This, I think, I may lay down for an infallible rule, that wherever the distinct idea any word stands for is not known and considered, and something not contained in the idea is not affirmed or 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 dis pute, and very much shorten our trouble and wandering, in the search of real and true knowledge.

CHAP. IX.

Of our Knowledge of Existence.

§. 1. HITHERTO we have only consi- General cerdered the essences of things, which being tain proposi only abstract ideas, and thereby removed tions concern in our thoughts from particular existence not existence. (that being the proper operation of the mind, in abstraction, to consider an idea under no other existence, but what it has in the understanding) gives us no knowledge of real existence 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. But leaving the nature of proposiA threefold tions and different ways of predication to knowledgeof be considered more at large in another place, existence. let us proceed now to inquire concerning

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.

Our knowledge of our own existence

is intuitive.

§. 3. 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. every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are conscious to ourselves of our own being; and, in this matter, come not short of the highest degree of certainty.

In

CHAP. X. ·

Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God.

We are capable of knowing certainly that there is a God.

§. 1. THOUGH God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has stamped no original characters on 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 he 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 arè 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.

Man knows

that he him

self is.

§. 2. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows certainly 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, until hunger, or some other pain, convince him of the contrary. This then, I think, I may take for a truth, which every one's certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists.

:

§. 3. In the next place, man knows by He knows an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can also that nono more produce any real being, than it thing cannot can be equal to two right angles. If a produce a be man knows not that non-entity, or the ab- fore someing, theresence of all being, cannot be equal to two thing eterright angles, it is impossible he should know nal. 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 demonstration, 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.

That eternal being must

8. 4. Next, it is evident, that what had its being and beginning from another, must be most pow- also have all that which is in, and belongs to its being, from another too.

erful.

All the powers it has must be owing to, and received 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.

And most knowing.

§. 5. Again, a man finds in himself perception and knowledge. We have then got one step farther; and we are certain now, that there 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 understanding, 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.

And therefore God.

§. 6. Thus from the consideration of ourselves, 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 senselessly 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. ii. 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 "Quid est enim verius, quam neminem esse oportere tam stulte arrogantem, ut in se mentem & "rationem putet inesse, in cœlo mundoque non putet? "Aut ea quæ vix summa ingenii natione comprehendat, "nulla ratione moveri putet?"

"all?

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, that we 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.

a God.

§. 7. How far the idea of a most perfect Our idea of a being, which a man may frame in his mind, most perfect does or does not prove the existence of a being not the God, I will not here examine. For in the sole proof of 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 establishing 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