Book I. principles may be diftinguished from others; that fo, amidst the great variety of pretenders, I may be kept from mistakes, in so material a point as this. When this is done, I fhall be ready to embrace fuch welcome and useful propofitions; and till then I may with modesty doubt, fince I fear univerfal confent, which is the only one produced, will scarce prove a fufficient mark to direct my choice, and affure me of any innate principles. From what has been faid, I think it paft doubt, that there are no practical principles wherein all men agree; and therefore none innate. CHAPTER IV. Other confiderations concerning innate principles, both speculative and practical. CHAP.SI. Hples, not taken them together in grofs, but confidered separately AD thofe, who would perfuade us that there are innate princi IV. Principles not inn te, unless their ideas be in nate. the parts out of which those propofitions are made; they would not, per- Ideas, efpe- § 2. If we will attentively confider new-born children, we shall have little children. ap pearance of any fettled ideas at all in them; efpecially of ideas, anfwering $3. "Ir is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be," is certainly (if there be any fuch) an innate principle. But can any one think, or will any one fay, that impoffibility and identity are two innate ideas? Are they fuch as all mankind have, and bring into the world with them? And are they those which are the first in children, and antecedent to all acquired ones? If they are innate, they muft needs be fo. Hath a child an idea of impoffibility and identity, before it has of white or black, sweet or bitter? And is it from the knowledge of this principle, that it concludes, that worm wood IV. wood rubbed on the nipple hath not the fame taste that it used to receive C H A P. from thence? Is it the actual knowledge of " impoffibile eft idem effe, & non effe," that makes a child distinguish between its mother and a stranger? or, that makes it fond of the one, and fly the other? Or does the mind regulate itself and its affent by ideas, that it never yet had? Or the understanding draw conclufions from principles, which it never yet knew or underftood? The names impoffibility and identity ftand for two ideas, so far from being innate, or born with us, that I think it requires great care and attention to form them right in our understandings. They are fo far from being brought into the world with us, fo remote from the thoughts of infancy and childhood; that, I believe, upon examination it will be found, that many grown men want them. idea not in nate. §4. IF identity (to inftance in that alone) be a native impreffion, and Identity, an confequently fo clear and obvious to us, that we must needs know it even from our cradles; I would gladly be refolved by one of feven, or seventy years old, whether a man, being a creature confifting of foul and body, be. the fame man when his body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the fame foul, were the fame men, though they lived feveral ages afunder? Nay, Whether the cock too, which had the fame foul, were not the fame with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear, that our idea of fameness is not fo fettled and clear, as to deserve to be thought innate in us. For if thofe innate ideas are not clear and diftinct, fo as to be univerfally known, and naturally agreed on, they cannot be fubjects of univerfal and undoubted truths; but will be the unavoidable occafion of tual uncertainty. For, I fuppofe, every one's idea of identity will not be the fame, that Pythagoras, and others of his followers have: And which them fhall be true? Which innate? Or are there two different ideas of identity, both innate ? perpe $5. NOR let any one think, that the questions I have here propofed about the identity of man, are bare empty fpeculations; which if they were, would be enough to fhew, that there was in the understandings of men no innate idea of identity. He that fhall, with a little attention, reflect on the refurrection, and confider that divine juftice will bring to judgment, at the laft day, the very fame perfons, to be happy or miferable in the other, who did well or ill in this life; will find it perhaps not easy to refolve with himfelf, what makes the fame man, or wherein identity confifts: and will not be forward to think he, and every one, even children themselves, havė naturally. a clear idea of it. that the whole and nate ideas.. § 6. LET us examine that principle of mathematicks, viz. whole is bigger than a part." This, I take it, is reckoned amongst innate part not inprinciples. I am fure it has as good a title as any to be thought fo; which yet no-body can think it to be, when he confiders the ideas it comprehends in it," whole and part," are perfectly relative: but the pofitive ideas, to which they properly and immediately belong, are extenfion and number, of which alone whole and part are relations. So that if whole and part are innate ideas, extenfion and number must be fo too; it being impoffible to Book I. to have an idea of a relation, without having any at all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now whether the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them the ideas of extenfion and number, I leave to be confidered by thofe, who are the patrons of innate principles. Idea of worfhip not in nate. Idea of God not innate. §. 7. "THAT God is to be worshipped," is, without doubt, as great a truth as any can enter into the mind of man, and deferves the first place amongst all practical principles. But yet it can by no means be thought innate, unless the ideas of God and worship are innate. That the idea the term worship stands for, is not in the understanding of children, and a character stamped on the mind in its first original, I think, will be easily granted, by any one that confiders how few there be, amongst grown men, who have a clear and diftinct notion of it. And, I fuppofe, there cannot be any thing more ridiculous, than to fay that children have this practical principle innate, that God is to be worshipped;" and yet, that they know not what that worship of God is, which is their duty. But to pass by this : § 8. Ir any idea can be imagined innate, the idea of God may, of all others, for many reasons be thought fo; fince it is hard to conceive, how there fhould be innate moral principles, without an innate idea of a Deity: without a notion of a Law-maker, it is impoffible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to obferve it. Befides the atheists, taken notice of amongst the ancients, and left branded upon the records of history, hath not navigation discovered, in these latter ages, whole nations, at the bay of Soldania*, in Brazil', in Boranday, and the Caribbee islands, &c. amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion? Nicholaus del Techo in literis, ex Paraquaria de Caaiguarum converfione, has these words: "Reperi eam gentem nullum nomen habere, quod Deum & hominis animam fig"nificet, nulla facra habet, nulla idola." Thefe are inftances of nations where uncultivated nature has been left to itself, without the help of letters, and difcipline, and the improvements of arts and sciences. But there are others to be found, who have enjoyed these in a very great measure; who yet, for want of a due application of their thoughts this way, want the idea and knowledge of God. It will, I doubt not, be a furprize to others, as it was to me, to find the Siamites of this number. But for this, let them confult the king of France's late envoy thither, who gives no better account of the Chinese themfelves. And if we will not believe La Loubere, the Miffionaries of China, even the Jefuits themselves, the great encomiasts of the Chinese, do all to a man agree, and will convince us that the fect of the literati, or learned, keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party there, are all of them atheists. Vid. Navarette, in the collection of voyages, vol. the firft, and Hiftoria cultus Sinenfium. And perhaps if we fhould, with attention, mind the lives and difcourfes of people not so far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many in more civilized coun Jo. de Lery, c. 16. 4 Relatio triplex de rebus Indicis Caaiguarum 43. du Royaume de Siam, t. 1. c. 9. fect. 15, &c. 20. fect. 22, &c. zz. fect. 6. a Rhoe apud Thevenot, p. 2. &. Ovington 488. fect. 4, &c. 23. • Martiniere 32 f Ib. t. I. c. 20. IV. tries have no very strong and clear impreffions of a deity upon their minds; CHA P. and that the complaints of atheism, made from the pulpit, are not without reafon. And though only fome profligate wretches own it too bare-facedly now; yet perhaps we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear of the magiftrate's fword, or their neighbour's cenfure, tie up people's tongues which, were the apprehenfions of punishment or fhame taken away, would as openly proclaim their atheism, as their lives do. $9. BUT had all mankind, every-where, a notion of a God (whereof yet history tells us the contrary) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him was innate. For though no nation were to be found without a name, and fome few dark notions of him; yet that would not prove them to `be natural impreffions on the mind, any more than the names of fire, or the fun, heat, or number, do prove the ideas they stand for to be innate: because the names of those things, and the ideas of them, are fo univerfally received and known amongst mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is the want of fuch a name, or the abfence of fuch a notion out of men's minds, any argument against the being of a God; any more than it would be a proof that there was no load-stone in the world, because a great part of mankind had neither a notion of any fuch thing, nor a name for it; or be any thew of argument to prove, that there are no diftinct and various fpecies of angels, or intelligent beings above us, because we have no ideas of fuch diftinct fpecies, or names for them: for men being furnished with words, by the common language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having fome kind of ideas of those things, whofe names, thofe they converfe with, have occafion frequently to mention to them. And if they carry with it the notion of excellency, greatness, or something extraordinary; if apprehenfion and concernment accompany it; if the fear of abfolute and irresistible power fet it on upon the mind, the idea is likely to fink the deeper, and spread the farther: especially if it be fuch an idea as is agreeable to the common light of reafon, and naturally deducible from every part of our knowledge, as that of a God is. For the vifible marks of extraordinary wifdom and power appear fo plainly in all the works of the creation, that a rational creature, who will but feriously reflect on them, cannot miss the discovery of a deity. And the influence that the discovery of fuch a being must neceffarily have on the minds of all, that have but once heard of it, is fo great, and carries fuch a weight of thought and communication with it, that it seems stranger to me, that a whole nation of men should be any where found fo brutish, as to want the notion of a God; than that they fhould be without any notion of numbers, or fire. § 10. THE name of God being once mentioned in any part of the world, to express a superior, powerful, wife, invisible being, the fuitableness of such a notion to the principles of common reason, and the interest men will always have to mention it often, muft neceffarily fpread it far and wide, and continue it down to all generations; though yet the general reception of this name, and fome imperfect and unfteady notions conveyed thereby to the unthinking part of mankind, prove not the idea to be innate; but only that VOL. I. F they, Book I. they, who made the discovery, had made a right use of their reafon, thought maturely of the caufes of things, and traced them to their original; from ᄂ Suitable to God's goodnefs, that all whom other lefs confidering people having once received fo important a notion, it could not eafily be loft again. SII. THIS is all could be inferred from the notion of a God, were it to be found univerfally in all the tribes of mankind, and generally acknowledged by men grown to maturity in all countries. For the generality of the acknowledging of a God, as I imagine, is extended no farther than that; which if it be fufficient to prove the idea of God innate, will as well prove the idea of fire innate: fince, I think, it may be truly faid, that there is not a perfon in the world, who has a notion of a God, who has not also the idea of fire. I doubt not, but if a colony of young children should be placed in an island where no fire was, they would certainly neither have any notion of fuch a thing, nor name for it, how generally foever it were received, and known in all the world befides: and perhaps too their apprehenfions would be as far removed from any name, or notion of a God, till some one amongst them had employed his thoughts, to enquire into the conftitution and caufes of things, which would easily lead him to the notion of a God; which having once taught to others, reafon, and the natural propensity of their own thoughts, would afterwards propagate, and continue amongst them. $12. INDEED it is urged, that it is fuitable to the goodness of God to imprint upon the minds of men characters and notions of himself, and not to leave them in the dark and doubt in fo grand a concernment; and also by have an idea that means to fecure to himself the homage and veneration due from fo infore naturally telligent a creature as man; and therefore he has done it. men fhould of him, there cd. imprinted by THIS argument, if it be of any force, will prove much more than thofe, him, anfwer- who use it in this cafe, expect from it. For, if we may conclude, that God hath done for men all that men fhall judge is beft for them, because it is fuitable to his goodnefs fo to do; it will prove not only that God has imprinted on the minds of men an idea of himself, but that he hath plainly ftamped there, in fair characters, all that men ought to know or believe of him, all that they ought to do in obedience to his will; and that he hath given them a will and affections conformable to it. This, no doubt, every one will think better for men, than that they should in the dark grope after knowledge, as St. Paul tells us all nations did after God, Acts xvii. 27. than that their wills fhould clash with their understandings, and their appetites cross their duty. The Romanifts fay, It is beft for men, and fo fuitable to the goodness of God, that there should be an infallible judge of controverfies on earth; and therefore there is one. And I, by the fame reason, fay, It is better for men that every man himself should be infallible. I leave them to confider, whether by the force of this argument they fhall think, that every man is fo. I think it a very good argument, to fay, the infinitely wife God hath made it fo: and therefore it is beft. But it feems to me a little too much confidence of our own wifdom, to fay, "I think it beft, and therefore God hath made it fo;" and, in the matter in hand, it will be in vain to argue from fuch a topick that God hath done fo, when certain experience |