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 so thought.-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. 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 and find ways to measure their just equality, or the least differences. For those other simple ideas being appearances or 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 all of 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 insensible 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. 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 greater number are reflected, as is evident in the same piece of paper put in the sun-beams, 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. 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 fails 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 of 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 particular existence.-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 any thing more than barely that idea in our minds, whether we can thence certainly infer the existence of any thing 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 an idea revived in our minds by our own memory, and actually coming in 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: First, That it is no great matter, whether I remove this scruple, or no where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use; truth and knowledge nothing. Secondly, 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 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 certainly 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 are so.-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 cer

tain.

CHAP. III.

OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Knowledge, as has been said, lying in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, it follows from hence, that,

First, no farther than we have ideas.-First, We can have knowledge no farther than we have ideas.

§2. Secondly, no farther than we can perceive their agreement or disagreement. Secondly, That we can have no knowledge farther than we can have perception of their 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. Thirdly, 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. Fourthly, nor 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. Fifthly, sensitive knowledge narrower than either.-Fifthly, Sensitive knowledge reaching no farther than the existence of things. actually present to our senses, is yet much narrower than either of the former.

§ 6. Sixthly, 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 which 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 farther than it hitherto has 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,*

Against that assertion of Mr. Locke, that "possibly we shall never be able to know, whether any mere material being think or no," &c. the Bishop of Worcester argues thus >

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 "If this be true, then, for all that we can know by our ideas of matter and thinking, matter may have a power of thinking: and, if this hold, then it is impossible to prove a spiritual substance in us from the idea of thinking: for how can we be assured by our ideas, that God hath not given such a power of thinking to matter so disposed as our bodies are? especially since it is said,a That, in respect of our notions, it is not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to our idea of matter a faculty of thinking, than that he should superadd to it another substance, with a faculty of thinking.' Whoever asserts this, can never prove a spiritual substance in us from a faculty of thinking, because he cannot know, from the idea of matter and thinking, that matter so disposed cannot think: and he cannot be certain, that God hath not framed the matter of our bodies so as to be capable of it."

To which Mr. Lockeb answers thus: "Here your lordship argues, that upon my principles it cannot be proved that there is a spiritual substance in us. To which, give me leave, with submission, to say, that I think it may be proved from my principles, and I think I have done it; and the proof in my book stands thus: First, we experiment in ourselves thinking. The idea of this action, or mode of thinking, is inconsistent with the idea of self-subsistence, and, therefore, has a necessary connexion with a support or subject of inhesion: the idea of that support is what we call substance; and so from thinking experimented in us, we have a proof of a thinking substance in us, which in my sense is a spirit. Against this your lordship will argue, that, by what I have said of the possibility that God may, if he pleases, superadd to matter a faculty of thinking, it can never be proved that there is a spiritual substance in us, because, upon that supposition, it is possible it may be a material substance that thinks in us. I grant it; but add, that the general idea of substance being the same every where, the modification of thinking, or the power of thinking, joined to it, makes it a spirit, without considering what other modifications it has, as whether it has the modification of solidity or no. As, on the other side, substance, that has the modification of solidity, is matter, whether it has the modification of thinking, or no. And, therefore, if your lordship means by a spiritual, an immaterial, substance, I grant I have not proved, nor upon my principles can it be proved (your lordship meaning, as I think you do, demonstratively proved), that there is an immaterial substance in us that thinks. Though, I presume, from what I have said about this supposition of a system of matter, thinkinge (which there demonstrates that God is immaterial), will prove it in the highest degree probable, that the thinking substance in us is immaterial. But your lordship thinks not probably enough, and by charging the want of demonstration upon my principle, that the thinking thing in us is immaterial, your lordship seems to conclude it demonstrable from principles of philosophy. The demonstration I should with joy receive from your lordship, or any one. For though all the great ends of morality or religion are well enough secured without it, as I have shewn,d yet it would be a great advance of our knowledge in nature and philosophy.

To what I have said in my book, to shew that all the great ends of religion and morality are secured barely by the immortality of the soul, without a necessary supposition that the soul is immaterial, I crave leave to add, that immortality may, and shall be, annexed to that, which in its own nature is neither immaterial nor immortal, as the apostle expressly declares in these words, For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.'

"Perhaps my using the word spirit for a thinking substance, without excluding materiality out of it, will be thought too great a liberty, and such as deserves censure, because I leave iminateriality out of the idea I make it a sign of. I readily own, that words should be sparingly ventured on in a sense wholly new; and nothing but absolute necessity can excuse the boldness of using any term in a sense whereof we can produce no example. But, in the present case, I think I have great authorities to justify me. The soul is agreed, on all hands, to be that in us which thinks. And he that will look into the book of Cicero's Tusculan Questions, and into the sixth book of Virgil's Æneid, will find that these two great men, who, of all the Romans, best understood philosophy, thought, or at least did not deny, the soul to be a subtile matter, which might come under the name of aura, or ignis, or ather; and this soul, they both of them called spiritus: in the notion of which, it is plain, they included only thought and active motion, without the total exclusion of matter. Whether they thought right in this, I do not say; that is not the question; but whether they spoke properly, when they called an active, thinking, subtile substance, out of which they excluded Essay on Human Understanding, b. 4. c. 3. § 6. In his first letter to the Bishop of Worcester. d B. 4. c. 3. § 6.

c B. 4. c. 10. § 16. 1 Cor. xv. 53.