same idea. In moral discourses indeed wrong names usually breed more disorder, because it is not so easy to give a correct definition as to draw a correct figure.

Where God or any other Law-maker has defined moral names, there they become the essence of a species, and it is not safe to nick-name them.

Complex ideas of substances being referred to archetypes, our knowledge of them may not be real; for it is not sufficient that they consist of possible combinations of simple ideas; but the combinations must be actual. As far as our ideas are true, though perhaps not exact copies, so far our knowledge is real but this knowledge does not extend far.

Whatever simple ideas have been found co-existing in any substance, these we may with confidence join again, and so make abstract ideas of substances; whence we get general knowledge.

If we did not confine our thoughts so much to names, we should think of things with greater freedom and less confusion. It would be thought a bold paradox, if not a dangerous falshood, should I say that a changeling, who has lived forty years together without any appearance of reason, is something between a man and a beast:-which prejudice is founded upon the supposition of a certain number of real essences, and that there can be no species between them of a different essence;-though the

- idea of the shape, motion, and life of a man without reason, is as much that of a distinct species from man or beast, as the idea of the shape of an ass with reason would be.

But some men's zeal enables them to see religion threatened, whenever one quits their forms of speaking: and no doubt it will be asked, what will become of this new species of changelings in the other world. I answer it concerns not me to enquire: they are in the hands of a bountiful father who does not dispose of his creatures according to our narrow opinions :—we who know so little of the present world need not be peremptory in defining the different states of creatures in another: it suffices that he has made known a future state of retribution to all who are capable of instruction.

This question is founded upon one of two false suppositions;-first, that whatever has the outward appearance of a man, is designed for immortality; or secondly, that whatever is of human birth must be so. I never heard of any one who allowed such excellency to the figure of any mass of matter, as to affirm eternal life due to it:-such an opinion places immortality in a superficial figure, and wholly excludes all consideration of soul or spirit, by which alone some corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal.

It will perhaps be said, that no one supposed the

shape to make a thing immortal, but only to be the sign of a rational immortal soul within. This wants proof: for we may as rationally conclude that the dead body of a man possesses a living soul, because of its shape, as that a changeling has a rational soul, because he has the outside of a rational creature. Again, I know not by what logic it is concluded, that what is the issue of rational parents must have a rational soul. Men destroy mis-shaped productions, or monsters;-shall a defect then in the body make a monster, and a defect in the mind (the far more noble, and, in the common phrase, essential part,) not? I should like to know then what are those precise lineaments which are not capable of being united with a rational soul.

CHAP. V.

OF TRUTH IN GENERAL.

WHAT is Truth, was an enquiry many ages since. As all men pretend to seek it, we have good reason carefully to examine its nature, and observe how it is distinguished from falsehood.

I consider Truth to be the joining and separating of signs, as the things signified by them agree or disagree one with another; which is the making of Pro

positions: and those are of two sorts, mental and werbal.

Though in order to form a clear notion of Truth, it is necessary to consider Truth of thought distinct from Truth of words, yet we must treat of mental propositions in words, so that they become verbal.

What makes it more difficult to treat them separately is, that most men in reasoning with themselves use words instead of ideas, when the subject of their meditation contains complex ideas, because these ideas are generally confused and undetermined. Many who talk much of religion and conscience, of church and faith, of power and right, &c. would perhaps have little left in their meditations, if one should desire them to think only of the things themselves, and lay by those words with which they so often confound others, and not seldom themselves.

A mental Proposition is the joining or separating of ideas in the mind:-a verbal proposition is the joining or separating of words in affirmative or negative sentences.

Truth may be distinguished into verbal and real. Verbal Truth is the use of terms according to the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, without considering whether these ideas have an existence in nature, Real Truth is the use of signs according to the relation of those ideas which agree with the reality of things.

Falsehood is the marking down in words the agreement or disagreement of ideas otherwise than it is.

General Truths are most sought for; as by their comprehensiveness they enlarge our view and shorten our way to knowledge.

CHAP. VI.

OF UNIVERSAL PROPOSITIONS, THEIR TRUTH AND CERTAINTY.

THE prevailing custom of using Sounds for Ideas makes the consideration of Words and Propositions so necessary a part of the treatise of knowledge, that it is very hard to speak intelligibly of the one without explaining the other.

As our knowledge of General Truths cannot well be made known, and is seldom apprehended, but as conceived and expressed in words, it will be our business to enquire into the truth and certainty of universal propositions..

Not to be misled by the doubtfulness of terms, which is the danger every where, we must observe that certainty is of two kinds,-of Truth, and of Knowledge. Certainty of truth is the putting of

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