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81. You will reply, perhaps, that in the fore-said definition is included
what doth sufficiently distinguish it from nothing--the positive abstract
idea of quiddity, entity, or existence. I own, indeed, that those who
pretend to the faculty of framing abstract general ideas do talk as if
they had such an idea, which is, say they, the most abstract and general
notion of all; that is, to me, the most incomprehensible of all others.
That there are a great variety of spirits of different orders and
capacities, whose faculties both in number and extent are far exceeding
those the Author of my being has bestowed on me, I see no reason to deny.
And for me to pretend to determine by my own few, stinted narrow inlets
of perception, what ideas the inexhaustible power of the Supreme Spirit
may imprint upon them were certainly the utmost folly and
presumption--since there may be, for aught that I know, innumerable sorts
of ideas or sensations, as different from one another, and from all that
I have perceived, as colours are from sounds. But, how ready soever I may
be to acknowledge the scantiness of my comprehension with regard to the
endless variety of spirits and ideas that may possibly exist, yet for any
one to pretend to a notion of Entity or Existence, abstracted from spirit
and idea, from perceived and being perceived, is, I suspect, a downright
repugnancy and trifling with words.--It remains that we consider the
objections which may possibly be made on the part of Religion.

82. OBJECTIONS DERIVED FROM THE SCRIPTURES ANSWERED.--Some there are
who think that, though the arguments for the real existence of
bodies which are drawn from Reason be allowed not to amount to
demonstration, yet the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the point as
will sufficiently convince every good Christian that bodies do really
exist, and are something more than mere ideas; there being in Holy Writ
innumerable facts related which evidently suppose the reality of timber
and stone, mountains and rivers, and cities, and human bodies. To which I
answer that no sort of writings whatever, sacred or profane, which use
those and the like words in the vulgar acceptation, or so as to have a
meaning in them, are in danger of having their truth called in question
by our doctrine. That all those things do really exist, that there are
bodies, even corporeal substances, when taken in the vulgar sense, has
been shown to be agreeable to our principles; and the difference betwixt
things and ideas, realities and chimeras, has been distinctly explained.
See sect. 29, 30, 33, 36, &c. And I do not think that either what
philosophers call Matter, or the existence of objects without the mind,
is anywhere mentioned in Scripture.

83. NO OBJECTION AS TO LANGUAGE TENABLE.--Again, whether there can
be or be not external things, it is agreed on all hands that the
proper use of words is the marking our conceptions, or things only
as they are known and perceived by us; whence it plainly follows
that in the tenets we have laid down there is nothing inconsistent
with the right use and significancy of language, and that discourse,
of what kind soever, so far as it is intelligible, remains undisturbed.
But all this seems so manifest, from what has been largely set forth
in the premises, that it is needless to insist any farther on it.

84. But, secondly it will be urged that miracles do, at least, lose much
of their stress and import by our principles. What must we think of Moses'
rod? was it not really turned into a serpent; or was there only a change
of ideas in the minds of the spectators? And, can it be supposed that our
Saviour did no more at the marriage-feast in Cana than impose on the
sight, and smell, and taste of the guests, so as to create in them the
appearance or idea only of wine? The same may be said of all other
miracles; which, in consequence of the foregoing principles, must be
looked upon only as so many cheats, or illusions of fancy. To this I
reply, that the rod was changed into a real serpent, and the water into
real wine. That this does not in the least contradict what I have
elsewhere said will be evident from sect. 34 and 35. But this business of
real and imaginary has been already so plainly and fully explained, and
so often referred to, and the difficulties about it are so easily
answered from what has gone before, that it were an affront to the
reader's understanding to resume the explication of it in its place. I
shall only observe that if at table all who were present should see, and
smell, and taste, and drink wine, and find the effects of it, with me
there could be no doubt of its reality; so that at bottom the scruple
concerning real miracles has no place at all on ours, but only on the
received principles, and consequently makes rather for than against what
has been said.

85. CONSEQUENCES OF THE PRECEDING TENETS.--Having done with the
Objections, which I endeavoured to propose in the clearest light,
and gave them all the force and weight I could, we proceed in the
next place to take a view of our tenets in their Consequences.
Some of these appear at first sight--as that several difficult and
obscure questions, on which abundance of speculation has been
thrown away, are entirely banished from philosophy. "Whether
corporeal substance can think," "whether Matter be infinitely divisible,"
and "how it operates on spirit"--these and like inquiries have given
infinite amusement to philosophers in all ages; but depending on the
existence of Matter, they have no longer any place on our principles.
Many other advantages there are, as well with regard to religion as the
sciences, which it is easy for any one to deduce from what has been
premised; but this will appear more plainly in the sequel.

86. THE REMOVAL OF MATTER GIVES CERTAINTY TO KNOWLEDGE.--From the
principles we have laid down it follows human knowledge may naturally
be reduced to two heads--that of ideas and that of spirits. Of each
of these I shall treat in order.

And first as to ideas or unthinking things. Our knowledge of these has
been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very
dangerous errors, by supposing a twofold existence of the objects of
sense--the one intelligible or in the mind, the other real and without
the mind; whereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural
subsistence of their own distinct from being perceived by spirits. This,
which, if I mistake not, has been shown to be a most groundless and
absurd notion, is the very root of Scepticism; for, so long as men
thought that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their
knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real
things, it follows they could not be certain they had any real knowledge
at all. For how can it be known that the things which are perceived are
conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the mind?

87. Colour, figure, motion, extension, and the like, considered only as
so many sensations in the mind, are perfectly known, there being nothing
in them which is not perceived. But, if they are looked on as notes or
images, referred to things or archetypes existing without the mind, then
are we involved all in scepticism. We see only the appearances, and not
the real qualities of things. What may be the extension, figure, or
motion of anything really and absolutely, or in itself, it is impossible
for us to know, but only the proportion or relation they bear to our
senses. Things remaining the same, our ideas vary, and which of them, or
even whether any of them at all, represent the true quality really
existing in the thing, it is out of our reach to determine. So that, for
aught we know, all we see, hear, and feel may be only phantom and vain
chimera, and not at all agree with the real things existing in rerum
natura. All this scepticism follows from our supposing a difference
between things and ideas, and that the former have a subsistence without
the mind or unperceived. It were easy to dilate on this subject, and show
how the arguments urged by sceptics in all ages depend on the supposition
of external objects.

88. IF THERE BE EXTERNAL MATTER, NEITHER THE NATURE NOR EXISTENCE
OF THINGS CAN BE KNOWN.--So long as we attribute a real existence to
unthinking things, distinct from their being perceived, it is not
only impossible for us to know with evidence the nature of any real
unthinking being, but even that it exists. Hence it is that we see
philosophers distrust their senses, and doubt of the existence of
heaven and earth, of everything they see or feel, even of their own
bodies. And, after all their labour and struggle of thought, they
are forced to own we cannot attain to any self-evident or demonstrative
knowledge of the existence of sensible things. But, all this doubtfulness,
which so bewilders and confounds the mind and makes philosophy
ridiculous in the eyes of the world, vanishes if we annex a meaning
to our words. and not amuse ourselves with the terms "absolute,"
"external," "exist, "and such-like, signifying we know not what. I can as
well doubt of my own being as of the being of those things which I
actually perceive by sense; it being a manifest contradiction that any
sensible object should be immediately perceived by sight or touch, and at
the same time have no existence in nature, since the very existence of an
unthinking being consists in being perceived.

89. OF THING OR BEING.--Nothing seems of more importance towards
erecting a firm system of sound and real knowledge, which may be
proof against the assaults of Scepticism, than to lay the beginning
in a distinct explication of what is meant by thing, reality,
existence; for in vain shall we dispute concerning the real existence
of things, or pretend to any knowledge thereof, so long as we have
not fixed the meaning of those words. Thing or Being is the most
general name of all; it comprehends under it two kinds entirely
distinct and heterogeneous, and which have nothing common but the
name. viz. spirits and ideas. The former are active, indivisible
substances: the latter are inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which
subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in minds or
spiritual substances. We comprehend our own existence by inward feeling
or reflexion, and that of other spirits by reason. We may be said to have
some knowledge or notion of our own minds, of spirits and active beings,
whereof in a strict sense we have not ideas. In like manner, we know and
have a notion of relations between things or ideas--which relations are
distinct from the ideas or things related, inasmuch as the latter may be
perceived by us without our perceiving the former. To me it seems that
ideas, spirits, and relations are all in their respective kinds the
object of human knowledge and subject of discourse; and that the term
idea would be improperly extended to signify everything we know or have
any notion of.

90. EXTERNAL THINGS EITHER IMPRINTED BY OR PERCEIVED BY SOME OTHER MIND.--
Ideas imprinted on the senses are real things, or do really exist;
this we do not deny, but we deny they can subsist without the minds which
perceive them, or that they are resemblances of any archetypes existing
without the mind; since the very being of a sensation or idea consists in
being perceived, and an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Again, the
things perceived by sense may be termed external, with regard to their
origin--in that they are not generated from within by the mind itself,
but imprinted by a Spirit distinct from that which perceives them.
Sensible objects may likewise be said to be "without the mind" in another
sense, namely when they exist in some other mind; thus, when I shut my
eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in another mind.

91. SENSIBLE QUALITIES REAL.--It were a mistake to think that what
is here said derogates in the least from the reality of things.
It is acknowledged, on the received principles, that extension,
motion, and in a word all sensible qualities have need of a support,
as not being able to subsist by themselves. But the objects perceived
by sense are allowed to be nothing but combinations of those qualities,
and consequently cannot subsist by themselves. Thus far it is agreed
on all hand. So that in denying the things perceived by sense an
existence independent of a substance of support wherein they may
exist, we detract nothing from the received opinion of their reality, and
are guilty of no innovation in that respect. All the difference is that,
according to us, the unthinking beings perceived by sense have no
existence distinct from being perceived, and cannot therefore exist in
any other substance than those unextended indivisible substances or
spirits which act and think and perceive them; whereas philosophers
vulgarly hold that the sensible qualities do exist in an inert, extended,
unperceiving substance which they call Matter, to which they attribute a
natural subsistence, exterior to all thinking beings, or distinct from
being perceived by any mind whatsoever, even the eternal mind of the
Creator, wherein they suppose only ideas of the corporeal substances
created by him; if indeed they allow them to be at all created.

92. OBJECTIONS OF ATHEISTS OVERTURNED.--For, as we have shown the
doctrine of Matter or corporeal substance to have been the main
pillar and support of Scepticism, so likewise upon the same foundation
have been raised all the impious schemes of Atheism and Irreligion.
Nay, so great a difficulty has it been thought to conceive Matter
produced out of nothing, that the most celebrated among the ancient
philosophers, even of those who maintained the being of a God,
have thought Matter to be uncreated and co-eternal with Him. How
great a friend material substance has been to Atheists in all ages were
needless to relate. All their monstrous systems have so visible and
necessary a dependence on it that, when this corner-stone is once
removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch
that it is no longer worth while to bestow a particular consideration on
the absurdities of every wretched sect of Atheists.

93. AND OF FATALISTS ALSO.--That impious and profane persons should
readily fall in with those systems which favour their inclinations,
by deriding immaterial substance, and supposing the soul to be
divisible and subject to corruption as the body; which exclude all
freedom, intelligence, and design from the formation of things,
and instead thereof make a self--existent, stupid, unthinking
substance the root and origin of all beings; that they should
hearken to those who deny a Providence, or inspection of a Superior
Mind over the affairs of the world, attributing the whole series
of events either to blind chance or fatal necessity arising from
the impulse of one body or another--all this is very natural. And,
on the other hand, when men of better principles observe the enemies
of religion lay so great a stress on unthinking Matter, and all
of them use so much industry and artifice to reduce everything to it,
methinks they should rejoice to see them deprived of their grand support,
and driven from that only fortress, without which your Epicureans,
Hobbists, and the like, have not even the shadow of a pretence, but
become the most cheap and easy triumph in the world.

94. OF IDOLATORS.--The existence of Matter, or bodies unperceived,
has not only been the main support of Atheists and Fatalists,
but on the same principle doth Idolatry likewise in all its various
forms depend. Did men but consider that the sun, moon, and stars,
and every other object of the senses are only so many sensations
in their minds, which have no other existence but barely being
perceived, doubtless they would never fall down and worship their
own ideas, but rather address their homage to that ETERNAL INVISIBLE MIND
which produces and sustains all things.

95. AND SOCINIANS.--The same absurd principle, by mingling itself with
the articles of our faith, has occasioned no small difficulties to
Christians. For example, about the Resurrection, how many scruples and
objections have been raised by Socinians and others? But do not the
most plausible of them depend on the supposition that a body is
denominated the same, with regard not to the form or that which is
perceived by sense, but the material substance, which remains the
same under several forms? Take away this material substance, about
the identity whereof all the dispute is, and mean by body what every
plain ordinary person means by that word, to wit, that which is
immediately seen and felt, which is only a combination of sensible
qualities or ideas, and then their most unanswerable objections
come to nothing.

96. SUMMARY OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF EXPELLING MATTER.--Matter being once
expelled out of nature drags with it so many sceptical and impious
notions, such an incredible number of disputes and puzzling questions,
which have been thorns in the sides of divines as well as philosophers,
and made so much fruitless work for mankind, that if the arguments
we have produced against it are not found equal to demonstration
(as to me they evidently seem), yet I am sure all friends to knowledge,
peace, and religion have reason to wish they were.

97. Beside the external existence of the objects of perception, another
great source of errors and difficulties with regard to ideal knowledge is
the doctrine of abstract ideas, such as it has been set forth in the
Introduction. The plainest things in the world, those we are most
intimately acquainted with and perfectly know, when they are considered
in an abstract way, appear strangely difficult and incomprehensible.
Time, place, and motion, taken in particular or concrete, are what
everybody knows, but, having passed through the hands of a metaphysician,
they become too abstract and fine to be apprehended by men of ordinary
sense. Bid your servant meet you at such a time in such a place, and he
shall never stay to deliberate on the meaning of those words; in
conceiving that particular time and place, or the motion by which he is
to get thither, he finds not the least difficulty. But if time be taken
exclusive of all those particular actions and ideas that diversify the
day, merely for the continuation of existence or duration in abstract,
then it will perhaps gravel even a philosopher to comprehend it.

98. DILEMMA.--For my own part, whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea
of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows
uniformly and is participated by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in
inextricable difficulties. I have no notion of it at all, only I hear
others say it is infinitely divisible, and speak of it in such a manner
as leads me to entertain odd thoughts of my existence; since that
doctrine lays one under an absolute necessity of thinking, either that he
passes away innumerable ages without a thought, or else that he is
annihilated every moment of his life, both which seem equally absurd.
Time therefore being nothing, abstracted from the sucession of ideas in
our minds, it follows that the duration of any finite spirit must be
estimated by the number of ideas or actions succeeding each other in that
same spirit or mind. Hence, it is a plain consequence that the soul
always thinks; and in truth whoever shall go about to divide in his
thoughts, or abstract the existence of a spirit from its cogitation,
will, I believe, find it no easy task.

99. So likewise when we attempt to abstract extension and motion from all
other qualities, and consider them by themselves, we presently lose sight
of them, and run into great extravagances. All which depend on a twofold
abstraction; first, it is supposed that extension, for example, may be
abstracted from all other sensible qualities; and secondly, that the
entity of extension may be abstracted from its being perceived. But,
whoever shall reflect, and take care to understand what he says, will, if
I mistake not, acknowledge that all sensible qualities are alike
sensations and alike real; that where the extension is, there is the
colour, too, i.e., in his mind, and that their archetypes can exist only
in some other mind; and that the objects of sense are nothing but those
sensations combined, blended, or (if one may so speak) concreted
together; none of all which can be supposed to exist unperceived.

100. What it is for a man to be happy, or an object good, every one may
think he knows. But to frame an abstract idea of happiness, prescinded
from all particular pleasure, or of goodness from everything that is
good, this is what few can pretend to. So likewise a man may be just and
virtuous without having precise ideas of justice and virtue. The opinion
that those and the like words stand for general notions, abstracted from
all particular persons and actions, seems to have rendered morality very
difficult, and the study thereof of small use to mankind. And in effect
the doctrine of abstraction has not a little contributed towards spoiling
the most useful parts of knowledge.

101. OF NATURAL PHILOSOPHY AND MATHEMATICS.--The two great provinces
of speculative science conversant about ideas received from sense,
are Natural Philosophy and Mathematics; with regard to each of these
I shall make some observations. And first I shall say somewhat of
Natural Philosophy. On this subject it is that the sceptics triumph.
All that stock of arguments they produce to depreciate our faculties
and make mankind appear ignorant and low, are drawn principally
from this head, namely, that we are under an invincible blindness
as to the true and real nature of things. This they exaggerate,
and love to enlarge on. We are miserably bantered, say they, by our
senses, and amused only with the outside and show of things. The real
essence, the internal qualities and constitution of every the meanest
object, is hid from our view; something there is in every drop of water,
every grain of sand, which it is beyond the power of human understanding
to fathom or comprehend. But, it is evident from what has been shown that
all this complaint is groundless, and that we are influenced by false
principles to that degree as to mistrust our senses, and think we know
nothing of those things which we perfectly comprehend.

102. One great inducement to our pronouncing ourselves ignorant of the
nature of things is the current opinion that everything includes within
itself the cause of its properties; or that there is in each object an
inward essence which is the source whence its discernible qualities flow,
and whereon they depend. Some have pretended to account for appearances
by occult qualities, but of late they are mostly resolved into mechanical
causes, to wit. the figure, motion, weight, and suchlike qualities, of
insensible particles; whereas, in truth, there is no other agent or
efficient cause than spirit, it being evident that motion, as well as all
other ideas, is perfectly inert. See sect. 25. Hence, to endeavour to
explain the production of colours or sounds, by figure, motion,
magnitude, and the like, must needs be labour in vain. And accordingly we
see the attempts of that kind are not at all satisfactory. Which may be
said in general of those instances wherein one idea or quality is
assigned for the cause of another. I need not say how many hypotheses and
speculations are left out, and how much the study of nature is abridged
by this doctrine.

103. ATTRACTION SIGNIFIES THE EFFECT, NOT THE MANNER OR CAUSE.--The great
mechanical principle now in vogue is attraction. That a stone
falls to the earth, or the sea swells towards the moon, may to some
appear sufficiently explained thereby. But how are we enlightened by
being told this is done by attraction? Is it that that word signifies the
manner of the tendency, and that it is by the mutual drawing of bodies
instead of their being impelled or protruded towards each other? But,
nothing is determined of the manner or action, and it may as truly (for
aught we know) be termed "impulse," or "protrusion," as "attraction."
Again, the parts of steel we see cohere firmly together, and this also is
accounted for by attraction; but, in this as in the other instances, I do
not perceive that anything is signified besides the effect itself; for as
to the manner of the action whereby it is produced, or the cause which
produces it, these are not so much as aimed at.

104. Indeed, if we take a view of the several phenomena, and compare them
together, we may observe some likeness and conformity between them. For
example, in the falling of a stone to the ground, in the rising of the
sea towards the moon, in cohesion, crystallization, etc, there is
something alike, namely, an union or mutual approach of bodies. So that
any one of these or the like phenomena may not seem strange or surprising
to a man who has nicely observed and compared the effects of nature. For
that only is thought so which is uncommon, or a thing by itself, and out
of the ordinary course of our observation. That bodies should tend
towards the centre of the earth is not thought strange, because it is
what we perceive every moment of our lives. But, that they should have a
like gravitation towards the centre of the moon may seem odd and
unaccountable to most men, because it is discerned only in the tides. But
a philosopher, whose thoughts take in a larger compass of nature, having
observed a certain similitude of appearances, as well in the heavens as
the earth, that argue innumerable bodies to have a mutual tendency
towards each other, which he denotes by the general name "attraction,"
whatever can be reduced to that he thinks justly accounted for. Thus he
explains the tides by the attraction of the terraqueous globe towards the
moon, which to him does not appear odd or anomalous, but only a
particular example of a general rule or law of nature.

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