OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.
1. Extent of our Knowledge.
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, it extends no further than we have Ideas.
First, we can have knowledge no further than we have IDEAS.
2. Secondly, It extends no further than we can perceive their Agreement
or Disagreement.
Secondly, That we can have no knowledge further than we can have
PERCEPTION of that 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 relation
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 does 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 further 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 that 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 further than it has hitherto 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, 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 has not given to some systems of matter, fitly disposed,
a power to perceive and think, or else joined and fixed to matter, so
disposed, a thinking immaterial substance: it being, in respect of our
notions, not much more remote from our comprehension to conceive that
GOD can, if he pleases, superadd to matter A FACULTY OF THINKING, than
that he should superadd to it ANOTHER SUBSTANCE WITH A FACULTY OF
THINKING; since we know not wherein thinking consists, nor to what sort
of substances the Almighty has been pleased to give that power, which
cannot be in any created being, but merely by the good pleasure and
bounty of the Creator. For I see no contradiction in it, that the first
Eternal thinking Being, or Omnipotent Spirit, should, if he pleased,
give to certain systems of created senseless matter, put together as he
thinks fit, some degrees of sense, perception, and thought: though, as
I think I have proved, lib. iv. ch. 10, Section 14, &c., it is no less
than a contradiction to suppose matter (which is evidently in its own
nature void of sense and thought) should be that Eternal first-thinking
Being. What certainty of knowledge can any one have, that some
perceptions, such as, v. g., pleasure and pain, should not be in some
bodies themselves, after a certain manner modified and moved, as well as
that they should be in an immaterial substance, upon the motion of the
parts of body: Body, as far as we can conceive, being able only to
strike and affect body, and motion, according to the utmost reach of our
ideas, being able to produce nothing but motion; so that when we allow
it to produce pleasure or pain, or the idea of a colour or sound, we are
fain to quit our reason, go beyond our ideas, and attribute it wholly to
the good pleasure of our Maker. For, since we must allow He has annexed
effects to motion which we can no way conceive motion able to produce,
what reason have we to conclude that He could not order them as well to
be produced in a subject we cannot conceive capable of them, as well as
in a subject we cannot conceive the motion of matter can any way operate
upon? I say not this, that I would any way lessen the belief of the
soul's immateriality: I am not here speaking of probability, but
knowledge, and I think not only that it becomes the modesty of
philosophy not to pronounce magisterially, where we want that evidence
that can produce knowledge; but also, that it is of use to us to discern
how far our knowledge does reach; for the state we are at present in,
not being that of vision, we must in many things content ourselves
with faith and probability: and in the present question, about
the Immateriality of the Soul, if our faculties cannot arrive at
demonstrative certainty, we need not think it strange. All the great
ends of morality and religion are well enough secured, without
philosophical proofs of the soul's immateriality; since it is evident,
that he who made us at the beginning to subsist here, sensible
intelligent beings, and for several years continued us in such a state,
can and will restore us to the like state of sensibility in another
world, and make us capable there to receive the retribution he has
designed to men, according to their doings in this life. [And therefore
it is not of such mighty necessity to determine one way or the other, as
some, over-zealous for or against the immateriality of the soul, have
been forward to make the world believe. Who, either on the one side,
indulging too much their thoughts immersed altogether in matter, can
allow no existence to what is not material: or who, on the other side,
finding not COGITATION within the natural powers of matter, examined
over and over again by the utmost intention of mind, have the confidence
to conclude--That Omnipotency itself cannot give perception and thought
to a substance which has the modification of solidity. He that considers
how hardly sensation is, in our thoughts, reconcilable to extended
matter; or existence to anything that has no extension at all, will
confess that he is very far from certainly knowing what his soul is.
It is a point which seems to me to be put out of the reach of our
knowledge: and he who will give himself leave to consider freely, and
look into the dark and intricate part of each hypothesis, will scarce
find his reason able to determine him fixedly for or against the soul's
materiality. Since, on which side soever he views it, either as an
UNEXTENDED SUBSTANCE, or as a THINKING EXTENDED MATTER, the difficulty
to conceive either will, whilst either alone is in his thoughts, still
drive him to the contrary side. An unfair way which some men take with
themselves: who, because of the inconceivableness of something they find
in one, throw themselves violently into the contrary hypothesis, though
altogether as unintelligible to an unbiassed understanding. This serves
not only to show the weakness and the scantiness of our knowledge, but
the insignificant triumph of such sort of arguments; which, drawn from
our own views, may satisfy us that we can find no certainty on one side
of the question: but do not at all thereby help us to truth by running
into the opposite opinion; which, on examination, will be found clogged
with equal difficulties. For what safety, what advantage to any one is
it, for the avoiding the seeming absurdities, and to him unsurmountable
rubs, he meets with in one opinion, to take refuge in the contrary,
which is built on something altogether as inexplicable, and as far
remote from his comprehension? It is past controversy, that we have in
us SOMETHING that thinks; our very doubts about what it is, confirm
the certainty of its being, though we must content ourselves in the
ignorance of what KIND of being it is: and it is in vain to go about to
be sceptical in this, as it is unreasonable in most other cases to be
positive against the being of anything, because we cannot comprehend
its nature. For I would fain know what substance exists, that has not
something in it which manifestly baffles our understandings. Other
spirits, who see and know the nature and inward constitution of things,
how much must they exceed us in knowledge? To which, if we add larger
comprehension, which enables them at one glance to see the connexion
and agreement of very many ideas, and readily supplies to them the
intermediate proofs, which we by single and slow steps, and long poring
in the dark, hardly at last find out, and are often ready to forget one
before we have hunted out another; we may guess at some part of the
happiness of superior ranks of spirits, who have a quicker and more
penetrating sight, as well as a larger field of knowledge.]
But to return to the argument in hand: our knowledge, I say, is not only
limited to the paucity and imperfections of the ideas we have, and which
we employ it about, but even comes short of that too: but how far it
reaches, let us now inquire.
7. How far our Knowledge reaches.
The affirmations or negations we make concerning the ideas we have, may,
as I have before intimated in general, be reduced to these four sorts,
viz. identity, co-existence, relation, and real existence. I shall
examine how far our knowledge extends in each of these:
8. Firstly, Our Knowledge of Identity and Diversity in ideas extends as
far as our Ideas themselves.
FIRST, as to IDENTITY and DIVERSITY. In this way of agreement or
disagreement of our ideas, our intuitive knowledge is as far extended
as our ideas themselves: and there can be no idea in the mind, which it
does not, presently, by an intuitive knowledge, perceive to be what it
is, and to be different from any other.
9. Secondly, Of their Co-existence, extends only a very little way.
SECONDLY, as to the second sort, which is the agreement or disagreement
of our ideas in CO-EXISTENCE, in this our knowledge is very short;
though in this consists the greatest and most material part of our
knowledge concerning substances. For our ideas of the species of
substances being, as I have showed, nothing but certain collections of
simple ideas united in one subject, and so co-existing together; v.g.
our idea of flame is a body hot, luminous, and moving upward; of gold,
a body heavy to a certain degree, yellow, malleable, and fusible: for
these, or some such complex ideas as these, in men's minds, do these two
names of the different substances, flame and gold, stand for. When we
would know anything further concerning these, or any other sort of
substances, what do we inquire, but what OTHER qualities or powers these
substances have or have not? Which is nothing else but to know what
OTHER simple ideas do, or do not co-exist with those that make up that
complex idea?
10. Because the Connexion between simple Ideas in substances is for the
most part unknown.
This, how weighty and considerable a part soever of human science, is
yet very narrow, and scarce any at all. The reason whereof is, that the
simple ideas whereof our complex ideas of substances are made up are,
for the most part, such as carry with them, in their own nature, no
VISIBLE NECESSARY connexion or inconsistency with any other simple
ideas, whose co-existence with them we would inform ourselves about.
11. Especially of the secondary Qualities of Bodies.
The ideas that our complex ones of substances are made up of, and about
which our knowledge concerning substances is most employed, are those of
their secondary qualities; which depending all (as has been shown) upon
the primary qualities of their minute and insensible parts; or, if not
upon them, upon something yet more remote from our comprehension; it is
impossible we should know which have a NECESSARY union or inconsistency
one with another. For, not knowing the root they spring from, not
knowing what size, figure, and texture of parts they are, on which
depend, and from which result those qualities which make our complex
idea of gold, it is impossible we should know what OTHER qualities
result from, or are incompatible with, the same constitution of the
insensible parts of gold; and so consequently must always co-exist with
that complex idea we have of it, or else are inconsistent with it.
12. Because necessary Connexion between any secondary and the primary
Qualities is undiscoverable by us.
Besides this ignorance of the primary qualities of the insensible parts
of bodies, on which depend all their secondary qualities, there is yet
another and more incurable part of ignorance, which sets us more remote
from a certain knowledge of the co-existence or INCO-EXISTENCE (if I may
so say) of different ideas in the same subject; and that is, that there
is no discoverable connexion between any secondary quality and those
primary qualities which it depends on.
13. We have no perfect knowledge of their Primary Qualities.
That the size, figure, and motion of one body should cause a change
in the size, figure, and motion of another body, is not beyond our
conception; the separation of the parts of one body upon the intrusion
of another; and the change from rest to motion upon impulse; these and
the like seem to have SOME CONNEXION one with another. And if we knew
these primary qualities of bodies, we might have reason to hope we might
be able to know a great deal more of these operations of them one upon
another: but our minds not being able to discover any connexion betwixt
these primary qualities of bodies and the sensations that are produced
in us by them, we can never be able to establish certain and undoubted
rules of the CONSEQUENCE or CO-EXISTENCE of any secondary qualities,
though we could discover the size, figure, or motion of those invisible
parts which immediately produce them. We are so far from knowing WHAT
figure, size, or motion of parts produce a yellow colour, a sweet taste,
or a sharp sound, that we can by no means conceive how ANY size, figure,
or motion of any particles, can possibly produce in us the idea of any
colour, taste, or sound whatsoever: there is no conceivable connexion
between the one and the other.
14. And seek in vain for certain and universal knowledge of unperceived
qualities in substances.
In vain, therefore, shall we endeavour to discover by our ideas (the
only true way of certain and universal knowledge) what other ideas are
to be found constantly joined with that of OUR complex idea of any
substance: since we neither know the real constitution of the minute
parts on which their qualities do depend; nor, did we know them,
could we discover any necessary connexion between them and any of
the secondary qualities: which is necessary to be done before we can
certainly know their necessary co-existence. So, that, let our complex
idea of any species of substances be what it will, we can hardly, from
the simple ideas contained in it, certainly determine the necessary
co-existence of any other quality whatsoever. Our knowledge in all these
inquiries reaches very little further than our experience. Indeed some
few of the primary qualities have a necessary dependence and visible
connexion one with another, as figure necessarily supposes extension;
receiving or communicating motion by impulse, supposes solidity. But
though these, and perhaps some others of our ideas have: yet there are
so few of them that have a visible connexion one with another, that we
can by intuition or demonstration discover the co-existence of very few
of the qualities that are to be found united in substances: and we are
left only to the assistance of our senses to make known to us what
qualities they contain. For of all the qualities that are co-existent
in any subject, without this dependence and evident connexion of their
ideas one with another, we cannot know certainly any two to co-exist,
any further than experience, by our senses, informs us. Thus, though we
see the yellow colour, and, upon trial, find the weight, malleableness,
fusibility, and fixedness that are united in a piece of gold; yet,
because no one of these ideas has any evident dependence or necessary
connexion with the other, we cannot certainly know that where any four
of these are, the fifth will be there also, how highly probable soever
it may be; because the highest probability amounts not to certainty,
without which there can be no true knowledge. For this co-existence can
be no further known than it is perceived; and it cannot be perceived but
either in particular subjects, by the observation of our senses, or, in
general, by the necessary connexion of the ideas themselves.
15. Of Repugnancy to co-exist, our knowledge is larger.
As to the incompatibility or repugnancy to co-existence, we may know
that any subject may have of each sort of primary qualities but one
particular at once: v.g. each particular extension, figure, number of
parts, motion, excludes all other of each kind. The like also is certain
of all sensible ideas peculiar to each sense; for whatever of each kind
is present in any subject, excludes all other of that sort: v.g. no one
subject can have two smells or two colours at the same time. To this,
perhaps will be said, Has not an opal, or the infusion of LIGNUM
NEPHRITICUM, two colours at the same time? To which I answer, that
these bodies, to eyes differently, placed, may at the same time afford
different colours: but I take liberty also to say, that, to eyes
differently placed, it is different parts of the object that reflect the
particles of light: and therefore it is not the same part of the object,
and so not the very same subject, which at the same time appears both
yellow and azure. For, it is as impossible that the very same particle
of any body should at the same time differently modify or reflect the
rays of light, as that it should have two different figures and textures
at the same time.
16. Our Knowledge of the Co-existence of Power in Bodies extends but a
very little Way.
But as to the powers of substances to change the sensible qualities of
other bodies, which make a great part of our inquiries about them, and
is no inconsiderable branch of our knowledge; I doubt as to these,
whether our knowledge reaches much further than our experience; or
whether we can come to the discovery of most of these powers, and be
certain that they are in any subject, by the connexion with any of those
ideas which to us make its essence. Because the active and passive
powers of bodies, and their ways of operating, consisting in a texture
and motion of parts which we cannot by any means come to discover; it is
but in very few cases we can be able to perceive their dependence on,
or repugnance to, any of those ideas which make our complex one of that
sort of things. I have here instanced in the corpuscularian hypothesis,
as that which is thought to go furthest in an intelligible explication
of those qualities of bodies; and I fear the weakness of human
understanding is scarce able to substitute another, which will afford
us a fuller and clearer discovery of the necessary connexion and
co-existence of the powers which are to be observed united in several
sorts of them. This at least is certain, that, whichever hypothesis be
clearest and truest, (for of that it is not my business to determine,)
our knowledge concerning corporeal substances will be very little
advanced by any of them, till we are made to see what qualities and
powers of bodies have a NECESSARY connexion or repugnancy one with
another; which in the present state of philosophy I think we know but to
a very small degree: and I doubt whether, with those faculties we
have, we shall ever be able to carry our general knowledge (I say not
particular experience) in this part much further. Experience is that
which in this part we must depend on. And it were to be wished that it
were more improved. We find the advantages some men's generous pains
have this way brought to the stock of natural knowledge. And if others,
especially the philosophers by fire, who pretend to it, had been so wary
in their observations, and sincere in their reports as those who call
themselves philosophers ought to have been, our acquaintance with the
bodies here about us, and our insight into their powers and operations
had been yet much greater.
17. Of the Powers that co-exist in Spirits yet narrower.
If we are at a loss in respect of the powers and operations of bodies, I
think it is easy to conclude we are much more in the dark in reference
to spirits; whereof we naturally have no ideas but what we draw from
that of our own, by reflecting on the operations of our own souls
within us, as far as they can come within our observation. But how
inconsiderable a rank the spirits that inhabit our bodies hold amongst
those various and possibly innumerable kinds of nobler beings; and how
far short they come of the endowments and perfections of cherubim and
seraphim, and infinite sorts of spirits above us, is what by a transient
hint in another place I have offered to my reader's consideration.
18. Thirdly, Of Relations between abstracted ideas it is not easy to say
how far our knowledge extends.
THIRDLY, As to the third sort of our knowledge, viz. the agreement or
disagreement of any of our ideas in any other relation: this, as it is
the largest field of our knowledge, so it is hard to determine how
far it may extend: because the advances that are made in this part of
knowledge, depending on our sagacity in finding intermediate ideas, that
may show the relations and habitudes of ideas whose co-existence is not
considered, it is a hard matter to tell when we are at an end of such
discoveries; and when reason has all the helps it is capable of, for the
finding of proofs, or examining the agreement or disagreement of remote
ideas. They that are ignorant of Algebra cannot imagine the wonders in
this kind are to be done by it: and what further improvements and helps
advantageous to other parts of knowledge the sagacious mind of man may
yet find out, it is not easy to determine. This at least I believe,
that the IDEAS OF QUANTITY are not those alone that are capable of
demonstration and knowledge; and that other, and perhaps more useful,
parts of contemplation, would afford us certainty, if vices, passions,
and domineering interest did not oppose or menace such endeavours.
Morality capable of Demonstration
The idea of a supreme Being, infinite in power, goodness, and wisdom,
whose workmanship we are, and on whom we depend; and the idea of
ourselves, as understanding, rational creatures, being such as are clear
in us, would, I suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such
foundations of our duty and rules of action as might place MORALITY
amongst the SCIENCES CAPABLE OF DEMONSTRATION: wherein I doubt not
but from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences, as
incontestible as those in mathematics, the measures of right and wrong
might be made out, to any one that will apply himself with the same
indifferency and attention to the one as he does to the other of these
sciences. The RELATION of other MODES may certainly be perceived, as
well as those of number and extension: and I cannot see why they should
not also be capable of demonstration, if due methods were thought on to
examine or pursue their agreement or disagreement. 'Where there is no
property there is no injustice,' is a proposition as certain as any
demonstration in Euclid: for the idea of property being a right to
anything, and the idea of which the name 'injustice' is given being the
invasion or violation of that right, it is evident that these ideas,
being thus established, and these names annexed to them, I can as
certainly know this proposition to be true, as that a triangle has three
angles equal to two right ones. Again: 'No government allows absolute
liberty.' The idea of government being the establishment of society upon
certain rules or laws which require conformity to them; and the idea of
absolute liberty being for any one to do whatever he pleases; I am as
capable of being certain of the truth of this proposition as of any in
the mathematics.
19. Two things have made moral Ideas to be thought incapable of
Demonstration: their unfitness for sensible representation, and their
complexedness.
That which in this respect has given the advantage to the ideas
of quantity, and made them thought more capable of certainty and
demonstration, is,
First, That they can be set down and represented by sensible marks,
which have a greater and nearer correspondence with them than any words
or sounds whatsoever. Diagrams drawn on paper are copies of the ideas in
the mind, and not liable to the uncertainty that words carry in their
signification. An angle, circle, or square, drawn in lines, lies open to
the view, and cannot be mistaken: it remains unchangeable, and may at
leisure be considered and examined, and the demonstration be revised,
and all the parts of it may be gone over more than once, without any
danger of the least change in the ideas. This cannot be thus done in
moral ideas: we have no sensible marks that resemble them, whereby we
can set them down; we have nothing but words to express them by; which,
though when written they remain the same, yet the ideas they stand for
may change in the same man; and it is very seldom that they are not
different in different persons.
Secondly, Another thing that makes the greater difficulty in ethics is,
That moral ideas are commonly more complex than those of the
figures ordinarily considered in mathematics. From whence these two
inconveniences follow:--First, that their names are of more uncertain
signification, the precise collection of simple ideas they stand for
not being so easily agreed on; and so the sign that is used for them in
communication always, and in thinking often, does not steadily carry
with it the same idea. Upon which the same disorder, confusion, and
error follow, as would if a man, going to demonstrate something of an
heptagon, should, in the diagram he took to do it, leave out one of the
angles, or by oversight make the figure with one angle more than the
name ordinarily imported, or he intended it should when at first
he thought of his demonstration. This often happens, and is hardly
avoidable in very complex moral ideas, where the same name being
retained, one angle, i.e. one simple idea, is left out, or put in the
complex one (still called by the same name) more at one time than
another. Secondly, From the complexedness of these moral ideas there
follows another inconvenience, viz. that the mind cannot easily retain
those precise combinations so exactly and perfectly as is necessary in
the examination of the habitudes and correspondences, agreements or
disagreements, of several of them one with another; especially where it
is to be judged of by long deductions, and the intervention of several
other complex ideas to show the agreement or disagreement of two remote
ones.
The great help against this which mathematicians find in diagrams and
figures, which remain unalterable in their draughts, is very apparent,
and the memory would often have great difficulty otherwise to retain
them so exactly, whilst the mind went over the parts of them step by
step to examine their several correspondences. And though in casting up
a long sum either in addition, multiplication, or division, every part
be only a progression of the mind taking a view of its own ideas, and
considering their agreement or disagreement, and the resolution of
the question be nothing but the result of the whole, made up of such
particulars, whereof the mind has a clear perception: yet, without
setting down the several parts by marks, whose precise significations
are known, and by marks that last, and remain in view when the memory
had let them go, it would be almost impossible to carry so many
different ideas in the mind, without confounding or letting slip some
parts of the reckoning, and thereby making all our reasonings about it
useless. In which case the cyphers or marks help not the mind at all to
perceive the agreement of any two or more numbers, their equalities or
proportions; that the mind has only by intuition of its own ideas of
the numbers themselves. But the numerical characters are helps to
the memory, to record and retain the several ideas about which the
demonstration is made, whereby a man may know how far his intuitive
knowledge in surveying several of the particulars has proceeded; that so
he may without confusion go on to what is yet unknown; and at last have
in one view before him the result of all his perceptions and reasonings.
20. Remedies of our Difficulties in dealing demonstratively with moral
ideas.
One part of these disadvantages in moral ideas which has made them be
thought not capable of demonstration, may in a good measure be remedied
by definitions, setting down that collection of simple ideas, which
every term shall stand for; and then using the terms steadily and
constantly for that precise collection. And what methods algebra, or
something of that kind, may hereafter suggest, to remove the other
difficulties, it is not easy to foretell. Confident I am, that, if men
would in the same method, and with the same indifferency, search after
moral as they do mathematical truths, they would find them have a
stronger connexion one with another, and a more necessary consequence
from our clear and distinct ideas, and to come nearer perfect
demonstration than is commonly imagined. But much of this is not to
be expected, whilst the desire of esteem, riches, or power makes men
espouse the well-endowed opinions in fashion, and then seek arguments
either to make good their beauty, or varnish over and cover their
deformity. Nothing being so beautiful to the eye as truth is to the
mind; nothing so deformed and irreconcilable to the understanding as a
lie. For though many a man can with satisfaction enough own a no very
handsome wife in his bosom; yet who is bold enough openly to avow that
he has espoused a falsehood, and received into his breast so ugly a
thing as a lie? Whilst the parties of men cram their tenets down all
men's throats whom they can get into their power, without permitting
them to examine their truth or falsehood; and will not let truth have
fair play in the world, nor men the liberty to search after it; what
improvements can be expected of this kind? What greater light can be
hoped for in the moral sciences? The subject part of mankind in most
places might, instead thereof, with Egyptian bondage, expect Egyptian
darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's
minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to
extinguish.
21. Fourthly, Of the three real Existences of which we have certain
knowledge.
FOURTHLY, As to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz. of the REAL
ACTUAL EXISTENCE OF THINGS, we have an intuitive knowledge of OUR OWN
EXISTENCE, and a demonstrative knowledge of the existence of a GOD:
of the existence of ANYTHING ELSE, we have no other but a sensitive
knowledge; which extends not beyond the objects present to our senses.
22. Our Ignorance great.
Our knowledge being so narrow, as I have shown, it will perhaps give us
some light into the present state of our minds if we look a little into
the dark side, and take a view of OUR IGNORANCE; which, being infinitely
larger than our knowledge, may serve much to the quieting of disputes,
and improvement of useful knowledge; if, discovering how far we
have clear and distinct ideas, we confine our thoughts within the
contemplation of those things that are within the reach of our
understandings, and launch not out into that abyss of darkness, (where
we have not eyes to see, nor faculties to perceive anything), out of
a presumption that nothing is beyond our comprehension. But to be
satisfied of the folly of such a conceit, we need not go far. He that
knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek
long for instances of his ignorance. The meanest and most obvious things
that come in our way have dark sides, that the quickest sight cannot
penetrate into. The clearest and most enlarged understandings of
thinking men find themselves puzzled and at a loss in every particle of
matter. We shall the less wonder to find it so, when we consider the
CAUSES OF OUR IGNORANCE; which, from what has been said, I suppose will
be found to be these three:--
First, Want of ideas. Its causes.
Secondly, Want of a discoverable connexion between the ideas we have.
Thirdly, Want of tracing and examining our ideas.
23. First, One Cause of our ignorance Want of Ideas.
I. Want of simple ideas that other creatures in other parts of the
universe may have.
FIRST, There are some things, and those not a few, that we are ignorant
of, for want of ideas.
First, all the simple ideas we have are confined (as I have shown) to
those we receive from corporeal objects by sensation, and from the
operations of our own minds as the objects of reflection. But how much
these few and narrow inlets are disproportionate to the vast whole
extent of all beings, will not be hard to persuade those who are not so
foolish as to think their span the measure of all things. What other
simple ideas it is possible the creatures in other parts of the universe
may have, by the assistance of senses and faculties more or perfecter
than we have, or different from ours, it is not for us to determine. But
to say or think there are no such, because we conceive nothing of them,
is no better an argument than if a blind man should be positive in it,
that there was no such thing as sight and colours, because he had no
manner of idea of any such thing, nor could by any means frame to
himself any notions about seeing. The ignorance and darkness that is in
us no more hinders nor confines the knowledge that is in others, than
the blindness of a mole is an argument against the quicksightedness of
an eagle. He that will consider the infinite power, wisdom, and goodness
of the Creator of all things will find reason to think it was not all
laid out upon so inconsiderable, mean, and impotent a creature as he
will find man to be; who in all probability is one of the lowest of
all intellectual beings. What faculties, therefore, other species of
creatures have to penetrate into the nature and inmost constitutions of
things; what ideas they may receive of them far different from ours, we
know not. This we know and certainly find, that we want several other
views of them besides those we have, to make discoveries of them more
perfect. And we may be convinced that the ideas we can attain to by
our faculties are very disproportionate to things themselves, when
a positive, clear, distinct one of substance itself, which is the
foundation of all the rest, is concealed from us. But want of ideas of
this kind, being a part as well as cause of our ignorance, cannot be
described. Only this I think I may confidently say of it, That the
intellectual and sensible world are in this perfectly alike: that that
part which we see of either of them holds no proportion with what we see
not; and whatsoever we can reach with our eyes or our thoughts of either
of them is but a point, almost nothing in comparison of the the rest.
24. Want of simple ideas that men are capable of having, but having
not,(1) Because their remoteness, or,
Secondly, Another great cause of ignorance is the want of ideas we are
capable of. As the want of ideas which our faculties are not able
to give us shuts us wholly from those views of things which it is
reasonable to think other beings, perfecter than we, have, of which we
know nothing; so the want of ideas I now speak of keeps us in ignorance
of things we conceive capable of being known to us. Bulk, figure, and
motion we have ideas of. But though we are not without ideas of these
primary qualities of bodies in general, yet not knowing what is the
particular bulk, figure, and motion, of the greatest part of the bodies
of the universe, we are ignorant of the several powers, efficacies, and
ways of operation, whereby the effects which we daily see are produced.
These are hid from us, in some things by being too remote, and in others
by being too minute. When we consider the vast distance of the known and
visible parts of the world, and the reasons we have to think that what
lies within our ken is but a small part of the universe, we shall then
discover a huge abyss of ignorance. What are the particular fabrics of
the great masses of matter which make up the whole stupendous frame of
corporeal beings; how far they are extended; what is their motion, and
how continued or communicated; and what influence they have one upon
another, are contemplations that at first glimpse our thoughts lose
themselves in. If we narrow our contemplations, and confine our thoughts
to this little canton--I mean this system of our sun, and the grosser
masses of matter that visibly move about it, What several sorts of
vegetables, animals, and intellectual corporeal beings, infinitely
different from those of our little spot of earth, may there probably be
in the other planets, to the knowledge of which, even of their outward
figures and parts, we can no way attain whilst we are confined to this
earth; there being no natural means, either by sensation or reflection,
to convey their certain ideas into our minds? They are out of the reach
of those inlets of all our knowledge: and what sorts of furniture and
inhabitants those mansions contain in them we cannot so much as guess,
much less have clear and distinct ideas of them.
25. (2) Because of their Minuteness.
If a great, nay, far the greatest part of the several ranks of bodies
in the universe escape our notice by their remoteness, there are others
that are no less concealed from us by their minuteness. These INSENSIBLE
CORPUSCLES, being the active parts of matter, and the great instruments
of nature, on which depend not only all their secondary qualities, but
also most of their natural operations, our want of precise distinct
ideas of their primary qualities keeps us in an incurable ignorance of
what we desire to know about them. I doubt not but if we could discover
the figure, size, texture, and motion of the minute constituent parts of
any two bodies, we should know without trial several of their operations
one upon another; as we do now the properties of a square or a triangle.
Did we know the mechanical affections of the particles of rhubarb,
hemlock, opium, and a man, as a watchmaker does those of a watch,
whereby it performs its operations; and of a file, which by rubbing on
them will alter the figure of any of the wheels; we should be able to
tell beforehand that rhubarb will purge, hemlock kill, and opium make
a man sleep: as well as a watchmaker can, that a little piece of paper
laid on the balance will keep the watch from going till it be removed;
or that, some small part of it being rubbed by a file, the machine would
quite lose its motion, and the watch go no more. The dissolving of
silver in AQUA FORTIS, and gold in AQUA REGIA, and not VICE VERSA, would
be then perhaps no more difficult to know than it is to a smith to
understand why the turning of one key will open a lock, and not the
turning of another. But whilst we are destitute of senses acute enough
to discover the minute particles of bodies, and to give us ideas of
their mechanical affections, we must be content to be ignorant of their
properties and ways of operation; nor can we be assured about them any
further than some few trials we make are able to reach. But whether they
will succeed again another time, we cannot be certain. This hinders our
certain knowledge of universal truths concerning natural bodies: and our
reason carries us herein very little beyond particular matter of fact.
26. Hence no Science of Bodies within our reach.
And therefore I am apt to doubt that, how far soever human industry
may advance useful and experimental philosophy in physical things,
SCIENTIFICAL will still be out of our reach: because we want perfect and
adequate ideas of those very bodies which are nearest to us, and most
under our command. Those which we have ranked into classes under names,
and we think ourselves best acquainted with, we have but very imperfect
and incomplete ideas of. Distinct ideas of the several sorts of bodies
that fall under the examination of our senses perhaps we may have: but
adequate ideas, I suspect, we have not of any one amongst them. And
though the former of these will serve us for common use and discourse,
yet whilst we want the latter, we are not capable of scientifical
knowledge; nor shall ever be able to discover general, instructive,
unquestionable truths concerning them. CERTAINTY and DEMONSTRATION are
things we must not, in these matters, pretend to. By the colour, figure,
taste, and smell, and other sensible qualities, we have as clear and
distinct ideas of sage and hemlock, as we have of a circle and a
triangle: but having no ideas of the particular primary qualities of the
minute parts of either of these plants, nor of other bodies which we
would apply them to, we cannot tell what effects they will produce; nor
when we see those effects can we so much as guess, much less know, their
manner of production. Thus, having no ideas of the particular mechanical
affections of the minute parts of bodies that are within our view and
reach, we are ignorant of their constitutions, powers, and operations:
and of bodies more remote we are yet more ignorant, not knowing so much
as their very outward shapes, or the sensible and grosser parts of their
constitutions.
27. Much less a science of unembodied Spirits.
This at first will show us how disproportionate our knowledge is to
the whole extent even of material beings; to which if we add the
consideration of that infinite number of spirits that may be, and
probably are, which are yet more remote from our knowledge, whereof we
have no cognizance, nor can frame to ourselves any distinct ideas of
their several ranks and sorts, we shall find this cause of ignorance
conceal from us, in an impenetrable obscurity, almost the whole
intellectual world; a greater certainly, and more beautiful world than
the material. For, bating some very few, and those, if I may so call
them, superficial ideas of spirit, which by reflection we get of our
own, and from thence the best we can collect of the Father of all
spirits, the eternal independent Author of them, and us, and all things,
we have no certain information, so much as of the existence of other
spirits, but by revelation. Angels of all sorts are naturally beyond our
discovery; and all those intelligences, whereof it is likely there are
more orders than of corporeal substances, are things whereof our natural
faculties give us no certain account at all. That there are minds and
thinking beings in other men as well as himself, every man has a reason,
from their words and actions, to be satisfied: and the knowledge of his
own mind cannot suffer a man that considers, to be ignorant that there
is a God. But that there are degrees of spiritual beings between us and
the great God, who is there, that, by his own search and ability, can
come to know? Much less have we distinct ideas of their different
natures, conditions, states, powers, and several constitutions wherein
they agree or differ from one another and from us. And, therefore, in
what concerns their different species and properties we are in absolute
ignorance.
28. Secondly, Another cause, Want of a discoverable Connexion between
Ideas we have.
SECONDLY, What a small part of the substantial beings that are in the
universe the want of ideas leaves open to our knowledge, we have seen.
In the next place, another cause of ignorance, of no less moment, is
a want of a discoverable connection between those ideas we have. For
wherever we want that, we are utterly incapable of universal and certain
knowledge; and are, in the former case, left only to observation and
experiment: which, how narrow and confined it is, how far from general
knowledge we need not be told. I shall give some few instances of this
cause of our ignorance, and so leave it. It is evident that the bulk,
figure, and motion of several bodies about us produce in us several
sensations, as of colours, sounds, tastes, smells, pleasure, and pain,
&c. These mechanical affections of bodies having no affinity at all with
those ideas they produce in us, (there being no conceivable connexion
between any impulse of any sort of body and any perception of a colour
or smell which we find in our minds,) we can have no distinct knowledge
of such operations beyond our experience; and can reason no otherwise
about them, than as effects produced by the appointment of an infinitely
Wise Agent, which perfectly surpass our comprehensions. As the ideas of
sensible secondary qualities which we have in our minds, can by us be no
way deduced from bodily causes, nor any correspondence or connexion be
found between them and those primary qualities which (experience shows
us) produce them in us; so, on the other side, the operation of our
minds upon our bodies is as inconceivable. How any thought should
produce a motion in body is as remote from the nature of our ideas, as
how any body should produce any thought in the mind. That it is so,
if experience did not convince us, the consideration of the things
themselves would never be able in the least to discover to us. These,
and the like, though they have a constant and regular connexion in the
ordinary course of things; yet that connexion being not discoverable in
the ideas themselves, which appearing to have no necessary dependence
one on another, we can attribute their connexion to nothing else but the
arbitrary determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be,
and to operate as they do, in a way wholly above our weak understandings
to conceive.
29. Instances
In some of our ideas there are certain relations, habitudes, and
connexions, so visibly included in the nature of the ideas themselves,
that we cannot conceive them separable from them by any power
whatsoever. And in these only we are capable of certain and universal
knowledge. Thus the idea of a right-lined triangle necessarily carries
with it an equality of its angles to two right ones. Nor can we conceive
this relation, this connexion of these two ideas, to be possibly
mutable, or to depend on any arbitrary power, which of choice made it
thus, or could make it otherwise. But the coherence and continuity of
the parts of matter; the production of sensation in us of colours
and sounds, &c., by impulse and motion; nay, the original rules and
communication of motion being such, wherein we can discover no natural
connexion with any ideas we have, we cannot but ascribe them to the
arbitrary will and good pleasure of the Wise Architect. I need not, I
think, here mention the resurrection of the dead, the future state of
this globe of earth, and such other things, which are by every one
acknowledged to depend wholly on the determination of a free agent. The
things that, as far as our observation reaches, we constantly find to
proceed regularly, we may conclude do act by a law set them; but yet
by a law that we know not: whereby, though causes work steadily, and
effects constantly flow from them, yet their connexions and dependencies
being not discoverable in our ideas, we can have but an experimental
knowledge of them. From all which it is easy to perceive what a darkness
we are involved in, how little it is of Being, and the things that are,
that we are capable to know. And therefore we shall do no injury to our
knowledge, when we modestly think with ourselves, that we are so far
from being able to comprehend the whole nature of the universe, and all
the things contained in it, that we are not capable of a philosophical
knowledge of the bodies that are about us, and make a part of us:
concerning their secondary qualities, powers, and operations, we can
have no universal certainty. Several effects come every day within the
notice of our senses, of which we have so far sensitive knowledge: but
the causes, manner, and certainty of their production, for the two
foregoing reasons, we must be content to be very ignorant of. In these
we can go no further than particular experience informs us of matter of
fact, and by analogy to guess what effects the like bodies are, upon
other trials, like to produce. But as to a PERFECT SCIENCE of natural
bodies, (not to mention spiritual beings,) we are, I think, so far from
being capable of any such thing, that I conclude it lost labour to seek
after it.
30. Thirdly A third cause, Want of Tracing our ideas.
THIRDLY, Where we have adequate ideas, and where there is a certain and
discoverable connexion between them, yet we are often ignorant, for
want of tracing those ideas which we have or may have; and for want of
finding out those intermediate ideas, which may show us what habitude of
agreement or disagreement they have one with another. And thus many are
ignorant of mathematical truths, not out of any imperfection of their
faculties, or uncertainty in the things themselves, but for want of
application in acquiring, examining, and by due ways comparing those
ideas. That which has most contributed to hinder the due tracing of our
ideas, and finding out their relations, and agreements or disagreements,
one with another, has been, I suppose, the ill use of words. It is
impossible that men should ever truly seek or certainly discover the
agreement or disagreement of ideas themselves, whilst their thoughts
flutter about, or stick only in sounds of doubtful and uncertain
significations. Mathematicians abstracting their thoughts from names,
and accustoming themselves to set before their minds the ideas
themselves that they would consider, and not sounds instead of them,
have avoided thereby a great part of that perplexity, puddering, and
confusion, which has so much hindered men's progress in other parts of
knowledge. For whilst they stick in words of undetermined and uncertain
signification, they are unable to distinguish true from false, certain
from probable, consistent from inconsistent, in their own opinions. This
having been the fate or misfortune of a great part of men of letters,
the increase brought into the stock of real knowledge has been very
little, in proportion to the schools disputes, and writings, the world
has been filled with; whilst students, being lost in the great wood of
words, knew not whereabouts they were, how far their discoveries were
advanced, or what was wanting in their own, or the general stock of
knowledge. Had men, in the discoveries of the material, done as they
have in those of the intellectual world, involved all in the obscurity
of uncertain and doubtful ways of talking, volumes writ of navigation
and voyages, theories and stories of zones and tides, multiplied and
disputed; nay, ships built, and fleets sent out, would never have taught
us the way beyond the line; and the Antipodes would be still as much
unknown, as when it was declared heresy to hold there were any. But
having spoken sufficiently of words, and the ill or careless use that is
commonly made of them, I shall not say anything more of it here.
31. Extent of Human Knowledge in respect to its Universality.
Hitherto we have examined the extent of our knowledge, in respect of
the several sorts of beings that are. There is another extent of it, in
respect of UNIVERSALITY, which will also deserve to be considered; and
in this regard, our knowledge follows the nature of our ideas. If the
ideas are abstract, whose agreement or disagreement we perceive, our
knowledge is universal. For what is known of such general ideas, will be
true of every particular thing in whom that essence, i.e. that abstract
idea, is to be found: and what is once known of such ideas, will be
perpetually and for ever true. So that as to all GENERAL KNOWLEDGE we
must search and find it only in our minds; and it is only the examining
of our own ideas that furnisheth us with that. Truths belonging to
essences of things (that is, to abstract ideas) are eternal; and are
to be found out by the contemplation only of those essences: as the
existence of things is to be known only from experience. But having more
to say of this in the chapters where I shall speak of general and real
knowledge, this may here suffice as to the universality of our knowledge
in general.