighty fabric, yet it comes far short of the real extent
of even corporeal being ; and there are many instances wherein it
fails us : as,

First, It perfectly fails us, where our ideas fail. It neither does,
nor can, extend itself farther than they do. And therefore wherever
we have no ideas, our reasoning stops, and we are at an end of our
reckoning : and if at any time we reason about words, which do not
stand for any ideas, it is only about those sounds, and nothing else.

§ 10. Secondly, because of obscure and imperfect ideas. — Secondly,
Our reason is often puzzled, and at a loss, because of the obscurity,
confusion, or imperfection of the ideas it is employed about ; and
there we are involved in difficulties and contradictions. Thus, not
having any perfect idea of the least extension of matter, nor of in-
finity, we are at a loss about the divisibility of matter ; but having
perfect, clear, and distinct ideas of number, our reason meets with
none of those inextricable difficulties in numbers, nor finds itself
involved in any contradictions about them. Thus, we having but
imperfect ideas of the operations of our minds, and of the beginning
of motion or thought, how the mind produces either of them in us ;
and much more imperfect yet of the operation of God ; run into
great difficulties about free created agents, which reason cannot well
extricate itself out of.

§ 11. Thirdly, for want of intermediate ideas. — Thirdly, Our
reason is often at a stand, because it perceives not those ideas,
which could serve to show the certain or probable agreement or dis-
agreement of any other two ideas : and in this some men's faculties
far outgo others. Till algebra, that great instrument and instance

522 REASON. book 4.

of human sagacity, was discovered, men, with amazement, looked on
several of the demonstrations of ancient mathematicians, and could
scarcely forbear to think the finding several of those proofs to be
something more than human.

§ ]2. Fourthly, because of wrong principles. — Fourthly, The
mind by proceeding upon false principles, is often engaged in
absurdities and difficulties, brought into straits and contradictions,
without knowing how to free itself: and in that case it is in vain to
implore the help of reason, unless it be to discover the falsehood, and
reject the influence of those wrong principles. Reason is so far from
clearing the difficulties which the building upon false foundations
brings a man into, that if he will pursue it, it entangles him the more,
and engages him deeper in perplexities.

§ 13. Fifthly, because of doubtful terms. — Fifthly, As obscure
and imperfect ideas often involve our reason, so upon the same
ground do dubious words, and uncertain signs, often in discourses
and arguings, when not warily attended to, puzzle men"*s reason, and
bring them to a nonplus : but these two latter are our fault, and not
the fault of reason. But yet the consequences of them are never-
theless obvious ; and the perplexities or errors they fill men's minds
with, are every where observable.

§ 14. Our highest degree of knowledge is intuitive, zvithout rea-
sonifig. — Some of the ideas that are in the mind, are so there, that
they can be by themselves immediately compared one with another :
and in these the mind is able to perceive, that they agree, or disagree,
as clearly as that it has them. Thus the mind perceives, that an
arch of a circle is less than the whole circle, as clearly as it does the
idea of a circle : and this, therefore, as has been said, I call intuitive
knowledge, which is certain, beyond all doubt, and needs no pro-
bation, nor can have any ; this being the highest of all human cer-
tainty. In this consists the evidence of all those maxims which no-
body has any doubt about, but every man (does not, as is said, only
assent to, but) knows to be true, as soon as ever they are proposed
to his understanding. In the discovery of, and assent to, these truths,
there is no use of the discursive faculty, no need of reasoning, but
they are known by a superior and higher degree of evidence. A nd
sucli, if I may guess at things unknown, I am apt to think that
angels have now, and the spirits of just men made perfect shall have,
in a future state, of thousands of things, which now either wholly
escape our apprehensions, or which our short-sighted reason having
got some faint glimpse of, we, in the dark, grope after.

§ 1 5. The next is demonstration by reasoning. — But though we
have here and there a little of this clear light, some sparks of l)right
knowledge ; yet the greatest part of our ideas are such, that we can-
not discern their agreement or disagreement, by an immediate com-
paring them. And in all these we have need of reasoning, and must,
by discourse and inference, make our discoveries. Now, of these
there are two sorts, which 1 shall take the liberty to mention here
again :

cH. 17. REASON. 523

First, Those whose agreement or disagreement, though it cannot
he seen by an immediate putting them together, yet may be examined
by the intervention of other ideas, which can be compared with them.
In this case, when the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate
idea, on both sides with those which we would compare, is plainly
discerned, there it amounts to a demonstration, whereby knowledge
is produced, which though it be certain, yet it is not so easy, nor
altogether so clear, as intuitive knowledge ; because in that there is
barely one simple intuition, wherein there is no room for any the
least mistake or doubt; the truth is seen all perfectly at once. In
demonstration, it is true, there is intuition too, but not altogether at
once : for there must be a remembrance of the intuition of the agree-
ment of the medium, or intermediate idea, with that we compare it
w ith before, when we compare it with the other ; and where there be
many mediums, there the danger of the mistake is the greater. For
each agreement or disagreement of the ideas, must be observed and
seen in each step of the whole train, and retained in the memory,
just as it is, and the mind must be sure that no part of what is neces-
sary to make up the demonstration, is omitted or over-looked. This
ii lakes some demonstrations long and perplexed, and too hard for
those who have not strength of parts distinctly to perceive, and ex-
actly carry so many particulars orderly in their heads. And even
those, who are able to master such intricate speculations, are fain
sometimes to go over them again, and there is need of more than one
review before they can arrive at certainty. But yet where the mind
clearly retains the intuition it had of the agreement of any idea widi
another, and that with a third, and that with a fourth, &c. there the
agreement of the first and the fourth is a demonstration, and pro-
duces certain knowledge, which maybe called rational knowledge, as
the other is intuitive.

§ 16. To supply the narrowness of this, we have nothing but
judgment upon probable reasoning. — Secondly, There are other ideas,
whose agreement or disagreement can no otherwise be judged of but
]jy the intervention of others, which have not a certain agreement
with the extremes, but a usual or likely one ; and in these it is, that
the judgment is properly exercised, which is the acquiescing of the
mind, that any ideas do agree, by comparing them with such probable
mediums. This, though it never amounts to knowledge, no, not to
that which is the lowest degree of it, yet sometimes the intermediate
ideas tie the extremes so firmly together, and the probability is so
clear and strong, that assent as necessarily follows it, as knowledge
does demonstration. The great excellency and use of the judgment
is to observe right, and take a true estimate of the force and weight
of each probability ; and then casting them up all right together,
choose that side which has the overbalance.

§ 17. Intuition, demonstration, judgment. — Intuitive knowledge
is the perception of the certain agreement or disagreement of two
ideas, immediately compared together.

Rational knowledge is the perception of the certain agreement or

524 REASON. book 4.

disagreement of any two ideas, by the intervention of one or more
other ideas.

Judgment, is the thinking or taking two ideas to agree or disagree
by the intervention of one or more ideas, whose certain agreement
or disagreement with them it does not perceive, but hath observed
to be frequent and usual.

§ 18. Consequences qfzoords, and consequences of ideas, — Thougli
the deducing one proposition from another, or making inferences in
words, be a great part of reason, and that which it is usually em-
ployed about, yet the principal act of ratiocination, is the finding the
agreement or disagreement of two ideas one with another, by the in-
tervention of a third. As a man, by a yard, finds two houses to be
of the same length, which could not be brought together to measure
their equality by juxta-jx)sition. Words have their consequences, as
the signs of such ideas : and things agree or disagree, as really they
are ; but we observe it only by our ideas.

§ 19. Four sorts of argttments. Fiist, ad verecundiam. — Before
we quit this subject, it may be worth our while a little to reflect on
four sorts of arguments, that men in their reasoning's with others do
ordinarily make use of, to prevail on their assent ; or at least so to
awe them, as to silence their opposition.

First, The first is, to allege the opinions of men, whose parts,
learning, eminency, power, or some other cause, has gained a name,
and settled their reputation in the common esteem with some kind of
authority. When men are established in any kind of dignity, it is
thought a breach of modesty for others to derogate any way from it,
and question the authority of men, who are in possession of it. This
is apt to be censured, as carrying with it too much of pride, wheuj
a man does not readily yield to the determination of approved au^
thors, which is wont to be received with respect and submission bj
others; and it is looked upon as insolence for a man to set u[
and adhere to, his own opinion, against the current stream of anti
quity ; or to put it in the balance against that of some learned dc
tor, or otherwise approved writer. Whoever backs his tenets witl
such authorities, thinks he ought thereby to carry the cause, and ij
ready to style it impudence in any one who shall stand out agains
them. Tliis, I think, may be called argumcntum ad verecundiam.

§ 20. Secmidhj, ad ignorantiam. — Secondly^ Another way tliat
men ordinarily use to drive others, and force them to submit their
judgments, and receive the opinion in debate, is to require the
adversary to admit what they allege as a proof, or to assign a better.
And this I call argumentum ad ignorantiam .

§ 21. Thirdly, ad horninem. — A third way is to press a man with
consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions. This is
already known under the name of argumentum ad hominem.

§ 22. Fourthly, ad judicium. — Tlie fourth is the using of proofs
drawn from any of the foundations of knowledge or yjrobability.
This I call a7gunientu7n ad Judicium. This alone of all the four
brings true instruction with it, and advances us in our way to know-

CH. 17. REASON. 525

ledge. For, 1. It argues not another man's opinion to be right,
because I, out of respect, or any other consideration, but that of
conviction, will not contradict him. 2. It proves not another man
to be in the right way, nor that I ought to take the same with him,
because I know not a better. 3. Nor does it follow, that another
man is in the right way, because he has shown me that I am in the
wrong. I may be modest, and, therefore, not oppose another man's
persuasion ; I may be ignorant, and not be able to produce a better ;
I may be in an error, and another may show me that I am so. This
may dispose me, perhaps, for the reception of truth, but helps me
not to it; that must come from proofs and arguments, and light
arising from the nature of things themselves, and not from my shame-
facedness, ignorance, or error.

§ 23. Above, contrary, and according to reason.— ^y what has
been before said of reason, we may be able to make some guess at
the distinction of things, into those that are according to, above, and
contrary to reason. 1. According to reason are such propositions,
whose truth we can discover, by examining and tracing those ideas
we have from sensation and reflection ; and by natural deduction
find to be true or probable. 2. Above reason, are such propositions,
whose truth or probabiHty we cannot, by reason, derive from those
principles. 3. Contrary to reason, are such propositions, as are
inconsistent with, or irreconcilable to, our clear and distinct ideas.
Thus tlie existence of one God, is according to reason : the existence
of more than one God, contrary to reason : the resurrection of the
dead, above reason. Farther, as above reason may be taken in a
double sense, viz., either as signifying above probability, or above
certainty ; so in that large sense also, contrary to reason, is, I sup-
pose, sometimes taken.

§ 24. Reason andjaith not opposite. — There is another use of
the word reason, wherein it is opposed to faith : which, though it
be in itself a very improper way of speaking, yet common use has
so authorised it, that it would be folly either to oppose or hope to
remedy it : only I think it may not be amiss to take notice, that
however faith be opposed to reason, faith is nothing but a firm as-
sent of the mind ; which if it be regulated, as is our duty, cannot be
afforded to any thing but upon good reason, and so cannot be op-
posite to it. He that believes, without having any reason for be-
lieving, may be in love with his own fancies; but neither seeks truth
as he ought, nor pays the obedience due to his Maker, who would
have him use those discerning faculties he has given him, to keep
him out of mistake and error. He that does not this, to the best of
his power, however he sometimes lights on truth, is in the right but
by chance; and I know not whether the luckiness of the accident
will excuse the irregularity of his proceeding. This, at least, is
certain, that he must be accountable for whatever mistakes he runs
into ; whereas, he that makes use of the light and faculties God has
given him, and seeks sincerely to discover truth, by those helps and
abihties he has, may have this satisfaction in doing his duty as a

526 FAITH AND REASON. book 4.

rational creature, that though he should miss truth, he will not miss
the reward of it ; for he governs his assent right, and places it as he
should, who, in any case or matter whatsoever, believes or disbe-
lieves according as reason directs him. He that doth otherwise,
transgresses against his own light, and misuses those faculties which
were given him to no other end, but to search and follow the clearer
evidence, and greater probability. But since reason and faith are
by some men opposed, we will so consider them in the following
chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF FAITH AND REASON, AND THEIR DISTINCT PROVINCES.

§ 1. Necessary to knoxo their boundaries, — It has been above
shown. Firsts That we are of necessity ignorant, and want knowledge
of all sorts, where we want ideas. Secondly^ That we are ignorant,
and want rational knowledge, where we want proofs. Thirdly^
That we want general knowledge and certainty, as far as we want
clear and determined specific ideas. Fourthly^ That we want pro-
bability to direct our assent in matters where we have neither know-
ledge of our own, nor testimony of other men, to bottom our reason
upon.

From these things thus premised, I think we may come to lay
down the measures and boundaries between faith and reason ; the
want thereof may possibly have been the cause, if not of great dis-
orders, yet, at least, of great disputes, and perhaps mistakes, in the
world ; for until it be resolved how far we are to be guided by reason,
and how far by faith, we shall in vain dispute, and endeavour to con-
vince one another in matters of religion.

§ 2. Faith and reason what^ as contj^a-distinguishcd. — I fine
every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly ;j
and where it fails them, they cry out, it is matter of faith, and above
reason. And I do not see how they can argue with any one, oi
ever convince a gainsayer, who makes use of the same plea, without
setting down strict boundaries between faith and reason, whicli
ought to be the first point established in all questions, where faith has
any thing to do.

Reason, therefore, here, as contra-distinguished to faith, I take to
be the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions
or truths, which the mind arrives at by deduction made from such
ideas which it has got by the use of its natural faculties, viz., by
sensation or reflection.

Faith, on the other side, is the assent to any proposition, not thus
made out by the deductions of reason, but upon the credit of the
proposer, as coming from God in some extraordinary way of com-
munication. This way of discovering truths to men, we call revela-
tion.

( H. 18. FAITH AND REASON. 527

§ 3. No nezv simple idea can be conveyed hy traditional reve-
lation.— First, then, I say, that no man inspired by God, can by
any revelation, communicate to others any new simple ideas, which'
they had not before from sensation or reflection ; for whatsoever im-
pressions he himself may have from the immediate hand of God,
this revelation, if it be of new simple ideas, cannot be conveyed to
another, either by words or any other signs ; because words, by their
immediate operation on us, cause no other ideas but of their natural
sounds ; and it is by the custom of using them for signs, that they
excite and revive in our minds latent ideas ; but yet only such ideas
as were there before. For words seen or heard, recal to our thoughts
those ideas only, which to us tliey have been wont to be signs of ;
but cannot introduce any perfectly new, and formerly unknown,
simple ideas. The same holds in all other signs, which cannot
signify to us things of which we have before never had any idea
at all.

Thus whatever things were discovered to St. Paul when he was
wrapped up into the third Heaven, whatever new ideas his mind
there received, all the description he can make to others of that
place, is only this, that there are such things as " eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor haih it entered into the heart of man to con-
ceive."" And supposing God should discover to any one, superna-
turally,- a species of creatures inhabiting, for example, Jupiter or
Saturn (for that it is possible there may be such, nobody can
deny), which had six senses ; and imprint on his mind the ideas
conveyed to theirs by that sixth sense, he could no more, by words,
produce in the minds of other men those ideas, imprinted by that
sixth sense, than one of us could convey the idea of any colour by
the sounds of words into a man, who having the other four senses
perfect, had always totally wanted the fifth, of seeing. For our
simple ideas, then, which are the foundation and sole matter of all
our notions and knowledge, we must depend wholly on our reason,
I mean our natural faculties, and can by no means receive them, or
any of them, from traditional revelation ; I say, traditional revela-
tion, in distinction to original revelation. By the one, I mean that
first impression which is made immediately by God, on the mind of
any man, to which we cannot set any bounds ; and by the other, those
impressions delivered over to others in words, and the ordinary ways
of conveying our conceptions one to another.

§ 4. Traditional revelation may make us Imow propositions Jtnoza-
able also by reason, but not zvith the same certainty that reason^ doth,
— Secondly, I say, that the same truths may be discovered, and con-
veyed down from revelation, which are discoverable to us by reason,
and by those ideas we naturally may have. So God might, by
revelation, discover the truth of any proposition in Euclid; as Well
as men, by the natural use of their faculties, come to make the dis-
covery themselves. In all things of this kind, there is little need or
use of revelation, God having furnished us with a natural and surer
means to arrive at the knowledge of them. For whatsoever truth

588 FAITH AND REASON. book 4.

we come to the clear discovery of, from the knowledge and contem-
plation of our own ideas, will always be more certain to us, than
those which are conveyed to us by traditional revelation. For the
knowledge we have that this revelation came at first from God, can
never be so sure as the knowledge we have from the clear and dis-
tinct perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas,
V. g. if it were revealed some ages since, that the three angles of a
triangle were equal to two right ones, I might assent to the truth of
that proposition, upon the credit of the tradition, that it was revealed.
But that would never amount to so great a certainty as the know-
ledge of it, upon the comparing and measuring my own ideas of two
right angles, and the three angles of a triangle. The like holds in matter
of fact, knowable by our senses, v. g. the history of the deluge is con-
veyed to us by writings, which had their original from revelation :
and yet nobody, I thinK, will say, he has as certain and clear a know-
ledge of the flood, as Noah, that saw it; or that he liimself would
have had, had he then been alive, and seen it. For he has no greater
an assurance than that of his senses, that it is writ in the book sup-
posed writ by Moses, inspired ; but he has not so great an assurance
that Moses writ that book, as if he had seen Moses write it. So that
the assurance of its being a revelation, is less still than the assurance
of his senses.

§ 5. Revelation cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of
reason, — In propositions, then, whose certainty is built upon the
clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, at-
tained either by immediate intuition, as in self-evident propositions,
or by evident deductions of reason in demonstrations, we need not
the assistance of revelation, as necessary to gain our assent, and in-
troduce them into our minds ; because the natural ways of knowledge
could settle them there, or had done it already, which is the greatest
assurance we can possilDly have of any thing, unless where God im-
mediately reveals it to us. And there too our assurance can be no
greater than our knowledge is, that it is a revelation from God. But
yet nothing I think can, under that title, shake or even overrule
plain knowledge, or rationally prevail with any man to admit it for
true, in a direct contradiction to the clear evidence of his own under-
standing. For since no evidence of our faculties, by which we re-
ceive such revelations, can exceed, if equal, the certainty of our in-
tuitive knowledge, we can never receive for a truth any thing that
is directly contrary to our clear and distinct knowledge, v. g. the
ideas of one body and one place, do so clearly agree, and the mind
has so evident a perception of their agreement, that we can never
assent to a proposition that affirms the same body to be in two dis-
tant places at once, however it should pretend to the authority of a
divine revelation ; since the evidence, Firsts That we deceive not
ourselves in ascribing it to God ; Secondly, That we understand it
right ; can never be so great, as the evidence of our own intuitive
knowledge, whereby we discern it impossible for the same body to be
in two places at once. And therefore no proposition can be received

' H. 18. FAITH AND REASON. 5S9

for divine revelation, or obtain the assent due to all such, if it be
contradictory to our clear and intuitive knowledge. Because this
M ould be to subvert the principles and foundations of all knowledge,
evidence, and assent whatsoever; and there would be left no difference
between truth and falsehood, no measures of credible and incredible
in the world, if doubtful propositions shall take place before self-
evident, and what we certainly know give way to what we may
possibly be mistaken in. In propositions, therefore, contrary to the
clear perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas,
it will be in vain to urge them as matters of faith. They cannot
move our assent, under that or any other title whatsoever : for faith
can never convince us of any thing that contradicts our knowledge,
because, though faith be founded on the testimony of God (who can-
not lie) revealing any proposition to us ; yet we cannot have an
assurance of the truth of its being a divine revelation, greater than
our own know ledge : since the whole strength of the certainty depends
upon our knowledge, that God revealed it, which in this case, where
the proposition supposed revealed contradicts our knowledge or rea-
son, will always have this objection hanging to it, viz., that we can-
not tell how to conceive that to come from God, the bountiful
Author of our being, which, if received for true, must overturn
all the principles and foundations of knowledge he has given us ; ren-
(ler all our faculties useless ; wholly destroy the most excellent part
of his workmanship, our understandings ; and put a man in a condi-
tion, 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
})erhaps not so clear) 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
})roposition, whose revelation has not a greater evidence than those
principles have.

§ 6. Traditiaywl revelation much less. — Thus far a man has use
of reason, and ought to hearken to it, even in immediate and original
revelation, where it is supposed to be made to himself: but to all
tliose 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 com-
monly 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, w^ho 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

M M

530 FAITH AND REASON. book 4.

reason ; and such as I must come fo an assent to, only by the use of
my reason, which can never requu-e or enable me to believe that
which is contrary to itself; it being impossible for reason ever to pro-
cure any assent to that, which to itself 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 con-
senting with it confirm its dictates, yet cannot in such cases invali-
date 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 a matter of faith ; which can have no authority
against the plain and clear dictates of reason.

§ 7. Thitigs above reason, — But, Thirdlj/, 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 dead shall rise, and live again : these, and the like,
being beyond the discovery of reason, are purely matters of faith ;
Math which reason has directly nothing to do.

§ 8. Or not contrary to reason, if revealed, are matter of firth,
— But, since God, in giving us the light of reason, has not thereby
tied up his own hand from affording us, when he thinks fit, the light
of revelation in any of those matters, wherein our natural faculties
are able to give a probable determination ; revelation, where God
has been pleased to give it, must carry it against the probable con-
jectures of reason, because the mind not being certain of the truthi
of that it does not evidently know, but only yielding to the probabi-
lity that appears in it, is bound to give up his assent to such a testis
mony ; which, it is satisfied, comes from one who cannot err, anc'
will not deceive. But yet it still belongs to reason, to judge of th(
truth of its being a revelation, and of the signification of the words
wherein it is delivered. Indeed, if any thing shall be thought reve-
lation, which is contrary to the plain principles of reason, and th(
evident knowledge the mind has of its own clear and distinct ideas,]
there reason must be hearkened to, as to a matter within its province.
Since a man can never have so certain a knowledge, tliat a propo-
sition, 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, am
not swallow lit, without examination, as a matter of faith.

§ 9. Revelation in matters where reason cannot judge, or but pro^
baoh/, ou^ht to be hearkened to. — First, Wiiatever proposition is re-
vealed, 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

( H. 18. FAITH AND REASON. 531

natural faculties, can come to determine and judge, from naturally
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 its own reason in such probable propositions, I say, an
evident revelation ought to determine our assent even against proba-
bility. For where the principles of reason have not evidenced 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. In matters where reason can afford certain linowledge^ that
is to be hearkened to, — Thus far the dominion of faith reaches, and
that without any violence or hindrance to reason ; which is not in-
jured or disturbed, but assisted and improved, by new discoveries of
truth, coming from the eternal Fountain of all knowledge. What-
ever 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 allow it to entertain probability in opposition to knowledge and
certainty. There can be no evidence, that any traditional revela-
tion is of divine original, in the words we receive it, and in the sense
we understand it, so clear, and so certain, as that of the principles
of reason : and therefore, nothing that is contrary to, and inconsis-
tent with, tlie clear and self-evident dictates of reason, has a right to
be urged or assented to, as a matter of faith, wherein reason hath
nothing to do. Whatsoever is divine revelation, ought to over-rule
all our opinions, prejudices, and interests, and hath a right to be
received with full assent ; such a submission as this of our reason to
faith, takes not away the land-marks of knowledge : this shakes not
the foundations of reason, but leaves us that use of our faculties, for
which they were given us.

§ 11. If the boundaries be not set between faith and reason,
no enthusiasm, or extravagancy in religion, can be contradicted. —
If the provinces of faith and reason are not kept distinct by these
boundaries, there will, in matters of religion, be no room for reason
at all ; and those extravagant opinions and ceremonies, that are to
be found in the several religions of the world, will not deserve to be
blamed. For, to this crying up of faith, in opposition to reason,
we may, I think, in good measure, ascribe those absurdities that fill
almost all the religions which possess and divide mankind. For
men having been principled with an opinion, that they must not con-
sult reason in the things of religion, however apparently contradic-
tory to common sense, and the very principles of all their knowledge.

53^ ENTHUSIASM. book 4.

have let loose their fancies, and natural superstition ; and have been,
by them, led into so strange opinions, and extravagant practices, in
religion, that a considerate man cannot but stand amazed at their fol-
lies, and judge them so far from being acceptable to the great and
wise God, that he cannot avoid thinking them ridiculous and offen-
sive to a sober, good man. So that, in effect, religion, which should
most distinguish us from beasts, and ought most peculiarly to elevate
us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often ap-
pear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts themselves.
Credo, quia impossibile est, I believe, because it is impossible, might
in a good man pass for a sally of zeal ; but w ould prove a very ill
rule for men to choose their opinions or religion by.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF ENTHUSIASM.

§ 1. Loie of truth 7iecessary. — He that would seriously set upon
the search of truth, ought in the first place to prepare his mind with
a love of it : for he that loves it not, will not take much pains to get
it, nor be much concerned when he misses it. There is nobody in
the commonwealth of learning, who does not profess himself a lover
of truth : and there is not a rational creature that would not take it
amiss to be thought otherwise of. And yet for all this, one may
truly say, that there are very few lovers of truth for truth's sake,
even amongst those who persuade themselves that they are so. How
a man may know whether he be so in earnest, is worth inquiry i
and I think there is one unerring mark of it, viz., the not enter-
taining any proposition with greater assurance, than the proofs it is
built upon will warrant. Whoever goes beyond this measure ofj
assent, it is plain, receives not truth in the love of it ; loves not truth
for truth's sake, but for some other by-end. For the evidence that
any proposition is true (except such as are self-evident) lying only i
in the proofs a man has of it, whatsoever degrees of assent he affords i
it beyond the degrees of that evidence, it is plain, that all the sur-1
plusage of assurance is owing to some other affection, and not to the
love of truth : it being as impossible, that the love of truth should]
carry my assent above the evidence there is to me that it is true, as that!
the love of truth should make me assent to any proposition, for the]
sake of that evidence, which it has not, that it is true ; which is, in
effect, to love it as a truth, because it is possible or probable that it
may not be true. In any truth that gets not possession of our minds I
by the irresistible light of self-evidence, or by the force of demonstra-j
lion, the arguments that gain it assent are the vouchers and gagef
of its probabiUty to us ; and we can receive it for no other than such]
as they deliver it to our understandings. Whatsoever credit or
authority we give to any proposition more than it receives from the

CH. 19. ENTHUSIASM. 533

principles and proofs it supports itself upon, is owing to our incli-
nations that way, and is so far a derogation from the love of truth
as such : which as it can receive no evidence from our passions or
interests, so it should receive no tincture from them.

§ ^. A forzvardness to dictate, from zvhence. — The assuming an
authority of dictating to others, and a forwardness to prescribe to
their opinions, is a constant concomitant of this bias and corruption
of our judgments: for how almost can it be otherwise, but that he
should be ready to impose on another's belief, who has already im-
posed on his own ? Who can reasonably expect arguments and
conviction from him, in dealing with others, whose understanding is
not accustomed to them in his deahng with himself? Who does vio-
lence to his own faculties tyrannizes over his own mind, and usurps
the prerogative that belongs to truth alone, which is to command
assent by only its own authority, i. e. by and in proportion to that
evidence which it carries with it.

§ 3. Force of enthusiasm. — Upon this occasion, I shall take the
liberty to consider a third ground of assent, which, with some men,
has the same authority, and is as confidently relied on, as either
faith or reason : I mean enthusiasm. Which, laying by reason, wovdd
set up revelation without it. Whereby, in effect, it takes away both
reason and revelation, and substitutes in the room of it the un-
grounded fancies of a man's own brain, and assumes them for a
foundation both of opinion and conduct.

§ 4. Reason and revelation. — Reason is natural revelation, whereby
the eternal Father of light, and Fountain of all knowledge, com-
municates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within
the reach of their natural faculties. Revelation is natural reason
enlarged by a new set of discoveries, communicated by God im-
mediately, which reason vouches the truth of, by the testimony and
proofs it gives, that they come from God. So that he that takes
away reason, to make way for revelation, puts out the light of both,
and does much what the same, as if he would persuade a man to put
out his eyes, the better to receive the remote light of an invisible star
by a telescope.

§ 5. Rise of enthusiasm. — Immediate revelation being a much
easier way for men to establish their opinions, and regulate their
conduct, than the tedious and not always successful labour of strict
reasoning, it is no wonder that some have been very apt to pretend
to revelation, and to persuade themselves that they are under the
peculiar guidance of heaven, in their actions and opinions, especially
in those of them which they cannot account for by the ordinary
methods of knowledge, and principles of reason. Hence we see,
that in all ages, men, in whom melancholy has mixed with devotion,
or whose conceit of themselves has raised them into an opinion of a
greater familiarity with God, and a nearer admittance to his favour
than is afforded to others, have often flattered themselves with a
persuasion of an immediate intercourse with the Deity, and frequent
communications from the Divine Spirit. God, I own, cannot be

534 ENTHUSIASM. book 4.

denied to be able to enlighten the understanding by a ray darted into
the mind immediately from the fountain of light. This they under-
stand he has promised to do ; and who then has so good a title to
expect it, as those who are his peculiar people, chosen by him, and
depending on him ?

§ 6. Enthusiasm. — Their minds being thus prepared, whatever
groundless opinion comes to settle itself strongly upon their fancies,
is an illumination from the spirit of God, and presently of divine
authority : and whatsoever odd action they find in themselves a
strong inclination to do, that impulse is concluded to be a call or
direction from heaven, and must be obeyed ; it is a commission from
above, and they cannot err in executing it.

§ 7. This I take to be properly enthusiasm, which, though
founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rising from the
conceits of a warmed or over-weening brain, works yet, where it
once gets footing, more powerfully on the persuasions and actions of
men, than either of those two, or both together : men being most
forwardly obedient to the impulses they receive from themselves;
and the whole man is sure to act more vigorously, where the whole
man is carried by a natural motion. For strong conceit, like a new
principle, carries all easily with it ; when got above common sense,
and freed from all restraint of reason, and check of reflection, it is
heightened into a divine authority, in concurrence with our own
temper and inclination.

§ 8. Enthusiasm mistaken for seeing aiid feeling. — Though the
odd opinions and extravagant actions enthusiasm has run men into,
were enough to warn them against this wrong principle, so apt to
misguide them both in their belief and conduct ; yet the love of
something extraordinary, the ease and glory it is, to be inspired
and be above the common and natural ways of knowledge, so flat-
ters many men's laziness, ignorance, and vanity, that when once they
are got into this way of immediate revelation, of illumination with-
out search, and of certainty without proof, and without examination,
it is a hard matter to get them out of it. Reason is lost upon them ;
they are above it : they see the light infused into their understand-
ings, and cannot be mistaken ; it is clear and visible there, like the
light of bright sunshine ; shows itself, and needs no other proof but
its own evidence ; they feel the hand of God moving them within,
and the impulses of the spirit, and cannot be mistaken in what they
feel. Thus they support themselves, and are sure reason hath no-
thing to do with what they see and feel in themselves ; what they have
a sensible experience of, admits no doubt, needs no probation.
Would he not be ridiculous, who should require to have it proved
to him, that the light shines, and that he sees it ? It is its own proof,
and can have no other. When the spirit brings light into our minds
it dispels darkness. We see it, as we do that of the sun at noon,
and need not the twilight of reason to show it us. This hght from
heaven is strong, clear, and pure ; carries its own demonstration with
it ; and we may as rationally take a glow-wonii to assist us to dis-

CH. 19. ENTHUSIASM. 535

cover the sun, as to examine the celestial ray by our dim candle,
reason.

§ 9. This is the way of talking of these men : they are sure,
because they are sure ; and their persuasions are right, because they
are strong in them. For, when what they say is stripped of the
metaphor of seeing and feeling, this is all it amounts to; and yet
tliese similes so impose on them, that they serve them for certainty
in themselves, and demonstration to others.

§ 10. Enthusiasm, how to be discovered. — But to examine a
little soberly this internal light, and this feeling on which they build
so much. These men have, they say, clear light, and they see :
they have an awakened sense, and they feel : this cannot, they are
sure, be disputed them. For when a man says he sees or feels,
nobody can deny it him that he does so. But here let me ask : this
seeing, is it the perception of the truth of the proposition, or of this,
that it is a revelation from God ? This feeling, is it a perception
of an inclination or fancy to do something, or of the spirit of God
moving that inclination ? These are two very different perceptions,
and must be carefully distinguished, if we would not impose upon
ourselves. I may perceive the truth of a proposition, and yet not
perceive that it is an immediate revelation from God. I may per-
ceive the truth of a proposition in Euclid, without its being, or my
perceiving it to be, a revelation : nay, I may perceive I came not
by this knowledge in a natural way, and so may conclude it
revealed, without perceiving that it is a revelation from God ; be-
cause there be spirits, whicli, without being divinely commissioned,
may excite those ideas in me, and lay them in such order before
my mind, that I may perceive their connexion. So that the know-
ledge of any proposition coming into my mind, I know not how, is
not a perception that it is from God. Much less is a strong per-
suasion, that it is true, a perception that it is from God, or so much
as true. But however it be called light and seeing, I suppose it is
at most but belief and assurance : and the proposition taken for a
revelation, is not such as they know to be true, but taken to be
true. For where a proposition is known to be true, revelation is
needless : and it is hard to conceive how there can be a revelation
to any one of what he knows already. If therefore it be a pro-
position which they are persuaded, but do not know, to be true,
whatever they may call it, it is not seeing, but believing. For
these are two ways, whereby truth comes into the mind, wholly
distinct, so that one is not the other. What I see, I know to be
so by the evidence of the thing itself; what I beheve, I take to be
so upon the testimony of another : but this testimony I must know
to be given, or else what ground have I of believing? I must see
that it is God that reveals this to me, or else I see nothing. The
question then here is, How do I know that God is the revealer of
this to me ; that this impression is made uj)on my mind by his holy
spirit, and that therefore I ought to obey it ? If I know not this,
how great soever the assurance is that I am possessed with it, ip

536 ENTHUSIASM. book 4.

groundless ; whatever light I pretend to it, is but enthusiasm. For
whether the proposition supposed to be revealed, be in itself evi-
dently true, or visibly probable, or by the natural ways of know-
ledge uncertain, the proposition that must be well grounded, and
manifested to be true, is this, that God is the revealer of it ; and
that what I take to be a revelation, is certainly put into my mind
by him, and is not an illusion, dropped in by some other spirit, or
raised by my own fancy. For if 1 mistake not, these men receive
it for true, because they presume God revealed it. Does it not
then stand them upon, to examine on what grounds they presume
it to be a revelation from God ? Or else all their confidence is mere
presumption ; and this light they are so dazzled with, is nothing but
an ignis fatuus, that leads them continually round in this circle: It
is a revelation, because they firmly believe it ; and they believe it,
because it is a revelation.

§ 11. Entlmsiasmjhils of evidence, that the prop tntian is^fiom
God,— In all that is of divine revelation, there is need of no other
proof, but that it is an inspiration from God ; for he can neither
deceive, nor be deceived. But how shall it be known that any
proposition in our minds, is a truth infused by God ; a truth that
is revealed to us by him, which he declares to us, and therefore we
ought to believe ? Here it is that enthusiasm fails of the evidence
it pretends to. For men thus possessed, boast of a light whereby,
they say, they are enlightened, and brought into the knowledge of
this or that truth. But if they know it to be a truth, they must
know it to be so either by its own self-evidence to natural reason, or
by the rational proofs that make it out to be so. If they see and
know it to be a truth either of these two ways, they in vain sup-
pose it to be a revelation. For they know it to be true the same
way that any other man naturally may know that it is so, without
the help of revelation. For thus all the truths, of what kind soever,
that men uninspired are enlightened with, came into their minds,
and are established there. If they say they know it to be true, be-
cause it is a revelation from God, the reason is good ; but then
it will be demanded, how they know it to be a revelation from God ?
If they say, by the light it brings with it, which shines bright in
their minds, and they cannot resist; I beseech them to consider
whether this be any more than what we have taken notice of
already, viz., that it is a revelation, because they strongly believe it
to be true. For all the light they speak of, is but a strong, though
ungrounded, persuasion of their own minds, that it is a truth. For
rational grounds from proofs that it is a truth, they must acknow-
ledge to have none ; for then it is not received as a revelation, but
upon the ordinary grounds that other truths are received : and if
they believe it to be true, because it is a revelation, and have no
other reason for its being a revelation, but because they are fully
persuaded, without any other reason, that it is true ; they believe it
to be a revelation, only because they strongly believe it to be a
revelation, which is a very unsafe ground to proceed on, either in our

cH. 19. ENTHUSIASM. 537

tenets or actions. And what readier way can there be to run our-
selves into the most extravagant errors and miscarriages, than thus
to set up fancy for our supreme and sole guide, and to believe any
proposition to be true, any action to be right, only because we
believe it to be so ? The strength of our persuasions is no evidence
at all of their own rectitude : crooked things may be as stiff and
inflexible as straight ;. and men may be as positive and peremptory
in error as in truth. How come else the untractable zealots in dif-
ferent and opposite parties ? For if the light, which everv one
thinks he has in his mind, which in this case is nothing but the
trength of his own persuasion, be an evidence that it is from God,
contrary opinions may have the same title to be inspirations ; and
God will be not only the Father of lights, but of opposite and
contradictory lights, leading men contrary ways; and contra-
dictory propositions will be divine truths, if an ungrounded strength
of assurance be an evidence that any proposition is a divine
revelation.

§ 12. Flnuness of persuasion, no proof that any proposition is
from God. — This cannot be otherwise, whilst firmness of persuasion
is made a cause of believing, and confidence of being in the right
is made an argument of truth. St. Paul himself believed he did
well, and that he had a call to it, when he persecuted the Christians,
whom he confidently thought in the wrong ; but yet it was he, and
not they, who were mistaken. Good men, are men still liable to
mistakes, and are sometimes warmly engaged in errors, which
they take for divine truths, shining in their minds with the clearest
light.

§ 13. Light in the mind, what. — Light, true light in the mind,
is, or can be, nothing else but the evidence of the truth of any pro-
position ; and if it be not a self-evident proposition, all the light it
has, or can have, is from the clearness and validity of those proofs
upon which it is received. To talk of any other hght in the under-
standing, is to put ourselves in the dark, or in the power of the
prince of darkness, and, by our own consent, to give ourselves up
to delusion, to believe a lie ; for if strength of persuasion be the
light which must guide us, I ask, how shall any one distinguish
between the delusions of Satan, and the inspirations of the Holy
i Ghost ? He can transform himself into an angel of hght. And
' they who are led by this sun of the morning, are as fully satisfied
of the illumination, i. e. are as strongly persuaded that they are
enlightened by the spirit of God, as any one who is so ; they
acquiesce and rejoice in it, are acted by it ; and nobody can be more
sure, nor more in the right (if their own strong belief may be
judge), than they.

§ 14. Revelation must be judged of bij reason. — He, therefore,
that will not give himself up to all the extravagancies of delusion
and error, must bring this guide of his light within to the trial.
God, when he makes the prophet, does not unmake the man ; he
leaves all his faculties in the natural state, to enable him to judge

538 ENTHUSIASM. book 4.

of his inspirations, whether they be of divine original, or no. When
he illuminates the mind with supernatural light, he does not extin-
guish that which is natural. If he would have us assent to the
truth of any proposition, he either evidences that truth by the usual
methods of natural reason, or else makes it known to be a truth,
which he would have us assent to, by his authority, and convinces
us that it is from him, by some marks which reason cannot be
mistaken in. Reason must be our last judge and guide in every
thing. I do not mean that we must consult reason, and examine
whether a proposition revealed from God can be made out by
natural principles ; and if it cannot, that then we may reject it ; but
consult it we must, and by it examine whether it be a revelation
from God, or no; and if reason finds it to be revealed from God,
reason then declares for it, as much as for any other truth, an<
makes it one of her dictates. Every conceit that thoroughly warms
our fancies, must pass for an inspiration, if there be nothing but th(
strength of our persuasions, whereby to judge of our persuasionsj
If reason must not examine their truth by something extrinsical!
to the persuasions themselves, inspirations and delusions, truth an(
falsehood will have the same measure, and will not be possible to
distinguished.

§ 15. Belief no proof of revelation. — If this internal light, or any
jn'oposition which under that title we take for inspired, be conform-
able to the principles of reason, or to the word of God, which is
attested revelation, reason warrants it, and we may safely receive
it for true, and be guided by it in our belief and actions ; if it re-
ceive no testimony nor evidence from either of these rules, we
cannot take it for a revelation, or so much as for true, till we have
some other mark that it is a revelation, besides our believing that
it is so. Thus we see the holy men of old, who had revelations
from God, had something else besides that internal light of assu-
rance in their own minds, to testify to them that it was from God.
They were not left to their own persuasions alone, that those per-
suasions were from God, but had outward signs to convince them
of the Author of those revelations. And when they were to con-
vince others, they had a power given them to justify the truth of
their commission from heaven ; and by visible signs to assert the
divine authority of a message they were sent with. Moses saw the
bush burn without being consumed, and heard a voice out of it.
This was something besides finding an impulse upon his mind to go
to Pharaoh, that he might bring his brethren out of Egypt ; and yet
he thought not this enough to authorize him to go with that meg
sage, till God, by another miracle of his rod turned into a serpent,
had assured him of a power to testify his mission by the sam<
miracle repeated before them whom he was sent to. Gideon wj
sent by an angel to deliver Israel from tire Midianites, and yet ht
desirea a sign to ccmvince him, that this commission was from God.
These, ana several the like instances to be found amongst the
prophets of old, are enough to show, that they thought not ai

CH. 20. WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. 539

inward seeing or persuasion of their own minds, without any other
proof, a sufficient evidence that it was from God, though the scrip-
ture does not every where mention their demanding or having such
proofs.

§ 16. In what I have said, I am far from denying that God can,
or doth, sometimes enlighten men**s minds in the apprehending of
certain truths, or excite them to good actions by the immediate in-
fluence and assistance of the Holy Spirit, without any extraordinary
signs accompanying it. But in such cases, too, we have reason and
scripture, unerring rules, to know whether it be from God, or no.
Where the truth embraced is consonant to the revelation in the
written word of God, or the action conformable to the dictates of
right reason, or holy writ, we may be assured that we ran no risk
in entertaining it as such ; because, though perhaps it be not an
immediate revelation from God, extraordinarily operating on our
minds, yet we are sure it is warranted by that revelation which he
has given us of truth. But it is not the strength of our private per-
suasion within ourselves, that can warrant it to be a light or motion
from heaven ; nothing can do that, but the written word of God
without us, or that standard of reason which is common to us with
all men. VV^here reason or scripture is expressed for any opinion
or action, we may receive it as of divine authority ; but it is not the
strength of our own persuasions which can by itself give it that
stamp. The bent of our own minds may favour it as much as we
])lease ; that may show it to be a foundling of our own, but will by
no means prove it to be an offspring of heaven, and of divine
original.

CHAPTER XX.

OF WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR.

§ 1. Causes of error. — Knowledge being to be had only of
visible and certain truth, error is not a fault of our knowledge,
but a mistake of our judgment, giving assent to that which is
not true.

But if assent be grounded on likelihood, if the proper object and
motive of our assent be probability, and that probability consists in
what is laid down in the foregoing chapters, it will be demanded,
how men come to give their assents contrary to probability ? For
there is nothing more common than contrariety of opinions ; nothing
more obvious, than that one man wholly disbelieves what another
only doubts of, and a third stedfastly believes, and firmly adheres
to. The reasons whereof, though they may be very various, yet, I
suppose, may be all reduced to these four : 1. Want of proofs.
2. Want of abihty to use them. 3. Want of will to use them.
4. Wrong measures of probability.

540 WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. book 4.

§ 2. First, zvant of proofs. — First, By want of proofs, I do not
mean only the want of those proofs which are no where extant, and
so are no where to be had ; but the want even of those proofs which
are in being, or might be procured. And thus men want proofs,
who have not the convenience or opportunity to make experiments
and observations themselves, tending to the proof of any proposition :
nor likewise the convenience to inquire into, and collect the testi-
monies of others : and in this state are the greatest part of mankind,
who are given up to labour, and enslaved to the necessity of their
mean condition, whose lives are worn out only in the provisions for
living. These men's opportunities of knowledge ancf inquiry are
commonly as narrow as their fortunes ; and their understandings are
but little instructed, when all their whole time and pains are laid out
to still the croakings of their own bellies, or the cries of their chil-
dren. It is not to be expected, that a man who drudges on all his
life in a laborious trade, should be more knowing in the variety of
things done in the world, than a pack-horse, who is driven constantly
forwards and backwards in a narrow lane, and dirty road, only to
market, should be skilled in the geography of the country. Nor is
it at all more possible, that he who wants leisure, books, and lan-
guages, and the opportunity of conversing with variety of men, should
be in a condition to collect those testimonies and observations which
are in being, and are necessary to make out man}^, nay, most of the
propositions, that, in the societies of men, are judged of the greatest
moment ; or to find out grounds of assurance so great, as the belief
of the points he would build on them, is thought necessary. So that
a great part of mankind are, by the natural and unalterable state
of things in this world, and the constitution of human affairs,
unavoidably given over to invincible ignorance of those proofs on
which others build, and which are necessary to establish those opi-
nions ; the greatest part of men having much to do to get the means
of living, are not in a condition to look after those of learned and
laborious inquiries.

§ 3. Objection. What shall become of those who want them,
answered — What shall we say, then ? Are the greatest part of man-
kind, by the necessity of their condition, subjected to unavoidable
ignorance in those things which are of greatest importance to them
(for of these it is obvious to inquire) ? Have the bulk of mankind no
other guide but accident and blind chance, to conduct them to their
happiness or misery ? Are the current opinions, and licensed guides,
of every country, sufficient evidence and security to every man, to
venture his greatest concernments on ; nay, his everlasting happiness
or miserv ? Or can those be the certain and infallible oracles and
standards of truth, which teach one thing in Christendom, and
another in Turkey ? Or shall a poor countryman be eternally happy,
for having the chance to be born in Italy ; or a day-labourer be un-
avoidably lost, because he had the ill-luck to be born in England ?
How ready some men may be to say some of these things, I will not
here examine : but this I am sure, that men must allow one or other

CH. 20. WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. 541

of these to be the true (let them choose which they please), or else
grant, that God has furnished men with faculties sufficient to direct
them in the way they should take, if they will but seriously employ
them that way, when their ordinary vocations allow them the leisure.
No man is so wholly taken up with the attendance on the means of
Hying, as to have no spare time at all to think of his soul, and inform
himself in matters of religion. Were men as intent upon this, as they
are on things of lower concernment, there are none so enslaved to
the necessities of life, who might not find many vacancies that might
be husbanded to this advantage of their knowledge.

§ 4. People hindered from inquiry. — Besides those whose im-
provements and informations are straitened by the narrowness of
their fortunes, there are others, whose largeness of fortune would
plentifully enough supply books, and other requisites, for clearing of
doubts, and discovering of truth ; but they are cooped in close by
the laws of their countries, and the strict guards of those whose in-
terest it is to keep them ignorant, lest, knowing more, they should
believe the less in them. These are as far, nay, farther, from the
liberty and opportunities of a fair inquiry, than those poor and
wretched labourers we before spoke of; and, however they may seem
high and great, are confined to narrowness of thought, and enslaved
in that which should be the freest part of man, their understandings.
This is generally the case of all those who live in places where care
is taken to propagate truth without knowledge, where men are forced,
at a venture, to be of the religion of the country, and must therefore
swallow down opinions, as silly people do empiric pills, without
knowing what they are made of, or how they will work, and have
nothing to do but believe that they will do the cure ; but in this,
they are much more miserable than they, in that they are not at
liberty to refuse swallowing what perhaps they had rather let alone ;
or to choose the physician, to whose conduct they would trust them-
selves.

§ 5. Secondly^ want of skill to use them. — Secondly, Those who
want skill to use those evidences they have of probabilities, who can-
not carry a train of consequences in their heads, nor weigh exactly
the preponderancy of contrary proofs and testimonies, making every
circumstance its due allowance, may be easily misled to assent to
positions that are not probable. There are some men of one, some
but of two, syllogisms, and no more ; and others that can advance
but one step farther. These cannot always discern that side on which
the strongest proofs lie ; cannot constantly follow that which in itself
is the more probable opinion. Now, that there is such a difference
between men, in respect of their understandings, I think nobody,
who has had any conversation with his neighbours, will question,
though he never was at Westminster-Hall, or the Exchange, on the
one hand ; nor at alms-houses, or Bedlam, on the other : which great
difference in men's intellectuals, whether it rises from any defect in
the organs of the body, particularly adapted to thinking; or in the
dulness or untractableness of those faculties, for want of use ; or, as

542 WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. book 4.

some think, in the natural di£Ferences of men''s souls themselves ; or
some, or all of these together, it matters not here to examine. Only
this is evident, that there is a difference of degrees in men''s under-
standings, apprehensions, and reasonings, to so great a latitude, that
one may, witnout doing injury to mankind, affirm, that there is a
greater distance between some men and others in this respect, than
between some men and some beasts. But how this comes about, is
a speculation, though of great consequence, yet not necessary to our
present purpose.

§ 6. Thirdly^ want ofzvill to use them. — Thirdly, There are another
sort of people that want proofs, not because they are out of their
reach, but because they will not use them ; who, though they have
riches and leisure enough, and want neither parts nor other helps,
are yet never the better for them. Their hot pursuit of pleasure, or
constant drudgery in business, engages some men's thoughts else-
where ; laziness and oscitancy in general, or a particular aversion for
books, study, and meditation, keep others from any serious thoughts
at all ; and some out of fear, that an impartial inquiry would not
favour those opinions which best suit their prejudices, lives, and de-
signs, content themselves, without examination, to take upon trust
what they find convenient, and in fashion. Thus most men, even of
those that might do otherwise, pass their lives without an ac-
quaintance with, much less a rational assent to, probabilities they are
concerned to know, though they lie so much within their view, that
to be convinced of them, they need but turn their eyes that way.
We know some men will not read a letter, which is supposed to bring
ill news ; and many men forbear to cast up their accounts, or so much
as think upon their estates, who have reason to fear their affairs are
in no very good posture. How men, whose plentiful fortunes allow
them leisure to improve their understandings, can satisfy themselves
with a lazy ignorance, I cannot tell ; but methinks they have a low
opinion oi their souls, who lay out all their incomes in provisions for
the body, and employ none of it to procure the means and helps of
knowledge; who take great care to appear always in a neat and
splendid outside, and would think themselves miserable in coarse
clothes, or a patched coat, and yet contentedly suffer their minds to
appear abroad in a pie-bald livery of coarse patches, and borrowed
shreds, such as it has pleased chance, or their country tailor (I mean
the common opinion of those they have conversed with), to clothe
them in. I will not here mention how unreasonable this is for men
that ever think of a future state, and their concernment in it, which
no rational man can avoid to do sometimes ; nor shall I take notice
what a shame and confusion it is, to the greatest contemners of know-
ledge, to be found ignorant in things they are concerned to know.
But this, at least, is worth the consideration of those who call them-
selves gentlemen, that however they may think credit, respect, power,
and authority, the concomitants of their birth and fortune, yet they
will find all these carried away from them by men of lower condition,
who surpass them in knowledge. They who are bhnd, will always be

cH. 20. WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. sm

led by those that see, or else fall into the ditch : and he is certainly
the most subjected, the most enslaved, who is so in his understanding.
In the foregoing instances, some of the causes have been shown of
wrong assent ; and how it comes to pass, that probable doctrines are
not always received with an assent proportionable to the reasons
which are to be had for their probability : but hitherto we have con-
sidered only such probabilities, whose proofs do exist, but do not ap-
pear to him who embraces the error.

jlj 7. Fourthly^ wrong measures of probability; whereof. —
Fourthly, There remains yet the last sort, who, even where the real
probabilities appear, and are plainly laid before them, do not admit
of the conviction, nor yield unto manifest reasons, but do either
l^ixtLv, suspend their assent, or give it to the less probable opinion.
And to this danger are those exposed, who have taken up wrong
measures of probability ; which are, 1. Propositions that are not in
themselves certain and evident, but doubtful and false, taken up for
principles. 2. Received hypotheses. 3. Predominant passions or
inclinations. 4. Authority.

8 8. First, doubtful propositions taken for principles, — The first
and firmest ground of probability, is the conformity any thing has to
our own knowledge ; especially that part of ouv knowledge which we
have embraced, and continue to look on as principles. These have
so great an influence upon our opinions, that it is usually by them we
judge of truth, and measure probability to that degree, that what is
inconsistent with our principles, is so far from passing for probable
with us, that it will not be allowed possible. The reverence borne
to these principles is so great, and their authority so paramount to all
other, that the testimony not only of other men, but the evidence of
our own senses, are often rejected, when they offer to vouch any
thing contrary to these established rules. How much the doctrine
of innate principles, and that principles are not to be proved or
questioned, has contributed to this, I will not here examine. This
I readily grant, that one truth cannot contradict another ; but withal,
I take leave also to say, that every one ought very carefully to be-
ware what he admits for a principle, to examine it strictly, and see
whether he certainly knows it to be true of itself, by its own evidence,
or whether he does only with assurance believe it to be so upon the
authority of others ; for he hath a strong bias put into his under-
standing, which will unavoidably misguide his assent, who hath im-
bibed wrong principles, and has blindly given himself up to the au-
thority of any opinion in itself not evidently true.

§ 9. There is nothing more ordinary, than children receiving
into their minds propositions (especially about matters of religion)
from their parents, nurses, or those about them ; which being in-
sinuated into their unwary, as well as unbiassed, understandings, and
fastened by degrees, are at last (equally, whether true or false)
riveted there, by long custom and education, beyond all possibility
of being pulled out again. For men, when they are grown up, re-
flecting upon their opinions, and finding those of this sort to be as

544 WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. boqk 4.

ancient in their minds as their very memories, not having observed
their early insinuation, nor by what means they got them, they are
apt to reverence them as sacred things, and not to suffer them to be
profaned, touched, or questioned : they look on them as the Urim
and Thummim set up in their minds immediately by God himself,
to be the great and unerring deciders of truth a'ld falsehood, and the
judges to which they are to appeal in all manner of controversies.

§ 1 0. This opinion of his principles (let them be what they will)
being once established in any one's mind, it is easy to be imagined
what reception any proposition shall find, how clearly soever proved,
that shall invalidate their authority, or at all thwart with these
internal oracles : whereas, the grossest absurdities and improbabilities,
being but agreeable to such principles, go down glibly, and are
easily digested. The great obstinacy that is to be found in men
firmly believing quite contrary opinions, though many times equally
absurd in the various religions of mankind, are as evident a proof,
as they are an unavoidable consequence, of this way of reasoning
from received traditional principles. So that men will disbelieve
their own eyes, renounce the evidence of their senses, and give their
own experience the lie, rather than admit of any thing disagreeing
with these sacred tenets. Take an intelligent Romanist, that, from
the first dawning of any notions in his understanding, hath had this
principle constantly inculcated, viz., that he must believe as the
church (i. e. those of his communion) believes, or that the Pope is
infallible ; and this he never so much as heard questioned, till at forty
or fifty years old he met with one of other principles; how is he
prepared easily to swallow, not only against all probability, but
even the clear evidence of his senses, the doctrine of transubstantia-
tion ? This principle has such an influence on his mind, that he will
believe that to be flesh, which he sees to be bread. And what way
will you take to convince a man of any improbable opinion he holds,
who, with some philosophers, hath laid down this as a foundation of
reasoning, that he must believe his reason (for so men improperly
call arguments drawn from their principles) against his senses ?
Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired,
and acted by an immediate communication of the Divine Spirit, and
you in vain bring the evidence of clear reasons against his doctrine.
Whoever therefore have imbibed wrong principles, are not, in things
inconsistent with these principles, to be moved by the most apparent
and convincing probabilities, till they are so candid and ingenuous
to themselves as to be persuaded to examine even those very prin-
ciples, which many never suffer themselves to do.

§ 11. Secondlij^ received hypotheses. — Secondly^ Next to these,
are men whose understandings are cast into a mould, and fashioned
just to the size of a received hypothesis. The difference between
these and the former is, that they will admit of matter of fact, and
agree with dissenters in that ; but differ only in assigning of reasons,
and explaining the manner of operation. These are not at that
open defiance with their senses as the former; they can endure to

cH. 20. WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. 545

hearken to their information a little more patiently ; but will by no
means admit of their reports in the explanation of things ; nor be
prevailed on by probabilities, which would convince them, that
things are not brought about just after the same manner that they
have decreed within themselves that they are. Would it not be an
insufferable thing, for a learned professor, and that which his
scarlet would blush at, to have his authority of forty years' stand-
ing, wrought out of hard rock, Greek and Latin, with no small ex-
pense of time and candle, and confirmed by general tradition, and a
reverend beard, in an instant overturned by an upstart novelist ?
Can any one expect that he should be made to confess, that what
he taught his scholars thirty years ago, was all error and mistake :
and that he sold them hard words and ignorance at a very dear
rate ? What probabilities, I say, are sufficient to prevail in such a
case ? And whoever, by the most cogent arguments, will be pre-
vailed with to disrobe himself at once of all his old opinions and pre-
tences to knowledge and learning, which, with hard study, he hath
all his time been labouring for ; and turn himself out stark naked,
'in quest afresh of new notions ? All the arguments that can be
used, will be as little able to prevail, as the wind did with the tra-
veller, to part with his cloak, which he held only the faster. To
this of wrong hypothesis, may be reduced the errors that may be
occasioned by a true hypothesis, or right principles, but not rightly
understood. There is nothing more familiar than this. The in-
stances of men contending for different opinions, which they all de-
rive from the infallible truth of the scripture, are an undeniable
proof of it. All that call themselves Christians, allow the text that
says, (/.sroo^osTrs, to carry in it the obligation to a very weighty duty.
But yet how very erroneous will one of their practices be, who,
understanding nothing but the French, take this rule with one trans-
lation to be repentez vous, repent ; or with the other, faites peiii-
. tence, do penance !

§ 12» Tliirdly, predominant passions. — Thirdly^ Probabilities,
which cross men's appetites, and prevailing passions, run the same
fate. Let ever so much probability hang on one side of a covetous
man's reasoning, and money on the other, it is easy to foresee which
will outweigh. Earthly minds, like mud walls, resist the strongest
batteries ; and though, perhaps, sometimes the force of a clear argu-
ment may make some impression, yet they nevertheless stand firm,
and keep out the enemy truth, that would captivate or disturb them.
Tell a man, passionately in love, that he is jilted; bring a score of
witnesses of the falsehood of his mistress ; it is ten to one but three
kind words of hers shall invalidate all their testimonies. Qiiod
volumus, facile credimus ; what suits our wishes, is forwardly be-
lieved ; is, I suppose, what every one hath more than once experi-
mented : and though men cannot always openly gainsay 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 un-
derstanding constantly to close with the more probable side ; but yet

K N

546 WRONG ASSENT, OR jERROR. book 4.

a man hath a power to suspend and restrain its inquiries, 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. TJie means of evading^ probabilities : first, supposed
fallacy. — First, That the arguments being (as for the most part
ttiey 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 are very few discourses so short,
clear, and consistent, to which most men may not, with satisfaction
enough to themselves, raise this doubt ; ana from whose conviction
they may not, without reproach of disin^enuity or unreasonableness,
set themselves free with the old reply, A'ow persuadebis, etiamsi per-
suaseris: Though I cannot answer, I will not yield.

§ 14. Secondly, supposed arguments for the contrary, — Se-
condly, Manifest probabilities may be evaded, and the assent with-
held upon this suggestion, that I know not yet all that may be said
on the contrary side. And, therefore, though I be beaten, it is not
necessary I should yield, not knowing what forces there are in re-
serve 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. What probabilities determine the assent. — But yet there is
some end of it ; and a man having carefully inquired into all the
grounds of probability and unlikeliness, done his utmost to inform
himself in all particulars fairly, and cast up the sum total on both
sides, may in most cases come to acknowledge, upon the whole mat-
ter, on which side the probability rests ; wherein some proofs iu
matter of reason, being suppositions upon universal experience, are
so cogent and clear, and some testimonies in matter of fact so uni-
versal, 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 ; their 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 undis-
covered latent on the other side (which also the nature of the thing
may, in some cases, make plain to a considerate man), there, 1
think, a man, who has weighed them, can scarce refuse his assent
to tlie side on which the greater probability appears. Whether it be
probable, that a promiscuous jumble of printmg letters should often
fall into a methoa and order, which should stamp on paper a co-
herent discourse ; or that a blind fortuitous concourse of atoms, not
guided by an understanding agent, should frequently constitute tlie
bodies of any species of animals : in these and the like cases, I think

CH. 20. WRONG ASSENT, OK ERROR. 547

nobody 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 de-
pending upon the testimony of witnesses), that there is as fair testi-
mony against, as for, the matter of fact attested ; which by inquiry
is to be learned, v. g. whether there was, seventeen hundred years
ago, such a man at Rome as Julius 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. Where it is in our pozvej- to suspend it. — 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
appears to our minds, whether immediately, or by the assistance 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 daylight : and what, upon full examination, I find the
most probable, I cannot deny my assent to. But though we ca,nnot
hinder our knowledge, where the agreement is once perceived ; nor
our assent, where the probability manifestly appears upon due con-
sideration of all the measures of it ; yet we can hinder both know-
ledge and assent, by stopping our inquiry, and not employing 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 is such a place as
Rome, or whether there was such a man as Julius Caesar ? Indeed,
there are millions of truths, that a man is not, or may not, think
himself concerned to know; as whether our King Richard the
Third was crooked, or no ? or whether Roger Bacon was a mathe-
matician, 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 it is not strange that the mind should give itself up
to the common opinion, or render itself 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 that the proposition has
concernment in it ; where the assent or not assenting is thought to
draw consequences of moment after it ; and good and evil to depend
on choosing or refusing the right side, and the mind sets itself seri-
ously to inquire, and examine, the probability ; there, I think, it is

N N 2

548 WRONG ASSENT, OR ERROR. book 4.

not in our choice to take which side we please, if manifest odds
appear 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 error will lie in wrong measures
of probability; as the foundation of vice in wrong measures of
good.

§ 17. Fonrthly, authority. — 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 men-
tioned in the foregoing 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 not 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 multi-
tude ; 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 em-
bracing of truth for its own sake, that made them espouse the doc-
trines 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 pro-
fessors ; and a man shall never want crooked paths to walk in, if he
thinks that he is in the right way, wherever he has the footsteps of
others to follow.

§ 18. Men not in so many errors as imagined. — But, notwith-
standing the great noise 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 tiie
greatest part of the partizans 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 : mucn less would he have
reason to think, that they took them upon the examination of argu-
ments, and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick
to a party that education or interest has engaged them in ; and

OH. 21. DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES. 549

there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courao-e and
warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining, or so^mucli
as knowing, the cause they contend for. If a man s Fife shows that
he has no serious regard for 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 ?
It 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 ap-
prove himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, of pro-
tection, in that society. Thus men become professors of, and com-
batants for, those opinions they were never convinced of, nor prose-
lytes to ; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads : and
though one cannot say there are fewer improbable or erroneous
opinions in the world than there are, yet this is certain, there are
fevyer that actually assent to them, and mistake them for truths, than

is imagined

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES.

§ i . Three .sorts. — All that can fall within the compass of human
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 end, especially
happiness: or, Thirdly, The ways and means whereby the know-
ledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and com-
municated : I think science may be divided properly into these three
sorts.

§ 2. First, 2)hysica, — Firsts 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 (f)V(nKyj, or natural philosophy. The end of this is bare specu-
lative 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 of their affections, as number and figure, &c.

§ 3. Secondly, practica. — Secondly, JlpaKTiKri, 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 ethics,
which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions,
which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end
of this is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of truth; bi^t
right, and a conduct suitable to it.

550 DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES. book 4.

§ 4. Thirdly^ ^rnji^eiounxij. — The third branch may be called
2>5jt^s/wTi)t^, or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being
words, it is aptly enough termed also AoyiK-rj, logic ; 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, be-
sides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that some-
thing else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should
be present to it : and these are ideas. And because the scene of
ideas that makes one man''s thoughts, cannot be laid open to the
immediate view of another, nor laid up any where but in the me-
mory, a no very sure repository ; therefore, to communicate our
thoughts to one 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, makes no despicable part of their con-
templation, who would take a view of human knowledge in the
whole extent of it. And, perhaps, if they were distinctly weighed,
and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and
critic,*than what we have been hitherto acquainted with.

§ 5. TJiis is the first division of the objects ofknowledge. — This
seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural, division
of the objects of our understanding. For 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 coelo different, they
seemed to me to be the three great provinces of the intellectual
>vo;-ld, wholly separate and distinct one from another.

INDEX.

ABBOT of St. Martin, page 378,

s26
Abstraction, 92, s 9

Puts a perfect distance betwixt

men and brutes, 93, s 10
What, 96, s 9
How, 96, s 1
Abstract ideas, why made, 277,
s 6, 7, 8

terms cannot be affirmed

one of another, 346, s 1
Accident, 1 92, s 2
Actions, the best evidence of men's
principles, 24, s 7
But two sorts of actions, 150,

s4i 190, s 11
Unpleasant may be made plea-
sant, and how, 180, s 69
Cannot be the same in different

places, 221, s 2
Considered as modes, or as moral,
256, s 15
Adequate ideas, 268, s 1, 2

We have not of any species of
substances, 427, s 26
Affirmations are only incoucrete,

347, s 1
Agreement and disagreement of our

ideas fourfold, 386, s 3-7
Algebra, 466, s 15
Alteration, 217, s 2
Analogy, useful in natural philo-
sophy, 508, s 12
Anger, 148, s 12, 14
Antipathy and sympathy, whence,

285, s 7
Arguments of four sorts :

1. Ad verecundiam, 524, s 19

2. Ad ignorantiam, ib. s 20

3. Ad hominem, ib. s 21

4. Ad judicium, ib. s 22. This
alone right, ib.

Arithmetic : the use of ciphers in

arithmetic, 422, s 1 9
Artificial things are most of them

collective ideas, 213, s 3
Why we are less liable to con-

fusion about artificial things,
than about natural, 340, s. 40 '
Have distinct species, 339, s 41
Assent to maxims, 1 1, s 10

Upon hearing and understanding
the terms, 15, s 17, 18
Assent, a mark of self-evidence, 15^
s 18
Not of innate, 15, s 18-20: 45,
s 19
Assent to probability, 501, s 3
Ought to be proportioned to the
proofs, 540, s I
Association of ideas, 283, s 1 , &c.
This association how made, 284,

s 6
111 effects of it, as to autipathies.

285, s 7, 8; 287, s 15
And this in sects of philosophy

and religion, 288, s 18
Its ill influence as to intellectual
habits, ib. s 17
Assurance, 505, s 6
Atheism in the world, 37, s 8
Atom, what, 221, s 3
Authority 3 relying on others' opi-
nions, one great cause of error,
548, s 17

B.

Beings, but two sorts, 476, s 9
The eternal being must be cogi-
tative, 477, s 1 0

Belief, what, 501, s3

To believe without reason, is
against our duty, 525, s 24

Best in our opinion, not a rule of
God's actions, 41, s 12

Blind man, if made to see, would
not know which a globe, which
a cube, by his sight, though
he knew them by his touch,
53, s 8

Blood, how it appears in a micro-
scope, 200, s 1 1

Brutes have no universal ideas, 93,
s 10, 11
Abstract not, 93, s 10

552

INDEX.

Body. We hare no more primary
ideas of body than of spirit,
203, s 1 C

The primary ideas of body, ib.
s 17 ^

The extension or cohesion of bo-
dy, as hard to be understood,
as the thinking of spirit, 205-7,
s 23-7

Moving of body by body, as hard
to be conceived as by spirit,
207, s 28

Operates only by impulse, 75,
s II

What, 102, s 11

'J he author's notion of the body,
2 Cor. V. 10, 237, and of his
own body, 1 Cor. xv. 35, Sec.
238. The meaning of the
same body, 237. Whether the
word body be a simple or com-
plex term, 238. This only a
controversy about the sense of
a word, 244
But, its several significations, 346,
s5

C.

Capacity, 99, s 3

Capacities, to know their extent,

useful, 2, s 4
To cure scepticism and idleness,

3, s6
Are suited to our present state,

2,8 5
Cause, 2 1 7, s 1

And effect, ib.
Certainty depends on intuition, 392,

s 1
Wherein it consists, 439, s 18
Of truth, 439, s 1
To be had in very few general

propositions, concerning sub-
stances, 502, « 6
Where to l)e had, 453, s 16
Verbal, 442, s 8
Real, ib.
Sensible knowledge, the utmost

•certainty we have of existence,

482, 8 2
The aiithor's notion of it not

dangermis, 385, &c.
How it differs from assurance,

505, 8 6

Changelings, whether men or no,

435, s 13, 14
Clearness alone hinders confusion of

ideas, 9 1 , s 3
Clear and obscure ideas, 259, s 2
Colours, modes of colours, 142, s 4
Comments upon law, why infinite,

35 1 , s 9
Complex ideas how made, 92, s 6 j
96, s 1
In these the mind is more than

passive, 96, s 2
Ideas reducible to modes, sub-
stances, and relations, ib. s 3
Comparing ideas, 91, s 4

Herein men excel brutes, ib. s 5
Compounding ideas, ib. s 6

In this is a great difference be-
tween men and brutes, 92, s 7
Compulsion, 154, s 13
Confidence, 506, s 7
Confusion of ideas, wherein it con-
sists, 260, s 5-7
Causes of confusion in ideas,

261-2, s 7-9; 263, s 12
Of ideas, grounded on a reference

to names, 262-263, s 10-12
Its remedy, 263, s 12
Confused ideas, 260, s 4
Conscience is our own opinion of our

own actions, 25, s 8
Consciousness makes the same per-
son, 226, s 10; 230, s 6
Probably annexed to the same in-
dividual, immaterial substance,
233, s 25
Necessary to thinking, 53, s 10,

11 ; 58, s 19
What,ib. s 19
Contemplation, 85, s 1
Creation, 217, s 2

Not to be denied, because we
cannot conceive the manner
how, 139, s 19

D.

Definition, why the genus is used in
definitions, 297, s 10

Defining of terms would cut off a
great part of disputes, 365, s 1 5

Demonstration, 393, s 3

Not so clear as intuitive know-
ledge, ib. s4-6; 394, s 7

INDEX.

553

Intuitive knowledge necessary in

each step of a demonstration,

394, s 7

Not limited to quantity, 395, s 9

Why that has been supposed, ib.

s 10
Not to be expected in all cases,

486, s 10
What, 5r0, si; 486, s 15
Desire, 147, s 6

Is a state of uneasiness, 1 6 1 , s 3 1 ,

32
Is moved only by happiness, 166,

s41
How far, 166, s 43
How to be raised, 1 68, s 46
Misled by wrong judgment, 176,
8 60
Despair, 148, s 11
Dictionaries, how to be made, 382,

s 25
Discerning, 90, s 1

The foundation of some general
maxims, 9 1 , s 1
Discourse cannot be between two
men, who have different names
for the same idea, or different
ideas for the same name, 68,
s 5
Disposition, 189, s 10
Disputing: the art of disputing
prejudicial to knowledge, 271,
s6-9
Destroys the use of language,
278, s 10
Disputes, whence, 180, s 28
Disputes, multiplicity of them ow-
ing to the abuse of words, 368,
s22
Are most about [the signification
of words, 375, s 7
Distance, 99, s 3
Distinct ideas, 260, s 4
Divisibility of matter incomprehen-

sible,'209, s3l
Dreaming, 56, s 13

Seldom in some men, 56, s 14
Dreams for the most part irrational,
57, s 16
In dreams no ideas but of sensa-
tion or reflection, ib. s 17
Duration, 109, s 1, 2

Whence we get the idea of dura-
tion, 1 1 0, s 3-5

Not from motion, 1 13, s 16

Its measure, ib. s 17, 18

Any regular periodical appear-
ance, 114, s 19, 20

None of its measures known to be
exact, 11 6, s 2 1

We only guess them equal by the
train of our ideas, ib. s 21

Minutes, days, years, &c. not
necessary to duration, 117, s
23

Change of the measures of dura-
tion, change not the notion of
it, ib. s 23

The measures of duration, as the
revolutions of the suuj may be
applied to duration before the
sun existed, 1 17-9, s 24, 25, 28

Duration without beginning, 1 18,
s26

How we measure duration, ib.
s 27-9

Recapitulation, concerning our
ideas of duration, time, and
eternity, 1 20, s 3 1
Duration and expansion compared,
121, si

They mutually embrace each
other, 127, s 12

Considered as a line, 126, s 1 1

Duration not conceivable by us
without succession, 127, s 12

E.

Education, partly the cause of un-
reasonableness, 283, s 3
Effect, 217, si
Enthusiasm, 532
Described, 534, s 6
Its rise, 533, s 5

Ground of persuasion must be

examined, and how, 533, s 10

Firmness of it, no sufficient proof,.

537, s 12, 13
Fails of the evidence it pretends
to, 536, s 1 1
Envy, 148, s 13, 14
Error, what, 539, s 1
Causes of error, ib.

1 . Want of proofs, 540, s 2

2. Want of skill to use them,
541, s5

2. Want of will to use them, 542,
s6

554

INDEX.

4. Wrong measures of probabi-
lity, 543, s 7
Fewer men assent to errors than
is supposed, 548, s 18
Essence, real and nominal, 303,
8 15
Supposition of unintelligible, real
essences of species, of no use,
304, s 17
Real and nominal essences, in
simple ideas and modes always
the same, in substance always
different, 305, s 18

Essences, how ingenerable and

incorruptible, ib. s 19
Specific essences of mixed modes
are of men's making, and how,
313, s3

Though arbitrary, yet not at ran-
dom, 3 1 5, s 7

Of mixed modes, why called no-
tions, 318, s 12

What, 320, s 2

Relate only to species, 321, s 4

Real essences, what, 323, s 6

AVe know them not, 321-, s 9

Our specific essences of substan-
ces, nothing but collections of
sensible ideas, 328, s 21

Nominal are made by the mind,
331, s 26

But not altogether arbitrarily,
333, s 28

Nominal essences of substances,
how made, ib. s 28, 29

Are very various, 334, s 30 j
335, s 31

Of species, are the abstract ideas
the names stand for, 326, s 12)
328, s 19

Are of man's making, 326, s 12

But founded in the agreement of
things, 327, s 13

Real essences determine not our
species, 328, s 18

Every distinct, abstract idea, with
a name, is a distinct essence
of a distinct species, ib. s 14

Real essences of substances, not
to \xi known, 450, s 1 2

Essential, what, 320, s 2; 322,

8 5

Nothing essential to iudividualb,
321,8-1.

But to species, 323, s 6
Essential difference, what, 322,
s5
Eternal verities, 4S8, s 14
Eternity, in our disputes and rea-
sonings about it, M'hy we arc
apt to blunder, 264, s 15
Whence we get its idea, 1 18,
s27
Evil, what, 166, s 42
Existence, an idea of sensation and
reflection, 72, s 7
Our own existence we know in-
tuitively, 474, s 2
And cannot doubt of it, ib.
Of creatable things, knowable

only by our senses, 482, s 1
Past existence known only by
memory, 487, s 11
Expansion, boundless, 121, s 2
Should be applied to space in
general, 1 08, s 27
Experience often helps us, where
Me think not that it does, 82,
s8
Extasy, 146, s 1

Extension : we have no distinct
ideas of very great, or very
little, extension, 265, s 16
Of body, incomprehensible, 205,

s 23, &c.
Denominations, from place and
extension, are many of them
relatives, 219, s 5
And body not the same thing,

102, s 11
Its definition in signification, 103,

s 15
Of body and of space how dis-
tinguished, 68, s 5 ; 108, s 27

F.

Faculties of the mind first exercised,

94, s 14
Are but powers, 155, s 17
Operate not, 155, s 18, 20
Faith and opinion, as distinguished

from knowledge, what, 500,

501, s2, 3
And knowledge, their difference,

ib.501, 8 3
What, 510, 8 14
Not opposite to reason, 525, s 21

As contra-distinguished to rea-
son, what, 526, s 2
Cannot convince us of any thing
contrary to our reason, 529-30,
&c. s 5, 6, 8
Matter of faith is only divine re-
velation, 530, s 9
Tilings above reason are only
proper matters of faith, ib.
s 7 J ib. s 9
Falsehood, what it is, 443, s 9
Fancy, 442, s 8
Fantastical ideas, 266, s 1
Fear, 148, s 10
Figure, 99, s 5, 6

Figurative speech, an abuse of lan-
guage, 372, s 31?
Finite, and infinite, modes of quan-
tity, 131, s 1
All positive ideas of quantity,
finite, 134, s 8
Forms, substantial forms distinguish

not species, 325, s 10
Free, how far a man is so, 157,
s21
A man not free to will, or not to
will, 157-8, s22-4
Freedom belongs only to agents, 156,
s 19
Wherein it consists, 159, s 27
Free will, liberty l3elongs not to

the will, 154, s 14
Wherein consists that which is
called free will, 158, s 24 ; 169,
s47

General ideas, how made, 92, s 9
Knowledge, M'hat, 430, s 31
Propositions cannot be known

to be true, without knowing

the essence of the species, 444,

s4
Words, how made, 293, s 6-8
Belongs only to signs, 298, s 1 1
Gentlemen should not be ignorant,

542, s 6
Genus and species, what, 297, s 10
Are but Latin names for sorts,

316, s 9
Is but a partial conception of what

is in the species, 335, s 32
And species adjusted to the end

of speech, 336, s 33

INDEX. 555

And species are made in order to
general names, 338, s 39
Generation, 217, s 2
God immoveable, because infinite,
204, s 21

Fills immensity as well as eter-
nity, 122, s 3

His duration not like that of the
creatures, 127, s 12

An idea of God, not innate, 37,
s 8

The existence of a God evident,
and obvious to reason, 39, s 9

The notion of a God once got, is
the likeliest to spread and be
continued, 39-40, s 9, 10

Idea of God late and imperfect,
42, s 13

Contrary, 43, 44, s 15, 16

Inconsistent. 43, s 15

The best notions of God, got by
thought and application, 43,
s 15

Notions of God frequently not
worthy of him, 44, s 16

The being of a God certain, ib. ;
proved, 474, si

As evident, as that the three an-
gles of a triangle are equal to
two right ones, 47, s 22

Yea, as that two opposite angles
are equal, 44, s 1 6

More certain than any other ex-
istence without us, 475, s 6

The idea of God not the only
proof of his existence, 476, s 7

The being of a God, the foun-
dation of morality and divinity,
ib. s 7

How we make our idea of God,
210, s33, 34
Gold is fixed; the various signi-
fications of this proposition,
343, s 50

Water strained through it, 67j
s4
Good and evil, what, 146, s 2; 166,
s42

The greater good determines not
the will, 162, s 35 ; 164, s38;
167, s 44

Why, ib. s44i 168, s 46; 175,
&c.; s59, 60, 64,65, 68

Twofold, 176, s 61

556

INDEX.

Works on the will ouly by de-
sire, 1 68, s 46

Desire of good, how to be raised,
168, 169,3 46,47

H.

Habit, 189, s 10

Habitual actions pass often with-
out our notice, 84, s 10

Hair, how it appears in a micro-
scope, 200, s 1 1

Happiness, what, 166, s 42

What happiness men pursue,

166, s 43
How we come to rest in narrow
happiness, 175, 6, s 59, 60

Hardness, what, s 67, s 4

Hatred, 147, s 5; 148, s 14

Heat and cold, how the sensation
of them both is produced, by
the same water, at the same
time, 78, s 21

History, what history of most au-
thority, 508, s 1 1

Hope, 147,' s 9

Hypotheses, their use, 565, s 13
Are to be built on matter of
fact, 53, s 10

Ico and water whether distinct spe-
cies, 327, s 13
Idea, what, 82, s 8
Ideas, their original in children,

36, s23 42, s 13
None innate, 44, s 17
Because not remembered, 45,

s20
Are what the mind is employed

about in thinking, 50, s 1
All from sensation or reflection,

51, 8 2, &c.
How this is to be understood,

402
Their way of getting, observable

in children, 52, 8,6
Why some have more, some

fewer, ideas, 53, s 7
Of reflection got late, and in some

very negligently, ib. s 8
Their beginning and increase in

children, 60, 8 21-4
Their original in sensation and

reflection, 60, s 24

Of one sense, 61, s 1

Want names, 65, s 2

Of more than one sense, 69

Of reflection, 70, s 1

Of sensation and reflection, ib.

s 1
As in the mind, and in things,

must be distinguished, 72, s 7
Not always resemblances, 76,

s 15, &c.
Which are first, is not material to

know, 82, s 7
Of sensation often altered by the

judgment, 82, s 8
Principally those of sight, 83, s 9
Of reflection, 94, s 14
Simple ideas men agree in, 108,

s28
Moving in a regular train in our

minds, 1 12, s 9
Such as have degrees, want names,

143, s 6
Why some have names, and others

not, ib. s 7
Original, 185, s 73
All complex ideas resolvable into,

simple, 189, s 9
What simple ideas have been piosl

modified, 189, s 10
Our complex idea of God, and

other spirits, common in every

thing, but infinity, 211, s 36
Clear and obscure, 259, s 2
Distinct and confused, 260, s 4
May be clear in one part, and ob- ■

scure in another, 264, s 13 ■

Real and fantastical, 266, s 1
Simple are all real, ib. s 2
And adequate, 269, s 2
What ideas of mixed modes are

fantastical, 267, s 4
What ideas of substances are

fantastical, 268, s 5
Adequate and inadequate, 268,

s 1
How said to be in things, 269, s 2
Modes are all adequate ideas,

269, s 3
Unless as referred to names, 270,

271, s 4, 5
Of substances inadequate, '274,

s II
1. As referred to real essences,

271, s 6; 273, s 7

INDEX.

557

2. As referred to a collection of

simple ideas, 273, s 8
Simple ideas are perfect sKmroCj

274, s 12
Of substances are perfect sxrvifoc,

27b, s 13
Of modes are perfect archetypes,

275, s 14
True or false, ib. s 1 , &c.
When false, 282, s 21-5
As bare appearances in the

mind, neither true nor false,

276, s 3
As referred to other men's ideas,

or to real existence, or to real

essences, may be true or false,

276, s 4, 5

Reason of such reference, 277,

s6.8
Simple ideas referred to other

men's ideas, least apt to be false,

277, s 9

Complex ones, in this respect
more apt to be false, especially
those of mixed modes, 278,
s 10

Simple ideas referred to exist-
ence, are all true, 279, s 14;
280, s 16

Though they should be different
in different men, 279, s 15

Complex ideas of modes are all
true, 280, s 1 7

Of substances when false, 282,
s21,&c.

When right or wrong, 283, s 26

That we are incapable of, 425, s 23

That we cannot attain, because of
their remoteness, 425, s 24

Because of their minuteness, 426,
s25

Simple have a real conformity to
things, 432, s 4

And all others, but of substances,
432, s 5

Simple cannot be got by definition
of words, 309, s 1 1

But only by experience, 31 1, s 14

Of mixed modes, why most com-
pounded, 311, s 13

Specific, of mixed modes, how
at first made : instance in
kinneah and niouph, 341, s
44,45

Of substances : instance in za-
hab, 342, s 46 ; ib. s 47

Simple ideas and modes have all
abstract, as well as concrete,
names, 347, s 2

Of substances, have scarce any
abstract names, 347

Different in different men, 353,
s 13

Our ideas almost all relative,
150, s 3

Particulars are first in the mind,
351, s 9

General are imperfect, 35 1 , s 9

How positive ideas may be from
privative causes, 73, s 4

The use of this term not dan-
gerous, 73-5, &c. It is fitter
than the Avord notion, 74, 6.
Other words as liable to be
abused as this, ib. Yet it is
condemned, botli as new and
not new, 8. The same with
notion, sense, meaning, &c.
385
Identical propositions teach no-
thing, 466, s 2
Identity, not an innate idea, 36,
37, s 3-5

And diversity, 200, s 1

Of a plant, M'herein it consists,

222, s 4

Of animals, 222, s 5
Of a man, ib. s 6 ; 224, s a
Unity of substance does not al-
ways make the same identity,

223, s 7

Personal identity, 225, s 9

Depends on the same conscious-
ness, 226, s 10

Continued existence makes iden-
tity, 235, s 29

And diversity, in ideas, the first
perception of the mind, 387,
s4
Idiots and madmen, 94, s 12, 13
Ignorance, our ignorance infinitely
exceeds our knowledge, 424,
s22

Causes of ignorance^ 425, s 23

1 . For want of ideas, ib.

2. For want of a discoverable
connexion between the ideas we
have, 428, s 28

558

INDEX.

3. For want of tracing the ideas
we have, 430, s 30
Illation, Avhat, 511, s 2
Immensity, 99, s 4

How this idea is got, 132, s 3
Immoralities of whole nations, 25,

s 9 ; 26, 8 1 1
Immortality, not annexed to any

shape, 437, s 15
Impenetrability, 35, s 1
Iniposition of opinions unreason-
able, 504, s 4
Impossihile est idem esse et non
esse J not the first thing known,
19, s25
Impossibility, not an innate idea,

36, s 3
Impression on the mind, Vvhat, 9,

s5
Inadequate ideas, 259, s 1
Incompatibility, how far knowable,

420, s 15
Individuationis jmnc'ipium, is ex-
istence, 221, s 3
Infallible judge of controversies,

41, s 12
Inference, what, 498, s 2-4
Infinite, why the idea of infinite
not applicable to other ideas
as well as those of quantity,
since they can be as often re-
peated, 133, s 6
he idea of infinity of space
or number, and of space or
" number infinite, must be dis-
tinguished, 134, s 7
Our idea of infinite, very obscure,

ib. s 8
Number furnishes us with the
clearest ideas of infinite, 135,
s9
The idea of infinite, a growing

idea, 136, s 12
Our idea of infinite, partly posi-
tive, partly comparative, partly
negative, 137, s 15
Why some men think they have
an idea of infinite duration,
but not of infinite space, 140,
8 20
Why disputes about infinity
are usually perplexed, 141,
s21
Our idea of infinitv has its

original in sensation and re-
flection, ib. s 22
We have no positive idea of in-
finite, 136 i s 13, 14 J 138, s 16
Infinity, why more commonly al-
lowed to duration than to
expansion, 122, s 4
How applied to God by us, 131,

s 1
How we get this idea, 131, 2,

s 2, 3
The infinity of number, duration,
and space, different ways con-
sidered, 126, s 10, 11
Innate truths must be the first
known, 20, s 26
Principles to no pur[)Ose, if men
can be ignorant or doubtful of
them, 28, s 13
Principles of my Lord Herbert

examined, 30, s 15, &c.
Moral rules to no purpose, if ef-
faceable, or alterable, 32, s 20
Propositions must be distin-
guished from other by their
clearness and usefulness, 49,
s24
The doctrine of innate principles
of ill consequence, ib.
Instant, what, 112, s 10

And continual change, 113,
s 13-15
Intuitive knowledge, 392, s 1

Our highest certainty, 522, s 14
Invention, wherein it consists, 88,

s8
Joy, 147, s 7

Iron, of what advantage to man-
kind, 494, s 1 1
Judgment : wrong judgments, in
reference to good and evil,
175, s58
Right judgment, 503, s 4
One cause of -wrong judgment,

503, s 3
Wherein it consists, 498, &c.

K.

Knowledge has a great connexion
with words, 370; s 25
The author's definition of it ex-
plained and defended, 385,
note. How it differs from
faith, 500-2, s 2, 3 ; 386, note

INDEX.

559

What, 385, s 2

How much our knowledge de-
pends on our sensesj 381, s 23

Actual, 390, s 8

Habitual, ib. s 8

Habitual, twofold, ib. 390, s 9

Intuitive, 392, s 1

Intuitive, the clearest, ib.

Intuitive, in-esistible, ib.

Demonstrative, 392, s 2

Of general truths, is all either,
intuitive or demonstrative, 396,
s 14

Of particular existences, is sen-
sitive, ib.

Clear ideas do not always pro-
duce clear knowledge, 397,
s 15

What kind of knowledge we have
of nature, 540, s 2

Its beginning and progress, 95,
s 15-7; 13, 14, s 15, 16

Given us in the faculties to at-
tain it, 41, s 12

Men's knowledge according to
the employment of their facul-
ties, 47, s 22

To be got only by the applica-
tion of our own thought to
the contemplation of things,
48, s 23

Extent of human knowledge, 392

Our knowledge goes not beyond
our ideas, ib. s 1

Nor beyond the perception of
their agreement or disagree-
ment, 392, s 2

Reaches not to all our ideas,

393, s 3

Much less to the reality of things,

394, s 6

Yet very improvable if right
ways are taken, ib. s 6

Of co-existence very narrow,
417, 18, s 9-11

And therefore, of substances very
narrow, 419, &c. s 14-6

Of other relations indetermina-
ble, 421, s 18

Of existence, 429, s 21

Certain and universal, where to
be had, 420, s 29

111 use of words, a great hinder-
ance of knowledge, 430, s 30

General, where to be got, 430,
s31

Lies only in our thoughts, 450,
s 13

Reality of our knowledge, 43 1

Of mathematical truths, how
real, 433, s 6

Of morality, real, 433, s 7

Of substances, how far real, 435,
s 12

What makes our knowledge real,
432, s 3

Considering things, and not
names, the way to knowledge,
436, s 13

Of substance, wherein it con-
sists, 435, s 1 1

What required to any tolerable
knowledge of substances, 451,
s 14

Self-evident, 453, s 2

Of identity and diversity, as
large as our ideas, 417, s 8 ;
453, s 4

Wherein it consists, ib.

Of co-existence, very scanty, 455,
s5

Of relations of modes, not so
scanty, ib. s 6

Of real existence, none, ib. s 7

Begins in particulars, 456, s 9

Intuitive of our own existence,
473, s 3

Demonstrative of a God, ib.. s I

Improvement of knowledge, 489

Not improved by maxims, ib. s 1

Why so thought, ib. 2

Knowledge improved, only by
perfecting and comparing
ideas, 491, s 6 ; 495, s 14

And finding their relations, 491,
s7

By intermediate ideas, 495, s 14

In substances, how to be im-
proved, 492, s 9

Partly necessary, partly volun-
tary, 497, s 1, 2

Why some, and so little, ib. s 2

How increased, 505, s 6

L.

Language, why it changes, 359, s 1
Wlierein it consists, 289, s 1-3
Its use, 315, s 7

560

liNDEX.

Its imperfections, 348, s 1

Double use, ib.

The use of language destroyed
by the subtility of disputing,
361, s 6; 362, s 8

Ends of language, 370, s 23

Its imperfections, not easy to be
cured, 3/3, s 2 ; 374, s 4-6

The cure of them necessary to
philosophy, 373, s 3

To use no word without a clear
and distinct idea annexed to it,
is one remedy of the imper-
fections of language, 37.5,
s s 8, 9

Propriety in the use of words,
another remedy, 377, s II

Law of nature generally allowed,
24, s 6

There is, though not innate,
28, s 13

Its enforcement, 251, s 6
Learning : the ill state of learning
in these latter ages, 348, &c.

Of the schools lies chiefly in the
abuse of words, 35 1 , &c.

Such learning of ill consequence,
352, s 10, &c.
Liberty, what, 152, &c s 8-12;
154, s 15

Belongs not to the will, ib. 14

To be determined by the result
of our own deliberation, is no
restraint of liberty, 169, 170,
8 48-50

Founded in a power of suspend-
ing our particular desires, 169,
s47; 171, s51, 52
Light, its absurd definitions, 308,
s 10

Light in the mind, what, 537, s 13
Logic has introduced obscurity into
languages, 351, 352, s 6, 7

And hindered knowledge, ib.

87

Love, 146, 8 4

M.

Madness, 94, s 13. Opposition to
reason deserves that name,
284,8 4

Magisterial, the most knowing are
least magisterial, 504, s 4

Making, 217, s 2

Man not the product of blind
chance, 476, s 6
The essence of man is placed in

his shape, 438, s 16
W^e know not his real essence,
321, s 3j 329, s22; 332, s 27
The boundaries of the human

species not determined, ib.

s 27
AVhat makes the same individual

man, 232, s 21 ; 235, s 29
The same man may be different

persons, 231, s 19
Mathematics, their methods, 491,

s 7. Improvement, 496, s 15
Matter, incomprehensible, both in
its cohesion and divisibility,

205, s 23; 209, s 30,31
What, 354, s 15
Whether it may think, is not to

be known, 399, s 6
Cannot produce motion, or any

thing else, 477, s 10
And motion cannot produce

thought, ib.
Not eternal, 480, s 18
Maxims, 453, &c. ; 462, s 12-15
Not alone self-evident, 4.53, s 3
Are not the truths first known,

456, s 9
Not the foundation of our know-
ledge, 457, s io
Wherein their evidence consists,

ib. s 10
Their use, 458-62, s 11, 12
Why the most general self-evi-
dent propositions alone pass

for maxims, 458, s 1 1
Arc commonly proofs, only where

there is no need of proofs, 465,

s 15
Of little use, with clear terms,

465, s 19
Of dangerous use, with doubtful

terms, 462, s 12^ 46d, s 20
When first known, 1 1 , &c.

S9-13; 13,8 14; 16, 17, s 16
How they gain assent, 16^ 17,

s21, 22
Made from particular observa-
tions, ib.
Not in the understanding before

they are actually known, \7,

s '2'i

INDEX.

ideas

561

Neither their terms nor

innate, ib. s 23
Least known to children and
illiterate people, 20, s 27
Memory, 86, s 2

Attention, pleasure, and pain,
settled ideas in the memory,
86, s 3
And repetition, ib. s 4 ; 87, s 6
DiiFerence of, 86, 87, s 4, 5
In remembrance, the mind some-
times active, sometimes pas-
sive, 88, s 7
Its necessity, 87, s 5 ; 88, s 8
Defects, 88^ s 8, 9
In brutes, 89, s 10
Metaphysics, and school divinity,
filled with uninstructive pro-
positions, 470, s 9 [s 7
Method used in mathematics, 491
Mind, the quickness of its actions

84, s 10
Minutes, hours, days, not neces-
sary to duration, 1 1 7, s 23
Miracles, 510, s 13
Misery, what, 166, s 42
Modes, mixed, 186, s 1
Made by the mind, 186, s 2

Sometimes got by the explication

of their names, 1 87, s 3
Whence its unity, 187, s 4
Occasion of mixed modes, ib. s 5
Their ideas, how got, 1 89, s 9
Modes simple and complex, 97,
Simple modes, 98, s 1 [s 5

Of motion, 142, s 2
Moral good and evil, what, 251, s5
Three rules whereby men judge

of moral rectitude, ib. s 7
Beings, how founded on simple
ideas of sensation andreflection,
255-256,8 14, 15
Rules not self-evident, 23, s 4
Variety of opinions concerning
4 moral rules, 23-24, s 5, 6
Rules, if innate, cannot with
public allowance be trans-
gressed, 2C-28, s 11, 13
Morality, capable of demonstration,
523,s 16; 421, s 18;492,s8
The proper study of mankind,

493, s 11
Of actions, in their conformity to
a rule, 256, s 15

Mistakes in moral notions, owing
to names, 257, s 16

Discourses in morality, if not
clear, the fault of the speaker,
488, s 17

Hinderances of demonstrative
treating of morality: 1. Want
of marks; 2. Complexedness,
422, s 1 9; 3. Interest, 423, s 20

Change of names in morality,
changes not the nature of things,
442, s 9

And mechanism, hard to be re-
conciled, 29, s 14

Secured amidst men's wrong
judgments, 181, s 70
Motion, slow or very swift, why
not perceived, 111-112, s 7-1 1

Voluntary, inexplicable, 481, s 19

Its absurd definitions, 308, s 8, 9

N.

Naming of ideas, 92, s 8
Names, moral, established by law,
not to be varied from, 435, s 10

Of substances, standing for real
essences, are not capable to con-
vey certainty to the understand-
ing, 441, s 5

For nominal essences, will rnake
some, though not many, cer-
tain propositions, 445 s 6

Why men substitute names for
real essences, which they know
not, 367, s 1 9

Two false suppositions, in such an
use of names, 368, s 21

A particular name to every par-
ticular thing impossible, 294,s2

And useless, 295, s 3 [s 4, 5

Proper names, where used, 296,

Specific names are alTixed to the
nominal essence, 304, s 1 6

Of simple ideas and substances,
refer to things, 306 s 2

What names stand for both real
and nominal essence, 307 s 3

Of simple ideas not capable of
definitions, ib. s 4

Why, 307, s 7 [311, s 15

Of least doubtful signification.

Have few accents in linea prce-
dicamentnlij 3 1 2, s 1 6

Of complex ideas, may be de-
o o

562

INDEX.

lined, 310, s 12
Of mixed modes stand for arbi-
trary ideas, 313, s 2,3 ; 341, s 44
Tie together the parts of their

complex ideas, 317, s 10
Stand always foi: the real essence,

318, s 14
Why got, usually, before the

ideas are known, 319, s 15
Of relations comprehended under
those of mixed modes, ib. s 1 6
General names of substances

stand for sorts, 320, s 1
Necessary to species, 338, s 39
Proper names belong only to sub-
stances, 340, s 42
Of modes in their first application,

341, s 44, 45
Of substances in their first appli-
cation, 3+2, s 4.6, 47
Specific names stand for difi*erent
things in different men, 343, s 48
Are put in the place of the thing
supposed to have the real es-
sence of the species, 343, s 49
Of mixed modes, doubtful often

349, s 6
Because they want standards in
nature, 350, s 7 [s 11, 14

Of substances, doubtful, 352, &c.
In their philosophical use, hard
to have settled significations,
354, s 15 [355, s 17

Instance, liquor, 355, s 16 j gold,
Of simple ideas, why least doubt-
ful, 356, s 18
Least compounded ideas have the
least dubious names, 357, s 19
Natural philosophy, not capable
of science, 427, s 26 ; 493, s 1 0
Yet very useful, 494, s 12
How to be improved, ib.
What has hindered its improve-
ment, 494, 8 12
Necessity, 154, s 13
Negative terms, 290, s 4

Names signify the absence of
positive ideas, 73, s 5
Newton, 458, s 11
Nothing; that nothing cannot pro-
duce any thing, is demonstra-
Notions, 186, 8 2 [tion, 474, s 3
Number, 127 [ideas, 187, s 3

Modes of, the most distinct
Demonstrations in numbers, the

most determinate, 187, 8 4
The general measure, 130, s 8
Aff*ords the clearest idea of in-
finity, 135, s 9
Numeration, what, 128, s 5
Names necessary to it, ib. s 5, 6
And order, 130, s 7
Why not early in children, and in
some never, ib.

O.

Obscurity, unavoidable in ancient

authors, 352, s 10 [260, s3

The cause of it in our ideas.

Obstinate, they are most, who have

least examined, 503, s 3
Opinion, what, 501, s 3

How opinions grow up to prin-
ciples, 33, &c. s 22-26
Of others, a wrong ground of
assent, 502, s 6; 548, s 17
Organs ; our organs suited to our
state, 545, &c. s 12, 13
P.
Pain, present, works presently,
178, s 64
Its use, 71, s 4 [224, s 8

Parrot mentioned by Sir W. T.
Holds a rational discourse, 225
Particles join parts, or whole sen-
tences together, 344, s 1
In them lies the beauty of well
speaking, ib. s 2 [346, s 3

How their use is to be known.
They express some action or pos-
ture of the mind, ib. s 4
Pascal, his great memory, 89, s 9
Passion, 1 90, s 1 1 [ror, 508, s 1 1
Passions, how they lead us into er-
Turn on pleasure and pain, 146,
Are seldom single, 1 65, s 39 [s 3
Perception threefold, 1 5 1 , s 5

In perception, the mind for the

most part passive, 8l, s 1
Is an impression made on the milM,

ib. s 3, 4
In the womb, 81, s 5
Difl^erence between it, and innate

ideas, 82, s 6
Puts the difference between the
animal and vegetable kingdom,
84, s 11
The several degrees of it, show
the wisdom and goodness of the
Maker, ib. s 12

INDEX.

563

Belongs to all animals, 84, s 12-14
The first inlet of knowledge, 85,
Person, what, 225, s 9 [s 15

A forensic term, 234, s 26
The same consciousness alone

makes the same person, 227,

s 13; 232, s 23
The same soul without the same

consciousness, makes not the

same person, 228, s 14, &c.
Reward and punishment follow

personal identity, 231, s 18
Phantastical ideas, 266, si
Place, 100, s 7, 8

Use of place, 101, s 9 [ib. s 10
Nothing but a relative position.
Sometimes taken for the space

body fills, ib.
Twofold, 123, s 6; ib. s 6, 7
Pleasure and pain, 146, s 1; 148,

s 15, 16
Join themselves to most of our

ideas, 70, s 2 [tions, 70, s 3
Pleasure, why joined to several ac-
Power, how we come by its idea,

149, s 1
Active and passive, ib. s 2
No passive power in God, no ac-
tive in matter ^ both active and

passive in spirits, ib. s 2
Our idea of active power clearest

from reflection, 150, s 4
Powers operate not on powers,

155, s 18
Make a great part of the ideas of

substances, 198, s 7
Why, 199, s 8 [tion, 72, s8

An idea of sensation and reflec-
Practical principles not innate, 21,

si [s2

Not universally assented to, 22,
Are for operation, ib. 3.
Not agreed, 35, s 14
DifiPerent, 33, s 21
Principles, not to be received with-
out strict examination, 490,

s 4 ; 543, s 8
The ill consequences of wrong

principles, 543, &c. s 9, 10
None innate, 8, s 1 Qs 2-4'

None universally assented to, 9,
How ordinarily got, 33, s 22, &c.
Are to be examined, 34, 5, s 26, 7
Not innate, if the ideas they are

made up of, are not innate, 35, s I

Private terms, 290, s 4
Probability, what, 500, &c 8 1, 3
The grounds of probability, 501,
In matter of fact, 505, s 6 [s 4
How we are to judge in probabi-
lities, 501, s 5 j^s 9
Difiiculties in probabilities, 507,
Grounds of probability in specu-
lation, 508, s 12 [543, s 7
Wrong measures of probability,
How evaded by prejudiced minds,
546, s 13, 14
Proofs, 393, s 3 [known, 328, s 19
Properties of specific essences, not
Of things very numerous, 274,
s 10; 282, s 24
Propositions, identical, teach no-
thing, 482, s 2 [4; 472, s 13
Generical, teach nothing, 468, s
Wherein a part of the definition
is predicated of the subject,
teach nothing, 469, s 5, 6
But the signification of the word,

470, s 7
Concerning substances, generally
either trifling or uncertain,
470, s 9 [472, s 12

Merely verbal, how to be known.
Abstract terms, predicated one of
another, produce merely verbal
propositions, ib.
Or part of a complex idea, pre-
dicated of the whole, 468, s 4 -,
472, s 13
More propositions, merely verbal,

than is suspected, 472, s 13
Universal propositions concern

not existence, 473, s 1
What propositions concern exist-
ence, ib.
Certain propositions, concerning
existence, are particular ; con-
cerning abstract ideas, may be
general, 479, s 13
Mental, 440, s3; 441, s 5
Verbal, 440, s 3; 441, s 5 [s3,4
Mental, hard to be treated, 440,
Punishment, what, 251, s 5

And reward, follow consciousness,

231, s 18 J 234, s 26
An unconscious drunkard, why
punished, 232, s 22

Q.

Qualities : secondary qualities, their

564

INDEX.

connexion, or inconsistence, un-
known, 418, s 1 J
Of substances, scarce knowable,
but bv experience, 4 1 9, &c. s
14, 16 [of corporeal, 421, s 17
Of spiritual substances less than
Secondary, have no conceivable
connexion viith the primary,
that j)ro(luce them, 418, &c.
s 12, 13 j 428, s 28
Of substances, depend on remote
causes, 435, s 11 [381, s 21
Not to be known by descriptions,
Secondary, how far capable of
demonstration, 395, 6, s 1 1-13
What, 76, s 10; 75, s 16
How said to be in tilings, 267, s 2
Secondary, would be other, if we
could discover the minute pai'ts
of bodies, 200, s. 1 1
Primary, 75, s 9 [ib. 11, 12

How they produce ideas in us.
Secondary qualities, 75-6, s 13-15
Primary qualities resemble our
ideas, secondary not, 76, &c.
s 15, 16, &c. [78, s 23

Three sorts of qualities in bodies,
i. e. primary, secondary, inune-
diately perceivable; and se-
condary, mediately perceivable,
80, s 26 [&c. s 23-25

Secondary are bare powers, 79, 80,
Secondary have nodiscernible con-
nexion with the first, 80, s 25
Quotation s,how little to be relied on,
508, s 1 1

R.

Real ideas, 275, s 1, 2 [5 1 1, s 1

Reason, its various significations,

What, ib. 8 2 [533, s 4

Reason is natural revelation.

It must judge of revelation, 546,

8 14, 15 [thing, ib.

It must be our last guide in every
Four parts of reason, 5 1 2, s 3
Where reason fails us, 52 1 , s 9
Necessary in all but intuition, 522,

8 15 [what, 526, 8 2

As contra-distinguished to faith.
Helps U8 n<»t to the knowledge of

innate truths, 9-1 1, s 5-8
General ideas, general terms, and

reason, usually grow together,

13, 8 15

i

Recollection, 144, s 1
Reflection, 51, s 4
Related, 213, s I
Relation, ib. .

Proportional, 249, s 1
Natural, ib. s 2
Instituted, 250, s 3
Moral, ib. s 4
Numerous, 257, s 17
Terminate in simple ideas, ib. s 18
Our clear ideas of relation, 258,
s 19 [s 19

Names of relations doubtful, ib.
Without correlative terms, not so

commonly observed, 214, s 2
Different from the things related,

214,s4
Changes without any change in

the subject, 215, s 5
Always between two, ib. s 6
All things capable of relation,

215, s 7
The idea of the relation, often
clearer than of the things re-
lated, 2 1 6, s 8
All terminate in simple ideas of
sensation and reflection, 2 1 8, s 9
Relative, 213, s 1

Some relative terms taken for ex-
ternal denominations, 214, s 2
Some for absolute, 214, s 3
How to be known, 216, s 10
Many words, though seeming a
solute, are relatives, 214, 215
8 3-5

Religion, all men have time to in*
quire into, 540, s 3
But in many places are hindere<

from inquiring, 541, s 4
Remembrance, of great momen

in common life, 88, s 8
What, 45, s 20 j 88, s 7
Reputation, of great force in co;

mon life, 255, s 12
Restraint, 154, s 13 [it, 238, &c
Resurrection, the author's notion of
Not necessarily understood of the
same body, ib. &c. The meaning
of his body, 2 Cor. v. 10, 238
The same body of Christ arose,
and why, 239, 240. How the
scripture speaks about it, 348
Revelation, an unquestionable
ground of assent, 510, s 14
Belief, no proof of it, 538, s 15

INDEX.

565

Traditional revelation cannot con-
vey any new simple ideas, 527,
s 3 [senseS;, ib. s 4

Not so sure as our reason or

In tilings of reason, no need of
revelation, 528, s 5

Cannot over-rule our clear know-
ledge, ib. s 5 ; 531, s 10

Must over-rule probabilities of
reason, 530, s 8, 9

Reward, what, 25 1 , s 5

[s34

Rhetoric, an art of deceiving, S72,

S.

Sagacity, 393, s 3

Same, whether substance, mode, or

concrete, 241, s 28
Sand, white to the eye, pellucid in a

microscope, 200, s 11
Sceptical, no one so sceptical as to
doubt his own existence, 4 75 , s 2
Schools wherein faulty, 361, s 6, &c.
Science, divided into a consideration
of nature, of operation, and of
signs, 549 [s 29

No science of natural bodies, 439,
Scripture ; interpretations of scrip-
ture not to be imposed, 358,
s 23 [232-4, s 23-5

Self, what makes it, 231, s 20;
Self-love, 284, s 2 Qin us, ib.

Partly cause of unreasonableness
Self-evident propositions, where to
be had, 453, &c.
Neither needed nor admitted
Sensation, 51, s 3 [proof, 464, s 19
Distinguishable from other per-
ceptions, 396, s 14
Explained, 78, s 21
What, 144, s 1
Senses : why we cannot conceive
other qualities, than the objects
of our senses, 64, s 3
Learn to discern by exercise, 381,

s21
Much quicker would not be use-
ful to us, 545, s 12
Our organs of sense suited to our
state, ib., &c. s 12, 13
Sensible knowledge is as certain as
we need, 484, s 8
Sensible knowledge goes not be-
yond the present act, 486, s 9
Shame, 148, s 17
Simple ideas, 61, 8 1

Not made by the mind, 62, 6 2
Power of the mind over them, 98,
^s 1 [ledge, 72, s 10

The materials of all our know-
All positive, ib. [73, s 2, 3

Very diiFerent from their causes.
Sin, with different men, stands for

different actions, 31, s 19
Solidity, 65, s 1

Inseparable from body, ib.
By it body fills space, 65, s 2
This idea got by touch, 66, s I
How distinguished from space,

66, s3
How from hardness, 67, s 4
Something from eternity, demon-
Sorrow, 147, s 8 [strated, 476, s 8
Soul thinks not always, 53, s 9, &c.
Not in sound sleep, .54, s 1 1, &c.
Its immateriality, we know not,

399, &c. s. 6; 399, &c.
Religion, not concerned in the

soul's immateriality, 415, s 6
Our ignorance about it, 235, s 27
The immortality of it, not proved
by reason, 4 1 2, &c. [tion, ib.
It is brought to light by re vela-
Sound, its modes, 142, s 3
Space, its idea got by sight and
touch, 98, s 2
Its modification, 95, s 4
Not body, 102, s 11, 12
Its parts inseparable, ib. s 13
Immoveable, 103, s 14
Whether body, or spirit, 1 03, s 1 6
Whether substance, or accident,

ib. s 17
Infinite, 105, s 21 ; 132, s4
Ideas of space and body distinct,

107, s 24, 25
Considered as a solid, 126, s 11
Hard to conceive any real being
void of space, ib.
Species; why changing one simple
idea of the complex one, is
thought to change the species
in modes but not in substances,
367, s 19
Of animals and vegetables, dis-
tinguished by figure, 333, s 29
Of other things, by colour, ib.
Made by the understanding, for

communication, 316, s 9
No species of mixed modes with-
out a name, 3 1 7, s 11

556

INDEX.

Of substances, are determined by
the nominal essence, 323-7,
&c. s7, 8, 11, 13

Not by substantial forms, 325,
s 10 [s 18; 330, s 25

Nor bv the real essence, 327,

Of spirits, how distinguished,
325, s 1 1

More species of creatures above
than below us, 326, s 12

Of creatures very gradual, ib.

What is necessary to the making
of species, by real essences, 327,
s 14, &c.

Of animals and plants, not dis-
tinguished by propagation, 330,
s23

Of animals and vegetables, dis-
tinguished principally by the
shape and figure ; of other
things, by the colour, 330, s 29

Of man, likewise in part, 331,
s 26 [332, s 26

Instance, Abbot of St. Martin,

Is but a partial conception of
what is in the individuals, 335,
8 32

It is the complex idea which the
name stands for, that makes the
species, 337, s 35 [337, 8, s 36, 7

Man makes the species, or sorts.

The foundation of it is in the si-
militude found in things, ib.

Every distinct, abstract idea, a
different species, 338, s 38
Speech, its end, 288, s 1, 2

Proper speech, 293, s 8

Intelligible, ib. [able, 488, s 12
Spirits, the existence of, not know-

How it is proved, ib.

Operation of spirits on bodies, not
conceivable, 428, s 28

What knowledge they have of
bodies, 381, s 23

Separate, how their knowledge
may exceed ours, 88, s 9

We have as clear a notion of the
substance of spirit, as of body,
197,8 5

A conjecture concerning one way
of knowledge wherein spirits
excel us, 202, s 13

Our ideas of spirit, 202, s 14

As clear as that of body, ib. ; 205,
8 22

Primary ideas belonging to spirits.

Move, 204, s 19 [204, s 18

Ideas of spirit and body, com-
pared, 205, s 22; 209,' s 30

Existence of, as easy to be ad-
mitted as that of bodies, 207, s 28

We have no idea how spirits com-
municate their thoughts, 211,
s36

How far we are ignorant of the
being, species, and properties
of spirits, 427, s 27

The word spirit does not ne-
cessarily denote immateriality,
400 [spirits, ib.

The scripture speaks of material
Stupidity, 88, s 8
Substance, 191, s 1

No idea of it, 44, s 18

Not very knowable, ib.

Our certainty, concerning sub-
stances, reaches but a little way,
435, s 11, 12; 457, s 15

The confused idea of substance in
general, makes always a part of
the essence of the species of
substances, 329, s 21

In substances, we must rectify the
signification of their names, by
the things, more than by defi-
nitions, 381, s 24 [97, s 6

Their ideas single, or collective, J

We have no distinct idea of sub- ■
stance, 104, s 18, 19

We have no idea of pure sub-
stance, 1 92, s 2

Our ideas of the sorts of substances,
194-7, &c. s3, 4; 197, s 6

Observable, in our ideas of sub-
stances, 21 1, s 37 [212, &c.

Collective ideas of substances.

They are single ideas, ib. s 2

Three sorts of substances, 221, s 2

The ideas of substances have a
double reference, 271, s 6

The properties of substances,
numerous, and not all to be
known, 273, s 9, 10 [198, s 7

The perfectcst ideas of substances.

Three sorts of ideas make our

complex one of substances, 1 99,

s 9 [essay, 194, &c

Substance, not discarded by the

The author's account of it clear as

that of noted logicians, 1 94, &c.

INDEX.

We talk like children about it,
191, s2; 196

The author makes not the being
of it depend on the fancies of
men, 19J, &c.

Idea of it obscure, 399, &c.

The author's principles consist

with the certainty of its exist-

Subtility, what, 362, s 8 [ence, 191

Succession, an idea got chiefly

from the train of our ideas,

72, s 9; 111, s6[it, 1 12, s 12

Which train is the measure of
Summum bonum, wherein it con-
sists, I Ti, s 55
Sun, the name of a species, though
but one, 320, si [512, s 4
Syllogism, no help to reasoning.

The use of syllogism, ib.

Inconveniences of syllogism, ib.

Of no use in probabilities, 519,
s5 [519, s 6

Helps not to new discoveries.

Or the improvement of our know-
ledge, 520. s 7

Whether, in syllogism, the middle
terms may not be better placed,
520, s 8

May be about particulars, ib.

T.

Taste and smells, their modes, 142,

s 5 [force, 507, s 10

Testimony, how it lessens its

Thinkingi 144 [s 2

Modes of thinking, ib. s 1 ; 145,

Men's ordinary way of thinking,

501, s4

. An operation of the soul, 53, s 10

Without memory useless, 56, s 15

Time, what, 11 4, s 17, 18

Not the measure of motion, 1 i 7,

s22
And place, distinguishable por-
tions of infinite duration and
expansion, 123, s 5, 6
Two-fold, 123, s 6, 7
Denominations from time are re-
latives, 218, s 3
Toleration, necessary in our state

of knowledge, 504, s 4
Tradition, the older the less credi-
ble, 507, s 10
Trifling propositions, 466

Discourses, 470, 1, s 9, 10, 11

b^l

Truth, what, 440, s 2} 441, s 6
Of thought, 440, s 3 3 443, s 9
Of words, 440, s 3
Verbal and real 443, s 8, 9
Moral, 544, s 1 1
Metaphysical, 276, s 2
General, seldom apprehended, but

in words, 444, s 2
In what it consists, 445, s 5
Love of it necessary, 532, s 1 [s 1
How we may know we love it, ib.
V.

Vacuum possible, 105, s 22 [s 23

Motion proves a vacuum, 105,

We have an idea of it, 66, s 3 ;

_ 68, s 5

Variety in men's pursuits, accounted

for, 72, s 54, &c.
Virtue, what, in reality, 31, s 18
What in its common application,

26, s 10, 11
Is preferable, under a bare possi-
bility of a future state, 181
How taken, 30-31, s 17, 18 [s 70
Vice lies in wrong measures of good,

547, s 16
Understanding, what, 151, s 5, 6
Like a dark room, 95, s 17
When rightly used, 2, s 5 [s 5
Three sorts of perception in, 151
Wholly passive in the reception
of simple ideas, 61, s 25
Uneasiness alone determines the will
to a new action, 159, &c. s 29,
31,33, &c. [s36, 37

Why it determines the will, 163,
Causes of it, 174, s 57, &c.
Unity, an idea, both of sensation and
reflection, ?2, s 7 [si

Suggested by every thing, 127
Universality, is only in signs, 298
Universals, how made, 92, s 9 [s 1 1
Volition, what, 151, s 5 ; 154, s 15 ;
159, s 28
Better known by reflection, than
words, 160, s30 [159, s 27
Voluntary, what, 151, s5j 153, si 1;

W.
What is, is, is not universally as-
sented to, 9, s 4
Where and when, 124, s 8
Whole, bigger than its parts, its
use, 458, s 11 [37, s6

And part not innate ideas.

568

INDEX.

Will, what, 151, s5, 6j 155, s 16;

159, s 28 [s29
What determines the will, ib.
Often confounded with desire,

160, s 30

Is conversant only about our own
actions, ib. s 30

Terminates in them, 165, s 40

Is determined by the greatest,pre-
sent, removable uneasiness, ib.
Wit and judgment, wherein differ-
ent, 91, s 2
Words, an ill use of, one great
hinderance of knowledge, 430

Abuse of words, 359 [[s 30

Sects introduce words without
signification, ib. s 2

The schools have coined multi-
tudes of insignificant words,
ib. s2 [361.8 6

And rendered others obscure.

Often used without signification.

And why, 361, s 5 . [360, s 3

Inconstancy in their use, an abuse
of words, 361, s 5

Obscurity, an abuse of words, 36 1 ,
s 6

Taking them for things, an abuse
of words, 364-5, s 14, 15

Who' most liable to this abuse of
words, ib.

This abuse of words is a cause of
obstinacy in error, 366, s 16

Making them stand for real es-
sences we know not, is an abuse
of words, 366-7, s 17, 18

The supposition of their certain
evident signification, an abuse
of words, 368, s 22

Use of words is, 1. To commu-
nicate ideas ; 2. With quick-
ness ; 3. To convey know-
ledge, 370, s 23, 24

rtow they fail in all these, .S70,
s 26, &c.

How in substances, 371, s 32

How in modes and relations, 372,
8 33 [of error, 374, s 4

Misuse of wordSi a great cause

Of obstinacy, ib. s 5

And of wrangling, 374, s 6

Signify one thing in inquiries;
and another in disputes, 375, s7

The meaning of words is made
known, in simple ideas, by

showing, 378, s 14 [ib. s 15
In mixed modes, by defining.
In substances, by showing and

defining too, 380, s 19; 381,

s2I, 22
The ill consequence of learning

words first, and their meaning

afterwards, 38 1 , s 24
No shame to ask men the mean-
ing of their words, where they

are doubtful, 381, s 25
Are to be used constantly in the

same sense, 384, s 26
Or else to be explained, where

the context determines it not,
How made general,289, s 3[ib.s27
Signifying insensible things, de-
rived from names of sensible

ideas, 290, s 5 [291, s 1

Have no natural signification,
But by imposition, 293, s 8
Stand immediately for the ideas

of the speaker, 291-2, s 1-3
Yet with a double reference: —
1, To the ideas in the hearer's

mind, 292, s 4
2.To the reality of things, 293, s 5
Apt, by custom, to excite ideas,

ib. s 6
Often used without signification,

ib. s7
Most general, 294, s 1
Why some words of one language

cannot be translated into those

of another, 315, s 8
Why I have been so large on words,

319, s 16
New words, or in new significa-
, tions, are cautiously to be used,

344, s 51
Civil use of words, 348, s 3
PhilovSophical use of words, ib.
These very difiTcrcnt, 354, s 15
Miss their end when they excite

not, in the hearer, the same

idea as in the mind of the

speaker, 349, s 4 [why, ib. s 5
What words most doubtful, and
What unintelligible, ib. [350, s 2
Fitted to the use of common life,
Not translatable, 315, s 8
Worship not an innate idea, 37, s 7
Wrangle, about words, 472, s 13 H
Writings, ancient, Viliy hardly to be S
precisely understood, 358, s 22.

Prinl«l by Thomas Daviron, WhitefriRrs.

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B Locke, John

1292 An essay concerning human

1829 understanding

5