Creation. If matter must be supposed eternal, because you cannot conceive it made out of nothing, why not conceive yourself eternal? you say, you began to be so many years ago; that is, not the matter, but the fashion of it called your Body, then began to be; but that frame of particles is not you: when then, I say, did the thinking thing you begin to be? If never; you have existed from eternity: an absurdity I need not confute. If you can allow a thinking thing, why not allow a material being, to be made out of nothing, by an equal power? but that you have experience of the first, and not of the second.

Besides it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite being, because we cannot comprehend its operations. We do not deny effects here, because we cannot conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive how any thing but impulse of body can move body: yet this is not a sufficient reason for us to deny it possible, against the constant experience of it in our own voluntary motions; which are the effects of the free action or thought of our minds only, and not of the impulse of blind matter on our bodies; for then it would be in our power or choice to alter it.

When you can explain how by my will, by a thought of my mind, my right hand moves and my left hand rests, the next step will be to understand

creation. In the mean time, it is an over-valuing of ourselves to reduce all things to the narrow measure of our capacities, and to conclude that impossible to be done, the manner of doing which exceeds our comprehension: it is to make our comprehension infinite, or God finite, when what he can do is limited to what we can conceive. If we understand not the operations of our finite minds, let us not expect to comprehend the infinite mind.

CHAP. X:

OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS.

OUR knowledge of the existence of any thing, except God and ourselves, comes only by sensation; for as there is no necessary connexion of real existence with any idea a man has in his memory, the existence of any other being is only known to him, when it actually operates on him so as to make itself perceived. The idea of any thing no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man proves his existence, or than the visions of a dream make a true history.

The notice we have by our senses of the existence

of things without us, though not altogether so certain as our intuitive knowledge, or as the deductions of our reason from the clear abstract ideas of our own minds, is yet an assurance that deserves the name of Knowledge. I think no one can seriously be so sceptical as to doubt of the existence of those things which he sees and feels: such an one at least will never have any controversy with me, since he can never be sure that I say any thing contrary to his opinion. I think that I have assurance enough of the existence of external things, since by their different application I can produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great concern of my present state. We cannot talk of knowledge itself but by the help of those faculties which are fitted to apprehend what knowledge is.

1st, Our perceptions are produced in us by exterior causes affecting our senses; because those that want the organs of any sense never can have the ideas belonging to that sense: for if the organs themselves produced them, the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colours.

2dly, Because Ideas from actual sensation, and those from memory, are very distinct perceptions: for when my eyes are shut, I can at pleasure call to my mind the ideas of light or the sun, or banish them, and take into my view other ideas; but if I actually turn my eyes towards the Sun, I cannot

avoid the ideas which the light or sun then produces. If these ideas were only in my memory, I should always have the same power to lay them by at plea

sure.

3dly, Because many ideas are produced in us with pain, which are afterwards remembered without the least offence: thus heat and cold as ideas revived in the mind give no pain, though felt in a certain degree they are very troublesome. We remember the pains of hunger, thirst, or the head-ache, without any pain at all: but if these were mere ideas in the mind, they would either never or constantly disturb us, whenever thought of. The same may be said of pleasure. Though mathematical demonstrations depend not on sense, yet to examine them by diagrams seems to give to the evidence of sight a certainty bordering on demonstration: for it would be strange that a man should allow one angle of a figure to be undeniably bigger than another, and yet doubt the existence of the lines and angles of that diagram by which the figure was measured.

4thly, Because our senses in many cases bear witness to the truth of each others report. He whose sight will not convince him of the existence of a fire may feel it; and if the fire be a mere idea, he will feel no pain, unless pain be a fancy too. The characters I make on this paper do not cease to be with the thoughts that gave rise to them, but constantly af

fect my senses in a similar way: and if, when presented to the sight of another man, they draw from him such sounds as I before-hand designed, there will be little reason to doubt that these characters exist out of my imagination.

If after all any one will be so sceptical as to affirm that all we see and hear, feel and taste, think and do, during our whole being, is but the series of a long dream, and will therefore question the existence of all things, I must desire him to consider that he only dreams he makes the question, and it matters not that a waking man should answer him. Yet, if he please, he may dream that I make him this answer; that the certainty of the real existence of things, by the testimony of our senses, is as great as our frame admits, or our condition needs: because it suffices to give us notice of those things that are convenient or inconvenient to us, painful or pleasant. Our knowledge however of the real existence of things extends no farther than the present testimony of our senses about particular objects; for there is no necessary connexion of a man's existence now with his existence a minute hence by a thousand ways he may cease to be: yet it is reasonable for me to do many things in the confidence that men do exist whom I do not see, though I act merely on probability not on knowledge..

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Here we may observe how foolish it is for men