and their dependence one on another. And these may be universal and certain: so having the idea of God, and myself, of fear and obedience, I cannot but be sure that God is to be feared and obeyed by me; and this proposition will be certain concerning man in general; if I have made an abstract idea of such a species, whereof I am one particular. But such a proposition, how certain soever, proves not to me the existence of men in the world; but will be true of all such creatures, whenever they do exist: which certainty of such general propositions, depends on the agreement or disagreement discoverable in those abstract ideas.

In the former case, our knowlege is the consequence of the existence of things, producing ideas in our minds by our senses in the latter, the consequence of the ideas that are in our minds, and producing these general propositions, many whereof are called eternæ veritates; and all of them indeed are so, not from being written all, or any of them, in the minds of all men, or that they were any of them propositions in any one's mind, till he having got the abstract ideas, joined or separated them by affirmation or negation: but wheresoever we can suppose such a creature as man is, endowed with such faculties, and thereby furnished with such ideas as we have; we must conclude, he must needs, when he applies his thoughts to the consideration of his ideas, know the truth of cer tain propositions, that will arise from the agreement or disagreement he will perceive in his own ideas. Such propositions being once made about abstract ideas, so as to be true, they will, whenever they can be supposed to be made again, at any time past, or to come, by a mind having those ideas, always be true. For names being supposed to stand per-. petually for the same ideas; and the same ideas having immutably the same habitudes one to another;

propositions concerning any abstract ideas that are once true, must needs be eternal verities.

CHAPTER XII.

Of the Improvement of our Knowlege.

It being the received opinion amongst men of letters that maxims are the foundations of all knowlege, and that sciences are each of them built on certain præcognita, from whence the understanding was to take its rise, and by which it was to conduct itself in its inquiries in the matters belonging to that science, the beaten road of the schools has been to lay down in the beginning one or more general propositions, called principles, as foundations whereon to build the knowlege that was to be had of that subject.

That which gave occasion to this way of proceeding, was, I suppose, the good success it seemed to have in mathematics, which, of all other sciences, have the greatest certainty, clearness, and evidence, in them. But if we consider it, we shall find that the great advancement and certainty of real knowlege men arrived to in these sciences, was not owing to the influence of these principles, but to the clear, distinct, and complete ideas their thoughts were employed about; and the relation of equality and excess so clear between some of them, that they had an intuitive knowlege; and by that a way to discover it in others; and this without the help of those maxims. For, I ask, is it not possible for a lad to know that his whole body is bigger than his little finger, but by virtue of this axiom, the whole is bigger than the part; nor be assured of it, till he has learned that maxim? Let any one consider from what has been elsewhere said, which is known first and clearest by most people, the particular instance, or the general rule; and which it is that gives life and birth to the other. These

general rules are but the comparing our more general and abstract ideas, which ideas are made by the mind, and have names given them, for the easier dispatch in its reasonings but knowlege began in the mind, and was founded on particulars, though afterwards, perhaps, no notice be taken thereof: it being natural for the mind to lay up those general notions, and make the proper use of them, which is to disburden the memory of the cumbersome load of particulars.

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The way to improve in knowlege, is not to swallow principles, with an implicit faith, and without examination, which would be apt to mislead men, stead of guiding them into truth; but to get and fix in our minds clear and complete ideas, as far as they are to be had, and annex to them proper and constant names: and thus barely by considering our ideas, and comparing them together, observing their agreement or disagreement, their habitudes and relations, we shall get more true and clear knowlege by the conduct of this one rule, than by taking up principles, and thereby putting our minds into the disposal of others.

False or doubtful positions, relied on as unquestionable maxims, keep those in the dark from truth, who build on them. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, &c. This is the mote which every one sees in his brother's eye, but never regards the beam in his own. To those who are willing to get rid of this great hinderance of knowlege, to those who would shake off this great and dangerous impostor Prejudice, who dresses up falsehood in the likeness of truth, I shall offer this one mark whereby prejudice may be known. He that is strongly of any opinion, must suppose that his persuasion is built on good grounds; and that his assent is no greater than what the evidence of the truth he holds forces him to. Now if, after all his profession, he cannot bear any opposition to his

opinion, if he cannot so much as give a patient hearing to the arguments on the other side, he plainly confesses that it is prejudice governs him; and it is not the evidence of truth, but some lazy anticipation, some beloved presumption, that he desires to rest undisturbed in.

He that would acquit himself in this case as a lover of truth, must do two things that are not very common nor very easy: 1. he must not be in love with any opinion, or wish it to be true, until he knows it to be so; for nothing that is false can deserve our good wishes, nor a desire that it should have the force of truth; and yet nothing is more frequent than this. 2. he must do that which he will find himself very averse to, as judging the thing unnecessary, or himself incapable of doing it. He must try whether his principles be certainly true or not, and how far he may safely rely on them. on them. The inability I here speak of, is not any natural defect that makes men incapable of examining their principles. To such, rules of conducting their understandings are useless, and that is the case of very few. The great number is of those whom the ill habit of never exerting their thoughts has disabled the powers of their minds are starved by disuse, and have lost that strengh which nature fitted them to receive from exercise. In these two things, viz. an equal indifferency for all truth; I mean the receiving it in the love of it as truth; and in the examination of our principles, and not receiving any for such till we are fully convinced of their solidity, truth and certainty, consists that freedom of the understanding, which is necessary to a rational creature ; and without which it is conceit, fancy, any thing rather than an understanding. And these two articles ought to be particularly inculcated in education; the business whereof, in respect of knowlege, is not to perfect a learner in all or any one of the sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, that disposition, and

those habits, that may enable him to attain any part of knowlege he shall apply himself to, or stand in need of in the future course of his life.

We must therefore, if we will proceed as reason advises, adapt our methods of inquiry, to the nature of the ideas we examine, and the truth we search after. General and certain truths are only founded in the habitudes and relations of abstract ideas. Therefore, a sagacious methodical application of our thoughts for the finding out these relations, is the only way to discover all that can with truth and certainty be put into general propositions. By what steps we are to proceed in these, is to be learned in the schools of the mathematicians, who from very plain and easy beginnings, by gentle degrees, and a continued chain of reasonings, proceed to the discovery and demonstration of truths, that appear at first sight beyond human capacity. This, I think I may say, that if other ideas that are real as well as nominal essences of their species, were pursued in the way familiar to mathematicians, they would carry our thoughts farther and with greater evidence and clearness, than possibly we are apt to imagine. This gave me the confidence to advance that conjecture, which I suggest, chapter the third, viz. that morality is capable of demonstration, as well as mathematics; for moral ideas being real essences, that have a discoverable connexion and agreement one with another, so far as we can find their habitudes and relations, so far we shall be possessed of real and general truths.

In our knowlege of substances, we are to proceed after a quite different method: the bare contemplation of their abstract ideas (which are but nominal essences) will carry us but a very little way in the search of truth and certainty. Here experience must teach us what reason cannot; and it is by trying alone, that we can certainly know what other qualities coexist with those of our complex idea; for instance, whether