trivance of that famous clock at Strafburgh, whereof he only fees the outward figure and motions. There is not fo contemptible a plant or animal, that does not confound the most enlarged understanding. Though the familiar use of things about us take off our wonder; yet it cures not our ignorance. When we come to examine the ftones we tread on, or the iron we daily handle, we presently find we know not their make, and can give no reason of the different qualities we find in them. It is evident the internal conftitution, whereon their properties depend, is unknown to us.. For to go no farther than the groffeft and most obvious we can imagine amongst them, what is that texture of parts, that real effence, that makes lead and antimony fufible; wood and ftones not? What makes lead and iron malleable, antimony and stones not? And yet how infinitely these come fhort of the fine contrivances, and unconceivable real effences of plants or animals, every one knows. The workmanship of the all-wife and powerful God, in the great fabric of the univerfe, and every part thereof, farther exceeds the capacity and comprehension of the most inquifitive and intelligent man, than the best contrivance of the moft ingenious man doth the conceptions of the most ignorant of rational creatures. Therefore we in vain pretend to range things into forts, and difpofe them into certain claffes, under names, by their real effences, that are fo far from our discovery or comprehenfion. A blind man may as foon fort things by their colours, and he that has loft his fmell, as well diftinguish a lily and a rofe by their odours, as by those internal conftitutions which he knows not. that thinks he can diftinguifh fheep and goats by their real effences, that are unknown to him, may be pleased to try his skill in thofe fpecies, called caffiowary and querechinchio; and by their internal real effences determine the boundaries of those species, without knowing the complex idea of fenfible qualities, that each of thofe names ftand for, in the countries where those animals are to be found.

7

He

§. 10,

Not fubftan tial forms, know lefs,

which we

§. 10. Those therefore who have been taught, that the feveral fpecies of fubftances had their diftinct internal fubftantial forms; and that it was thofe forms which made the distinction of fubftances into their true fpecies and genera; were led yet farther out of the way, by having their minds fet upon fruitless inquiries after: fubftantial forms, wholly unintelligible, and whereof we have scarce fo much as any obfcure or confused conception in general.

That the nominal effence by we diftin guish fpecies, farther evident from fpirits.

is that where

§. 11. That our ranking and diftinguishing natural fubftances into fpecies, confifts in the nominal effences the mind makes, and not in the real effences to be found in the things themfelves, is farther evident from our ideas of fpirits. For the mind getting, only by reflecting on its own operations, thofe fimple ideas which it attributes to spirits, it hath, or can have no other notion of fpirit, but by attributing all thofe operations, it finds in itfelf, to a fort of beings, without confideration of matter. And even the most advanced notion we have of God is but attributing the fame fimple ideas which we have got from reflection on what we find in ourfelves, and which we conceive to have more perfection in them, than would be in their abfence; attributing, I fay, those fimple ideas to him in an unlimited degree. Thus having got, from reflecting on ourselves, the idea of exiftence, knowledge, power, and pleasure, each of which we find it better to have than to want; and the more we have of each, the better: joining all these together, with infinity to each of them, we have the complex idea of an eternal, omnifcient, omnipotent, infinitely wife and happy Being. And though we are told, that there are different fpecies of angels; yet we know not how to frame diftinct fpecific ideas of them: not out of any conceit that the existence of more fpecies than one of fpirits is impoffible, but because having no more fimple ideas (nor being able to frame more) applicable to fuch beings, but only thofe few taken from ourfelves, and from the actions of our own minds in VOL. I. thinking,

I i

thinking, and being delighted, and moving feveral parts of our bodies, we can no otherwife diftinguish in our conceptions the feveral fpecies of fpirits one from another, but by attributing thofe operations and powers, we find in ourfelves, to them in a higher or lower degree; and fo have no very diftinct fpecific ideas of fpirits, except only of God, to whom we attribute both duration, and all thofe other ideas with infinity; to the other fpirits, with limitation. Nor as I humbly conceive do we, between God and them in our ideas, put any difference by any number of fimple ideas, which we have of one, and not of the other, but only that of infinity. All the particular ideas of existence, knowledge, will, power, and motion, &c. being ideas derived from the operations of our minds, we attribute all of them to all forts of fpirits, with the difference only of degrees, to the utmost we can imagine, even infinity, when we would frame, as well as we can, an idea of the firft being; who yet, it is certain, is infinitely more remote, in the real excellency of his nature, from the higheft and perfecteft of all created beings, than the greatest man, nay pureft seraph, is from the most contemptible part of matter; and confequently muft infinitely exceed what our narrow understandings can conceive of him.

Whereof

there are probably numberlefs fpe

cies.

§. 12. It is not impoffible to conceive, nor repugnant to reafon, that there may be many fpecies of fpirits, as much feparated and diverfified one from another by diftinct properties whereof we have no ideas, as the fpecies of fenfible things are diftinguished one from another by qualities which we know, and obferve in them. That there fhould be more fpecies of intelligent creatures above us, than there are of fenfible and material below us, is probable to me from hence; that in all the vifible corporeal world, we fee no chasms or gaps. All quite down from us the descent is by easy fteps, and a continued feries of things, that in each remove differ very little one from the other. There are fishes that have wings, and are not ftrangers to the airy region; and there are fome birds that are inhabi

2

tants

tants of the water, whofe blood is cold as fishes, and their flesh fo like in tafte, that the fcrupulous are allowed them on fish-days. There are animals fo near of kin both to birds and beafts, that they are in the middle between both: amphibious animals link the terrestrial and aquatic together; feals live at land and fea, and porpoifes have the warm blood and entrails of a hog, not to mention what is confidently reported of mermaids or fea-men. There are fome brutes, that feem to have as much knowledge and reafon, as fome that are called men; and the animal and vegetable kingdoms are so nearly joined, that if you will take the lowest of one, and the highest of the other, there will fcarce be perceived any great difference between them; and fo on, till we come to the loweft and the moft inorganical parts of matter, we fhall find every-where, that the several species are linked together, and differ but in almost infenfible degrees. And when we confider the infinite power and wisdom of the Maker, we have reason to think, that it is fuitable to the magnificent harmony of the univerfe, and the great defign and infinite goodnefs of the architect, that the fpecies of creatures fhould alfo, by gentle dégrees, afcend upward from us toward his infinite perfection, as we fee they gradually defcend from us downwards: which if it be probable, we have reafon then to be perfuaded, that there are far more fpecies of creatures above us, than there are beneath: we being, in degrees of perfection, much more remote from the infinite being of God, than we are from the lowest state of being, and that which approaches nearest to nothing. And yet of all thofe diftinct fpecies, for the reasons abovesaid, we have no clear diftinct ideas.

§. 13. But to return to the fpecies of corporeal fubftances. If I fhould ask any one, whether ice and water were two diftinct fpecies of things, I doubt not but I fhould be answered in the affirmative: and it cannot be denied, but he that fays they are two diftinct fpecies is in the right. Englishman, bred in Jamaica, who perhaps Ii2

The nominal

effence that

of the fpecies, proved from water and ice.

But if an had never

feen

feen nor heard of ice, coming into England in the winter, find the water, he put in his bafon at night, in a great part frozen in the morning, and not knowing any peculiar name it had, fhould call it hardened water; I afk, whether this would be a new fpecies to him different from water? And, I think, it would be, anfwered here, it would not be to him a new fpecies, no more than congealed jelly, when it is cold, is a distinct fpecies from the fame jelly fluid and warm; or than liquid gold, in the furnace, is a distinct fpecies from hard gold in the hands of a workman. And if this be fo, it is plain, that our diftinct fpecies are nothing but distinct complex ideas, with distinct names annexed to them. It is true, every substance that exists has its peculiar conftitution, whereon depend thofe fenfible qualities and powers we obferve in it; but the ranking of things into fpecies, which is nothing but forting them under feveral titles, is done by us according to the ideas that we have of them: which though fufficient to diftinguish them by names, fo that we may be able to difcourfe of them, when we have them not prefent before us; yet if we fuppofe it to be done by their real internal constitutions, and that things existing are distinguished by nature into fpecies, by real effences, according as we diftinguish them into fpecies by names, we shall be liable to great mistakes.

Difficulties against a certain number of real ef fences.

§. 14. To diftinguish substantial beings into fpecies, according to the ufual fuppofition, that there are certain precife effences or forms of things, whereby all the individuals exifting are by nature diftinguished into species, these things are neceffary.

§. 15. First, To be affured that nature, in the production of things, always defigns them to partake of certain regulated established effences, which are to be the models of all things to be produced. This, in that crude fense it is ufually propofed, would need fome better explication before it can fully be affented to.

§. 16. Secondly, It would be neceffary to know whether nature always attains that effence it defigns in the production of things. The irregular and monftrous

births,