dissent, are often voluntary acti os: but where the proofs are such as make it highly probable, and there is not sufficient ground to suspect that there is either fallacy of words (which sober and serious consideration may discover), nor equally valid proofs yet undiscovered latent on the other side (which also the nature of the thing, may, in some cases, make plain to a considerate man), there, I think, a man, who has weighed them, can scarce refuse his assent to the side on which the greater probability appears. Whether it be probable, that a promiscuous jumble of printing letters should often fall into a method and order, which should stamp on paper a coherent discourse; or that a blind fortuitous concourse of atoms, not guided by an understanding agent, should frequently constitute the bodies of any species of animals in these and the like cases, I think nobody that considers them, can be one jot at a stand, which side to take, nor at all waver in his assent, Lastly, when there can be no supposition (the thing in its own nature indifferent, and wholly depending upon the testimony of witnesses), that there is as fair testimony against, as for, the matter of fact attested; which by enquiry is to be learned, v. g. whether there was seventeen hundred years ago, such a man at Rome as Julius Cæsar; in all such cases, I say, I think it is not in any rational man's power to refuse his assent; but that it necessarily follows, and closes with such probabilities. In other less clear cases, I think it is in man's power to suspend his assent; and perhaps content himself with the proofs he has, if they favour the opinion that suits with his inclination or interest, and so stop from farther search. But that a man should afford his assent to that side on which the less probability appears to him, seems to me utterly impracticable, and as impossible as it is to believe the same thing probable and improbable at the same time.

§. 16. Where it is in our power to suspend it.—As knowledge is no more arbitrary than perception; so, I think, assent is no more in our power than knowledge. When the agreement of any two ideas appears to our minds, whether immediately, or by the assistance of reason, I can no more refuse to perceive, no more avoid knowing, it, than I can avoid seeing those objects which I turn my eyes to, and look on, in daylight: and what, upon full examination, I find the most probable, I cannot deny my assent to. But though we cannot hinder our knowledge, where the agreement is once perceived; nor our assent, where the probability manifestly appears upon due consideration of all the measures of it; yet we can hinder both knowledge and

assent, by stopping our enquiry, and not employing our faculties in the search of any truth. If it were not so, ignorance, error, or infidelity, could not in any case be a fault. Thus in some cases we can prevent or suspend our assent: but can a man, versed in modern or ancient history, doubt whether there is such a place as Rome, or whether there was such a man as Julius Cæsar? Indeed, there are millions of truths, that a man is not, or may not, think himself concerned to know; as whether our King Richard the Third was crooked, or no? or whether Roger Bacon was a mathematician, or a magician? In these, and such like cases, where the assent, one way or other, is of no importance to the interest of any one; no action, no concernment, of his following or depending thereon; there it is not strange that the mind should give itself up to the common opinion, or render itself to the first comer. These and the like opinions, are of so little weight and moment, that, like motes in the sun, their tendencies are very rarely taken notice of. They are there, as it were, by chance, and the mind lets them float at liberty. But where the mind judges that the proposition has concernment in it; where the assent or not assenting is thought to draw consequences of moment after it; and good and evil to depend on choosing or refusing the right side, and the mind sets itself seriously to enquire, and examine, the probability; there, I think, it is not in our choice to take which side we please, if manifest odds appear on either. The greater probability, I think, in that case, will determine the assent; and a man can no more avoid assenting, or taking it to be true, where he perceives the greater probability, than he can avoid knowing it to be true, where he perceives the agreement or disagreement of any two ideas.

If this be so, the foundation of error will lie in wrong measures of probability; as the foundation of vice in wrong measures of good.

§. 17. Fourthly, authority. — The fourth and last wrong measure of probability I shall take notice of, and which keeps in ignorance or error more people than all the other together, is that which I mentioned in the foregoing chapter; I mean, the giving up our assent to the common received opinions, either of our friends or party, neighbourhood or country. How many men have not other ground for their tenets, than the supposed honesty, or learning, or number of those of the same profession? As if honest or bookish men could not err; or truth were to be established by the vote of the multitude; yet this, with most men, serves the turn. The tenet has had the attestation of reverend antiquity; it comes to

me with the passport of former ages, and therefore I am secure in the reception I give it; other men have been, and are, of the same opinion (for that is all is said), and therefore it is reasonable for me to embrace it. A man may more justifiably throw up cross and pile for his opinions, than take them up by such measures. All men are liable to error, and most men are, in many points, by passion or interest, under temptation to it. If we could but see the secret motives that influenced the men of name and learning in the world, and the leaders of parties, we should not always find, that it was the embracing of truth for its own sake, that made them espouse the doctrines they owned and maintained. This, at least, is certain; there is not an opinion so absurd, which a man may not receive upon this ground. There is no error to be named, which has not had its professors; and a man shall never want crooked paths to walk in, if he thinks that he is in the right way, wherever he has the footsteps of others to follow.

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§. 18. Men not in so many errors as imagined.-But notwithstanding the great noise made in the world about errors and opinions, I must do mankind that right, as to say, there are not so many men in errors, and wrong opinions, as is commonly supposed. Not that I think they embrace the truth; but, indeed, because concerning those doctrines they keep such a stir about, they have no thought, no opinion, at all. For if any one should a little catechise the greatest part of the partizans of most of the sects in the world, he would not find, concerning those matters they are so zealous for, that they have any opinions of their own much less would he have reason to think, that they took them upon the examination of arguments, and appearance of probability. They are resolved to stick to a party that education or interest has engaged them in; and there, like the common soldiers of an army, show their courage and warmth as their leaders direct, without ever examining, or so much as knowing, the cause they contend for. If a man's life shows that he has no serious regard for religion; for what reason should we think, that he beats his head about the opinions of his church, and troubles himself to examine the grounds of this or that doctrine? It is enough for him to obey his leaders, to have his hand and his tongue ready for the support of the common cause, and thereby approve himself to those who can give him credit, preferment, or protection, in that society. Thus men become professors of, and combatants for, those opinions they were never convinced of, nor proselytes to; no, nor ever had so much as floating in their heads: and though one cannot say there are fewer improbable or erroneous opinions in the world

than there are, yet this is certain, there are fewer that actually assent to them, and mistake them for truths, than is imagined.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF THE DIVISION OF THE SCIENCES.

§. 1. Three sorts. All that can fall within the compass of human understanding, being either, First, The nature of things, as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation or, Secondly, That which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness: or, Thirdly, The ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated: I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts.

§. 2. First, physica.—First, The knowledge of things, as they are in their own proper beings, their constitution, properties, and operations, whereby I mean not only matter and body, but spirits also, which have their proper natures, constitutions, and operations, as well as bodies. This, in a little more enlarged sense of the word, I call qurinn, or natural philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth; and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such, falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections, as number and figure, &c.

§. 3. Secondly, practica.-Secondly, Пpaxlxn, the skill of right applying our own powers and actions, for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this, head, is ethics, which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions, which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this, is not bare speculation, and the knowledge of truth; but right, and a conduct suitable to it.

§. 14. Thirdly, Enrix. The third branch may be called Enμwrixn, or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Aoyxn, logic; the business whereof is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others. For since the things the mind contemplates, are none of them, besides itself, present to the understanding, it is necessary that something else, as a sign or representation of the thing it considers, should be present to it and these are ideas. And because the scene of ideas that makes

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one man's thoughts, cannot be laid open to the immediate view of another, nor laid up any where but in the memory, a no very sure repository; therefore, to communicate our thoughts to one another, as well as record them for our own use, signs of our ideas are also necessary. Those which men have found most convenient, and therefore generally make use of, are articulate sounds. The consideration then of ideas and words, as the great instruments of knowledge, makes no despicable part of their contemplation, who would take a view of human knowledge in the whole extent of it. And perhaps if they were distinctly weighed, and duly considered, they would afford us another sort of logic and critic, than what we have been hitherto acquainted with..

§. 5. This is the first division of the objects of knowledge.This seems to me the first and most general, as well as natural, division of the objects of our understanding. For a man can employ his thoughts about nothing, but either the contemplation of things themselves, for the discovery of truth; or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own' ends; or the signs the mind makes use of, both in the one and the other, and the right ordering of them for its clearer information. All which three, viz., things as they are in themselves knowable; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness; and the right use of signs in order to knowledge, being toto cœlo different, they seemed to me to be the three great provinces of the intellectual world, wholly separate and distinct one from another.

FINIS.