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النشر الإلكتروني

BOOK IV.

OF KNOWLEDGE and OPINION.

CHAP. I.

Of knowledge in general.
SECT.

1. Our knowledge conver-
sant about our ideas.
2. Knowledge is the percep-
tion of the agreement,
or disagreement, of two
ideas.

3. This agreement fourfold.
4. First, of identity, or di-
versity.

5. Secondly, relation.
6. Thirdly, of co-existence.
7. Fourthly of real existence.
8. Knowledge actual or ha-
bitual.

9. Habitual knowledge, two-
fold.

CHAP. II.

Of the degrees of our knowledge. SECT.

1. Intuitive.

2. Demonstrative.
3. Depends on proofs.

4. But not so easy.

5. Not without precedent doubt.

6. Not so clear.

7. Each step must have in

tuitive evidence.

8. Hence the mistake ex præcognitis & præconcessis. 9. Demonstration not limited to quantity.

10-13. Why it has been so thought.

14. Sensitive knowledge of particular existence.

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17.

way.

a very little

Of spirits yet narrower. 18. Thirdly, of other rela

tions, it is not easy to say how far. Morality capable of demonstration. 19. Two things have made. moral ideas thought incapable of demonstration. Their complexedness and want of sensible representations.

zo. Remedies of those difficulties.

21. Fourthly, of real exist. ence; we have an intui. tive knowledge of our own, demonstrative of God's, sensitive of some few other things. 22. Our ignorance great. 23. First, one cause of it,

want of ideas, either such as we have no conception of, or such as particularly we have not.

24. Because of their remote

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placed in ideas, may be

all bare vision.

2, 3. Answer, not so where ideas agree with things.

4. As, first, all simple ideas do.

5. Secondly, all complex ideas, except of substances. 6. Hence the reality of mathematical knowledge.

7. And of moral.

8. Existence not required to make it real. 9. Nor will it be less true, or certain, because moral ideas are of our own mak ing and naming. 10. Mis-naming disturbs not the certainty of the knowledge.

11. Ideas of substances have their archetypes without

us.

12. So far as they agree with these, so far our know. ledge concerning them is real.

13. In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas, and not confine our thoughts to names, or species supposed set out by names.

14, 15.Objection against a change ling being something be. tween man and beast, an swered.

16. Monsters.

17. Words and species. 18. Recapitulation.

OF

OF

Human Understanding.

BOOK II. CHAP. XXIII.

Of our complex Ideas of Substances.

Ideas of sub

§. 1. THE mind being, as I have declared, furnished with a great stances how number of the simple ideas, conveyed in made. by the senses, as they are found in exterior things, or by reflection on its own operations, takes notice also, that a certain number of these simple ideas go constantly together; which being presumed to belong to one thing, and words being suited to common apprehensions, and made use of for quick dispatch, are called, so united in one subject, by one name; which, by inadvertency, we are apt afterward 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 (1).

§. 2. So

(1) 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 or substance, which was looked upon as the thing itself in which inhered, VOL. II.

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Our idea of substance in

general.

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

and from which resulted that complication of ideas, by which it was represented 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 ourselves 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 answers thus: Herein your lordship seems to charge me with two faults: one, That I make the general idea of substance to be framed, not by ab. stracting 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 but 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. §. 6. and Book 1. Chap. 11. §. 9. where, ex professo, 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 idea of substances: 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

* In his first letter to the bishop of Worcester.

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