too disturbs not the certainty of that Knowledge, which is still to be had by a due contemplation and comparing of those even nicknamed ideas.

Ideas of substances have their archetypes without us.— Thirdly, There is another sort of Complex ideas, which being referred to archetypes [existing] without us may differ from them, and so our Knowledge about them may come short of being real. Such are our ideas of Substances; which, consisting of a collection of Simple ideas, supposed taken from the works of nature, may yet vary from them, by having more, or different, ideas united in them than are to be found united in the things themselves: from whence it comes to pass, that they may, and often do, fail of being exactly conformable to things themselves.

So far as they agree with those, so far our knowledge concerning them is real.—Our ideas of Substances, being supposed copies, and referred to archetypes [existing] without us, must still be taken from something that does [exist] or has existed: they must not consist of ideas put together at the pleasure of our thoughts without any real pattern, [even] though we can perceive no inconsistence in such a combination.

The rea

son whereof is, because we not knowing what real constitution it is of Substances whereon our simple ideas depend, and which really is the cause of the strict union of some of them one with another, and [of] the exclusion of others, there are very few of them that we can be sure are, or are not, inconsistent in nature, any farther than experience and sensible observation reach. Herein therefore is founded the reality of our Know

ledge concerning Substances-That all our Complex ideas of them must be such, and such only, as are made up of such Simple ones as have been discovered to co-exist in nature. And our ideas, being thus true, though not perhaps very exact copies, are yet the subjects of real (as far as we have any) Knowledge of them: which, as has been already shown, will not be found to reach very far; but so far as it does, it will still be real Knowledge.

In our inquiries about substances we must consider ideas, and not confine our thoughts to names or species supposed set out by names.-This if we rightly consider, and confine not our thoughts and Abstract ideas to Names, as if there were, or could be, no other sorts of things than what known Names had already determined and, as it were, set out, we should think of things with greater freedom and less confusion than perhaps we do. It would possibly be thought a bold paradox, if not a very dangerous falsehood, if I should say that some changelings, who have lived forty years together without any appearance of reason, are something between a man and a beast: which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a false supposition, that these two Names, 'man' and 'beast,' stand for distinct species so set out, by real Essences, that there can come no other species between them; whereas if we will abstract from those names, and the supposition of such specific Essences made by nature, wherein all things of the same denominations did exactly and equally partake [that is, if we will exercise our thinking faculty abstractedly from (or, in other words, independently of)' names' and the supposition of,' &c.]-if we would not fancy that

there were a certain number of these Essences wherein all things, as in moulds, were cast and formedwe should find that the idea of the shape, motion, and life of a man without reason' is as much a distinct idea, and makes as much a distinct sort of things, from 'man' and 'beast,' as the idea of the shape of an ass with reason' would be different from either that of 'man' or 'beast,' and be a species of animal between, or distinct from, both.

Objection, against a changeling being something between a man and a beast, answered.-Here everybody will be ready to ask, "If changelings may be supposed something between man and beast, pray what are they?" I answer-[They are] changelings:' which is as good a Word to signify something different from the signification of 'man' or 'beast,' as the Names 'man' and 'beast' are to have significations different one from the other. This, well considered, would resolve this matter. [But] without doubt it will be asked, "If changelings are something between man and beast, what will become of them in the other world?" To which I answer, FirstIt concerns me not to know or inquire: to their own Master they stand or fall. It will make their state neither better nor worse, whether we determine any thing of it or not. They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father, who disposes not of His creatures according to our narrow thoughts or opinions, nor distinguishes them according to Names and species of our contrivance. And we that know so little of this present world [that] we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being peremptory in defining the dif

warly be ignei am mmoral jare being der is it. On candy. That visevers if human úrá must see lenger. The way these imagi natione, má much mestions will be groundless and ratienione I desire, then, those who think there is no more but an accidental fference between themselves und hangings the Essence in both being exactly the ume to consider whether they can imagine immortslity annexed to any outward shape of the body; the very proposing it is, I suppose, enough to make them disown it. It will perhaps be said, that the shape is the sign of a rational soul within, which is immortal. I wonder who made it the sign of any such thing: for barely saying it will not make it so. It would require some

No figure that I know

proofs to persuade one of it. speaks any such language. For it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man, wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than there is in a statue, has yet nevertheless a living soul in it, because of its shape, as that there is a rational soul

in a changeling, because he has the outside of a rational creature, when his actions carry far less marks of reason with them in the whole course of his life than what are to be found in many a beast.

[On the whole], it is necessary to quit the common notion of species and Essences, if we will truly look into the nature of things, and examine them by what our faculties can discover in them as they exist, and not by groundless fancies that have been taken up about them.

Recapitulation.-Wherever [1.] we perceive the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, there is certain Knowledge: and wherever [2.] we are sure those ideas agree with the reality of things, there is certain, real, Knowledge. Of which agreement of our ideas with the reality of things having here given the marks, I think I have shown wherein it is that certainty-real certainty-consists. Which, whatever it was to others, was, I confess, to me heretofore one of those desiderata which I found great want of.

CHAPTER V.

OF TRUTH IN GENERAL.

What truth is." What is truth?" was an inquiry many ages since; and it being that which all mankind either do, or pretend to, search after, it cannot but be worth our while carefully to examine wherein it consists, and so acquaint ourselves with the nature of it, as to observe how the mind distinguishes it from falsehood.