rational, may make several undoubted propositions about the soul, without knowing at all what the soul really is: and of this sort, a man may find an infinite number of propositions, reasonings, and conclusions, in books of metaphysics, school-divinity, and some sort of natural philosophy; and, after all, know as little of God, spirits, or bodies, as he did before he set out. §. 10. He that hath liberty to define, i. e. And why. to determine the signification of his names of substances, (as certainly every one does in effect who makes them stand for his own ideas,) and makes their significations at a venture, taking them from his own or other men's fancies, and not from an examination or inquiry into the nature of things themselves; may, with little trouble, demonstrate them one of another, according to those several respects and mutual relations he has given them one to another; wherein, however things agree or disagree in their own nature, he needs mind nothing but his own notions, with the names he hath bestowed upon them: but thereby no more increases his own knowledge, than he does his riches, who, taking a bag of counters, calls one in a certain place a pound, another in another place a shilling, and a third in a third place a penny; and so proceeding, may undoubtedly reckon right, and cast up a great sum, according to his counters so placed, and standing for more or less as he pleases, without being one jot the richer, or without even knowing how much a pound, shilling, or penny is, but only that one is contained in the other twenty times, and contains the other twelve; which a man may also do in the signification of words, by making them, in respect of one another, more, or less, or equally comprehensive. Thirdly, §. 11. Though yet concerning most words using words used in discourses, equally argumentative variously is and controversial, there is this more to be trifling with complained of, which is the worst sort of them. trifling, and which sets us yet farther from the certainty of knowledge we hope to attain by them, or find in them; viz. that most writers are so far from instructing us in the nature and knowledge of things, that they use their words loosely and uncertainly, and do not, by using them constantly and steadily in the same significations, make plain and clear deductions of words one from another, and make their discourses coherent and clear, (how little soever they were instructive,) which were not difficult to do, did they not find it convenient to shelter their ignorance or obstinacy, under the obscurity and perplexedness of their terms: to which, perhaps, inadvertency and ill custom do in many men much contribute. verbal pro §. 12. To conclude: barely verbal pro- Marks of positions may be known by these following marks: positions. First, all propositions, wherein two ab- 1. Predica stract terms are affirmed one of another, are tion in abbarely about the signification of sounds. For stract. since no abstract idea can be the same with any other but itself, when its abstract name is affirmed of any other term, it can signify no more but this, that it may or ought to be called by that name, or that these two names signify the same idea. Thus should any one say, that parsimony is frugality, that gratitude is justice, that this or that action is or is not temperate; however specious these and the like propositions may at first sight seem, yet when we come to press them, and examine nicely what they contain, we shall find that it all amounts to nothing but the signification of those terms. §. 13. Secondly, all propositions wherein 2. A part of a part of the complex idea, which any term the definition stands for, is predicated of that term, are predicated of only verbal; v. g. to say that gold is a metal any terni. or heavy. And thus all propositions, wherein more comprehensive words, called genera, are affirmed of subordinate or less comprehensive, called species, or individuals, are barely verbal. When by these two rules we have examined the propositions that make up the discourses we ordinarily meet with both in and out of books, we shall, perhaps, find that a greater part of them, than is usually suspected, are purely about the signification of words, and contain no❤ thing in them, but the use and application of these signs, This, I think, I may lay down for an infallible rule, that wherever the distinct idea any word stands for is not known and considered, and something not contained in the idea is not affirmed or denied of it; there our thoughts stick wholly in sounds, and are able to attain no real truth or falsehood. This, perhaps, if well heeded, might save us a great deal of useless amusement and dispute, and very much shorten our trouble and wandering, in the search of real and true knowledge. General cer CHAP. IX. Of our Knowledge of Existence. 6. 1. HITHERTO we have only consi tain proposi- sidered the essences of things, which being tions concern only abstract ideas, and thereby removed not existence. in our thoughts from particular existence, (that being the proper operation of the mind, in abstraction, to consider an idea under no other existence, but what it has in the understanding,) gives us no knowledge of real existence at all. Where by the way we may take notice that universal propositions, of whose truth or falsehood we can have certain knowledge, concern not existence; and farther, that all particular affirmations or negations, that would not be certain if they were made general, are only concerning existence; they declaring only the accidental union or separation of ideas in things existing, which, in their abstract natures, have no known necessary union or repugnancy. §. 2. But leaving the nature of proposiA threefold tions and different ways of predication to be considered more at large in another place, knowledge of existence. let us proceed now to inquire concerning our knowledge of the existence of things, and how we come by it. I say then, that we have the knowledge of our own existence by intuition; of the existence of God by demonstration; and of other things by sensation. §. 3. As for our own existence, we per- Our knowceive it so plainly, and so certainly, that it ledge of our neither needs nor is capable of any proof. own existence For nothing can be more evident to us, than is intuitive. our own existence; I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain: can any of these be more evident to me, than my own existence; if I doubt of all other things, that very doubt makes me perceive my own existence, and will not suffer me to doubt of that. For if I know I feel pain, it is evident I have as certain perception of my own existence, as of the existence of the pain I feel: or if I know I doubt, I have as certain perception of the existence of the thing doubting, as of that thought which I call doubt. Experience then convinces us, that we have an intuitive knowledge of our own existence, and an internal infallible perception that we are. every act of sensation, reasoning, or thinking, we are conscious of ourselves of our own being; and, in this matter, come not short of the highest degree of certainty. In CHAP. X. Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God. We are ca God. §. 1. THOUGH God has given us no innate ideas of himself; though he has pable of stamped no original characters on our knowing cer◄ minds, wherein we may read his being; tainly that yet having furnished us with those faculties there is a our minds are endowed with, he hath not left himself without witness: since we have sense, perception, and reason, and cannot want a clear proof of him, as long as we carry ourselves about us. Nor can we justly complain of our ignorance in this great point, since he has so plentifully provided us with the means to discover and know him, so far as is necessary to the end of our being, and the great concernment of our happiness. But though this be the most obvious truth that reason discovers; and though its evidence be (if I mistake not) equal to mathematical certainty: yet it requires thought and attention, and the mind must apply itself to a regular deduction of it from some part of our intuitive knowledge, or else we shall be as uncertain and ignorant of this as of other propositions, which are in themselves capable of clear demonstration. To show therefore that we are capable of knowing, i. e. being certain that there is a God, and how we may come by this certainty, I think we need go no farther than ourselves, and that undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence. Man knows that he himself is. §. 2. I think it is beyond question, that man has a clear idea of his own being; he knows certainly he exists, and that he is something. He that can doubt, whether he be any thing or no, I speak not to; no more than I would argue with pure nothing, or endeavour to convince non-entity, that it were something. If any one pretends to be so sceptical, as to deny his own existence, (for really to doubt of it is manifestly impossible,) let him for me enjoy his beloved happiness of being nothing, until hunger, or some other pain, convince him of the contrary. This then, I think, I may take for a truth, which every one's certain knowledge assures him of, beyond the liberty of doubting, viz. that he is something that actually exists. He knows ing, there fore something eter nal. §. 3. In the next place, man knows by also that no- an intuitive certainty, that bare nothing can thing cannot no more produce any real being, than it can produce a be- be equal to two right angles. If a man knows not that non-entity, or the absence of all being, cannot be equal to two right angles, it is impossible he should know any demonstration in Euclid. If therefore we know there is some real being, and that non-entity cannot produce any real being, it is an evident demonstration, that from eternity there has been something; since what was not from eternity had a beginning; and what had a beginning must be produced by something else. |