affected by the rays which paint the image there; and we may be said to see the picture in the retina, as, when it is pricked, we are truly said to feel the pain in our finger.

12. In the next place where he says, that when we look on a cube "we see all its sides equal." This, I think, is a mistake; and I have in another place shown, how the idea we have from a regular solid, is not the true idea of that solid, but such an one as by custom (as the name of it does) serves to excite our judgment to form such an one.

13. What he says of seeing an object several millions of leagues, the very same instant that it is uncovered, I think may be shown to be a mistake in matter of fact. For by observations made on the satellites of Jupiter, it is discovered that light is successively propagated, and is about ten minutes coming from the sun to us.

14. By what I have said, I think it may be understood how we may conceive, that from remote objects material causes may reach our senses, and therein produce several motions that may be the causes of ideas in us; notwithstanding what P. M. has said in this second chapter against material species. I confess his arguments are good against those species as usually understood by the peripatetics: but, since my principles have been said to be conformable to the Aristotelian philosophy, I have endeavoured to remove the difficulties it is charged with, as far as my opinion is concerned in them.

15. His third chapter is to confute the "opinion of those who think our minds have a power to produce the ideas of things on which they would think, and that they are excited to produce them by the impressions which objects make on the body." One who thinks ideas are nothing but perceptions of the mind annexed to certain motions of the body by the will of God, who hath ordered such perceptions always to accompany such motions, though we know not how they are produced; does in effect conceive those ideas or perceptions to be only passions of the mind, when produced in it, whether we will or no, by external objects. But he conceives them to be a mixture of action

and passion when the mind attends to them, or revives them in the memory. Whether the soul has such a power as this, we shall perhaps have occasion to consider hereafter; and this power our author does not deny, since in this very chapter he says, " When we conceive a square by pure understanding, we can yet imagine it; i. e. perceive it in ourselves by tracing an image of it on the brain.' Here then he allows the soul power to trace images on the brain, and perceive them. This, to me, is matter of new perplexity in his hypothesis; for if the soul be so united to the brain as to trace images on it, and perceive them, I do not see how this consists with what he says a little before in the first chapter, viz. " that certainly material things cannot be united to our souls after a manner necessary to its perceiving them."

16. That which is said about objects exciting ideas in us by motion; and our reviving the ideas we have once got in our memories, does not, I confess, fully explain the manner how it is done. In this I frankly avow my ignorance, and should be glad to find in him any thing that would clear it to me; but in his explications I find these difficulties which I cannot get over.

17. The mind cannot produce ideas, says he, because they are "real spiritual beings," i. e. substances; for so is the conclusion of that paragraph, where he mentions it as an absurdity to think they are "annihilated when they are not present to the mind." And the whole force of this argument would persuade one to understand him so; though I do not remember that he any where speaks it out, or in direct terms calls them substances.

18. I shall here only take notice how inconceivable it is to me, that a spiritual, i. e. an unextended substance, should represent to the mind an extended figure, . g. a triangle of unequal sides, or two triangles of different magnitudes. Next, supposing I could conceive an unextended substance to represent a figure, or be the idea of a figure, the difficulty still remains to conceive how it is my soul sees it. Let this substantial being be ever so sure, and the picture ever so clear; yet how we

see it, is to me inconceivable. Intimate union, were it as intelligible of two unextended substances as of two bodies, would not yet reach perception, which is something beyond union. But yet a little lower he agrees, that an idea" is not a substance," but yet affirms, it is a spiritual thing:" this " " spiritual thing" therefore must either be a "spiritual substance," or a mode of a spiritual substance, or a relation; for besides these I have no conception of any thing. And if any shall tell me it is a "mode," it must be a mode of the substance of God; which, besides that it will be strange to mention any modes in the simple essence of God; whosoever shall propose any such modes, as a way to explain the nature of our ideas, proposes to me something inconceivable, as a means to conceive what I do not yet know; and so, bating a new phrase, teaches me nothing, but leaves me as much in the dark as one can be where he conceives nothing. So that supposing ideas real spiritual things ever so much, if they are neither substances nor modes, let them be what they will, I am no more instructed in their nature, than when I am told they are perceptions, such as I find them. And I appeal to my reader, whether that hypothesis be to be preferred for its easiness to be understood, which is explained by real beings, that are neither substances nor modes.

19. In the fourth chapter he proves, that we do not see objects by ideas that are created with us; because the ideas we have even of one very simple figure, v. g. a triangle, are not infinite, though there may be infinite triangles. What this proves I will not here examine; but the reason he gives being built on his hypotheses, I cannot get over, and that is, that, "it is not for want of ideas, or that infinite is not present to us, but it is only for want of capacity and extension of our souls, because the extension of our spirits is very narrow and limited." To have a limited extension, is to have some extension which agrees but ill with what is before said of our souls, that they "have no extension." By what says here and in other places, one would think he were to be understood, as if the soul, being but a small

he

extension, could not at once receive all the ideas conceivable in infinite space, because but a little part of that infinite space can be applied to the soul at once. To conceive thus of the soul's intimate union with an infinite being, and by that union receiving of ideas, leads one as naturally into as gross thoughts, as a country maid would have of an infinite butter-print, in which was engraven figures of all sorts and sizes, the several parts whereof being, as there was occasion, applied to her lump of butter, left on it the figure or idea there was present need of. But whether any one would thus explain our ideas, I will not say, only I know not well how to understand what he says here, with what he says before of union, in a better sense.

20. He farther says, that had we a magazine of all ideas that are necessary for seeing things, they would be of no use, since the mind could not know which to choose, and set before itself to see the sun. What he here means by the sun is hard to conceive, and according to his hypothesis of " seeing all things in God," how can he know that there is any such real being in the world as the sun? Did he ever see the sun? No, but on occasion of the presence of the sun to his eyes, he has seen the idea of the sun in God, which God has exhibited to him; but the sun, because it cannot be united to his soul, he cannot see. How then does he know that there is a sun which he never saw? And since God does all things by the most compendious ways, what need is there that God should make a sun that we might see its idea in him when he pleased to exhibit it, when this might as well be done without any real sun at all.

21. He farther says, that God does not actually produce in us as many new ideas as we every moment perceive different things. Whether he has proved this or no, I will not examine.

22. But he says, that "we have at all times actually in ourselves the ideas of all things." Then we have always actually in ourselves the ideas of all triangles, which was but now denied, "but we have them confusedly." If we see them in God, and they are not

in him confusedly, I do not understand how we can see them in God confusedly.

23. In the fifth chapter he tells us "all things are in God," even the most corporeal and earthly, but after a manner altogether spiritual, and which we cannot comprehend." Here therefore he and I are alike ignorant of these good words; " material things are in God after a spiritual manner," signifying nothing to either of us; and "spiritual manner" signifies no more but this, that material things are in God immaterially. This and the like are ways of speaking which our vanity has found out to cover, not remove our ignorance. But "material things are in God," because" their ideas are in God, and those ideas which God had of them before the world was created, are not at all different from himself." This seems to me to come very near saying, not only that there is variety in God, since we see variety in what" is not different from himself;" but that material things are God, or a part of him; which, though I do not think to be what our author designs, yet thus I fear he must be forced to talk, who thinks he knows God's understanding so much better than his own, that he will make use of the divine intellect to explain the human.

24. In the sixth chapter he comes more particularly to explain his own doctrine, where first he says, "the ideas of all beings are in God." Let it be so, God has the idea of a triangle, of a horse, of a river, just as we have; for hitherto this signifies no more, for we see them as they are in him, and so the ideas that are in him are the ideas we perceive. Thus far I then understand God hath the same ideas we have. This tells us indeed that there are ideas, which was agreed before, and I think nobody denies, but tells me not yet what they are.

25. Having said that they are in God, the next thing he tells us is, that we " can see them in God." His proof, that our souls can see them in God, is because God is most straitly united to our souls by his presence, insomuch that one may say, God is the place