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being actually in it. But yet if he be resolved to appear so sceptical, as to maintain, 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 finding that pleasure or pain follows upon the application of certain objects to us, whose existence we perceive, or dream that we perceive by our senses; this certainty is as great as our happiness or misery, beyond 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. But since our knowledge is foundKnowledge ed on, and employed about our ideas only, not always will it not follow from thence, that it is clear, where conformable to our ideas; and that where the ideas are 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 agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, its clearness or obscurity consists in the clearness or obscurity of that perception, and not in 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 obscurity or otherwise, are confused, cannot produce any clear or distinct knowledge; because as far as any ideas are confused, so far the mind cannot perceive clearly, whether they agree or disagree. Or to express the same thing in a way less apt to be misunderstood; he that hath not determined ideas to the words he uses, cannot make propositions of them, of whose truth he can be certain.

SO.

CHAP. III.

Of the Extent of Human Knowledge.

§ 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,

1. No farther First, we can have knowledge no farther than we have than we have ideas.

ideas.

than we can perceive

their agreement or dis

2. Secondly, that we have no know2. No farther ledge 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, agreement. 2. By reason, examining the agreement 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,

self not to all

of all our

3. Intuitive ( 3. Thirdly, that we cannot have an inknowledge tuitive knowledge, that shall extend itself to extends itall our ideas, and all that we would know the relations about them; because we cannot examine and perceive all the relations they have one to anideas. other 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 difference of figure makes their parts incapable of an exact immediate application; and therefore there is need of some intervening qualities to measure them by, which is demonstration, or rational knowledge. 4. Fourthly, it follows also, from what is above observed, that our rational knowknowledge. ledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas: because between two different

4. Nor demonstrative

ideas we would examine, we cannot always find such mediums, as we can connect one to another with an intuitive knowledge, in all the parts of the deduction; and wherever that fails, we come short of knowledge and demonstration.

5. Fifthly, sensitive knowledge reach- 5. Sensitive ing no farther than the existence of things knowledge actually present to our senses, is yet much narrower narrower than either of the former.

than either.

6. Our know

ideas.

§ 6. From all which it is evident, that the extent of our knowledge comes not only ledge thereshort of the reality of things, but even of fore narrowthe extent of our own ideas. Though our er than 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 with 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 constitutions, may be carried much farther than it has hitherto been, if men would sincerely, and with freedom of mind, employ all that industry 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 surmount 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 to know, whether any mere material being thinks, or no; it being

a

Against that assertion of Mr. Locke, that possibly we shall 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 thinking, 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 hath not given such a power of thinking to matter so disposed as our bodies are? especially since it is said*, "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 faculty 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 † answers thus: here your lordship argues, that upon my principles it cannot be proved that 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 I think I have done it; and the proof in my book stands thus: First, we experiment in ourselves thinking. 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 support or subject 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 your 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 spiritual substance in us, because, upon that supposition, it is possible it may be a material substance 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 modification of solidity or no. As, on the other side, substance, that has the modification of solidity, is matter, whether it has the modification of thinking, or no. And therefore, if your lordship 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 proved) that there is an immaterial substance in us that thinks. Though, I presume, from what I have said about this supposition of a system of matter, thinking ‡ (which there demonstrates that God is immaterial) * Essay of Human Understanding, B. 4. C. 3. § 6. In his first letter to the bishop of Worcester.

B. 4. C. 10. § 16.

will prove it in the highest degree probable, that the thinking substance in us is immaterial. But your lordship thinks not probability enough, and by charging the want of demonstration upon my principle, that the thinking thing in us is immaterial, 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,* 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, † 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 materiality out of it, will be thought too great a liberty, and such as deserves censure, because 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 necessity 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 first book of Cicero's Tusculan questions, and into the sixth book of Virgil's Æneid, 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 aura, or ignis, or æther, 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 this, 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, that if any among the Romans can be allowed to speak properly, Tully and Virgil are the two who may most securely be depended on for it: and one of them speaking of the soul, says, Dum spiritus hos reget artus; and the other, Vita continetur corpore et spiritu. Where it is plain by corpus, he means (as generally every where) only gross matter that may be felt and handled, as appears by these words, Si cor, aut sanguis, aut cerebrum est animus: certe, quoniam est corpus, interibit cum reliquo corpore; si anima est, fortè dissipabitur; si ignis, extinguetur, Tusc. Quæst. 1.1. c. 11. Here Cicero opposes corpus to ignis and anima, 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 ut fugiat aciem, ib. c. 22. Nor was it the heathen world alone that had this notion of spirit; the most enlightened of all the ancient people of God, Solomon himself, speaks after the same manner, that which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other, yea, they have all one spirit. So I translate † 1 Cor. xv. 53. Eccl. iii. 19.

* B. 4. C. 3. § 6. VOL. II.

G

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