therefore it is, in my opinion, safe enough from being thought a mere name, or mark, or sign of that idea. For he must think very oddly, who takes the general name of any idea, to be the general idea itself: it is a mere mark or sign of it without doubt, and nothing else. Your lordship adds:

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But there is as clear and distinct a conception of this in our minds, as we can have from any such simple ideas as are conveyed by our senses."

If your lordship means by this, (as the words seem to me to import) that we can have as clear and distinct an idea of the general substance, or nature, or essence of the species man, as we have of the particular colour and figure of a man when we look on him, or of his voice when we hear him speak, I must crave leave to dissent from your lordship. Because the idea we have of the substance, wherein the properties of a man do inhere, is a very obscure idea; so in that part our general idea of man is obscure and confused: as also, how that substance is differently modified in the different species of creatures, so as to have different properties and powers whereby they are distinguished, that also we have very obscure, or rather no distinct ideas of at all. But there is no obscurity or confusion at all in the idea of a figure that I clearly see, or of a sound that I distinctly hear; and such are, or may be, the ideas that are conveyed in by sensation or reflection. It follows:

"I do not deny that the distinction of particular substances, is by the several modes and properties of them, (which they may call a complication of simple ideas if they please); but I do assert, that the general idea which relates to the essence, without these, is so just and true an idea, that without it the complication of simple ideas will never give us a right notion of it."

Here, I think, that your lordship asserts, "that the general idea of the real essence (for so I understand general idea which relates to the essence) without the modes and properties, is a just and true idea." For example; the real essence of a thing is that internal constitution on which the properties of that thing depend.

Now your lordship seems to me to acknowledge, that that internal constitution or essence we cannot know; for your lordship says, " that from the powers and and properties of things which are knowable by us, we may know as much of the internal essence of things as these powers and properties discover." That is unquestionably so; but if those powers and properties discover no more of those internal essences, but that there are internal essences, we shall know only that there are internal essences, but shall have no idea or conception at all of what they are; as your lordship seems to confess in the next words of the same page, where you add: "I do not say, that we can know all essences of things alike, nor that we can attain to a perfect understanding of all that belong to them; but if we can know so much, as that there are certain beings in the world, endowed with such distinct powers and properties, what is it we complain of the want of?" Wherein your lordship seems to terminate our knowledge of those internal essences in this, "that there are certain beings indued with distinct powers and properties." But what these beings, these internal essences are, that we have no distinct conceptions of; as your lordship confesses yet plainer a little after, in these words: for although we cannot comprehend the internal frame and constitution of things." So that we having, as is confessed, no idea of what this essence, this internal constitution of things on which their properties depend, is; how can we say it is any way a just and true idea? But your lordship says, "it is so just and true an idea, that without it the contemplation of simple ideas will never give us a right notion of it." All the idea we have of it, which is only that there is an internal, though unknown constitution of things on which their properties depend, simple ideas of sensation and reflection, and the contemplation of them, have alone helped us to; and because they can help us no further, that is the reason we have no perfecter notion of it.

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That which your lordship seems to me principally to drive at, in this and the foregoing paragraph, is, to assert, that the general substance of man, and so of any

other species, is that which makes the real being of that species abstractly from the individuals of that species. By general substance here, I suppose, your lordship means the general idea of substance: and that which induces me to take the liberty to suppose so is, that I think your lordship is here discoursing of the idea of substance, and how we come by it. And if your lordship should mean otherwise, I must take the liberty to deny there is any such thing in rerum natura as a general substance that exists itself, or makes any thing.

Taking it then for granted that your lordship says, that this is the general idea of substance, viz. "that it is that which makes the real being of any thing;" your lordship says, "that it is as clear and distinct a conception in our minds, as we can have from any such simple ideas as are conveyed by our senses." Here I must crave leave to dissent from your lordship. Your lordship says, in the former part of this page, "that substance and essence do imply that which makes the real being." Now what, I beseech your lordship, do these words, that which, here signify more than something? And the idea expressed by something, I am apt to think, your lordship will not say is as clear and distinct a conception or idea in the mind, as the idea of the red colour of a cherry, or the bitter taste of wormwood, or the figure of a circle brought into the mind by your senses.

Your lordship farther says, "it makes" (whereby, I suppose, your lordship means, constitutes or is) "the real being, as distinguished from modes and properties."

For example, my lord, strip this supposed general idea of a man or gold of all its modes and properties, and then tell me whether your lordship has as clear and distinct an idea of what remains, as you have of the figure of the one, or the yellow colour of the other. I must confess the remaining something to me affords so vague, confused, and obscure an idea, that I cannot say I have any distinct conception of it; for barely by being something, it is not in my mind clearly distinguished from the figure or voice of a man, or the colour or taste of a

cherry, for they are something too. If your lordship has a clear and distinct idea of that "something which makes the real being as distinguished from all its modes and properties," your lordship must enjoy the privilege of the sight and clear ideas you have: nor can you be denied them, because I have not the like; the dimness of my conceptions must not pretend to hinder the clearness of your lordship's, any more than the want of them in a blind man can debar your lordship of the clear and distinct ideas of colours. The obscurity I find in my own mind, when I examine what positive, general, simple idea of substance I have, is such as I profess, and further than that I cannot go; but what, and how clear it is in the understanding of a seraphim, or of an elevated mind, that I cannot determine. Your lordship goes on

"I must do that right to the ingenious author of the Essay of Human Understanding (from whence these notions are borrowed to serve other purposes than he intended them) that he makes the case of spiritual and corporeal substances to be alike, as to their ideas. And that we have as clear a notion of a spirit as we have of a body; the one being supposed to be the substratum to those simple ideas we have from without, and the other of those operations we find within ourselves. And that it is as rational to affirm, there is no body, because we cannot know its essence, as it is called, or have no idea of the substance of matter; as to say there is no spirit, because we know not its essence, or have no idea of a spiritual substance.

"From hence it follows, that we may be certain that there are both spiritual and bodily substances, although we can have no clear and distinct ideas of them. But if our reason depend upon our clear and distinct ideas, how is this possible? We cannot reason without clear ideas, and yet we may be certain without them: can we be certain without reason? Or, doth our reason give us true notions of things, without these ideas? If it be so, this new hypothesis about reason must appear to be very unreasonable."

That which your lordship seems to argue here, is,

that we may be certain without clear and distinct ideas. Who your lordship here argues against, under the title of this new hypothesis about reason, I confess I do not know. For I do not remember that I have any where placed certainty only in clear and distinct ideas, but in the clear and visible connexion of any of our ideas, be those ideas what they will; as will appear to any one who will look into B. iv. c. 4. § 18, and B. iv. c. 6. § 3, of my Essay, in the latter of which he will find these words: " Certainty of knowledge is to perceive the agreement or disagreement of ideas, as expressed in any proposition." As in the proposition your lordship mentions, v. g. that we may be certain there are spiritual and bodily substances; or, that bodily substances do exist, is a proposition of whose truth we may be certain; and so of spiritual substances. Let us now examine wherein the certainty of these propositions

consists.

First, as to the existence of bodily substances, I know by my senses that something extended, and solid, and figured, does exist; for my senses are the utmost evidence and certainty I have of the existence of extended, solid, figured things. These modes being then known to exist by our senses, the existence of them (which I cannot conceive can subsist without something to support them) makes me see the connexion of those ideas with a support, or, as it is called, a subject of inhesion, and so consequently the connexion of that support (which cannot be nothing) with existence. And thus I come by a certainty of the existence of that something which is a support of those sensible modes, though I have but a very confused, loose, and undetermined idea of it, signified by the same substance. After the same manner experimenting thinking in myself, by the existence of thought in me, to which something that thinks is evidently and necessarily connected in my mind; I come to be certain that there exists in me something that thinks, though of that something, which I call substance also, I have but a very obscure, imperfect idea.

Before I go any farther, it is fit I return my acknow