distinct idea of God is omitted in my proof of a God. I will suppose, for the strengthening your lordship's reasoning in the case, that I had said (which I am far enough from saying) that there was no other argument to prove the existence of God, but what I had used in that chapter; yet, my lord, with all this, your lordship's argument, I humbly conceive, would not hold: for I might bring evidence from simple ideas, though I brought none from the idea of God; for the idea we have of God is a complex, and no simple idea. So that the terms being changed from simple ideas to a clear and distinct complex idea of God, the proposition which was undertaken to be proved, seems to me unproved.

Your lordship's next words are, "how can this be consistent with deducing our certainty of knowledge from clear and simple ideas?"

Here your lordship joins something that is mine with something that is not mine. I do say, that all our knowledge is founded in simple ideas; but I do not say, it is all deduced from clear ideas; much less that we cannot have any certain knowledge of the existence of any thing, whereof we have not a clear, distinct, complex idea; or, that the complex idea must be clear enough to be in itself the evidence of the existence of that thing; which seems to be your lordship's meaning here. Our knowledge is all founded on simple ideas, as I have before explained, though not always about simple ideas; for we may know the truth of propositions which include complex ideas, and those complex ideas may not always be perfectly clear ideas.

In the remaining part of this page, it follows: "I do not go about to justify those who lay the whole stress upon that foundation, which I grant to be too weak to support so important a truth; and that those are very much to blame, who go about to invalidate other arguments for the sake of that: but I doubt all that talk about clear and distinct ideas being made the foundation of certainty, came originally from these discourses or meditations, which are aimed at. The author of them was an ingenious thinking man, and he endeavoured to lay the foundation of certainty, as well as he could. The first thing he found any cer

tainty in, was his own existence; which he founded upon the perceptions of the acts of his mind, which some call an internal infallible perception that we are. From hence he proceeded to inquire, how we came by this certainty? And he resolved it into this, that he had a clear and distinct perception of it; and from hence he formed this general rule, that what we had a clear and distinct perception of was true. Which in reason ought to go no farther, than where there is the like degree of evidence."

This account which your lordship gives here, what it was wherein Descartes laid the foundation of certainty, containing nothing in it to show what your lordship proposed here, viz. "that there can be no sufficient evidence brought from ideas, by my own confession, concerning the existence of God himself;" I willingly excuse myself from troubling your lordship concerning it. Only I crave leave to make my acknowledgment to your lordship, for what you are pleased, by the way, to drop in these words: "But I doubt all this talk about clear and distinct ideas being made the foundation of certainty, came originally from these discourses or meditations, which are aimed at."

By the quotations in your lordship's immediately preceding words taken out of my Essay*, which relate to that ingenious thinking author, as well as by what in your following words is said of his founding certainty in his own existence; it is hard to avoid thinking that your lordship means, that I borrowed from him my notions concerning certainty. And your lordship is so great a man, and every way so far above my meanness, that it cannot be supposed that your lordship intended this for any thing but a commendation of me to the world, as the scholar of so great a master. But though I must always acknowledge to that justly-admired gentleman the great obligation of my first deliverance from the unintelligible way of talking of the philosophy in use in the schools in his time, yet I am so far from entitling his writings to any of the errors or imperfections which are to be found in my Essay, as deriving their original from him, that I must own to * B. iv. c. 10. §7.

your lordship they were spun barely out of my own thoughts, reflecting as well as I could on my own mind, and the ideas I had there; and were not, that I know, derived from any other original. But, possibly, I all this while assume to myself an honour which your lordship did not intend to me by this intimation; for though what goes before and after seems to appropriate those words to me, yet some part of them brings me under my usual doubt, which I shall remain under till I know whom these words, viz. " this talk about clear and distinct ideas being made the foundation of certainty," belong to.

The remaining part of this paragraph contains a discourse of your lordship's upon Descartes's general rule of certainty, in these words: "For the certainty here was not grounded on the clearness of the perception, but on the plainness of the evidence, which is that of nature, that the very doubting of it proves it; since it is impossible, that any thing should doubt or question its own being, that had it not. So that here it is not the clearness of the idea, but an immediate act of perception, which is the true ground of certainty. And this cannot extend to things without ourselves, of which we can have no other perception than what is caused by the impressions of outward objects. But whether we are to judge according to these impressions, doth not depend on our ideas themselves, but upon the exercise of our judgment and reason about them, which put the difference between true and false, and adequate and inadequate ideas. So that our certainty is not from the ideas themselves, but from the evidence of reason, that those ideas are true and just, and consequently that we may build our certainty upon them."

Granting all this to be so, yet I must confess, my lord, I do not see how it any way tends to show either your lordship's proof, or my confession "that my proof of an infinite spiritual Being is not placed upon ideas; which is what your lordship professes to be your design here."

VOL. IV.

E

But though we are not yet come to your lordship's proof, that the certainty in my proof of a Deity is not placed on ideas, yet I crave leave to consider what your lordship says here concerning certainty; about which one cannot employ too many thoughts to find wherein it is placed. Your lordship says, "That Descartes's certainty was not grounded on the clearness of the perception, but on the plainness of the evidence." And a little lower; here (i. e. in Descartes's foundation of certainty) it is not the clearness of the idea, but an immediate" act of perception, on which is the true ground of certainty." And a little lower, that "in things without us, our certainty is not from the ideas, but from the evidence of reason that those ideas are true and just."

Your lordship, I hope, will pardon my dulness, if after your lordship has placed the grounds of certainty of our own existence, sometimes in the plainness of the evidence, in opposition to the clearness of the perception; sometimes in the immediate act of perception, in opposition to the clearness of the idea; and the certainty of other things without us, in the evidence of reason that these ideas are true and just, in opposition to the ideas themselves: I know not, by these rules, wherein to place certainty; and therefore stick to my own plain way, by ideas, delivered in these words: "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 reality of things, I think I have shown wherein it is that certainty, real certainty, consists." Whereof more may be seen in chap. vi., in which, if your lordship find any mistakes, I shall take it as a great honour to be set right by you.

Your lordship, as far as I can guess your meaning (for I must own I do not clearly comprehend it), seems to me, in the foregoing passage, to oppose this assertion, that the certainty of the being of any thing might be made out from the idea of that thing. Truly, my lord, I

B. iv. c. 4. § 18.

am so far from saying (or thinking) so, that I never knew any one of that mind but Descartes, and some that have followed him in his proof of a God, from the idea which we have of God in us; which I was so far from thinking a sufficient ground of certainty, that your lordship makes use of my denying or doubting of it against me, as we shall see in the following words:

"But the idea of an infinite Being has this peculiar to it, that necessary existence is implied in it. This is a clear and distinct idea, and yet it is denied that this doth prove the existence of God. How then can the grounds of our certainty arise from the clear and distinct ideas, when in one of the clearest ideas of our minds, we can come to no certainty by it?"

Your lordship's proof here, as far as I comprehend it, seems to be, that it is confessed, "That certainty does not arise from clear and distinct ideas, because it is denied that the clear and distinct idea of an infinite being, that implies necessary existence in it, does prove the existence of a God."

Here your lordship says, it is denied; and in five lines after you recall that saying, and use these words, "I do not say that it is denied, to prove it:" which of these two sayings of your lordship's must I now answer to? If your lordship says it is denied, I fear that will not hold to be so in matter of fact, which made your lordship unsay it; though that being most to your lordship's purpose, occasioned, I suppose, its dropping from your pen. For if it be not denied, I think the whole force of your lordship's argument fails. But your lordship helps that out as well as the thing will bear, by the words that follow in the sentence, which altogether stands thus: "I do not say, that it is denied, to prove it; but this is said, that it is a doubtful thing, from the different make of men's tempers, and application of their thoughts. What can this mean, unless it be to let us know that even clear and distinct ideas may lose their effect, by the difference of men's tempers and studies? So that besides ideas, in order to a right judgment, a due temper and application of the mind is required."

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