think there may be a question made, because men may have such an idea in their minds, when no such thing exists, no such object affects their senses. But it is evident that we are invincibly conscious to ourselves of a different perception, when we look on the sun in the day, and think on it by night; when we actually taste wormwood, and smell a rose, or only think on that savour or odour. So that I think we may add to the two former sorts of knowlege 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 knowlege, viz. intuitive, demonstrative, and sensitive.

But since our knowlege is founded on, and employed about our ideas only; will it follow thence that it must be conformable to our ideas, and that where our ideas are clear and distinct, obscure and confused, there our knowlege will be so too? I answer, No. For our knowlege 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. A man, for instance, that has a clear idea of the angles of a triangle and of equality to two right ones, may yet have but an obscure perception of their agreement; and so have but a very obscure knowlege of it. But obscure and confused ideas can never produce any clear or distinct knowlege, because as far as any ideas are obscure or confused, so far the mind can never 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 certain.

CHAPTER III.

Of the Extent of Human Knowlege.

1. From what has been said concerning knowlege, it follows, first, that we can have no knowlege farther than we have ideas.

2. Secondly, that we have no knowlege farther than we can have perception of that agreement or disagreement of our ideas, either by intuition, demonstration, or sensation.

3. Thirdly, we cannot have an intuitive knowlege 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 juxtaposition, or an immediate comparison one with another. Thus we cannot intuitively perceive the equality of two extensions, the difference of whose figures makes their parts incapable of an exact immediate application.

4. Fourthly, our rational knowlege cannot reach to the whole extent of our ideas; because between two different ideas we would examine, we cannot always find such proofs as we can connect one to another, with an intuitive knowlege in all the parts of the deduction.

5. Fifthly, sensitive knowlege reaching no farther than the existence of things actually present to our senses, is yet much narrower than either of the former.

6. From all which it is evident, that the extent of our knowlege comes not only short of the reality of things, but even of the extent of our own ideas. 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.

7. We have the ideas of matter and thinking,1 but

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: If this be

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

:

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, 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. Locke answers thus: Here your lordship argues, that on 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, on 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 on 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, thinking (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

revelation, to discover, whether Omnipotency has not given to some systems of matter fitly disposed, a power to perceive and think, or else joined to matter so dis

the want of demonstration on 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 shown, yet it would be a great advance of our knowlege in nature and philosophy.

To what I have said in my book, to show 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 immateriality 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 jus tify 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 only gross and palpable matter, spiritus, spirit. I think that nobody will deny, that if any among the Romans can be allowed to speak properly, Tully and Virgil are the two who may most securely be depended on for it: and one of them, speaking of the soul, says, Dum spiritus hos reget artus; and the other, Vita continetur corpore et spiritu; where it is plain by corpus, he means (as generally every where) only gross matter that may be felt and handled, as appears by these words: Si cor, aut sanguis, aut cerebrum est animus; certe, quoniam est corpus, interibit cum reliquo corpore; si anima est, forte dissipabitur; si ignis, extinguetur, Tusc. Quæst. l. i. c. 11. Here Cicero opposes corpus to ignis and anima; i. e. aura, or

posed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive, that God can, if he pleases, superadd to matter

breath. And the foundation of that his distinction of the soul, from that which he calls corpus, or body, he gives a little lower in these words: Tanta ejus tenuitas ut fugiat aciem, ibid. c. 22. Nor was it the heathen world alone that had this notion of spirit; the most enlightened of all the ancient people of God, Solomon himself, speaks after the same manner : That which befalleth the sons of men, befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one spirit.' So I translate the Hebrew word, here, for so I find it translated the very next verse but one : Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downwards to the earth?' In which places, it is plain, that Solomon applies the word m, and our translators of him the word spirit, to a substance, out of which materiality was not wholly excluded, unless the spirit of a beast that goeth downwards to the earth be immaterial. Nor did the way of speaking in our Saviour's time vary from this. St. Luke tells us, that when our Saviour, after his resurrection, stood in the midst of them, they were affrighted, and supposed that they had seen TVEûua, the Greek word which always answers spirit in English: and so the translators of the Bible render it here: they supposed that they had seen a spirit. But our Saviour says to them, Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me have.' Which words of our Saviour put the same distinction between body and spirit that Cicero did in the place above cited, viz. That the one was a gross compages that could be felt and handled; and the other such as Virgil describes the ghost or soul of Anchises.

Ter conatus ibi collo dare brachia circum,
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago,
Par levibus ventis volucrique simillima somno.

I would not be thought hereby to say that spirit never does signify a purely immaterial substance. In that sense the Scripture, I take it, speaks, when it says God is a spirit; and in that sense I have used it; and in that sense I have proved from my principles that there is a spiritual substance, and am certain that there is a spiritual immaterial substance: which is, I humbly conceive, a direct answer to your lordship's question in the beginning of this argument, viz. How we come to be certain that there are spiritual substances, supposing this principle to be true, that the simple ideas by sensation and reflection are the sole matter and foundation of all our reasoning? But this hinders not, but that if God, that infinite, omnipotent, and perfectly immaterial