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certain and peculiar Manner, is Reason. Ch. 1. They err likewise, who affirm Reason in to be that Order, Report, or Relation which is naturally between all things: For not this, but the Thoughts which the Soul forms of things according to it, may properly claim that Title. They fpeed no better who call their own Inclinations, or the Authority of others, by that Name. But it will better appear what it is from the following Confiderations.

4. Every one experiences in himfelf a Power or Faculty of forming various Ideas or Perceptions of Things: Of affirming or denying, according as he fees them to agree or difagree: And fo of loving and defiring what seems good unto him; and of hating and avoiding what he thinks evil. The right Use of all these Faculties is what we call Common Senfe, or Reason in general. But the bare Act of receiving Ideas into the Mind, whether by the Intromiffion of the Senfes, as Colours, Figures, Sounds, Smells, &c. or whether those Ideas be the fimple Operations of the Soul about what it thus gets from without, as meer Consciousness

for

Sect. I. for Example, Knowing, Affirming, or Denying, without any farther Confiderations: This bare Act, I fay, of receiving fuch Ideas into the Mind, is not strictly Reafon, because the Soul herein is purely paffive. When a pro. per Object is conveniently prefented to the Eye, Ear, or any other Senfe rightly difpos'd, it neceffarily makes those Impreffions which the Mind at the fame time cannot refufe to lodg. And we find it can as little forbear being conscious of its own Thoughts or Operations concerning this Object: Thus when my Eyes are found and open, as at this time, I have not only an Idea of the Picture that is before me, but I likewife know, I perceive, and affirm that I fee it, I confider it, it pleases me, I wish it were mine. And thus I form, or rather after this manner I have first form'd, the Ideas of Knowing, Perceiving, Affirming, Denying, Confidering, Willing, Defiring, and the Ideas of all the othe Operations of the Mind, which are thus occafion'd by the Antecedent Impreffions of fenfible Objects.

5. By the word IDEA which I make Ch. 2. fo much ufe of here, and fhall more frequently in the following Difcourse, I understand the immediate Object of the Mind when it thinks, or any Thought that the Mind imploys about any thing, whether fuch a Thought be the Image or Representation of a Body, as is the Idea of a Tree; or whether it be fome Senfation occafion'd by any Body, fuch as are the Ideas of Cold and Heat, of Smells and Taftes; or whether,laftly, it be a meerly intellectual or abstracted Thought, fuch as are the Ideas of God and created Spirits, of Arguing, of Sufpenfion, of Thinking in general, or

the like.

6.

CHA P. II.

Wherein REASON confifts.

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UT altho thefe fimple and diftinct Ideas, thus laid up in the great Repofitory of the Underftanding, be not, as was obferv'd, what we call ftrictly Reafon, yet they are the fole Matter and Foundation of all

Our

Sect. I. our Reasoning: For the Mind does upon occafion compare them together, compound them into complex Ideas, and enlarge, contract, or feparate them, as it difcovers theit Circumftances' capable or not. So that all our Knowledg is, in effect, nothing elfe but the Perception of the Agreement or Difagreement of our Ideas in a greater or leffer Number, whereinfoever this Agreement or Difagreement may confift. And becaufe this Perception is immediate or mediate, our Knowledg is twofold.

7. Firft, When the Mind, without the Affiftance of any other Idea, immediately perceives the Agreement or Difagreement of two or more Ideas, as that Two and Two is Four, that Red is not Blew; it cannot be call'd Reason, tho it be the highest Degree of Evidence : For here's no need of Difcourfe or Probation, Self-evidence excluding all manner of Doubt and Darkness. Propofitions fo clear of themfelves as to want no Proofs,their Terms being once understood, are commonly known by the Names of Axioms and Maxims. And it is visible that their Number is indefinite, and not confin'd only to two

or

or three abftracted Propofitions made Ch.
(as all Axioms are) from the Obferva-
tion of particular Inftances; as, that
the Whole is greater than any Part, that
Nothing can have no Properties.

8. But, Secondly, when the Mind cannot immediately perceive the Agree ment or Difagreement of any Ideas, because they cannot be brought near enough together, and fo compar'd, it applys one or more intermediate Ideas to difcover it: as, when by the fucceffive Application of a Line to two diftant Houses, I find how far they agree or difagree in Length, which I could not effect with my Eye. Thus from the Force of the Air, and the Room it takes up, I know it has Solidity and Extenfion; and that therefore it is as much a Body (tho I cannot fee it) as Wood, or Stone, with which it agrees in the faid Properties, Here Solidity and Extenfion are the Line by which I find Air and Body are equal, or that Air is a Body; because Solidity and Extenfion agree to both. We prove the leaft imaginable Particle of Matter divifible, by fhewing all Bodies to be divifible; becaufe every Particle of Matter is like

2,

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