1. Our knowledge conversant about our ideas only. Since the mind, in all its thoughts and reasonings, hath no other immediate object but its own ideas, which it alone does or can contemplate, it is evident that our knowledge is only conversant about them.
2. Knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. Knowledge then seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion of and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas. In this alone it consists. Where this perception is, there is knowledge, and where it is not, there, though we may fancy, guess, or believe, yet we always come short of knowledge. For when we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive, that these two ideas do not agree? When we possess ourselves with the utmost security of the demonstration, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, what do we more but perceive, that equality to two right ones does necessarily agree to, and is inseparable from, the three angles of a triangle?
3. This agreement or disagreement may be any of four sorts. But to
understand a little more distinctly wherein this agreement or
disagreement consists, I think we may reduce it all to these four
sorts:
I. Identity, or diversity.
II. Relation.
III. Co-existence, or necessary connexion.
IV. Real existence.
4. Of identity, or diversity in ideas. First, As to the first sort of agreement or disagreement, viz. identity or diversity. It is the first act of the mind, when it has any sentiments or ideas at all, to perceive its ideas; and so far as it perceives them, to know each what it is, and thereby also to perceive their difference, and that one is not another. This is so absolutely necessary, that without it there could be no knowledge, no reasoning, no imagination, no distinct thoughts at all. By this the mind clearly and infallibly perceives each idea to agree with itself, and to be what it is; and all distinct ideas to disagree, i.e. the one not to be the other: and this it does without pains, labour, or deduction; but at first view, by its natural power of perception and distinction. And though men of art have reduced this into those general rules, What is, is, and It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be, for ready application in all cases, wherein there may be occasion to reflect on it: yet it is certain that the first exercise of this faculty is about particular ideas. A man infallibly knows, as soon as ever he has them in his mind, that the ideas he calls white and round are the very ideas they are; and that they are not other ideas which he calls red or square. Nor can any maxim or proposition in the world make him know it clearer or surer than he did before, and without any such general rule. This then is the first agreement or disagreement which the mind perceives in its ideas; which it always perceives at first sight: and if there ever happen any doubt about it, it will always be found to be about the names, and not the ideas themselves, whose identity and diversity will always be perceived, as soon and clearly as the ideas themselves are; nor can it possibly be otherwise.
5. Of abstract relations between ideas. Secondly, the next sort of agreement or disagreement the mind perceives in any of its ideas may, I think, be called relative, and is nothing but the perception of the relation between any two ideas, of what kind soever, whether substances, modes, or any other. For, since all distinct ideas must eternally be known not to be the same, and so be universally and constantly denied one of another, there could be no room for any positive knowledge at all, if we could not perceive any relation between our ideas, and find out the agreement or disagreement they have one with another, in several ways the mind takes of comparing them.
6. Of their necessary co-existence in substances. Thirdly, The third sort of agreement or disagreement to be found in our ideas, which the perception of the mind is employed about, is co-existence or non-co-existence in the same subject; and this belongs particularly to substances. Thus when we pronounce concerning gold, that it is fixed, our knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, that fixedness, or a power to remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in aqua regia, which make our complex idea signified by the word gold.
7. Of real existence agreeing to any idea. Fourthly, The fourth
and last sort is that of actual real existence agreeing to any idea.
Within these four sorts of agreement or disagreement is, I
suppose, contained all the knowledge we have, or are capable of For
all the inquiries we can make concerning any of our ideas, all that we
know or can affirm concerning any of them, is, That it is, or is
not, the same with some other; that it does or does not always coexist
with some other idea in the same subject; that it has this or that
relation with some other idea; or that it has a real existence without
the mind. Thus, "blue is not yellow," is of identity. "Two triangles
upon equal bases between two parallels are equal," is of relation.
"Iron is susceptible of magnetical impressions," is of co-existence.
"God is," is of real existence. Though identity and co-existence are
truly nothing but relations, yet they are such peculiar ways of
agreement or disagreement of our ideas, that they deserve well to be
considered as distinct heads, and not under relation in general; since
they are so different grounds of affirmation and negation, as will
easily appear to any one, who will but reflect on what is said in
several places of this Essay.
I should now proceed to examine the several degrees of our
knowledge, but that it is necessary first, to consider the different
acceptations of the word knowledge.
8. Knowledge is either actual or habitual. There are several ways
wherein the mind is possessed of truth; each of which is called
knowledge.
I. There is actual knowledge, which is the present view the mind has
of the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, or of the
relation they have one to another.
II. A man is said to know any proposition, which having been once
laid before his thoughts, he evidently perceived the agreement or
disagreement of the ideas whereof it consists; and so lodged it in his
memory, that whenever that proposition comes again to be reflected on,
he, without doubt or hesitation, embraces the right side, assents
to, and is certain of the truth of it. This, I think, one may call
habitual knowledge. And thus a man may be said to know all those
truths which are lodged in his memory, by a foregoing clear and full
perception, whereof the mind is assured past doubt as often as it
has occasion to reflect on them. For our finite understandings being
able to think clearly and distinctly but on one thing at once, if
men had no knowledge of any more than what they actually thought on,
they would all be very ignorant: and he that knew most, would know but
one truth, that being all he was able to think on at one time.
1. Of the degrees, or differences in clearness, of our knowledge: 1. Intuitive. All our knowledge consisting, as I have said, in the view the mind has of its own ideas, which is the utmost light and greatest certainty we, with our faculties, and in our way of knowledge, are capable of, it may not be amiss to consider a little the degrees of its evidence. The different clearness of our knowledge seems to me to lie in the different way of perception the mind has of the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas. For if we will reflect on our own ways of thinking, we will find, that sometimes the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas immediately by themselves, without the intervention of any other: and this I think we may call intuitive knowledge. For in this the mind is at no pains of proving or examining, but perceives the truth as the eye doth light, only by being directed towards it. Thus the mind perceives that white is not black, that a circle is not a triangle, that three are more than two and equal to one and two. Such kinds of truths the mind perceives at the first sight of the ideas together, by bare intuition; without the intervention of any other idea: and this kind of knowledge is the clearest and most certain that human frailty is capable of. This part of knowledge is irresistible, and, like bright sunshine, forces itself immediately to be perceived, as soon as ever the mind turns its view that way; and leaves no room for hesitation, doubt, or examination, but the mind is presently filled with the clear light of it. It is on this intuition that depends all the certainty and evidence of all our knowledge; Which certainty every one finds to be so great, that he cannot imagine, and therefore not require a greater: for a man cannot conceive himself capable of a greater certainty than to know that any idea in his mind is such as he perceives it to be; and that two ideas, wherein he perceives a difference, are different and not precisely the same. He that demands a greater certainty than this, demands he knows not what, and shows only that he has a mind to be a sceptic, without being able to be so. Certainty depends so wholly on this intuition, that, in the next degree of knowledge which I call demonstrative, this intuition is necessary in all the connexions of the intermediate ideas, without which we cannot attain knowledge and certainty.
2. II. Demonstrative. The next degree of knowledge is, where the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any ideas, but not immediately. Though wherever the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, there be certain knowledge; yet it does not always happen, that the mind sees that agreement or disagreement, which there is between them, even where it is discoverable; and in that case remains in ignorance, and at most gets no further than a probable conjecture. The reason why the mind cannot always perceive presently the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, is, because those ideas, concerning whose agreement or disagreement the inquiry is made, cannot by the mind be so put together as to show it. In this case then, when the mind cannot so bring its ideas together as by their immediate comparison, and as it were juxta-position or application one to another, to perceive their agreement or disagreement, it is fain, by the intervention of other ideas (one or more, as it happens) to discover the agreement or disagreement which it searches; and this is that which we call reasoning. Thus, the mind being willing to know the agreement or disagreement in bigness between the three angles of a triangle and two right ones, cannot by an immediate view and comparing them do it: because the three angles of a triangle cannot be brought at once, and be compared with any other one, or two, angles; and so of this the mind has no immediate, no intuitive knowledge. In this case the mind is fain to find out some other angles, to which the three angles of a triangle have an equality; and, finding those equal to two right ones. comes to know their equality to two right ones.
3. Demonstration depends on clearly perceived proofs. Those intervening ideas, which serve to show the agreement of any two others, are called proofs; and where the agreement and disagreement is by this means plainly and clearly perceived, it is called demonstration; it being shown to the understanding, and the mind made to see that it is so. A quickness in the mind to find out these intermediate ideas, (that shall discover the agreement or disagreement of any other,) and to apply them right, is, I suppose, that which is called sagacity.
4. As certain, but not so easy and ready as intuitive knowledge. This knowledge, by intervening proofs, though it be certain, yet the evidence of it is not altogether so clear and bright, nor the assent so ready, as in intuitive knowledge. For, though in demonstration the mind does at last perceive the agreement or disagreement of the ideas it considers; yet it is not without pains and attention: there must be more than one transient view to find it. A steady application and pursuit are required to this discovery: and there must be a progression by steps and degrees, before the mind can in this way arrive at certainty, and come to perceive the agreement or repugnancy between two ideas that need proofs and the use of reason to show it.
5. The demonstrated conclusion not without doubt, precedent to the demonstration. Another difference between intuitive and demonstrative knowledge is, that, though in the latter all doubt be removed when, by the intervention of the intermediate ideas, the agreement or disagreement is perceived, yet before the demonstration there was a doubt; which in intuitive knowledge cannot happen to the mind that has its faculty of perception left to a degree capable of distinct ideas; no more than it can be a doubt to the eye (that can distinctly see white and black), Whether this ink and this paper be all of a colour. If there be sight in the eyes, it will, at first glimpse, without hesitation, perceive the words printed on this paper different from the colour of the paper: and so if the mind have the faculty of distinct perception, it will perceive the agreement or disagreement of those ideas that produce intuitive knowledge. If the eyes have lost the faculty of seeing, or the mind of perceiving, we in vain inquire after the quickness of sight in one, or clearness of perception in the other.
6. Not so clear as intuitive knowledge. It is true, the perception produced by demonstration is also very clear; yet it is often with a great abatement of that evident lustre and full assurance that always accompany that which I call intuitive: like a face reflected by several mirrors one to another, where, as long as it retains the similitude and agreement with the object, it produces a knowledge; but it is still, in every successive reflection, with a lessening of that perfect clearness and distinctness which is in the first; till at last, after many removes, it has a great mixture of dimness, and is not at first sight so knowable, especially to weak eyes. Thus it is with knowledge made out by a long train of proof.
7. Each step in demonstrated knowledge must have intuitive evidence. Now, in every step reason makes in demonstrative knowledge, there is an intuitive knowledge of that agreement or disagreement it seeks with the next intermediate idea which it uses as a proof: for if it were not so, that yet would need a proof; since without the perception of such agreement or disagreement, there is no knowledge produced: if it be perceived by itself, it is intuitive knowledge: if it cannot be perceived by itself, there is need of some intervening idea, as a common measure, to show their agreement or disagreement. By which it is plain that every step in reasoning that produces knowledge, has intuitive certainty; which when the mind perceives, there is no more required but to remember it, to make the agreement or disagreement of the ideas concerning which we inquire visible and certain. So that to make anything a demonstration, it is necessary to perceive the immediate agreement of the intervening ideas, whereby the agreement or disagreement of the two ideas under examination (whereof the one is always the first, and the other the last in the account) is found. This intuitive perception of the agreement or disagreement of the intermediate ideas, in each step and progression of the demonstration, must also be carried exactly in the mind, and a man must be sure that no part is left out: which, because in long deductions, and the use of many proofs, the memory does not always so readily and exactly retain; therefore it comes to pass, that this is more imperfect than intuitive knowledge, and men embrace often falsehood for demonstrations.
8. Hence the mistake, ex praecognitis, et praeconcessis. The necessity of this intuitive knowledge, in each step of scientifical or demonstrative reasoning, gave occasion, I imagine, to that mistaken axiom, That all reasoning was ex pracognitis et praeconcessis: which, how far it is a mistake, I shall have occasion to show more at large, when I come to consider propositions, and particularly those propositions which are called maxims, and to show that it is by a mistake that they are supposed to be the foundations of all our knowledge and reasonings.
9. Demonstration not limited to ideas of mathematical quantity. It has been generally taken for granted, that mathematics alone are capable of demonstrative certainty: but to have such an agreement or disagreement as may intuitively be perceived, being, as I imagine, not the privilege of the ideas of number, extension, and figure alone, it may possibly be the want of due method and application in us, and not of sufficient evidence in things, that demonstration has been thought to have so little to do in other parts of knowledge, and been scarce so much as aimed at by any but mathematicians. For whatever ideas we have wherein the mind can perceive the immediate agreement or disagreement that is between them, there the mind is capable of intuitive knowledge; and where it can perceive the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas, by an intuitive perception of the agreement or disagreement they have with any intermediate ideas, there the mind is capable of demonstration: which is not limited to ideas of extension, figure, number, and their modes.
10. Why it has been thought to be so limited. The reason why it has been generally sought for, and supposed to be only in those, I imagine has been, not only the general usefulness of those sciences: but because, in comparing their equality or excess, the modes of numbers have every the least difference very clear and perceivable: and though in extension every the least excess is not so perceptible, yet the mind has found out ways to examine, and discover demonstratively, the just equality of two angles, or extensions, or figures: and both these, i.e. numbers and figures, can be set down by visible and lasting marks, wherein the ideas under consideration are perfectly determined; which for the most part they are not, where they are marked only by names and words.
11. Modes of qualities not demonstrable like modes of quantity. But in other simple ideas, whose modes and differences are made and counted by degrees, and not quantity, we have not so nice and accurate a distinction of their differences as to perceive, or find ways to measure, their just equality, or the least differences. For those other simple ideas, being appearances of sensations produced in us, by the size, figure, number, and motion of minute corpuscles singly insensible; their different degrees also depend upon the variation of some or of all those causes: which, since it cannot be observed by us, in particles of matter whereof each is too subtile to be perceived, it is impossible for us to have any exact measures of the different degrees of these simple ideas. For, supposing the sensation or idea we name whiteness be produced in us by a certain number of globules, which, having a verticity about their own centres, strike upon the retina of the eye, with a certain degree of rotation, as well as progressive swiftness; it will hence easily follow, that the more the superficial parts of any body are so ordered as to reflect the greater number of globules of light, and to give them the proper rotation, which is fit to produce this sensation of white in us, the more white will that body appear, that from an equal space sends to the retina the greater number of such corpuscles, with that peculiar sort of motion. I do not say that the nature of light consists in very small round globules; nor of whiteness in such a texture of parts as gives a certain rotation to these globules when it reflects them: for I am not now treating physically of light or colours. But this I think I may say, that I cannot (and I would be glad any one would make intelligible that he did), conceive how bodies without us can any ways affect our senses, but by the immediate contact of the sensible bodies themselves, as in tasting and feeling, or the impulse of some sensible particles coming from them, as in seeing, hearing, and smelling; by the different impulse of which parts, caused by their different size, figure, and motion, the variety of sensations is produced in us.
12. Particles of light and simple ideas of colour. Whether then they be globules or no; or whether they have a verticity about their own centres that produces the idea of whiteness in us; this is certain, that the more particles of light are reflected from a body, fitted to give them that peculiar motion which produces the sensation of whiteness in us; and possibly too, the quicker that peculiar motion is,- the whiter does the body appear from which the greatest number are reflected, as is evident in the same piece of paper put in the sunbeams, in the shade, and in a dark hole; in each of which it will produce in us the idea of whiteness in far different degrees.
13. The secondary qualities of things not discovered by demonstration. Not knowing, therefore, what number of particles, nor what motion of them, is fit to produce any precise degree of whiteness, we cannot demonstrate the certain equality of any two degrees of whiteness; because we have no certain standard to measure them by, nor means to distinguish every the least real difference, the only help we have being from our senses, which in this point fail us. But where the difference is so great as to produce in the mind clearly distinct ideas, whose differences can be perfectly retained, there these ideas or colours, as we see in different kinds, as blue and red, are as capable of demonstration as ideas of number and extension. What I have here said of whiteness and colours, I think holds true in all secondary qualities and their modes.
14. Sensitive knowledge of the particular existence of finite beings without us. These two, viz. intuition and demonstration, are the degrees of our knowledge; whatever comes short of one of these, with what assurance soever embraced, is but faith or opinion, but not knowledge, at least in all general truths. There is, indeed, another perception of the mind, employed about the particular existence of finite beings without us, which, going beyond bare probability, and yet not reaching perfectly to either of the foregoing degrees of certainty, passes under the name of knowledge. There can be nothing more certain than that the idea we receive from an external object is in our minds: this is intuitive knowledge. But whether there be anything more than barely that idea in our minds; whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of anything without us, which corresponds to that idea, is that whereof some men think there may be a question made; because men may have such ideas in their minds, when no such thing exists, no such object affects their senses. But yet here I think we are provided with an evidence that puts us past doubting. For I ask any one, Whether he be not invincibly conscious to himself of a different perception, when he looks on the sun by day, and thinks on it by night; when he actually tastes wormwood, or smells a rose, or only thinks on that savour or odour? We as plainly find the difference there is between any idea revived in our minds by our own memory, and actually coming into our minds by our senses, as we do between any two distinct ideas. If any one say, a dream may do the same thing, and all these ideas may be produced in us without any external objects; he may please to dream that I make him this answer:- 1. That it is no great matter, whether I remove his scruple or no: where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing. 2. That I believe he will allow a very manifest difference between dreaming of being in the fire, and 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 that 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. Knowledge not always clear, where the ideas that enter into it are clear. But since our knowledge is founded on and employed about our ideas only, will it not follow from thence that it is conformable to our ideas; and that where 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.
1. Extent of our knowledge. Knowledge, as has been said, lying in
the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas,
it follows from hence That,
It extends no further than we have ideas. First, we can have
knowledge no further than we have ideas.
2. It extends no further than we can perceive their agreement or disagreement. Secondly, That we can have no knowledge further than we can have perception of that agreement or disagreement. Which perception being: 1. Either by intuition, or the immediate comparing any two ideas; or, 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:
3. Intuitive knowledge extends itself not to all the relations of all our ideas. Thirdly, That we cannot have an intuitive knowledge that shall extend itself to all our ideas, and all that we would know about them; because we cannot examine and perceive all the relations they have one to another, 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. Nor does demonstrative knowledge. Fourthly, It follows, also, from what is above observed, that our rational knowledge cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas: because between two different 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. Sensitive knowledge narrower than either. Fifthly, Sensitive knowledge reaching no further than the existence of things actually present to our senses, is yet much narrower than either of the former.
6. Our knowledge, therefore, narrower than our ideas. Sixthly,
From all which it is evident, that the extent of our knowledge comes
not only short of the reality of things, but even of the extent of our
own ideas. Though 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
that 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 further 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 impossible
for us, by the contemplation of our own ideas, without revelation,
to discover whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of
matter, fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else
joined and fixed to matter, so disposed, a thinking immaterial
substance: it being, in respect of our notions, not much more remote
from our comprehension to conceive that GOD can, if he pleases,
superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd
to it another substance with a faculty of thinking; since we know
not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort of substances the
Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which cannot be in any
created being, but merely by the good pleasure and bounty of the
Creator.
Whether Matter may not be made by God to think is more than man
can know. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first Eternal
thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased, give to
certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he thinks
fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as I
think I have proved, Bk. iv. ch. 10, SS 14, &c., it is no less than
a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own
nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal
first-thinking Being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have,
that some perceptions, such as, v.g., pleasure and pain, should not be
in some bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and
moved, as well as that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon
the motion of the parts of body: Body, as far as we can conceive,
being able only to strike and affect body, and motion, according to
the utmost reach of our ideas, being able to produce nothing but
motion; so that when we allow it to produce pleasure or pain, or the
idea of a colour or sound, we are fain to quit our reason, go beyond
our ideas, and attribute it wholly to the good pleasure of our
Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed effects to motion which
we can no way conceive motion able to produce, what reason have we
to conclude that He could not order them as well to be produced in a
subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as in a subject we
cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate upon? I say
not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the soul's
immateriality: I am not here speaking of probability, but knowledge;
and I think not only that it becomes the modesty of philosophy not
to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence that can
produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern how
far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in,
not being that of vision, we must in many things content ourselves
with faith and probability: and in the present question, about the
Immateriality of the Soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at
demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All the great
ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without
philosophical proofs of the soul's immateriality; since it is evident,
that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible
intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a
state, can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in
another world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he
has designed to men, according to their doings in this life. And
therefore it is not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or
the other, as some, over-zealous for or against the immateriality of
the soul, have been forward to make the world believe. Who, either
on the one side, indulging too much their thoughts immersed altogether
in matter, can allow no existence to what is not material: or who,
on the other side, finding not cogitation within the natural powers of
matter, examined over and over again by the utmost intention of
mind, have the confidence to conclude- That Omnipotency itself
cannot give perception and thought to a substance which has the
modification of solidity. He that considers how hardly sensation is,
in our thoughts, reconcilable to extended matter; or existence to
anything that has no extension at all, will confess that he is very
far from certainly knowing what his soul is. It is a point which seems
to me to be put out of the reach of our knowledge: and he who will
give himself leave to consider freely, and look into the dark and
intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce find his reason able to
determine him fixedly for or against the soul's materiality. Since, on
which side soever he views it, either as an unextended substance, or
as a thinking extended matter, the difficulty to conceive either will,
whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still drive him to the
contrary side. An unfair way which some men take with themselves: who,
because of the inconceivableness of something they find in one,
throw themselves violently into the contrary hypothesis, though
altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding. This
serves not only to show the weakness and the scantiness of our
knowledge, but the insignificant triumph of such sort of arguments;
which, drawn from our own views, may satisfy us that we can find no
certainty on one side of the question: but do not at all thereby
help us to truth by running into the opposite opinion; which, on
examination, will be found clogged with equal difficulties. For what
safety, what advantage to any one is it, for the avoiding the
seeming absurdities, and to him unsurmountable rubs, he meets with
in one opinion, to take refuge in the contrary, which is built on
something altogether as inexplicable, and as far remote from his
comprehension? It is past controversy, that we have in us something
that thinks; our very doubts about what it is, confirm the certainty
of its being, though we must content ourselves in the ignorance of
what kind of being it is: and it is in vain to go about to be
sceptical in this, as it is unreasonable in most other cases to be
positive against the being of anything, because we cannot comprehend
its nature. For I would fain know what substance exists, that has
not something in it which manifestly baffles our understandings. Other
spirits, who see and know the nature and inward constitution of
things, how much must they exceed us in knowledge? To which, if we add
larger comprehension, which enables them at one glance to see the
connexion and agreement of very many ideas, and readily supplies to
them the intermediate proofs, which we by single and slow steps, and
long poring in the dark, hardly at last find out, and are often
ready to forget one before we have hunted out another; we may guess at
some part of the happiness of superior ranks of spirits, who have a
quicker and more penetrating sight, as well as a larger field of
knowledge.
But to return to the argument in hand: our knowledge, I say, is
not only limited to the paucity and imperfections of the ideas we
have, and which we employ it about, but even comes short of that
too: but how far it reaches, let us now inquire.
7. How far our knowledge reaches. The affirmations or negations we
make concerning the ideas we have, may, as I have before intimated
in general, be reduced to these four sorts, viz. identity,
co-existence, relation, and real existence. I shall examine how far
our knowledge extends in each of these:
8. Our knowledge of identity and diversity in ideas extends as far as our ideas themselves. First, as to identity and diversity. In this way of agreement or disagreement of our ideas, our intuitive knowledge is as far extended as our ideas themselves: and there can be no idea in the mind, which it does not, presently, by an intuitive knowledge, perceive to be what it is, and to be different from any other.
9. Of their co-existence, extends only a very little way. Secondly, as to the second sort, which is the agreement or disagreement of our ideas in co-existence, in this our knowledge is very short; though in this consists the greatest and most material part of our knowledge concerning substances. For our ideas of the species of substances being, as I have showed, nothing but certain collections of simple ideas united in one subject, and so co-existing together; v.g. our idea of flame is a body hot, luminous, and moving upward; of gold, a body heavy to a certain degree, yellow, malleable, and fusible: for these, or some such complex ideas as these, in men's minds, do these two names of the different substances, flame and gold, stand for. When we would know anything further concerning these, or any other sort of substances, what do we inquire, but what other qualities or powers these substances have or have not? Which is nothing else but to know what other simple ideas do, or do not co-exist with those that make up that complex idea?
10. Because the connexion between simple ideas in substances is for the most part unknown. This, how weighty and considerable a part soever of human science, is yet very narrow, and scarce any at all. The reason whereof is, that the simple ideas whereof our complex ideas of substances are made up are, for the most part, such as carry with them, in their own nature, no visible necessary connexion or inconsistency with any other simple ideas, whose co-existence with them we would inform ourselves about.
11. Especially of the secondary qualities of bodies. The ideas that our complex ones of substances are made up of, and about which our knowledge concerning substances is most employed, are those of their secondary qualities; which depending all (as has been shown) upon the primary qualities of their minute and insensible parts; or, if not upon them, upon something yet more remote from our comprehension; it is impossible we should know which have a necessary union or inconsistency one with another. For, not knowing the root they spring from, not knowing what size, figure, and texture of parts they are, on which depend, and from which result those qualities which make our complex idea of gold, it is impossible we should know what other qualities result from, or are incompatible with, the same constitution of the insensible parts of gold; and so consequently must always co-exist with that complex idea we have of it, or else are inconsistent with it.
12. Because necessary connexion between any secondary and the primary qualities is undiscoverable by us. Besides this ignorance of the primary qualities of the insensible parts of bodies, on which depend all their secondary qualities, there is yet another and more incurable part of ignorance, which sets us more remote from a certain knowledge of the co-existence or inco-existence (if I may so say) of different ideas in the same subject; and that is, that there is no discoverable connexion between any secondary quality and those primary qualities which it depends on.
13. We have no perfect knowledge of their primary qualities. That the size, figure, and motion of one body should cause a change in the size, figure, and motion of another body, is not beyond our conception; the separation of the parts of one body upon the intrusion of another; and the change from rest to motion upon impulse; these and the like seem to have some connexion one with another. And if we knew these primary qualities of bodies, we might have reason to hope we might be able to know a great deal more of these operations of them one upon another: but our minds not being able to discover any connexion betwixt these primary qualities of bodies and the sensations that are produced in us by them, we can never be able to establish certain and undoubted rules of the consequence or co-existence of any secondary qualities, though we could discover the size, figure, or motion of those invisible parts which immediately produce them. We are so far from knowing what figure, size, or motion of parts produce a yellow colour, a sweet taste, or a sharp sound, that we can by no means conceive how any size, figure, or motion of any particles, can possibly produce in us the idea of any colour, taste, or sound whatsoever: there is no conceivable connexion between the one and the other.
14. And seek in vain for certain and universal knowledge of unperceived qualities in substances. In vain, therefore, shall we endeavour to discover by our ideas (the only true way of certain and universal knowledge) what other ideas are to be found constantly joined with that of our complex idea of any substance: since we neither know the real constitution of the minute parts on which their qualities do depend; nor, did we know them, could we discover any necessary connexion between them and any of the secondary qualities: which is necessary to be done before we can certainly know their necessary co-existence. So, that, let our complex idea of any species of substances be what it will, we can hardly, from the simple ideas contained in it, certainly determine the necessary co-existence of any other quality whatsoever. Our knowledge in all these inquiries reaches very little further than our experience. Indeed some few of the primary qualities have a necessary dependence and visible connexion one with another, as figure necessarily supposes extension; receiving or communicating motion by impulse, supposes solidity. But though these, and perhaps some others of our ideas have: yet there are so few of them that have a visible connexion one with another, that we can by intuition or demonstration discover the co-existence of very few of the qualities that are to be found united in substances: and we are left only to the assistance of our senses to make known to us what qualities they contain. For of all the qualities that are co-existent in any subject, without this dependence and evident connexion of their ideas one with another, we cannot know certainly any two to co-exist, any further than experience, by our senses, informs us. Thus, though we see the yellow colour, and, upon trial, find the weight, malleableness, fusibility, and fixedness that are united in a piece of gold, yet; because no one of these ideas has any evident dependence or necessary connexion with the other, we cannot certainly know that where any four of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly probable soever it may be; because the highest probability amounts not to certainty, without which there can be no true knowledge. For this co-existence can be no further known than it is perceived; and it cannot be perceived but either in particular subjects, by the observation of our senses, or, in general, by the necessary connexion of the ideas themselves.
15. Of repugnancy to co-exist, our knowledge is larger. As to the incompatibility or repugnancy to coexistence, we may know that any subject may have of each sort of primary qualities but one particular at once: v.g. each particular extension, figure, number of parts, motion, excludes all other of each kind. The like also is certain of all sensible ideas peculiar to each sense; for whatever of each kind is present in any subject, excludes all other of that sort: v.g. no one subject can have two smells or two colours at the same time. To this, perhaps will be said, Has not an opal, or the infusion of lignum nephriticum, two colours at the same time? To which I answer, that these bodies, to eyes differently placed, may at the same time afford different colours: but I take liberty also to say, to eyes differently placed, it is different parts of the object that reflect the particles of light: and therefore it is not the same part of the object, and so not the very same subject, which at the same time appears both yellow and azure. For, it is as impossible that the very same particle of any body should at the same time differently modify or reflect the rays of light, as that it should have two different figures and textures at the same time.
16. Our knowledge of the co-existence of powers in bodies extends but a very little way. But as to the powers of substances to change the sensible qualities of other bodies, which make a great part of our inquiries about them, and is no inconsiderable branch of our knowledge; I doubt as to these, whether our knowledge reaches much further than our experience; or whether we can come to the discovery of most of these powers, and be certain that they are in any subject, by the connexion with any of those ideas which to us make its essence. Because the active and passive powers of bodies, and their ways of operating, consisting in a texture and motion of parts which we cannot by any means come to discover; it is but in very few cases we can be able to perceive their dependence on, or repugnance to, any of those ideas which make our complex one of that sort of things. I have here instanced in the corpuscularian hypothesis, as that which is thought to go furthest in an intelligible explication of those qualities of bodies; and I fear the weakness of human understanding is scarce able to substitute another, which will afford us a fuller and clearer discovery of the necessary connexion and coexistence of the powers which are to be observed united in several sorts of them. This at least is certain, that, whichever hypothesis be clearest and truest, (for of that it is not my business to determine,) our knowledge concerning corporeal substances will be very little advanced by any of them, till we are made to see what qualities and powers of bodies have a necessary connexion or repugnancy one with another; which in the present state of philosophy I think we know but to a very small degree: and I doubt whether, with those faculties we have, we shall ever be able to carry our general knowledge (I say not particular experience) in this part much further. Experience is that which in this part we must depend on. And it were to be wished that it were more improved. We find the advantages some men's generous pains have this way brought to the stock of natural knowledge. And if others, especially the philosophers by fire, who pretend to it, had been so wary in their observations, and sincere in their reports as those who call themselves philosophers ought to have been, our acquaintance with the bodies here about us, and our insight into their powers and operations had been yet much greater.
17. Of the powers that co-exist in spirits yet narrower. If we are at a loss in respect of the powers and operations of bodies, I think it is easy to conclude we are much more in the dark in reference to spirits; whereof we naturally have no ideas but what we draw from that of our own, by reflecting on the operations of our own souls within us, as far as they can come within our observation. But how inconsiderable a rank the spirits that inhabit our bodies hold amongst those various and possibly innumerable kinds of nobler beings; and how far short they come of the endowments and perfections of cherubim and seraphim, and infinite sorts of spirits above us, is what by a transient hint in another place I have offered to my reader's consideration.
18. Of relations between abstracted ideas it is not easy to say
how far our knowledge extends. Thirdly, As to the third sort of our
knowledge, viz. the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas in
any other relation: this, as it is the largest field of our knowledge,
so it is hard to determine how far it may extend: because the advances
that are made in this part of knowledge, depending on our sagacity
in finding intermediate ideas, that may show the relations and
habitudes of ideas whose co-existence is not considered, it is a
hard matter to tell when we are at an end of such discoveries; and
when reason has all the helps it is capable of, for the finding of
proofs or examining the agreement or disagreement of remote ideas.
They that are ignorant of Algebra cannot imagine the wonders in this
kind are to be done by it: and what further improvements and helps
advantageous to other parts of knowledge the sagacious mind of man may
yet find out, it is not easy to determine. This at least I believe,
that the ideas of quantity are not those alone that are capable of
demonstration and knowledge; and that other, and perhaps more
useful, parts of contemplation, would afford us certainty, if vices,
passions, and domineering interest did not oppose or menace such
endeavours.
Morality capable of demonstration. The idea of a supreme Being,
infinite in power, goodness, and wisdom, whose workmanship we are, and
on whom we depend; and the idea of ourselves, as understanding,
rational creatures, being such as are clear in us, would, I suppose,
if duly considered and pursued, afford such foundations of our duty
and rules of action as might place morality amongst the sciences
capable of demonstration: wherein I doubt not but from self-evident
propositions, by necessary consequences, as incontestible as those
in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong might be made out,
to any one that will apply himself with the same indifferency and
attention to the one as he does to the other of these sciences. The
relation of other modes may certainly be perceived, as well as those
of number and extension: and I cannot see why they should not also
be capable of demonstration, if due methods were thought on to examine
or pursue their agreement or disagreement. "Where there is no property
there is no injustice," is a proposition as certain as any
demonstration in Euclid: for the idea of property being a right to
anything, and the idea to which the name "injustice" is given being
the invasion or violation of that right, it is evident that these
ideas, being thus established, and these names annexed to them, I
can as certainly know this proposition to be true, as that a
triangle has three angles equal to two right ones. Again: "No
government allows absolute liberty." The idea of government being
the establishment of society upon certain rules or laws which
require conformity to them; and the idea of absolute liberty being for
any one to do whatever he pleases; I am as capable of being certain of
the truth of this proposition as of any in the mathematics.
19. Two things have made moral ideas to be thought incapable of
demonstration: their unfitness for sensible representation, and
their complexedness. That which in this respect has given the
advantage to the ideas of quantity, and made them thought more capable
of certainty and demonstration, is,
First, That they can be set down and represented by sensible
marks, which have a greater and nearer correspondence with them than
any words or sounds whatsoever. Diagrams drawn on paper are copies
of the ideas in the mind, and not liable to the uncertainty that words
carry in their signification. An angle, circle, or square, drawn in
lines, lies open to the view, and cannot be mistaken: it remains
unchangeable, and may at leisure be considered and examined, and the
demonstration be revised, and all the parts of it may be gone over
more than once, without any danger of the least change in the ideas.
This cannot be thus done in moral ideas: we have no sensible marks
that resemble them, whereby we can set them down; we have nothing
but words to express them by; which, though when written they remain
the same, yet the ideas they stand for may change in the same man; and
it is very seldom that they are not different in different persons.
Secondly, Another thing that makes the greater difficulty in
ethics is, That moral ideas are commonly more complex than those of
the figures ordinarily considered in mathematics. From whence these
two inconveniences follow:- First, that their names are of more
uncertain signification, the precise collection of simple ideas they
stand for not being so easily agreed on; and so the sign that is
used for them in communication always, and in thinking often, does not
steadily carry with it the same idea. Upon which the same disorder,
confusion, and error follow, as would if a man, going to demonstrate
something of an heptagon, should, in the diagram he took to do it,
leave out one of the angles, or by oversight make the figure with
one angle more than the name ordinarily imported, or he intended it
should when at first he thought of his demonstration. This often
happens, and is hardly avoidable in very complex moral ideas, where
the same name being retained, one angle, i.e. one simple idea, is left
out, or put in the complex one (still called by the same name) more at
one time than another. Secondly, From the complexedness of these moral
ideas there follows another inconvenience, viz. that the mind cannot
easily retain those precise combinations so exactly and perfectly as
is necessary in the examination of the habitudes and
correspondences, agreements or disagreements, of several of them one
with another; especially where it is to be judged of by long
deductions, and the intervention of several other complex ideas to
show the agreement or disagreement of two remote ones.
The great help against this which mathematicians find in diagrams
and figures, which remain unalterable in their draughts, is very
apparent, and the memory would often have great difficulty otherwise
to retain them so exactly, whilst the mind went over the parts of them
step by step to examine their several correspondences. And though in
casting up a long sum either in addition, multiplication, or division,
every part be only a progression of the mind taking a view of its
own ideas, and considering their agreement or disagreement, and the
resolution of the question be nothing but the result of the whole,
made up of such particulars, whereof the mind has a clear
perception: yet, without setting down the several parts by marks,
whose precise significations are known, and by marks that last, and
remain in view when the memory had let them go, it would be almost
impossible to carry so many different ideas in the mind, without
confounding or letting slip some parts of the reckoning, and thereby
making all our reasonings about it useless. In which case the
cyphers or marks help not the mind at all to perceive the agreement of
any two or more numbers, their equalities or proportions; that the
mind has only by intuition of its own ideas of the numbers themselves.
But the numerical characters are helps to the memory, to record and
retain the several ideas about which the demonstration is made,
whereby a man may know how far his intuitive knowledge in surveying
several of the particulars has proceeded; that so he may without
confusion go on to what is yet unknown; and at last have in one view
before him the result of all his perceptions and reasonings.
20. Remedies of our difficulties in dealing demonstratively with moral ideas. One part of these disadvantages in moral ideas which has made them be thought not capable of demonstration, may in a good measure be remedied by definitions, setting down that collection of simple ideas, which every term shall stand for: and then using the terms steadily and constantly for that precise collection. And what methods algebra, or something of that kind, may hereafter suggest, to remove the other difficulties, it is not easy to foretell. Confident I am, that, if men would in the same method, and with the same indifferency, search after moral as they do mathematical truths, they would find them have a stronger connexion one with another, and a more necessary consequence from our clear and distinct ideas, and to come nearer perfect demonstration than is commonly imagined. But much of this is not to be expected, whilst the desire of esteem, riches, or power makes men espouse the well-endowed opinions in fashion, and then seek arguments either to make good their beauty, or varnish over and cover their deformity. Nothing being so beautiful to the eye as truth is to the mind; nothing so deformed and irreconcilable to the understanding as a lie. For though many a man can with satisfaction enough own a no very handsome wife to in his bosom; yet who is bold enough openly to avow that he has espoused a falsehood, and received into his breast so ugly a thing as a lie? Whilst the parties of men cram their tenets down all men's throats whom they can get into their power, without permitting them to examine their truth or falsehood; and will not let truth have fair play in the world, nor men the liberty to search after it: what improvements can be expected of this kind? What greater light can be hoped for in the moral sciences? The subject part of mankind in most places might, instead thereof, with Egyptian bondage, expect Egyptian darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish.
21. Of the three real existences of which we have certain knowledge. Fourthly, As to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz. of the real actual existence of things, we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and a demonstrative knowledge of the existence of a God: of the existence of anything else, we have no other but a sensitive knowledge; which extends not beyond the objects present to our senses.
22. Our ignorance great. Our knowledge being so narrow, as I have
shown, it will perhaps give us some light into the present state of
our minds if we look a little into the dark side, and take a view of
our ignorance; which, being infinitely larger than our knowledge,
may serve much to the quieting of disputes, and improvement of
useful knowledge; if, discovering how far we have clear and distinct
ideas, we confine our thoughts within the contemplation of those
things that are within the reach of our understandings, and launch not
out into that abyss of darkness, (where we have not eyes to see, nor
faculties to perceive anything), out of a presumption that nothing
is beyond our comprehension. But to be satisfied of the folly of
such a conceit, we need not go far. He that knows anything, knows
this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances
of his ignorance. The meanest and most obvious things that come in our
way have dark sides, that the quickest sight cannot penetrate into.
The clearest and most enlarged understandings of thinking men find
themselves puzzled and at a loss in every particle of matter. We shall
the less wonder to find it so, when we consider the causes of our
ignorance; which, from what has been said, I suppose will be found
to be these three:--
Its causes. First, Want of ideas.
Secondly, Want of a discoverable connexion between the ideas we
have.
Thirdly, Want of tracing and examining our ideas.
23. One cause of our ignorance want of ideas. First, There are
some things, and those not a few, that we are ignorant of, for want of
ideas.
I. Want of simple ideas that other creatures in other parts of the
universe may have. First, all the simple ideas we have are confined
(as I have shown) to those we receive from corporeal objects by
sensation, and from the operations of our own minds as the objects
of reflection. But how much these few and narrow inlets are
disproportionate to the vast whole extent of all beings, will not be
hard to persuade those who are not so foolish as to think their span
the measure of all things. What other simple ideas it is possible
the creatures in other parts of the universe may have, by the
assistance of senses and faculties more or perfecter than we have,
or different from ours, it is not for us to determine. But to say or
think there are no such, because we conceive nothing of them, is no
better an argument than if a blind man should be positive in it,
that there was no such thing as sight and colours, because he had no
manner of idea of any such thing, nor could by any means frame to
himself any notions about seeing. The ignorance and darkness that is
in us no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others,
than the blindness of a mole is an argument against the
quicksightedness of an eagle. He that will consider the infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness of the Creator of all things will find
reason to think it was not all laid out upon so inconsiderable,
mean, and impotent a creature as he will find man to be; who in all
probability is one of the lowest of all intellectual beings. What
faculties, therefore, other species of creatures have to penetrate
into the nature and inmost constitutions of things; what ideas they
may receive of them far different from ours, we know not. This we know
and certainly find, that we want several other views of them besides
those we have, to make discoveries of them more perfect. And we may be
convinced that the ideas we can attain to by our faculties are very
disproportionate to things themselves, when a positive, clear,
distinct one of substance itself, which is the foundation of all the
rest, is concealed from us. But want of ideas of this kind, being a
part as well as cause of our ignorance, cannot be described. Only this
I think I may confidently say of it, That the intellectual and
sensible world are in this perfectly alike: that that part which we
see of either of them holds no proportion with what we see not; and
whatsoever we can reach with our eyes or our thoughts of either of
them is but a point, almost nothing in comparison of the rest.
24. Want of simple ideas that men are capable of having, but have not, because of their remoteness. Secondly, Another great cause of ignorance is the want of ideas we are capable of. As the want of ideas which our faculties are not able to give us shuts us wholly from those views of things which it is reasonable to think other beings, perfecter than we, have, of which we know nothing; so the want of ideas I now speak of keeps us in ignorance of things we conceive capable of being known to us. Bulk, figure, and motion we have ideas of. But though we are not without ideas of these primary qualities of bodies in general, yet not knowing what is the particular bulk, figure, and motion, of the greatest part of the bodies of the universe, we are ignorant of the several powers, efficacies, and ways of operation, whereby the effects which we daily see are produced. These are hid from us, in some things by being too remote, and in others by being too minute. When we consider the vast distance of the known and visible parts of the world, and the reasons we have to think that what lies within our ken is but a small part of the universe, we shall then discover a huge abyss of ignorance. What are the particular fabrics of the great masses of matter which make up the whole stupendous frame of corporeal beings; how far they are extended; what is their motion, and how continued or communicated; and what influence they have one upon another, are contemplations that at first glimpse our thoughts lose themselves in. If we narrow our contemplations, and confine our thoughts to this little canton- I mean this system of our sun, and the grosser masses of matter that visibly move about it, What several sorts of vegetables, animals, and intellectual corporeal beings, infinitely different from those of our little spot of earth, may there probably be in the other planets, to the knowledge of which, even of their outward figures and parts, we can no way attain whilst we are confined to this earth; there being no natural means, either by sensation or reflection, to convey their certain ideas into our minds? They are out of the reach of those inlets of all our knowledge: and what sorts of furniture and inhabitants those mansions contain in them we cannot so much as guess, much less have clear and distinct ideas of them.
25. Because of their minuteness. If a great, nay, far the greatest part of the several ranks of bodies in the universe escape our notice by their remoteness, there are others that are no less concealed from us by their minuteness. These insensible corpuscles, being the active parts of matter, and the great instruments of nature, on which depend not only all their secondary qualities, but also most of their natural operations, our want of precise distinct ideas of their primary qualities keeps us in an incurable ignorance of what we desire to know about them. I doubt not but if we could discover the figure, size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent parts of any two bodies, we should know without trial several of their operations one upon another; as we do now the properties of a square or a triangle. Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb, hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watchmaker does those of a watch, whereby it performs its operations; and of a file, which by rubbing on them will alter the figure of any of the wheels; we should be able to tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make a man sleep: as well as a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper laid on the balance will keep the watch from going till it be removed; or that, some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine would quite lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dissolving of silver in aqua fortis, and gold in aqua regia, and not vice versa, would be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a smith to understand why the turning of one key will open a lock, and not the turning of another. But whilst we are destitute of senses acute enough to discover the minute particles of bodies, and to give us ideas of their mechanical affections, we must be content to be ignorant of their properties and ways of operation; nor can we be assured about them any further than some few trials we make are able to reach. But whether they will succeed again another time, we cannot be certain. This hinders our certain knowledge of universal truths concerning natural bodies: and our reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of fact. 26. Hence no science of bodies within our reach. And therefore I am apt to doubt that, how far soever human industry may advance useful and experimental philosophy in physical things, scientifical will still be out of our reach: because we want perfect and adequate ideas of those very bodies which are nearest to us, and most under our command. Those which we have ranked into classes under names, and we think ourselves best acquainted with, we have but very imperfect and incomplete ideas of. Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies that fall under the examination of our senses perhaps we may have: but adequate ideas, I suspect, we have not of any one amongst them. And though the former of these will serve us for common use and discourse, yet whilst we want the latter, we are not capable of scientifical knowledge; nor shall ever be able to discover general, instructive, unquestionable truths concerning them. Certainty and demonstration are things we must not, in these matters, pretend to. By the colour, figure, taste, and smell, and other sensible qualities, we have as clear and distinct ideas of sage and hemlock, as we have of a circle and a triangle: but having no ideas of the particular primary qualities of the minute parts of either of these plants, nor of other bodies which we would apply them to, we cannot tell what effects they will produce; nor when we see those effects can we so much as guess, much less know, their manner of production. Thus, having no ideas of the particular mechanical affections of the minute parts of bodies that are within our view and reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and operations: and of bodies more remote we are yet more ignorant, not knowing so much as their very outward shapes, or the sensible and grosser parts of their constitutions.
27. Much less a science of unembodied spirits. This at first will show us how disproportionate our knowledge is to the whole extent even of material beings; to which if we add the consideration of that infinite number of spirits that may be, and probably are, which are yet more remote from our knowledge, whereof we have no cognizance, nor can frame to ourselves any distinct ideas of their several ranks and sorts, we shall find this cause of ignorance conceal from us, in an impenetrable obscurity, almost the whole intellectual world; a greater certainty, and more beautiful world than the material. For, bating some very few, and those, if I may so call them, superficial ideas of spirit, which by reflection we get of our own, and from thence the best we can collect of the Father of all spirits, the eternal independent Author of them, and us, and all things, we have no certain information, so much as of the existence of other spirits, but by revelation. Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our discovery; and all those intelligences, whereof it is likely there are more orders than of corporeal substances, are things whereof our natural faculties give us no certain account at all. That there are minds and thinking beings in other men as well as himself, every man has a reason, from their words and actions, to be satisfied: and the knowledge of his own mind cannot suffer a man that considers, to be ignorant that there is a God. But that there are degrees of spiritual beings between us and the great God, who is there, that, by his own search and ability, can come to know? Much less have we distinct ideas of their different natures, conditions, states, powers, and several constitutions wherein they agree or differ from one another and from us. And, therefore, in what concerns their different species and properties we are in absolute ignorance.
28. Another cause, want of a discoverable connexion between ideas we have. Secondly, What a small part of the substantial beings that are in the universe the want of ideas leaves open to our knowledge, we have seen. In the next place, another cause of ignorance, of no less moment, is a want of a discoverable connexion between those ideas we have. For wherever we want that, we are utterly incapable of universal and certain knowledge; and are, in the former case, left only to observation and experiment: which, how narrow and confined it is, how far from general knowledge we need not be told. I shall give some few instances of this cause of our ignorance, and so leave it. It is evident that the bulk, figure, and motion of several bodies about us produce in us several sensations, as of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure, and pain, &c. These mechanical affections of bodies having no affinity at all with those ideas they produce in us, (there being no conceivable connexion between any impulse of any sort of body and any perception of a colour or smell which we find in our minds,) we can have no distinct knowledge of such operations beyond our experience; and can reason no otherwise about them, than as effects produced by the appointment of an infinitely Wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our comprehensions. As the ideas of sensible secondary qualities which we have in our minds, can by us be no way deduced from bodily causes, nor any correspondence or connexion be found between them and those primary qualities which (experience shows us) produce them in us; so, on the other side, the operation of our minds upon our bodies is as inconceivable. How any thought should produce a motion in body is as remote from the nature of our ideas, as how any body should produce any thought in the mind. That it is so, if experience did not convince us, the consideration of the things themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us. These, and the like, though they have a constant and regular connexion in the ordinary course of things; yet that connexion being not discoverable in the ideas themselves, which appearing to have no necessary dependence one on another, we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the arbitrary determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be, and to operate as they do, in a way wholly above our weak understandings to conceive.
29. Instances. In some of our ideas there are certain relations, habitudes, and connexions, so visibly included in the nature of the ideas themselves, that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any power whatsoever. And in these only we are capable of certain and universal knowledge. Thus the idea of a right-lined triangle necessarily carries with it an equality of its angles to two right ones. Nor can we conceive this relation, this connexion of these two ideas, to be possibly mutable, or to depend on any arbitrary power, which of choice made it thus, or could make it otherwise. But the coherence and continuity of the parts of matter; the production of sensation in us of colours and sounds, &c., by impulse and motion; nay, the original rules and communication of motion being such, wherein we can discover no natural connexion with any ideas we have, we cannot but ascribe them to the arbitrary will and good pleasure of the Wise Architect. I need not, I think, here mention the resurrection of the dead, the future state of this globe of earth, and such other things, which are by every one acknowledged to depend wholly on the determination of a free agent. The things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a law set them; but yet by a law that we know not: whereby, though causes work steadily, and effects constantly flow from them, yet their connexions and dependencies being not discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an experimental knowledge of them. From all which it is easy to perceive what a darkness we are involved in, how little it is of Being, and the things that are, that we are capable to know. And therefore we shall do no injury to our knowledge, when we modestly think with ourselves, that we are so far from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the universe and all the things contained in it, that we are not capable of a philosophical knowledge of the bodies that are about us, and make a part of us: concerning their secondary qualities, powers, and operations, we can have no universal certainty. Several effects come every day within the notice of our senses, of which we have so far sensitive knowledge: but the causes, manner, and certainty of their production, for the two foregoing reasons, we must be content to be very ignorant of. In these we can go no further than particular experience informs us matter of fact, and by analogy to guess what effects the like bodies are, upon other trials, like to produce. But as to a perfect science of natural bodies, (not to mention spiritual beings,) we are, I think, so far from being capable of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek after it.
30. A third cause, want of tracing our ideas. Thirdly, Where we have adequate ideas, and where there is a certain and discoverable connexion between them, yet we are often ignorant, for want of tracing those ideas which we have or may have; and for want of finding out those intermediate ideas, which may show us what habitude of agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And thus many are ignorant of mathematical truths, not out of any imperfection of their faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for want of application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our ideas, and finding out their relations, and agreements or disagreements, one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of words. It is impossible that men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the agreement or disagreement of ideas themselves, whilst their thoughts flutter about, or stick only in sounds of doubtful and uncertain significations. Mathematicians abstracting their thoughts from names, and accustoming themselves to set before their minds the ideas themselves that they would consider, and not sounds instead of them, have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity, puddering, and confusion, which has so much hindered men's progress in other parts of knowledge. For whilst they stick in words of undetermined and uncertain signification, they are unable to distinguish true from false, certain from probable, consistent from inconsistent, in their own opinions. This having been the fate or misfortune of a great part of men of letters, the increase brought into the stock of real knowledge has been very little, in proportion to the schools, disputes, and writings, the world has been filled with; whilst students, being lost in the great wood of words, knew not whereabouts they were, how far their discoveries were advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general stock of knowledge. Had men, in the discoveries of the material, done as they have in those of the intellectual world, involved all in the obscurity of uncertain and doubtful ways of talking, volumes writ of navigation and voyages, theories and stories of zones and tides, multiplied and disputed; nay, ships built, and fleets sent out, would never have taught us the way beyond the line; and the Antipodes would be still as much unknown, as when it was declared heresy to hold there were any. But having spoken sufficiently of words, and the ill or careless use that is commonly made of them, I shall not say anything more of it here.
31. Extent of human knowledge in respect to its universality. Hitherto we have examined the extent of our knowledge, in respect of the several sorts of beings that are. There is another extent of it, in respect of universality, which will also deserve to be considered; and in this regard, our knowledge follows the nature of our ideas. If the ideas are abstract, whose agreement or disagreement we perceive, our knowledge is universal. For what is known of such general ideas, will be true of every particular thing in whom that essence, i.e. that abstract idea, is to be found: and what is once known of such ideas, will be perpetually and for ever true. So that as to all general knowledge we must search and find it only in our minds; and it is only the examining of our own ideas that furnisheth us with that. Truths belonging to essences of things (that is, to abstract ideas) are eternal; and are to be found out by the contemplation only of those essences: as the existence of things is to be known only from experience. But having more to say of this in the chapters where I shall speak of general and real knowledge, this may here suffice as to the universality of our knowledge in general.
1. Objection. "Knowledge placed in our ideas may be all unreal or
chimerical." I doubt not but my reader, by this time, may be apt to
think that I have been all this while only building a castle in the
air; and be ready to say to me: 3. But what shall be the criterion of this agreement? It is
evident the mind knows not things immediately, but only by the
intervention of the ideas it has of them. Our knowledge, therefore
is real only so far as there is a conformity between our ideas and the
reality of things. But what shall be here the criterion? How shall the
mind, when it perceives nothing but its own ideas, know that they
agree with things themselves? This, though it seems not to want
difficulty, yet, I think, there be two sorts of ideas that we may be
assured agree with things. 4. As all simple ideas are really conformed to things. First, The
first are simple ideas, which since the mind, as has been shown, can
by no means make to itself, must necessarily be the product of
things operating on the mind, in a natural way, and producing
therein those perceptions which by the Wisdom and Will of our Maker
they are ordained and adapted to. From whence it follows, that
simple ideas are not fictions of our fancies, but the natural and
regular productions of things without us, really operating upon us;
and so carry with them all the conformity which is intended; or
which our state requires: for they represent to us things under
those appearances which they are fitted to produce in us: whereby we
are enabled to distinguish the sorts of particular substances, to
discern the states they are in, and so to take them for our
necessities, and apply them to our uses. Thus the idea of whiteness,
or bitterness, as it is in the mind, exactly answering that power
which is in any body to produce it there, has all the real
conformity it can or ought to have, with things without us. And this
conformity between our simple ideas and the existence of things, is
sufficient for real knowledge. 5. All complex ideas, except ideas of substances, are their own
archetypes. Secondly, All our complex ideas, except those of
substances, being archetypes of the mind's own making, not intended to
be the copies of anything, nor referred to the existence of
anything, as to their originals, cannot want any conformity
necessary to real knowledge. For that which is not designed to
represent anything but itself, can never be capable of a wrong
representation, nor mislead us from the true apprehension of anything,
by its dislikeness to it: and such, excepting those of substances, are
all our complex ideas. Which, as I have shown in another place, are
combinations of ideas, which the mind, by its free choice, puts
together, without considering any connexion they have in nature. And
hence it is, that in all these sorts the ideas themselves are
considered as the archetypes, and things no otherwise regarded, but as
they are conformable to them. So that we cannot but be infallibly
certain, that all the knowledge we attain concerning these ideas is
real, and reaches things themselves. Because in all our thoughts,
reasonings, and discourses of this kind, we intend things no further
than as they are conformable to our ideas. So that in these we
cannot miss of a certain and undoubted reality. 6. Hence the reality of mathematical knowledge. I doubt not but it
will be easily granted, that the knowledge we have of mathematical
truths is not only certain, but real knowledge; and not the bare empty
vision of vain, insignificant chimeras of the brain: and yet, if we
will consider, we shall find that it is only of our own ideas. The
mathematician considers the truth and properties belonging to a
rectangle or circle only as they are in idea in his own mind. For it
is possible he never found either of them existing mathematically,
i.e. precisely true, in his life. But yet the knowledge he has of
any truths or properties belonging to a circle, or any other
mathematical figure, are nevertheless true and certain, even of real
things existing: because real things are no further concerned, nor
intended to be meant by any such propositions, than as things really
agree to those archetypes in his mind. Is it true of the idea of a
triangle, that its three angles are equal to two right ones? It is
true also of a triangle, wherever it really exists. Whatever other
figure exists, that it is not exactly answerable to that idea of a
triangle in his mind, is not at all concerned in that proposition. And
therefore he is certain all his knowledge concerning such ideas is
real knowledge: because, intending things no further than they agree
with those his ideas, he is sure what he knows concerning those
figures, when they have barely an ideal existence in his mind, will
hold true of them also when they have a real existence in matter:
his consideration being barely of those figures, which are the same
wherever or however they exist. 7. And of moral. And hence it follows that moral knowledge is as
capable of real certainty as mathematics. For certainty being but
the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, and
demonstration nothing but the perception of such agreement, by the
intervention of other ideas or mediums; our moral ideas, as well as
mathematical, being archetypes themselves, and so adequate and
complete ideas; all the agreement or disagreement which we shall
find in them will produce real knowledge, as well as in mathematical
figures. 8. Existence not required to make abstract knowledge real. For the
attaining of knowledge and certainty, it is requisite that we have
determined ideas: and, to make our knowledge real, it is requisite
that the ideas answer their archetypes. Nor let it be wondered, that I
place the certainty of our knowledge in the consideration of our
ideas, with so little care and regard (as it may seem) to the real
existence of things: since most of those discourses which take up
the thoughts and engage the disputes of those who pretend to make it
their business to inquire after truth and certainty, will, I
presume, upon examination, be found to be general propositions, and
notions in which existence is not at all concerned. All the discourses
of the mathematicians about the squaring of a circle, conic
sections, or any other part of mathematics, concern not the
existence of any of those figures: but their demonstrations, which
depend on their ideas, are the same, whether there be any square or
circle existing in the world or no. In the same manner, the truth
and certainty of moral discourses abstracts from the lives of men, and
the existence of those virtues in the world whereof they treat: nor
are Tully's Offices less true, because there is nobody in the world
that exactly practises his rules, and lives up to that pattern of a
virtuous man which he has given us, and which existed nowhere when
he writ but in idea. If it be true in speculation, i.e. in idea,
that murder deserves death, it will also be true in reality of any
action that exists conformable to that idea of murder. As for other
actions, the truth of that proposition concerns them not. And thus
it is of all other species of things, which have no other essences but
those ideas which are in the minds of men. 9. Nor will it be less true or certain, because moral ideas are of
our own making and naming. But it will here be said, that if moral
knowledge be placed in the contemplation of our own moral ideas, and
those, as other modes, be of our own making, What strange notions will
there be of justice and temperance? What confusion of virtues and
vice, if every one may make what ideas of them he pleases? No
confusion or disorder in the things themselves, nor the reasonings
about them; no more than (in mathematics) there would be a disturbance
in the demonstration, or a change in the properties of figures, and
their relations one to another, if a man should make a triangle with
four corners, or a trapezium with four right angles: that is, in plain
English, change the names of the figures, and call that by one name,
which mathematicians call ordinarily by another. For, let a man make
to himself the idea of a figure with three angles, whereof one is a
right one, and call it, if he please, equilaterum or trapezium, or
anything else; the properties of, and demonstrations about that idea
will be the same as if he called it a rectangular triangle. I
confess the change of the name, by the impropriety of speech, will
at first disturb him who knows not what idea it stands for: but as
soon as the figure is drawn, the consequences and demonstrations are
plain and clear. Just the same is it in moral knowledge: let a man
have the idea of taking from others, without their consent, what their
honest industry has possessed them of, and call this justice if he
please. He that takes the name here without the idea put to it will be
mistaken, by joining another idea of his own to that name: but strip
the idea of that name, or take it such as it is in the speaker's mind,
and the same things will agree to it, as if you called it injustice.
Indeed, wrong names in moral discourses breed usually more disorder,
because they are not so easily rectified as in mathematics, where
the figure, once drawn and seen, makes the name useless and of no
force. For what need of a sign, when the thing signified is present
and in view? But in moral names, that cannot be so easily and
shortly done, because of the many decompositions that go to the making
up the complex ideas of those modes. But yet for all this, the
miscalling of any of those ideas, contrary to the usual
signification of the words of that language, hinders not but that we
may have certain and demonstrative knowledge of their several
agreements and disagreements, if we will carefully, as in mathematics,
keep to the same precise ideas, and trace them in their several
relations one to another, without being led away by their names. If we
but separate the idea under consideration from the sign that stands
for it, our knowledge goes equally on in the discovery of real truth
and certainty, whatever sounds we make use of. 10. Misnaming disturbs not the certainty of the knowledge. One thing
more we are to take notice of, That where God or any other
law-maker, hath defined any moral names, there they have made the
essence of that species to which that name belongs; and there it is
not safe to apply or use them otherwise: but in other cases it is bare
impropriety of speech to apply them contrary to the common usage of
the country. But yet even this too disturbs not the certainty of
that knowledge, which is still to be had by a due contemplation and
comparing of those even nicknamed ideas. 11. Our complex ideas of substances have their archetypes without
us; and here knowledge comes short. Thirdly, There is another sort
of complex ideas, which, being referred to archetypes without us,
may differ from them, and so our knowledge about them may come short
of being real. Such are our ideas of substances, which, consisting
of a collection of simple ideas, supposed taken from the works of
nature, may yet vary from them; by having more or different ideas
united in them than are to be found united in the things themselves.
From whence it comes to pass, that they may, and often do, fail of
being exactly conformable to things themselves. 12. So far as our complex ideas agree with those archetypes
without us, so far our knowledge concerning substances is real. I say,
then, that to have ideas of substances which, by being conformable
to things, may afford us real knowledge, it is not enough, as in
modes, to put together such ideas as have no inconsistence, though
they did never before so exist: v.g. the ideas of sacrilege or
perjury, &c., were as real and true ideas before, as after the
existence of any such fact. But our ideas of substances, being
supposed copies, and referred to archetypes without us, must still
be taken from something that does or has existed: they must not
consist of ideas put together at the pleasure of our thoughts, without
any real pattern they were taken from, though we can perceive no
inconsistence in such a combination. The reason whereof is, because
we, knowing not what real constitution it is of substances whereon our
simple ideas depend, and which really is the cause of the strict union
of some of them one with another, and the exclusion of others there
are very few of them that we can be sure are or are not inconsistent
in nature, any further than experience and sensible observation reach.
Herein, therefore, is founded the reality of our knowledge
concerning substances- That all our complex ideas of them must be
such, and such only, as are made up of such simple ones as have been
discovered to co-exist in nature. And our ideas being thus true,
though not perhaps very exact copies, are yet the subjects of real (as
far as we have any) knowledge of them. Which (as has been already
shown) will not be found to reach very far: but so far as it does,
it will still be real knowledge. Whatever ideas we have, the agreement
we find they have with others will still be knowledge. If those
ideas be abstract, it will be general knowledge. But to make it real
concerning substances, the ideas must be taken from the real existence
of things. Whatever simple ideas have been found to co-exist in any
substance, these we may with confidence join together again, and so
make abstract ideas of substances. For whatever have once had an union
in nature, may be united again. 13. In our inquiries about substances, we must consider ideas, and
not confine our thoughts to names or species supposed set out by
names. This, if we rightly consider, and confine not our thoughts
and abstract ideas to names, as if there were, or could be no other
sorts of things than what known names had already determined, and,
as it were, set out, we should think of things with greater freedom
and less confusion than perhaps we do. It would possibly be thought
a bold paradox, if not a very dangerous falsehood, if I should say
that some changelings, who have lived forty years together, without
any appearance of reason, are something between a man and a beast:
which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a false
supposition, that these two names, man and beast, stand for distinct
species so set out by real essences, that there can come no other
species between them: whereas if we will abstract from those names,
and the supposition of such specific essences made by nature,
wherein all things of the same denominations did exactly and equally
partake; if we would not fancy that there were a certain number of
these essences, wherein all things, as in moulds, were cast and
formed; we should find that the idea of the shape, motion, and life of
a man without reason, is as much a distinct idea, and makes as much
a distinct sort of things from man and beast, as the idea of the shape
of an ass with reason would be different from either that of man or
beast, and be a species of an animal between, or distinct from both. 14. Objection against a changeling being something between a man and
beast, answered. Here everybody will be ready to ask, If changelings
may be supposed something between man and beast, pray what are they? I
answer, changelings; which is as good a word to signify something
different from the signification of man or beast, as the names man and
beast are to have significations different one from the other. This,
well considered, would resolve this matter, and show my meaning
without any more ado. But I am not so unacquainted with the zeal of
some men, which enables them to spin consequences, and to see religion
threatened, whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of speaking,
as not to foresee what names such a proposition as this is like to
be charged with: and without doubt it will be asked, If changelings
are something between man and beast, what will become of them in the
other world? To which I answer, I. It concerns me not to know or
inquire. To their own master they stand or fall. It will make their
state neither better nor worse, whether we determine anything of it or
no. They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful
Father, who disposes not of his creatures according to our narrow
thoughts or opinions, nor distinguishes them according to names and
species of our contrivance. And we that know so little of this present
world we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being
peremptory in defining the different states which creatures shall come
into when they go off this stage. It may suffice us, that He hath made
known to all those who are capable of instruction, discoursing, and
reasoning, that they shall come to an account, and receive according
to what they have done in this body. 15. What will become of changelings in a future state? But,
Secondly, I answer, The force of these men's question (viz. Will you
deprive changelings of a future state?) is founded on one of these two
suppositions, which are both false. The first is, That all things that
have the outward shape and appearance of a man must necessarily be
designed to an immortal future being after this life: or, secondly,
That whatever is of human birth must be so. Take away these
imaginations, and such questions will be groundless and ridiculous.
I desire then those who think there is no more but an accidental
difference between themselves and changelings, the essence in both
being exactly the same, to consider, whether they can imagine
immortality annexed to any outward shape of the body; the very
proposing it is, I suppose, enough to make them disown it. No one yet,
that ever I heard of, how much soever immersed in matter, allowed that
excellency to any figure of the gross sensible outward parts, as to
affirm eternal life due to it, or a necessary consequence of it; or
that any mass of matter should, after its dissolution here, be again
restored hereafter to an everlasting state of sense, perception, and
knowledge, only because it was moulded into this or that figure, and
had such a particular frame of its visible parts. Such an opinion as
this, placing immortality in a certain superficial figure, turns out
of doors all consideration of soul or spirit; upon whose account alone
some corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and
others not. This is to attribute more to the outside than inside of
things; and to place the excellency of a man more in the external
shape of his body, than internal perfections of his soul: which is but
little better than to annex the great and inestimable advantage of
immortality and life everlasting, which he has above other material
beings, to annex it, I say, to the cut of his beard, or the fashion of
his coat. For this or that outward mark of our bodies no more
carries with it the hope of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a
man's suit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine it will never
wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be
said, that nobody thinks that the shape makes anything immortal, but
it is the shape is the sign of a rational soul within, which is
immortal. I wonder who made it the sign of any such thing: for
barely saying it, will not make it so. It would require some proofs to
persuade one of it. No figure that I know speaks any such language.
For it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man,
wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than
there is in a statue, has yet nevertheless a living soul in it,
because of its shape; as that there is a rational soul in a
changeling, because he has the outside of a rational creature, when
his actions carry far less marks of reason with them, in the whole
course of his life, than what are to be found in many a beast. 16. Monsters. But it is the issue of rational parents, and must
therefore be concluded to have a rational soul. I know not by what
logic you must so conclude. I am sure this is a conclusion that men
nowhere allow of. For if they did, they would not make bold, as
everywhere they do, to destroy ill-formed and mis-shaped
productions. Ay, but these are monsters. Let them be so: what will
your drivelling, unintelligent, intractable changeling be? Shall a
defect in the body make a monster; a defect in the mind (the far
more noble, and, in the common phrase, the far more essential part)
not? Shall the want of a nose, or a neck, make a monster, and put such
issue out of the rank of men; the want of reason and understanding,
not? This is to bring all back again to what was exploded just now:
this is to place all in the shape, and to take the measure of a man
only by his outside. To show that according to the ordinary way of
reasoning in this matter, people do lay the whole stress on the
figure, and resolve the whole essence of the species of man (as they
make it) into the outward shape, how unreasonable soever it be, and
how much soever they disown it, we need but trace their thoughts and
practice a little further, and then it will plainly appear. The
well-shaped changeling is a man, has a rational soul, though it appear
not: this is past doubt, say you: make the ears a little longer, and
more pointed, and the nose a little flatter than ordinary, and then
you begin to boggle: make the face yet narrower, flatter, and
longer, and then you are at a stand: add still more and more of the
likeness of a brute to it, and let the head be perfectly that of
some other animal, then presently it is a monster; and it is
demonstration with you that it hath no rational soul, and must be
destroyed. Where now (I ask) shall be the just measure; which the
utmost bounds of that shape, that carries with it a rational soul?
For, since there have been human foetuses produced, half beast and
half man; and others three parts one, and one part the other; and so
it is possible they may be in all the variety of approaches to the one
or the other shape, and may have several degrees of mixture of the
likeness of a man, or a brute;- I would gladly know what are those
precise lineaments, which, according to this hypothesis, are or are
not capable of a rational soul to be joined to them. What sort of
outside is the certain sign that there is or is not such an inhabitant
within? For till that be done, we talk at random of man: and shall
always, I fear, do so, as long as we give ourselves up to certain
sounds, and the imaginations of settled and fixed species in nature,
we know not what. But, after all, I desire it may be considered,
that those who think they have answered the difficulty, by telling us,
that a mis-shaped foetus is a monster, run into the same fault they
are arguing against; by constituting a species between man and
beast. For what else, I pray, is their monster in the case, (if the
word monster signifies anything at all,) but something neither man nor
beast, but partaking somewhat of either? And just so is the changeling
before mentioned. So necessary is it to quit the common notion of
species and essences, if we will truly look into the nature of things,
and examine them by what our faculties can discover in them as they
exist, and not by groundless fancies that have been taken up about
them. 17. Words and species. I have mentioned this here, because I think
we cannot be too cautious that words and species, in the ordinary
notions which we have been used to of them, impose not on us. For I am
apt to think therein lies one great obstacle to our clear and distinct
knowledge, especially in reference to substances: and from thence
has risen a great part of the difficulties about truth and
certainty. Would we accustom ourselves to separate our
contemplations and reasonings from words, we might in a great
measure remedy this inconvenience within our own thoughts: but yet
it would still disturb us in our discourse with others, as long as
we retained the opinion, that species and their essences were anything
else but our abstract ideas (such as they are) with names annexed to
them, to be the signs of them. 18. Recapitulation. Wherever we perceive the agreement or
disagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain knowledge: and
wherever we are sure those ideas agree with the reality of things,
there is certain real knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas
with the reality of things, having here given the marks, I think, I
have shown wherein it is that certainty, real certainty, consists.
Which, whatever it was to others, was, I confess, to me heretofore,
one of those desiderata which I found great want of. 1. What truth is. What is truth? was an inquiry many ages since; and
it being that which all mankind either do, or pretend to search after,
it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it
consists, and so acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to
observe how the mind distinguishes it from falsehood. 2. A right joining or separating of signs, i.e. either ideas or
words. Truth, then, seems to me, in the proper import of the word,
to signify nothing but the joining or separating of Signs, as the
Things signified by them do agree or disagree one with another. The
joining or separating of signs here meant, is what by another name
we call proposition. So that truth properly belongs only to
propositions: whereof there are two sorts, viz. mental and verbal;
as there are two sorts of signs commonly made use of, viz. ideas and
words. 3. Which make mental or verbal propositions. To form a clear
notion of truth, it is very necessary to consider truth of thought,
and truth of words, distinctly one from another: but yet it is very
difficult to treat of them asunder. Because it is unavoidable, in
treating of mental propositions, to make use of words: and then the
instances given of mental propositions cease immediately to be
barely mental, and become verbal. For a mental proposition being
nothing but a bare consideration of the ideas, as they are in our
minds, stripped of names, they lose the nature of purely mental
propositions as soon as they are put into words. 4. Mental propositions are very hard to he treated of. And that
which makes it yet harder to treat of mental and verbal propositions
separately is, that most men, if not all, in their thinking and
reasonings within themselves, make use of words instead of ideas; at
least when the subject of their meditation contains in it complex
ideas. Which is a great evidence of the imperfection and uncertainty
of our ideas of that kind, and may, if attentively made use of,
serve for a mark to show us what are those things we have clear and
perfect established ideas of, and what not. For if we will curiously
observe the way our mind takes in thinking and reasoning, we shall
find, I suppose, that when we make any propositions within our own
thoughts about white or black, sweet or bitter, a triangle or a
circle, we can and often do frame in our minds the ideas themselves,
without reflecting on the names. But when we would consider, or make
propositions about the more complex ideas, as of a man, vitriol,
fortitude, glory, we usually put the name for the idea: because the
ideas these names stand for, being for the most part imperfect,
confused, and undetermined, we reflect on the names themselves,
because they are more clear, certain, and distinct, and readier
occur to our thoughts than the pure ideas: and so we make use of these
words instead of the ideas themselves, even when we would meditate and
reason within ourselves, and make tacit mental propositions. In
substances, as has been already noticed, this is occasioned by the
imperfections of our ideas: we making the name stand for the real
essence, of which we have no idea at all. In modes, it is occasioned
by the great number of simple ideas that go to the making them up. For
many of them being compounded, the name occurs much easier than the
complex idea itself, which requires time and attention to be
recollected, and exactly represented to the mind, even in those men
who have formerly been at the pains to do it; and is utterly
impossible to be done by those who, though they have ready in their
memory the greatest part of the common words of that language, yet
perhaps never troubled themselves in all their lives to consider
what precise ideas the most of them stood for. Some confused or
obscure notions have served their turns; and many who talk very much
of religion and conscience, of church and faith, of power and right,
of obstructions and humours, melancholy and choler, would perhaps have
little left in their thoughts and meditations if one should desire
them to think only of the things themselves and lay by those words
with which they so often confound others, and not seldom themselves
also. 5. Mental and verbal propositions contrasted. But to return to the
consideration of truth: we must, I say, observe two sorts of
propositions that we are capable of making:-- 6. When mental propositions contain real truth, and when verbal.
Every one's experience will satisfy him, that the mind, either by
perceiving, or supposing, the agreement or disagreement of any of
its ideas, does tacitly within itself put them into a kind of
proposition affirmative or negative; which I have endeavoured to
express by the terms putting together and separating. But this
action of the mind, which is so familiar to every thinking and
reasoning man, is easier to be conceived by reflecting on what
passes in us when we affirm or deny, than to be explained by words.
When a man has in his head the idea of two lines, viz. the side and
diagonal of a square, whereof the diagonal is an inch long, he may
have the idea also of the division of that line into a certain
number of equal parts: v.g. into five, ten, a hundred, a thousand,
or any other number, and may have the idea of that inch line being
divisible, or not divisible, into such equal parts, as a certain
number of them will be equal to the sideline. Now, whenever he
perceives, believes, or supposes such a kind of divisibility to
agree or disagree to his idea of that line, he, as it were, joins or
separates those two ideas, viz. the idea of that line, and the idea of
that kind of divisibility; and so makes a mental proposition, which is
true or false, according as such a kind of divisibility; a
divisibility into such aliquot parts, does really agree to that line
or no. When ideas are so put together, or separated in the mind, as
they or the things they stand for do agree or not, that is, as I may
call it, mental truth. But truth of words is something more; and
that is the affirming or denying of words one of another, as the ideas
they stand for agree or disagree: and this again is two-fold; either
purely verbal and trifling, which I shall speak of, (chap. viii.,)
or real and instructive; which is the object of that real knowledge
which we have spoken of already. 7. Objection against verbal truth, that "thus it may all be
chimerical." But here again will be apt to occur the same doubt
about truth, that did about knowledge: and it will be objected, that
if truth be nothing but the joining and separating of words in
propositions, as the ideas they stand for agree or disagree in men's
minds, the knowledge of truth is not so valuable a thing as it is
taken to be, nor worth the pains and time men employ in the search
of it: since by this account it amounts to no more than the conformity
of words to the chimeras of men's brains. Who knows not what odd
notions many men's heads are filled with, and what strange ideas all
men's brains are capable of? But if we rest here, we know the truth of
nothing by this rule, but of the visionary words in our own
imaginations; nor have other truth, but what as much concerns
harpies and centaurs, as men and horses. For those, and the like,
may be ideas in our heads, and have their agreement or disagreement
there, as well as the ideas of real beings, and so have as true
propositions made about them. And it will be altogether as true a
proposition to say all centaurs are animals, as that all men are
animals; and the certainty of one as great as the other. For in both
the propositions, the words are put together according to the
agreement of the ideas in our minds: and the agreement of the idea
of animal with that of centaur is as clear and visible to the mind, as
the agreement of the idea of animal with that of man; and so these two
propositions are equally true, equally certain. But of what use is all
such truth to us? 8. Answered, "Real truth is about ideas agreeing to things."
Though what has been said in the foregoing chapter to distinguish real
from imaginary knowledge might suffice here, in answer to this
doubt, to distinguish real truth from chimerical, or (if you please)
barely nominal, they depending both on the same foundation; yet it may
not be amiss here again to consider, that though our words signify
nothing but our ideas, yet being designed by them to signify things,
the truth they contain when put into propositions will be only verbal,
when they stand for ideas in the mind that have not an agreement
with the reality of things. And therefore truth as well as knowledge
may well come under the distinction of verbal and real; that being
only verbal truth, wherein terms are joined according to the agreement
or disagreement of the ideas they stand for; without regarding whether
our ideas are such as really have, or are capable of having, an
existence in nature. But then it is they contain real truth, when
these signs are joined, as our ideas agree; and when our ideas are
such as we know are capable of having an existence in nature: which in
substances we cannot know, but by knowing that such have existed. 9. Truth and falsehood in general. Truth is the marking down in
words the agreement or disagreement of ideas as it is. Falsehood is
the marking down in words the agreement or disagreement of ideas
otherwise than it is. And so far as these ideas, thus marked by
sounds, agree to their archetypes, so far only is the truth real.
The knowledge of this truth consists in knowing what ideas the words
stand for, and the perception of the agreement or disagreement of
those ideas, according as it is marked by those words. 10. General propositions to be treated of more at large. But because
words are looked on as the great conduits of truth and knowledge,
and that in conveying and receiving of truth, and commonly in
reasoning about it, we make use of words and propositions, I shall
more at large inquire wherein the certainty of real truths contained
in propositions consists, and where it is to be had; and endeavour
to show in what sort of universal propositions we are capable of being
certain of their real truth or falsehood. 11. Moral and metaphysical truth. Besides truth taken in the
strict sense before mentioned, there are other sorts of truths: As, 1.
Moral truth, which is speaking of things according to the persuasion
of our own minds, though the proposition we speak agree not to the
reality of things; 2. Metaphysical truth, which is nothing but the
real existence of things, conformable to the ideas to which we have
annexed their names. This, though it seems to consist in the very
beings of things, yet, when considered a little nearly, will appear to
include a tacit proposition, whereby the mind joins that particular
thing to the idea it had before settled with the name to it. But these
considerations of truth, either having been before taken notice of, or
not being much to our present purpose, it may suffice here only to
have mentioned them. 1. Treating of words necessary to knowledge. Though the examining
and judging of ideas by themselves, their names being quite laid
aside, be the best and surest way to clear and distinct knowledge:
yet, through the prevailing custom of using sounds for ideas, I
think it is very seldom practised. Every one may observe how common it
is for names to be made use of, instead of the ideas themselves,
even when men think and reason within their own breasts; especially if
the ideas be very complex, and made up of a great collection of simple
ones. This makes the consideration of words and propositions so
necessary a part of the Treatise of Knowledge, that it is very hard to
speak intelligibly of the one, without explaining the other. 2. General truths hardly to be understood, but in verbal
propositions. All the knowledge we have, being only of particular or
general truths, it is evident that whatever may be done in the
former of these, the latter, which is that which with reason is most
sought after, can never be well made known, and is very seldom
apprehended, but as conceived and expressed in words. It is not,
therefore, out of our way, in the examination of our knowledge, to
inquire into the truth and certainty of universal propositions. 3. Certainty twofold- of truth and of knowledge. But that we may not
be misled in this case by that which is the danger everywhere, I
mean by the doubtfulness of terms, it is fit to observe that certainty
is twofold: certainty of truth and certainty of knowledge. Certainty
of truth is, when words are so put together in propositions as exactly
to express the agreement or disagreement of the ideas they stand
for, as really it is. Certainty of knowledge is to perceive the
agreement or disagreement of ideas, as expressed in any proposition
"To what purpose all this stir? Knowledge, say you, is only the
perception of the agreement or disagreement of our own ideas: but
who knows what those ideas may be? Is there anything so extravagant as
the imaginations of men's brains? Where is the head that has no
chimeras in it? Or if there be a sober and a wise man, what difference
will there be, by your rules, between his knowledge and that of the
most extravagant fancy in the world? They both have their ideas, and
perceive their agreement and disagreement one with another. If there
be any difference between them, the advantage will be on the
warm-headed man's side, as having the more ideas, and the more lively.
And so, by your rules, he will be the more knowing. If it be true,
that all knowledge lies only in the perception of the agreement or
disagreement of our own ideas, the visions of an enthusiast and the
reasonings of a sober man will be equally certain. It is no matter how
things are: so a man observe but the agreement of his own
imaginations, and talk conformably, it is all truth, all certainty.
Such castles in the air will be as strongholds of truth, as the
demonstrations of Euclid. That an harpy is not a centaur is by this
way as certain knowledge, and as much a truth, as that a square is not
a circle."Chapter V
Of Truth in General
First, mental, wherein the ideas in our understandings are without
the use of words put together, or separated, by the mind perceiving or
judging of their agreement or disagreement.
Secondly, Verbal propositions, which are words, the signs of our
ideas, put together or separated in affirmative or negative sentences.
By which way of affirming or denying, these signs, made by sounds,
are, as it were, put together or separated one from another. So that
proposition consists in joining or separating signs; and truth
consists in the putting together or separating those signs,
according as the things which they stand for agree or disagree.
I shall begin with general propositions, as those which most
employ our thoughts, and exercise our contemplation. General truths
are most looked after by the mind as those that most enlarge our
knowledge; and by their comprehensiveness satisfying us at once of
many particulars, enlarge our view, and shorten our way to knowledge.Chapter VI
Of Universal Propositions: their Truth and Certainty