would authorife, if the common fettled opinion opi pofes it; efpecially in this place, where the received doctrine ferves well enough to our prefent purpose, and leaves this paft doubt, that the creation or be ginning of any one fubftance out of nothing being once admitted, the creation of all other, but the Creator himself, may, with the fame ease, be supposed.

19. Matter not co-eternal with an eternal Mind. Bur you will fay, is it not impoffible to admit of the making any thing out of nothing, fince we cannot posfibly conceive it? I anfwer, No: 1. Because it is not reasonable to deny the power of an infinite Being, because we cannot comprehend its operations. We do not deny other effects upon this ground, because we cannot poffibly conceive the manner of their production. We cannot conceive how any thing but impulfe of body can move body; and yet that is not a reafon fufficient to make us deny it poffible, against the conftant experience we have of it in ourfelves, in all our voluntary motions, which are produced in us only by the free action or thought of our own minds, and are not, nor can be the effects of the impulfe or determination of the motion of blind matter in or upon our bodies; for then it could not be in our power or choice to alter it. For example: My right-hand writes, whilft my left-hand is ftill: What caufes reft in one, and motion in the other? Nothing but my will, a thought of my mind; my thought only changing, the right-hand refts, and the left-hand moves. This is matter of fact, which cannot be denied: explain this and make it intelligible, and then the next step will be to understand creation; for the giving a new determination to the motion of the animal fpirits (which fome make ufe of to explain voluntary motion) clears not the difficulty one jot; to alter the determination of motion, being in this cafe no eafier nor lefs, than to give motion itself; fince the new determination given to the animal fpirits, must be either immediately by thought, or by fome other body put in their way by thought, which was not in their way VOL. III. F

before, and fo must owe its motion to thought; either of which leaves voluntary motion as unintelligible as it was before. In the mean time, it is an over.valu ing ourselves, to reduce all to the narrow measure of our capacities; and to conclude all things impoflibie to be done, whofe manner of doing exceeds our comprehenfion. This is to make our comprehenfion ia finite, or God finite, when what he can do is limited to what we can conceive of it, If you do not underftand the operations of your own finite mind, that thinking thing within you, do not deem it strange, that you cannot comprehend the operations of that eternal infinite mind, who made and governs all things, and whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.

CHAP. XI.

OF OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE OF OTHER THINGS.

T

SI. It is to be bad only ly Senfation,

HE knowledge of our own being, we have by intuition: The exiftence of a God, reafon clear

ly makes known to us, as has been shown..

The knowledge of the existence of any other thing, we can have only by fenfation: for there being no neceflary connection of real existence with any idea a man hath in his memory, nor of any other existence but that of God, with the existence of any particular inan, no particular man can know the existence of any other being, but only when by actual operating upon him, it makes itself perceived by him; For the having the idea of any thing in our mind, no more proves the existence of that thing, than the picture of a man evidences his being in the world, or the vifions of a dreamn make thereby a true history.

§ 2. Inftance-Whiteness of this Paper.

IT is therefore the actual receiving of ideas from without, that gives us notice of the existence of other

things, and makes us know that fomething doth exift at that time without us, which caufes that idea in us, though perhaps we neither know nor confider how it does it; for it takes not from the certainty of our fenfes, and the ideas we receive by them, that we know not the manner wherein they are produced; v. g. whilft I write this, I have, by the paper affecting my eyes, that idea produced in my mind, which, whatever object caufes, I call white; by which I know that that quality or accident (i. e. whose appearance before my eyes always caufes that idea) doth really exist, and hath a being without me. And of this, the greatest affurance I can poffibly have, and to which my faculties can attain, is the teftimony of my eyes, which are the proper and fole judges of this thing, whofe teftimony I have reafon to rely on as fo certain, that I can no more doubt, whilft I write this, that I fee white and black, and that fomething really exifts, that caufes that fenfation in me, than that I write or move my hand which is a certainty as great as human nature is capable of, concerning the exist ence of any thing, but a man's felf alone, and of God. 3. This, though not fo certain as Demonftration, yet may be called Knowledge, and proves the exiftence of things without us.

THE notice we have by our fenfes, of the exifting of things without us, though it be not altogether fo certain as our intuitive knowledge, or the deductions of our reafon, employed about the clear abstract ideas of our own minds, yet it is an affurance that deferves the name of knowledge. If we perfuade ourselves that our faculties act and inform us right, concerning the existence of thofe objects that affect them, it cannot pafs for an ill-grounded confidence; for I think nobody can, in earnefl, be fo fceptical, as to be uncertain of the existence of thofe things which he fees and feels; at least, he that can doubt fo far (whatever he may have with his own thoughts), will never have any controverfy with me, fince he can never be fure I fay any thing contrary to his opinion. As to myself,

I think God has given me affurance enough of the existence of things without me, fince by their diffe rent application I can produce in myself both pleasure and pain, which is one great concernment of my prefent ftate. This is certain, the confidence that our faculties do not herein deceive us, is the greatest af furance we are capable of, concerning the existence of material beings; for we cannot act any thing, but by our faculties; nor talk of knowledge itself, but by the help of thofe faculties, which are fitted to apprehend even what knowledge is. But befides the affurance we have from our fenfes themselves, that they do not err in the information they give us of the existence of things without us, when they are affected by them, we are farther confirmed in this affurance by other concurrent reasons.

§4. 1. Because we cannot have them but by the Inlet of the Senfes.

FIRST, It is plain thofe perceptions are produced in us by exterior caufes affecting our fenfes; because thofe that want the organs of any fenfe, never can have the ideas belonging to that fenfe produced in their minds. This is too evident to be doubted; and therefore we cannot but be affured, that they come in by the organs of that fenfe, and no other way. The organs themselves, it is plain, do not produce them; for then the eyes of a man in the dark would produce colours, and his nofe fmell rofes in the winter: but we fee nobody gets the relish of a pine-apple, till he goes to the Indies, where it is, and taftes it.

$5.

2. Because an Idea from a&tual Sensation, and another from Memory, are very diftinét Percep

tions. SECONDLY, Becaufe fometimes I find that I cannot avoid the having thofe ideas produced in my mind. For though, when my eyes are hut, or windows falt, I can at pleafure recal to my mind the ideas of light, or the fun, which former nfations had lodged in my memory; fo I can at pleasure lay by that idea, and take into my view that of the fmell of a rofe, or tafle

of fugar. But if I turn my eyes at noon towards the fun, I cannot avoid the ideas which the light, or fun, then produces in me. So that there is a manifeft difference between the ideas laid up in my memory (over which, if they were there only, I fhould have conftantly the fame power to difpofe of them, and lay them by at pleasure), and those which force themselves upon me, and I cannot avoid having; and therefore it muft needs be fome exterior caufe, and the brisk acting of fome objects without me, whofe efficacy I cannot refift, that produces thofe ideas in my mind, whether I will or no. Befides, there is nobody who doth not perceive the difference in himself between contemplating the fun, as he hath the idea of it in his memory, and actually looking upon it: of which two, his perception is fo diftinct, that few of his ideas are more diftinguishable one from another; and therefore he hath certain knowledge, that they are not both memory, or the actions of his mind, and fancies only within him, but that actual feeing hath a cause with

out.

§ 6. 3. Pleasure or Pain which accompanies actual Senfation, accompanies not the returning of those Ideas without the external Objects.

THIRDLY, Add to this, that many of thofe ideas are produced in us with pain, which afterwards we remember without the leaft offence. Thus the pain of heat or cold, when the idea of it is revived in our minds, gives us no difturbance, which, when felt, was very troublefome, and is again, when actually repeated; which is occafioned by the diforder the external object caufes in our bodies when applied to it; and we remember the pain of hunger, thirft, or the head-ache, without any pain at all, which would either never disturb us, or elfe conftantly do it, as often as we thought of it, were there nothing more but ideas floating in our minds, and appearances entertaining our fancies, without the real existence of things affecting us from abroad. The fame may be faid of pleasure, accompanying feveral actual fenfations: and though