Solid Philosophy ASSERTED Against the FANCIES of the IDEISTS OR THE METHOD to SCIENCE Farther Illustrated WITH Reflexions on Mr. LOCKE's ESSAY concerning Human Understanding By J. S. LONDON Printed for Roger Clavil at the Peacock Abel Roper at the Black Boy both in Fleetstreet and Thomas Metcalf over against Earl's Court in Drury-Lane 1697. To the Right Honourable ROBERT Lord Viscount Dunbar My LORD HAD I thought that this Piece I here Dedicate to Your Lordship was not above Your or any Man's Patronage I had shewn less Respects to You in making You so Mean a Present Were You Monarch of the Universe TRUTH which it Defends could receive no Protection from Your Grandeur Her Genius is so Sublime and Her self so Nobly-born that like Him from whom she descends she is Beneficial to all and Incapable of receiving Advantage from any All Extrinsecal Supports in stead of Honouring her Debase her Her Well-compacted and Indissoluble Fabrick is altogether Divine Contrary to our Material Structures it is Built from the Top and its Foundation laid as high as Heaven it self The GOD of Truth has imprinted all Natural Truths in Created Beings as in the Footsteps of his Infinite Wisdom from whence by the Vehicles of our Senses they are Copy'd and Transcrib'd into our Mind where without our Labour they beget all our Natural Notions and as Speculation and even Experience assures us they do also at the same time give us some Knowledge of the Things themselves which steadily and distinctly Reflected on breed in us that best Natural Perfection of our Understanding SCIENCE of which those Notions are as it were the Seeds Thus was Mankind put into a plain Road-way of gaining Clear Intellectual Light by the Common Providence of our Good Creatour To improve in which and to keep our Thoughts from wandring into Errour the same Goodness of our Maker endowed us with a Faculty of Reflecting on the Operations of our own Minds and on all the Guilded Train of our Spiritual Conceptions and of the several Natures and Manners of them by which means those who were addicted to Attentive Reflexion or Speculation invented a Way and setled Artificial Rules how to manage their Notions Judgments and Discourses Which Rules laid orderly together and found by Reason to be Agreeable to the Natures of Things according to the Being they had in the Mind and therefore Solid did in time compose that excellent and most useful Science call'd LOGICK But my Lord the Crooked Byass of Men's Wills perverted their Reason and made them disregard this Well-grounded and Regular Method given them so freely by the Author of Nature The Heathen Philosophers of old whose God was Vanity affected to set up several Sects to pride themselves with the Empty Honour of being esteemed their Heads The Christian Schools succeeded who at first discours'd gravely on those Subjects which were of a higher Nature but whether the Circumstances did not bend their Thoughts that way or from what other Reason they settled no Scientifical Method to attain Philosophical Knowledges Yet those who follow'd Aristotle's Principles as the great Aquinas constantly endeavoured did generally discourse even in such Subjects when they had occasion very solidly But afterwards when School-disputes grew to be the only fashionable Learning the Multitudes of Combatants increas'd and the Contests were maintain'd by several Great Bodies each of which thought it Creditable to their Party to set up and follow some Eminent Man of their own Hence this Nature-taught Method came to be much neglected and he was thought to win the Prize who was the subtilest and acutest Disputant and not he who could most solidly Demonstrate Truth Hence no Exact and Rational Logick being settled and agreed on they were apt to take up oftentimes Wrong Principles and the several Conceptions of our Mind were mistaken to be so many several Things Demonstration was rather talk'd of for Form's sake than pursu'd and practis'd and the the Use of General Maxims which should establish our Discourses was scarce once thought on without which Demonstration was Impossible New Questions in Philosophy of little or no use were started and bandy'd to and fro by Terms and Words not well understood nor their Sense agreed on by the Contending Parties The Heat of Opposition fix'd Men in their own Opinions Innumerable Quaint and Nice and sometimes Impertinent Distinctions were invented to escape their being Entangled by the Arguments of their Adversary Every man affected to be a Proteus and took more Care to elude Opposition than to settle and establish Truth on Immovable Grounds The true Sense of Aristotle's Doctrine not being taken from himself or his First Interpreters but from some Modern Mis-understanders was lost and his Text drawn into several Meanings to abet Contradictory Tenets In a Word nothing was decisively conclâ—â—ed nor likely to be so by this way of School-Term-Learning as things were manag'd by Unmethodiz'd Disputation Thus stood the Affair of Philosophy at the beginning of this present Century which having been fertile of many Excellent Wits two of the Chiefest of them Cartesius in France and our Ingenious Countryman Mr. Locke having taken Scandal at these Miscarriages and an Aversion against that Miracle of Nature Aristotle whose Doctrine Schoolmen had ill represented and being withal Men of Strong Brains enabling them to carry their Conceptions through and to make them Coherent they did out of their Zeal for Truth undertake to set up New Systems of Philosophy tho' Cartesius in some sort furbish'd up improv'd and refin'd upon the old Corpuscularian Way of Democritus and Epicurus which I have fully confuted in the Appendix to my Method and I hope beyond all possibility of Reply But these two Gentlemen being better vers'd in the Mathematicks than in Metaphysicks and thence not apprehending how Corporeal Natures could get into the Mind or be there nor reflecting that a Spiritual Nature being incomparably Superiour in the Rank of Beings to that of Corporeal Things must consequently have naturally and ncessarily a Power to comprehend after its manner or by way of Knowledge that Inferiour one they were forc'd thro' their want of Higher Principles to build all Knowledge not upon the Things themselves in their Knowing Power but upon Ideas or Similitudes of them tho' neither of them set themselves to make out or demonstrate how we could possibly have our Notions or First Notices of the Things by them Now these Spiritual Ideas being most evidently neither the Things known nor any Mode or Accident of those Objects and consequently nothing at all of the Thing in any sort were manifestly convinced not to be the Productions of Creative Wisdom in which he had imprinted all Natural Truths but meer Fancies coin'd by their Imagination These Ideas or Fancies then and only these they contemplated and Grounded all Natural Truths which could have no Foundation but only in the Things which the First Truth had made upon these Fantastick Resemblances and thence they put all Formal
Discourses on Ideas that is as themselves express it and as the Word Idea declares on Similitudes or Resemblances which Similitudes as is abundantly demonstrated in my three first Preliminaries are meer Fancies Mine is to build them solely and entirely on the Things themselves in which as the Footsteps or Effects of his Essential Verity the Creative Wisdom of the God of Truth has planted and imprinted all Created Truths whatever This Method I observe so exactly throughout my whole METHOD and this present Treatise that I disown and renounce any Discourse in either of these Books which is not built either upon the Things as they are in Nature or according to the Being they Naturally have in the Understanding And I shall owe much to that Man who will show me that I do any where decline from this solid and well-grounded Method As for Formal Truths found in our Judgments or Discourses I build them on most Evident Principles or strive to reduce them thither and on the Connexion of the Terms found in Propositions by which only Truth can be express'd keeping still an Attentive Regard to the Things themselves And I desire that the Differences between the Ideists and me may be decided by the Impartial Umpirage of Rigorous Logick A Test which as I am sure their Cause cannot bear so I am confident they will never accept of or stand to For it may easily be discern'd by any serious Reflecter that their Procedure and manner of Discoursing is not by way of laying Principles and drawing a Close and well-knit Train of Consequences as I do in all the main Points of my Method and in this present Treatise on occasion but by Unproved Suppositions and Loose Discourses made up of well-express'd Wit Ingenious Remarks Quaint Novelties Plausible Explications and such other Superficial ways which tho' they take with Vulgar Readers are to speak plainly more fit for Flashy Rhetorical Declamation than for Manly and Solid PHILOSOPHY Nor do I think it did ever so much as once enter into the Thoughts of the Ideists much less their Hope that their Discourse could be reduced to Self-evidence or to that Artificial Form of Close Discourse call'd a Demonstrative Syllogism which is the Touchstone to distinguish what Ratiocinations are truly Conclusive what Inconclusive or Fallacious Without which what do we know 8. I am very well aware what Prejudice I bring upon my self by Addressing you in this Confident manner at the very first Dash of my Pen and some well-meaning Friends have advertis'd me that this Carriage of mine has been reflected on especially by some meer School-men who tho' they in reality know nothing are more proud of their Probabilities than the most Scientifical Man living is of his Demonstrations tho' their utmost Performances amount to no more than that of the ridiculous Fortune-tellers of old Aut erit aut non Divinare etenim magnus mihi donat Apollo Whence I do fully expect that the Humour of our Modern Speculaters will judge this Assuredness of mine to be a high Presumption of my own Performances nay some will think it a proud Disregard of others even to talk of Demonstration Indeed I must own I have a high Opinion of my Principles and my Method which Nature and GOD's good Providence have laid and establish'd But as for my Conclusions and Deductions as I will not justifie them all with the same Firmness as I did the others so I must declare that did I not really judge them Demonstrative when I call them so I should not think I ought to propose them as such nor at all to the Learned The World has been sufficiently pester'd already with Books of Philosophy nay Volumes blown up to a vast Bulk with Windy and Frathy Probabilities and petty Inconclusive Topicks which like Rank Weeds have over-run that Rich Soil where Science ought to have been Sown and I esteem it too poor and mean a Vanity to plant Briar-fields to enlarge a Wilderness If I overween in calling my Proofs Demonstrations I am willing to take the Shame to my self if it deserves Shame tho' perhaps I had been more blame-worthy if really judging them Demonstrative I had minced the Truth and out of an Affected Modesty or a Diffidence for which I saw no Ground I had diminish'd their Force in the esteem of my Readers and so hinder'd the Profit which startled at the Uncouth Sound of Demonstration they might otherwise have reap'd by looking into them For DEMONSTRATIONS are Strange Rarities in this Sceptical Age and when those who are to show them do proclame to the World where they are to be seen Curious People will run in Flocks to view the Monster 9. He that knows what Demonstration is and verily judges his Argument is such and yet out of Niaiserie and Shamefastness says at every turn I think or perhaps this is true or may be True should if I might advise him wear a Mask for he does as good as tell his Readers Gentlemen I offer you an Argument but I fear 't is not worth your Acceptance A strange Complement from one Philosopher to another It was not out of my Natural Humour and Inclination but perfectly out of Deliberate Design to win my Readers to Attentive Examination and invite those who were dissatisfy'd to Opposition which is the best means to clear Truth that I deliver'd my self with that Bold Assurance And I did really intend that Sceptical Men should ask Quid profert dignum tanto promissor hiatu That setting themselves thence to Sift the Nature of my Method and the Force of my Arguments more narrowly they might better sink into their Understandings as I am Confident they will if ever they have perused my Method to Science and by that or any other means do solidly know what is requisite to a true Demonstration 10. Another Reason why I put on this Vizard of Confidence so little suting with my Natural Complexion was this The want of true Science and the Despair of finding any had brought such a Luke-warm and Indifferent Humour into the World and I wish it were not too common that tho' all Men affect to talk of Truth and seem in Ordinary Discourse to value and magnifie her yet when it comes to the Point scarce one Man dares heartily profess himself her Champion and declare he will defend her Cause with Evident Reason against all Opposers For alas how few Men are there who will profess to Demonstrate in Philosophy or to reduce their Discourses to Evidence Without doing which and abiding by the Tryal perhaps there is not one Word of Truth in all Philosophy nor any thing but Learned Romance in all the Universities of Europe Many Men indeed do make a Profession of Knowledge because 't is Honourable and every Scholar is engag'd to do so or he will quite lose his Credit But when it should come to Performance not one Man in ten thousand shews that Zeal for the Advancement of Truth as answers to
them jointly and each of them severally Besides they put the Cart before the Horse while they pretend that the Acting as one Thing is to make them one-Thing For since the Res is in Priority of Nature and Reason before Modus rei and Being before Acting and that nothing can Act otherwise than it is 't is Evident from plainest Principles and even from the very Terms that they must first Be one Thing e'er they can Act as one Thing or Be such a Compound before they can Act as such a Compound And so the Point sticks where it was viz. How the Soul and Body come to be thus Compounded into one Ens of which I have given some Account Preliminary 4. § 8 9 10 13. 26. On this Occasion I cannot but Reflect that the Cartesians were very Unadvised to meddle with such a Point as puts them quite past their Mathematicks as likewise that tho' they have fram'd a Logick or Method suitable to explicate their Mathematical Philosophy yet they are but very bad Distinguishers of our Natural Notions into Common Heads which is one Principal Part of true Logick as appears by their rambling so irregularly from one to the other as has been shewn elsewhere in their making Extension or Quantity which is a Mode the Form which is Essential to their First Matter and here in putting Composition according to the Notion of Action to be Composition according to the Notion of Ens. And whoever impartially Examins the Distribution of their Notions into Heads will find it not to be such as Reason naturally forced as ours is but such as Design voluntarily and ingeniously invented REFLEXIONS ON Mr. LOCKE's ESSAY CONCERNING Humane Understanding REFLEXION First ON The FIRST BOOK 1. THIS Book gives me little Occasion to make any Reflexions but such as I must be forced to make through his whole Essay which is on the Penetrative and clear Wit and happy Expression of its Author in his pursuing the Design which he had prefix'd to himself I could wish indeed that he had thought fit to take his Rise higher or to speak more properly had laid his Grounds deeper But it is to be expected that every Author should write according to those Thoughts or Principles with which the Casual Circumstances of his fore-past Life had imbu'd him or as his Natural Genius leads him His steering such an Impartial Mean between Scepticism and Dogmatizing does certainly argue a very even Temper of Judgment and a Sincere Love of Truth And I shall hope that whoever peruses attentively my Method B. 1. Less 2. from § 5. to § 11. will discern that I have so exactly measur'd out the Pitch of Knowledge attainable by us in this State that I am as little a Friend to Over-Weening as I profess my self a Declar'd Enemy to Scepticism 2. I am a little apprehensive from some Words in his Introduction expressing his Dis-like that Men let loose their Thoughts into the vast Ocean of Being and his Conceit that this brings Men to Doubts and Scepticism that he has taken a Prejudice against Metaphysicks whose proper Object is those Notions of the Thing which abstract from Matter and Motion and concern Being only Were I assur'd that I did not mistake him I would for his sake enlarge on that Point and display fully the Excellency of that most Solid most Clear and most Incomparable Science which I shall only touch upon at present by giving my Reader a Summary of its Principal Objects 3. It treats of the Formal or Essential Parts of Physical Entities or Bodies in Common and in Specie Of the Essential Unity and Distinction of them and whence 't is taken particularly of the Essential Constituents of Elements Mixts Vegetables and Animals and when and how they come to be Essentially or Individually Chang'd Thence advancing to the Chief Animal Man he treats of his Form the Soul and of its Proper Action Of the Superior Part of it the Mind and of its Progress towards its last End or its Declension from it Thus far demonstrated it proceeds to treat of the Separation of the Soul from the Body and to shew evidently its Immateriality and consequently its Immortality Of the Science of a Soul separated and the Eminency of her Acts in that State above what she had in the Body and lastly of the Felicity and Infelicity connaturally following out of her Actions here and the Good or Bad Dispositions found in her at her Separation as also of the Immutability of her Condition afterwards It treats of the Notion or Nature of Existence and how 't is Accidental or Unessential to the Natures of every Created Being and thence demonstrates a First Being or a God to whom 't is Essential to be that is whose Nature is Self-Existence Whence follows by necessary Consequence that his Nature is Infinitely Pure or Simple Eternal Infinitely Perfect and Immutable All-knowing Willing ever what 's most Wise and therefore most Free in all his Actions and that the Divine Essence is Unconceivable by any Notion we can frame or have of it and Unexpressible by any Name we can give it which is Proper and not most highly Metaphorical Lastly It demonstrates there are Pure Spiritual Beings which have no Matter or Potentiality in them call'd Intelligences or Angels and likewise in Common of their Number Distinction and Subordination as also of their Proper Operations both Internal and External 4. These and such as these are the Objects proper to that Supream Science Metaphysicks which any Man of Sense would think ought to make it deserve the Esteem of the Best and most Elevated Portion of Mankind and not to be ridicul'd by Drollish Fops who turn all they understand not into Buffoonery All these high Subjects it treats of I say if possible as I believe it is with more Close more Necessary and more Immediate Connexion than the Mathematicks can pretend to since the Evidence and Certainty of the Principles of this Science as also of Logick do depend on are subordinate to and are borrow'd from the Principles of the other which is the Sovereign and Mistress of all other Sciences whatever 5. It will I doubt not be apprehended that such High Knowledges are above our reach and Impossible to be attain'd by us in this State They are indeed above Fancy and I believe this Objection is made by Fancy or by Men attending to the Resemblances of Fancy which fall short of representing to us such Sublime Objects But why they should be above our Reason I cannot imagin or why they should be deem'd so Mysterious as not to be Knowable without a Divine Revelation It is manifest that we can have Abstract Notions of Existence Thing Immaterial Incorporeal Knowledge Will Operation c. that is we can Consider the Common Subject Thing as Existent Capable of Being and if it be a Spirit as Immaterial Incorporeal Knowing Willing and Operating c. as well as Mathematicians
my Tenet that he cannot any more than he can witness a Falshood or be liable to any other Imperfection It will be thought this limits and consequently takes away his Omnipotency And I on the contrary think I have far more Reason to judge that the other Opinion argues Impotency and ours settles his Omnipotency Common Sense seems to tell us that Omnipotency is a Power of doing all things and not of doing Nothing To Act is to do something and therefore to do Nothing or make a Nothing which the Sense of Annihilation is not to do And 't is a strange Notion of Omnipotency which puts it to consist in such an Occasion in not doing I wonder what Conceit such Discoursers make of the Divinity What I am forc'd to conceive of him as Essential to him is that he is a Pure Actuality of Being as far as is on his part actually and ever exercised that he has no Power in him Undetermin'd to act as we have which argues some Potentiality or Imperfection in us That Actual Existence being Essential to him his Peculiar Effect is to give Existence or to Create Things and to Conserve them in Being which is a perpetual Creation or Creation continued and therefore that 't is more Diametrically opposite to his Nature to cause Not being than it is for Light to cause Darkness Whence follows that whatever his Creatures are naturally disposed for he is actually bestowing it upon them Since then the Essences of all Creatures are Capacities of Being the same Goodness that makes the Sun shine on the Just and Unjust must give them continually to be actually The Place is not proper to prove this Point at large but were I writing Metaphysicks and were oblig'd to handle it throughly I should not doubt but to demonstrate from the Natures of Action Effect Causality the Specification of Action from the Natures of Creatures and almost each of God's Infinite Attributes that Annihilation is both Impossible and also most unworthy the Divine Nature Some Witty Men think that Annihilation does best sute with God's Justice and thence conceit that Eternal Damnation is nothing else but to be Annihilated Whereas indeed this Tenet violates that Attribute in the highest Degree For to punish a Sinner without inflicting something upon him that is penal is Nonsense And what Pain can a Sinner feel when he is Nothing or is not 12. Indeed Mr. Locke § 22. argues strongly and as far as I can judge unanswerably against the Cartesians who make the innumerable Particles of their Aether tho' jumbled together confusedly still light so exactly as to fill every little Interstice Did they put them to be Fluid and of a very Rare Nature and so easily Pliable they might make some Sense of it But they make them Solid Dry and of a Firm Consistency for otherwise the Particles of their Elements could not be made by Attrition of other Parts of their Matter of which one of them is as it were the Dust. Nor can it avail them to say those Particles are less and less indeterminately for every Thing and Mode too in Nature especially if Consistent is determin'd to be particularly what it is and as it is Nor can there be any Thing of an Indeterminate Quantity any more than there can be a Man in Common who is Indeterminate and Indifferent to be This or That Man 13. As for his alledging that Men have an Idea of Vacuum distinct from the Idea of Plenum 't is true indeed and it means the same as Non Corpus and consequently Non Quantum Non Quale c. and is of the same Nature as is Chimaera which means Non Ens. But how does it follow hence that it does or can exist or that as he phrases it there is an Incomprehensible Inane unless with the Vulgar Schools we will make every Distinct nice Conception of ours to be a particular Entity and capable of Existing a-part which I do not think Mr. Locke's good Judgment will allow of REFLEXION Eighth ON The Fourteenth CHAPTER THis Chapter affords much Matter for Reflexion which to do as briefly as I can I will put my respective Negatives to Mr. Locke's Affirmatives giving my Reasons for them and invalidating his I deny that the Notion of Time is so abstruse as he conceives it The Word is used commonly by the Vulgar to express what they mean by it and their usual Meaning is the Notion or Nature of it No Clown can be ignorant of it if he ever read an Almanack or saw a Sun-dial unless some witty Man comes to puzzle him with Doubts and Questions which he may even in things the Vulgar and all Men living know very perfectly He knows tho' not to a Mathematical Exactness which is not requisite to our Time or our Use of it that the Year begins on New-years Day and that the Sun 's Diurnal Motion till he returns to the same Line or Point makes what we call a Day and that a Day is divided into 24 Hours He knows how many Days make a Month how many Months a Year c. He esteems all these however he divides them into lesser or by Addition augments them into greater to be Parts of Time and consequently Parts of the Sun's Motion as well as he knew that a Day was such If then they know that all particular Parts of the Sun's Motion are particular Parts of Time let us abstract from all these Particulars and the Motion of the Sun in Common is the Common Notion of Time it self in reality however the Formal Notion of Time consists in this that it be Known and Regular as the Sun's Motion is as far as they can discern so that they can measure and adjust all their Actions by it which 't is evident they may And this Formality of Time they do know too as appears by using or applying Hours Days Months c. to measure and adjust all their Motions or Actions by them So that this whole Discourse of mine Answering the Niceties objected which escap'd the Observation of the Vulgar seems to be built on that Solid Maxim that The true Signification or Sense of the Words is to be taken from the Common Usage of them If Mr. Locke pleases as I think he will not to coin Another Idea of it and call it Time he may if he pleases but it will not be the Notion of Time which Men have had hitherto nor will his new Notion sute with the Sense of Mankind nor is it possible the Signification he imposes upon that Word can ever obtain Acceptation in the World unless some Supreme Authority which commands all the World should enjoin under great Penalties that such a Word be taken in that new Sense and no other and even that will never be for all Mankind will never be under any such Authority 2. I deny that Duration ought to be call'd Succession unless restrain'd to Corporeal Duration which is the least worthy that
Judicious Decision of this Point Of the Extent of our Knowledge settles the Golden Mean between both I have endeavour'd in my Method B. 1. Less 2. to § 12. to establish from Clear Grounds the Just Pitch of our Knowledge in this State Mr. Locke does with his usual Candour attempt to do the same in his Way Concerning which I am to give him my Thoughts which are these 11. There is no doubt but we have less Knowledge than we might have had through our Want of some Notions as also for want of discerning the Agreement or Disagreement of them in the same Thing No doubt too but Intuitive Knowledge which is only of Self-evident Truths cannot reach to all that belongs to our Notions or Ideas and that we too often want proper Mediums to connect those Notions in order to Demonstration As also that our Sensitive Knowledge I suppose he means that which is had by Experiments does not reach very far otherwise our Senses giving us as we do both of us hold all the First Natural Notions we have I believe it cannot be deny'd but that they give us withall the Ground of all our Knowledge Whence I cannot see why he limits Sensitive Knowledge to the Notion of Existence onely or that our Senses do make us know onely that a Thing is For certainly our Senses do as well tell us the Wall is white as that the Wall is tho' in proper Speech it does neither but by means of our Mind comparing the Notions of the two Terms given us by the Object in order to the seeing their Co-existence in the Thing All they do is to give us our Notions which the Soul that is the Man according to his Spiritual Part compounds into a Proposition and so frames a Judgment of the said Co-existence or Inconsistency of those Terms or which is the same of what is signify'd by them in the same Thing Nor do I think Mr. Locke will much deny any of this however we may express our selves diversly 12. 'T is very true that our Experience gives us some Light to know what Qualities do belong to such Substances yet I cannot think it impossible to know this very often a priori by Demonstrative Reason tho' we do not know the Constitution of the Minute Parts on which those Qualities do depend much less do I judge that tho' we did not know them yet we could not discover any necessary Connexion between them and any of the Secondary Qualities he means those Qualities which are the Objects of our Senses Nor do I wonder Mr. Locke thinks thus because he does all along pitch his Thoughts on the Corpuscularian Hypothesis as on that which in some Men's Opinion goes farthest in an Intelligible Explication of the Qualities of Body Now my Judgment is that 't is demonstrable that the Principles of the Corpuscularians cannot possibly give Account of the Constitution either of the Minute Parts or of the least Atom nor consequently of any Body in Nature or which is the Proper Work of a Philosopher refund any Quality into its Proper Causes I mean such Causes as they can prove to be such or must be such however they may fancy them to be such by allowing to themselves Voluntary Suppositions for Principles I have shewn in my Appendix to my Method that the most Celebrated of the Corpuscularian Philosophers the Cartesians cannot know the Constitution of the most minute Part of any of their Elements since they can never tell us by their Grounds the Primary Qualities of their First Matter of which their three Elements and consequently all Natural Bodies are made To shew we can I will give a short Summary of the Aristotelian Doctrine in this particular truly represented and cleared from the Mis-conceits of some late School-men 13. 'T is confess'd and Evident that Quantity is the Primary Affection of Body of which re-modify'd as I may say all Qualities are made We can shew that by it Body is Divisible and therefore Quantity for that and and many other Reasons is Divisibility especially taking it as consider'd Physically however taking it as capable to be Measur'd Proportion'd and Figur'd as Mathematicians do it may not very unfitly be called Extension But take it as I said as affecting Bodies in order to Natural Action and Passion in which the Course of Nature consists as a Natural Philosopher ought to consider it and 't is Divisibility or a Capacity to be divided by those Causes Nor can the Greatest Cartesian deny this since he grants that the First Operation in Nature is the making their three Elements by Grinding as it were or dividing their First Matter Proceeding by immediate Steps we are to seek out the first Sorts of this Divisibility and this must be done by finding the most Simple Intrinsecal Differences of that or any other Notion which can only be more and less of the Common Notion Now more and less of Divisibility Consider'd in order to Natural Agents is the same as to be more easily and less easily Divisible by by those Agents which we call to be Rare and Dense Rarity therefore and Density do constitute the Simplest Sorts or Kinds of Bodies And since it is inconceivable that Matter should be divided at all by Second Causes but the Divider must be more Dense or more able to divide than the Matter that is to be divided by it it follows that Rare and Dense Bodies were originally such or that there were Created at first some sorts of Bodies that are more and others that were less divisible as is clearly express'd in the two first Verses of Genesis And Reason abets it for otherwise the Course of Nature consisting in Motion could never have been Connaturally made because had all the Parts of Matter been equally Divisible there could be no Reason why one part of the Matter should be the Divider rather than the other and so there could have been no Motion nor consequently any Course of Nature at all 14. By the Division of Rare Bodies by Dense ones and the Division of their first Compounds the Number of Parts increasing there naturally follow'd the various Size and the Grossness and Minuteness of those Parts as also their various Figures Situations c. All which contribute to compound the Species and Individuums Of these variously mingled and remingled all the rest are made From Simple Division two Things are made of one whence follows the Individual Diversity of Bodies according to the Notion of Substance or Ens. More Accidents are as was said before still taken in to make the Subaltern Genera and Species even to the lowest Sort or Kind and innumerably more of them to distinguish and constitute Individual Bodies 15. To come a little nearer our main Point unless those Qualities Rarity and Density which are the Primary ones be admitted the World could never have been form'd connaturally nor the Course of Nature carried on because as was now shewn in
run into Errour which is always prejudicial to our Nature and if the Errour does concern matters of high Moment pernicious to our Souls Eternal Welfare This I take to be plain Reason nor do I doubt but that each Branch of this Discourse may be reduced to perfect Evidence We come to examin now what Mr. Locke delivers in this most important Point 2. First He Confounds Outward Action of which there is Necessity and can be no Evidence of Success with Interiour Judging and Assenting of which there can be no Necessity if there can be no Evidence and of which Evident Knowledge may oftentimes be had as also concerning whose Truth or Falshood till Evidence appear we may safely and honourably suspend our Judgment nay if in such a case we do not we hazard to do our selves an Injury when we need not That he thus confounds those two vastly Different or rather Contrary Considerations appears hence that § 1. he shews the Unreasonableness of not eating and of not going about our Business till we have a Demonstration that the Meat will nourish us and the Business will succeed which Instances evidently relate to Outward Action but in § 3. he speaks in the same Tenour of taking the Proposition to be True or False which clearly relates to Inward Assent Secondly God 's Wisdom has indeed given us generally no more but Probability for our Outward Actions doing us good or succeeding but to think our all-wise Maker has given us no better Grounds to make us Assent or rather that he intended we should Assent upon Probabilities which are still liable to be False and if they be but Probabilities may all be False is to think that God meant to expose our Souls to innumerable Errours nay allows and designs we should embrace Errours For if as Mr. L. says God has given as a Faculty to judge that to be True which the Reasons for their Truth being but Probable may not be True then since God has most certainly intended we should make use of the Faculty he has given us it must follow that God has exposed us to Errour or design'd we should err and that this Faculty as he says not being Knowledge very frequently Which is hardly consistent with the Reverence we do both of us owe to our Creatour who governs his Creatures according to the Nature he has given them which is to avoid Errour and never as will shortly be seen this does to admit a Contradiction 3. What therefore I extremely admire is that Mr. Locke should say in express Terms that Judgment is that Faculty whereby the Mind takes any Proposition to be True or False without perceiving a Demonstrative Evidence in the Proofs and that this Faculty is given Man by God to enlighten him For First Judgment does not enlighten us at all as appears evidently because False Judgments are Errours which are so far from enlightning the Mind that they manifestly darken it All that Judgment does is to Fix the Mind in the Perswasion it has whether that Persuasion springs from Clear Reason or Dark Passion and Mr. Locke seems to make good my Words while he contradistinguishes Judgment to Knowledge which later and onely which is our Intellectual Light Secondly The Words Taking Propositions to be True or False must mean Assenting to them as such for every Judgment is not only an Assent but a full and firm Assent Now that no Probability can with Reason cause Assent and certainly God who gave us our Reason has not given us a Faculty to use it against our Reason will be seen hereafter Thirdly Which is yet worse by contradistinguishing Judgment and Clear Knowledge he makes those Assents which spring out of Clear Knowledge to be no Judgments at all whereas These are the onely Judgments that we can be sure will do us good and are according to our True Nature Reason He tells us indeed in the Close that when we judge as things really are they are Right Judgments But how does this agree with his Contradistinguishing formerly Judgment according to its whole Latitude or in its General Notion from Knowledge unless we should say that we only do right when we judge at Hap-hazard or judge Right by Chance Qui quod aequum est statuit parte inauditâ alterâ Aequum licet statuerit haud aequus est tamen By which Rule we are ill Men even tho' we Judge right because we precipitate and hazard to embrace Errour when we need not Besides Things are so really to us as we know them to be And if we do not know them to be such we cannot with Reason say or judge them to be such and if we do we act against our true Nature to do which God has given us no Faculty Fourthly Amongst the Causes mention'd here that make us judge Necessity is reckon'd as one when Certain Knowledge is not to be had But this can be no Cause at all to make us Judge For there can be no possible Necessity forcing us to judge but Clear Evidence This indeed obliges us to Interiour Assent and compels us to judge that the Thing is so as we see it to be But if no Evidence can be had what Necessity is there at all of Judging one way or other Cannot we suspend our Judgment till Evidence appears or whether it does ever appear or not Why are we in such hast to hazard falling into Error Or who bids us Judge at all till we see a good or Conclusive Reason why I am sure whatever many Men may do out of Weakness neither God nor Nature ever impos'd upon any such an absurd Duty Lastly What means his making it then to be Judgment when we have no Demonstrative Evidence May we not judge a Conclusion that is Demonstrated to be True because it is Demonstrated Or that an Identical Proposition is True because 't is Self-evident Or rather ought we not to judge all such Propositions to be True for this very Reason because we know evidently they are so So far then is Certain Knowledge from being contradistinguish'd from Judgment that they are in some manner the same as I have shewn in my METHOD B. 2. Less 1. § 3. where I hope I have set the Nature of Judgment in a Clear Light as I have that of Assent Suspense and Certainty B. 3. § 9. 4. I should be glad to think my self mistaken in Mr. Locke's Meaning if his Express Words the Tenour of his Discourse and his next Chapter Of Probability which runs in the same Strain would give me leave Perhaps he thinks that since none can embrace Christianity without judging it to be True and few know it to be so we should exclude the Generality from the way to Salvation if we do not allow such a Faculty given us by God as Judging without Knowing I Answer 1. Those Gifts that come from Above from the Father of Lights are all Perfect as being the Endowments of his Infinitely-bountiful