A discourse of things above reason· Inquiring whether a philosopher should admit there are any such. By a Fellow of the Royal Society· To which are annexed by the publisher (for the affinity of the subjects) some advices about judging of things said to transcend reason. Written by a Fellow of the same Society. Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. 1681 Approx. 203 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 101 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2007-01 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A28958 Wing B3945 ESTC R214128 99826341 99826341 30742 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A28958) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 30742) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 1826:5) A discourse of things above reason· Inquiring whether a philosopher should admit there are any such. By a Fellow of the Royal Society· To which are annexed by the publisher (for the affinity of the subjects) some advices about judging of things said to transcend reason. Written by a Fellow of the same Society. Boyle, Robert, 1627-1691. Fellow of the same Society. aut [4], 94, [2], 100 p. printed by E.T. and R.H. for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in S. Paul's Church-Yard, London : 1681. Part 1 is by Robert Boyle; the authorship of part 2 is not established. "Advices in judging of things said to transcend reason" (caption title) begins new pagination on 2A1. In this issue, p.100 has 22 lines of text; last line reads "ciples of cosmography.". 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Philosophy -- Early works to 1800. 2006-05 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2006-05 Aptara Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2006-06 Andrew Kuster Sampled and proofread 2006-06 Andrew Kuster Text and markup reviewed and edited 2006-09 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion A DISCOURSE OF Things ABOVE REASON . INQUIRING Whether a Philosopher should admit there are any such . By a Fellow of the Royal Society ▪ To which are annexed by the Publisher ( for the Affinity of the Subjects ) Some ADVICES About judging of Things said to Transcend REASON . WRITTEN By a Fellow of the same Society . LONDON , Printed by E. T. and R. H. for Jonathan Robinson at the Golden Lion in S. Paul's Church-Yard . 1681. An Advertisement . THe Later of the two following Dialogues is but a part of a Discourse , consisting of some Conferences , whereof , that was neither the First , nor the Last . This 't was thought fit the Reader should have notice of , that he may the more easily guess upon what account it is , that some Clauses in the first Page , ( and perhaps a few other Passages elsewhere ) contain somewhat that appears not altogether the same it would have done , if there had been no need to make any alteration at all in that Page . But because , tho there was a connection between that Dialogue and the rest of the Papers from which 't is dismembered , yet it 's dependency upon the others , is not so very great , but that the Publisher thought the divulging of it might be useful and seasonable : and therefore finding that want of Leisure , and much Diffidence , made the Author unwilling to revise , and part with the other Papers that accompanied this which now comes forth ; he prevail'd with him to suffer that Dialogue to take its Fortune , which the Publisher hopes may be such , as may incourage the Author to communicate what he has further meditated upon such Subjects . ERRATA . Pag. 3. lin . 3. read Arnobius . p. 9. l. 5. r. how . p. 25. l. 20. r. continui . p. ib. l. 21. r. hucusque superata . p. 38. l 20. for near read above . p. 56. l. 18. r. deny . p. 60. l. 5. r. sight . p 84 l. 7. r. men of . p. 86. l. ult . r. us ; for . p. 92. l. 22. r. Time will. p 93. l. 12. r. do . P. 4 l. 12. r. bare repetition . p. 34. l. 6. r. Body . p. 41. l. 3. r. instance ▪ p. 43. l. 10. r. ●gy . p. 48. l. 26. r. ●soners . p. 50. l. 3. r. thing . p. 62. l. 1. r. evidence of . A DISCOURSE OF Things ABOVE REASON . ENQUIRING , Whether a Philosopher should admit there are any such . The Speakers are , Sophronius , Eugenius , Pyrocles , and Timotheus . Euge. THE Seriousness you yet retain in your looks , and the posture we found you in at our entrance , makes me fear these two Gentlemen and I are unseasonable intruders , that are so unhappy as to disturb your Meditations . Sophron. Instead of doing that , you will much promote them , if you please to accompany me in them : For the subject that busied my thoughts is both so abstruse and so important , that it needs more than one to consider it , and deserves that He should be a far better considerer than I , who therefore must think my self far less fit for that task than you . Eug. I will punish the flattery of these last words , by declining to make any Return to it . Pyrocl. And I , Gentlemen , to prevent the loss of time and words between you , shall without farther Ceremony ask Sophronius , what his thoughts were employed about when we came in . Sophr. I was then musing upon a Subject , that was newly proposed to me by our common Friend Arnobiut , who would needs have my opinion , Whether , and if at all , how far , we may employ our reasonings about things that are above our Reason , as Christians grant some mysteries of their Religion to be . Euge. If , by things above Reason , be meant only those , that are undiscoverable by Reason without Revelation ; I should not hesitate to say , that there may be divers things of that kind : For the free Decrees of God , and his determinations concerning the Government of the World , and the future state of mankind ( to name now no others ) are things which no humane Reason can pry into , but must owe the fundamental discovery it makes of them , to the Revelation of him , whose purposes they are . But if , by things above Reason , be meant such , as though delivered in words , free from darkness and Ambiguity , are not to be conceived , and comprehended by our Rational Faculty , I shall freely confess , that I scarce know what to say upon so unusual and sublime a subject . Pyrocl. For my part , Gentlemen , I think it were very requisite to be sure in the first place , that the subject of our Discourses is not Chimerical , but that we can really know , that there are things we cannot comprehend , though they be proposed to us in expressions no less clear than such , as would suffice to make other things intelligible to us . Sophr. Your cautiousness , Pyrocles , must not be rejected by me , who when , before you came in , I was putting my thoughts into some order , judg'd it unfit to consider , either how one might know what things were to be look'd on as above Reason , how far we may discourse of them , or whether or no any supernaturally revealed Propositions , such as Divines call Articles of Faith , ought to be reckoned among them , till I should have first seriously enquir'd , whether in general we ought to admit any such Objects of our Contemplation , as these , and the like Questions suppose . Euge. I hope then that this being the first thing you purposed to enquire into , we may , without too much boldness , desire to know what came into your mind about it . Sophr. If I had brought my considerations to an issue upon that subject , I should with less reluctancy acquaint you with them ; but I since I have yet made but an imperfect progress in my enquiry , instead of delivering any positive opinion upon so abstruse a subject , I shall only tell you , that as far as I could yet discern , it seemed to me that among the Objects , our reason may contemplate there are some whose Nature we cannot comprehend , others whose Attributes or Actions are such , as that we cannot understand how they should belong to the Subject , or else that we cannot conceive how they should consist with some acknowledged Truth . Euge. So that if I apprehend you right , you do not only admit some things to be above Reason , but make no less than three sorts of them . Sophr. If you will needs have two of them to be coincident , I shall not much contend , but I think the number you have named may , without any great inconvenience , be admitted : For by things above Reason , I here understand ( not false or absurd ones , but ) such , as though the Intellect sees sufficient cause ( whether on the score of Experience , Authentick Testimony , or Mathematical Demonstration ) to assent to ; yet it finds it self reduc'd when 't is conversant about them , to be so with a notable and peculiar disadvantage : And this disadvantage does usually proceed either from the nature of the thing proposed , which is such , that we cannot sufficiently comprehend it , or from our not being able to conceive the manner of its existing and operating ; or from this , that it involves some notion or proposition , that we see not how to reconcile with some other thing , that we are perswaded to be a truth . The first of these three sorts of things , may , for brevity and distinction sake be called Incomprehensible , the second Inexplicable , and the third Unsociable . But for fear lest the shortness I have used in my expressions , may have kept them from being so clear , I shall somewhat more explicitly reckon up the three sorts of things that seem to me above Reason . The first consists of those whose Nature is not distinctly and adequately comprehensible by us : To which sort perhaps we may refer all those intellectual Beings ( if it be granted that there are such ) as are by nature of a higher order than humane Souls . To which sort some 〈◊〉 the Angels ( at least of the good ones ) may probably belong ; but more than probably we may refer to this Head , the Divine Author of Nature , and of our Souls , Almighty God , whose perfections are so boundless , and his Nature so very singular , that 't is no less weakness than presumption to imagine , that such finite Beings as our Souls , can frame full and adequate Idea's of them : We may indeed know by the consideration of his works , and particularly those parts of them that we our selves are , both That he is , and in a great measure What he is not ; but to understand throughly What he is , is a task too great for any but his own infinite Intellect : And therefore I think we may truly call this immense Object , in the newly declared sence , supra-Intellectual . Euge. I suppose I may now ask what is the second sort of Things above Reason ? Sophr. It consists of such , as though we cannot deny that they are , yet we cannot clearly and satisfactorily conceive , how they can be such as we acknowledge they are . As how Matter can be infinitely , ( or which is all one , in our present discourse , indefinitely ) divisible : And how there should be such an incommensurableness betwixt the Side and Diagonal of a Square , that no measure , how small soever , can adequatly measure both the one and the other . That Matter is endlesly divisible , is not only the assertion of Aristotle and the Schools , but generally embraced by those rigid Reasoners , Geometricians themselves ; and may be farther confirm'd by the other instance of the Side and Diagonal of a Square , whose incommensurableness is believed upon no less firm a proof , than a demonstration of Euclid , and was so known a truth among the Ancients , that Plato is said to have pronounced him rather a Beast than a Man , that was a stranger to it . And yet if continued quantity be not divisible without stop , how can we conceive but that there may be found some determinate part of the side of a Square , which being often enough repeated , would exactly measure the Diagonal too . But though Mathematical Demonstrations assure us , that these things are so , yet those that have strained their Brains , have not been able clearly to conceive how it should be possible , that a Line ( for instance ) of not a quarter of an inch long , should be still divisible into lesser and lesser portions , without ever coming to an end of those subdivisions ; or how among the innumerable differing partitions into aliquot parts , that may be made of the side of a Square , not one of those parts can be found exactly to measure so short a Line as the Diagonal may be . Euge. There is yet behind , Sophronius , the third sort of those things , which , according to you , surpass our Reason . Sophr. I shall name that too , Eugenius , as soon as I have premised that some of the Reasons that moved me to refer some instances to this head , do not so peculiarly belong to those instances , but that they may be applicable to others , which 't was thought convenient to refer to the second or first of the foregoing Heads : And this being once intimated , I shall proceed to tell you , that the third sort of things that seem to surpass our Reason , consists of those , to which the Rules and Axioms and Notions , whereby we judge of the truth and falshood of ordinary , or other things , seem not to agree . This third sort being such as are incumbred with Difficulties or Objections , that cannot directly and satisfactorily be removed by them that acquiesce in the received Rules of subordinate Sciences , and do reason but at the common rate , such Objects of Contemplation as this third sort consists of , having something belonging to them , that seems not reconcilable with some very manifest , or at least acknowledged Truths . This it may here suffice to make out by a couple of Instances , the one of a Moral , the other of a Mathematical Nature : And first , that Man has a free will , in reference at least to civil matters , is the general confession of Mankind : All the Laws that forbid and punish Murder , Adultery , Theft , and other Crimes , being founded on a Supposition , that men have a power to forbear committing them , and the sense men have of their being possest of this power over their own actions , is great enough to make Malefactors acknowledg their punishments to be just , being no less condemned by their own Consciences , than by their Judges . And yet ( some Socinians , and some few others excepted ) the generality of Mankind , whether Christians , Jews , Mahometans , or Heathens , ascribe to God an infallible Prescience of humane Actions , which is supposed by the belief of Prophecies , and the recourse to Oracles , by one or other of which two ways the Embracers of the several Religions newly mentioned , have endeavoured and expected to receive the informations of future things , and such as depend upon the Actings of men . But how a certain fore-knowledg can be had of contingent things , and such as depend upon the free will of man , is that which many great wits that have solicitously tryed , have found themselves unable clearly to comprehend , nor is it much to be admired that they should be puzled to conceive how an infinitely perfect Being should want Prescience , or that their will should want that liberty , whereof they feel in themselves the almost perpetual exercise . The other instance I promised you , Euge. is afforded me by Geometricians : For these ( you know ) teach the divisibility of Quantity in infinitum or without stop , to be Mathematically demonstrable . Give me leave then to propose to you a strait line of three foot long divided into two parts , the one double to the other . I suppose then , that according to their doctrine a line of two foot is divisible into infinite parts , or it is not : If you say it is not , you contradict the demonstrations of the Geometricians ; if you say that it is , then you must confess either that the line of one foot is divisible into as many parts as the line of two foot , though the one be but half the other , or else that the infinite parts , into which the line of one foot is granted to be divisible , is exceeded in number by the parts , into which the line of two foot is divisible , and consequently that the line of two foot has a multitude of parts greater than infinite . Which Reasonings may let us see that we may be reduced either to reject Inferences legitimately drawn from manifest or granted Truths , or to admit conclusions that appear absurd ; if we will have all the common Rules whereby we judge of other things to be applicable to Infinites . And now , Gentlemen , having acquainted you with what sorts of things seem to be above Reason , I must , to prevent mistakes , desire you to take along with you this Advertisement : That though the nobleness and difficulty of so uncultivated a Subject , inclined me to offer something towards the elucidating of it , by sorting those things into three kinds ; yet I shall not , and need not in this Conference , insist on them severally , or lay any stress on this partition . For though I have above intimated , that a Proposition may speak of somewhat that is supra-intellectual , or else contain somewhat which we cannot conceive how it may be true , or lastly teach us somewhat for a truth , that we cannot reconcile with some other thing , that we are convinced is true ; yet if but any one of these have true Instances belonging to it , That may suffice for my main purpose in this place , where I need only shew in general , that there may be things that surpassour Reason , at least so far , that they are not to be judged of by the same measures and rules , by which men are wont to judge of ordinary things , for which reason I shall often give them one common name , calling them Priviledg'd Things . Euge. Methinks that to manifest the Imperfections of our Reason , in reference to what you call Priviledg'd Things , you need not have recourse to the unfathomable Abysses of the Divine Nature , since for ought I know , Pyrocles , as well as I , may be non-plus'd by an instance that came into my mind de Compositione continui . Timoth. Since Sophronius has not thought fit to give us any of the Arguments of the contending party's , I shall be glad to know what difficulty occurr'd to you . Euge. Suppose a great Circle divided into its three hundred and sixty degrees , and suppose that as great a number as you please or can conceive , of strait lines , be drawn from the several designable parts of some one of these degrees , to the Centre , 't is manifest that the degrees being equal , as many lines may be drawn from any , and so from every one of the others , as from that degree which was pitched upon . Then suppose a Circular Arch , equal to the assumed degree , to be further bent into the circumference of a little circle , having the same Centre with a great one , it follows from the nature of a Circle , and has been geometrically demonstrated , that the semi-diameters of a Circle how many soever they be , can no where touch one another but in the Centre . Whence 't is evident , that all the lines that are drawn from the circumference to the Centre of the greater Circle ▪ must pass by differing points of the circumference of the smaller , ( for else they would touch one another before they arrive at the Centre ) and consequently that as many lines soever as can even mentally be drawn from the several points of the circumference of the great Circle to the common Centre of both Circles , must all pass through different points of the little Circle , and thereby divide it into as many parts ( proportionably smaller ) as the greater Circle is divided into : So that here the circumference of the lesser Circle presents us with a curve line , which was not possibly divisible into more parts than an Arch of one degree , or the three hundred and sixtieth part of the Circumference of the greater Circle , and yet without being lengthned , becomes divisible into as many parts as the whole circumference of the same greater Circle . And though we should suppose the circumference of the internal Circle not to exceed one inch , and that of the exterior Circle to exceed the circumference of the Terrestrial Globe , or even of the Firmament it self , yet still the demonstration would hold , and all the lines drawn from this vast Circle , would find distinct points in the lesser , to pass through to their common Centre . Timoth. Though I will not pretend to confirm what Sophronius has been proving , by adding Arguments a priori ; yet I shall venture to say , that I think it very agreeable both to the nature of God and to that of man , that what he has endeavoured to prove true should be so ; for we men mistake and flatter Humane Nature too much , when we think our faculties of Understanding so unlimited , both in point of capacity and of extent , and so free and unprepossest , as many Philosophers seem to suppose : For , whatever our self-love may incline us to imagine , we are really but created and finite Beings ( and that probably of none of the highest or●ders of intellectual Creatures ) and we come into the world , but such , as it pleased the Almighty and most free Author of our Nature to make us . And from this dependency and limitedness of our Natures , it follows not only that we may be ( for I now dispute not whether we are ) born with certain congenit Notions and Impressions and Appetites or Tendencies of Mind ; but also that the means or measures which are furnished us to employ in the searching or judging of Truth , are but such as are proportionable to Gods designs in creating us , and therefore may probably be supposed not to be capable of reaching to all kinds , or if you please of Truths , many of which may be unnecessary for us to know here , and some may be reserved , partly to make us sensible of the imperfections of our Natures , and partly to make us aspire to that condition , wherein our faculties shall be much enlarged and heightned . It seems not therefore unreasonable to think , both that God has made our faculties so limited , that in our present mortal condition there should be some Objects beyond the comprehension of our Intellects ( that is ) that some of his creatures should not be able perfectly to understand some others , & yet that he has given us light enough to perceive that we cannot attain to a clear and full knowledge of them . Pyrocl. I think , Sophronius , that I now understand what you mean by Things above reason , or as you ( not unfitly ) stiled them , priviledged things : But I presume you need not be told , that to explain the sence of a Proposition , and to make out the truth of it , ( unless in common Notions , or things evident by their own light ) are always two things , and oftentimes two very distant ones . Sophr. I need not scruple , Pyrocles , to grant the truth of what you say , but I must not so easily admit your application of it ; for among the examples , I have been proposing , there are some at least , that do not only declare what I mean by things above reason , but are instances , and consequently may be proofs that such things there are . And to those I could have added others , if I had thought it unlikely , that in the progress of our Conference , there may be occasions offered of mentioning them more opportunely . Pyrocl. I have long thought that the wit of man , was able to lay a fine varnish upon any thing that it would recommend ; but I have not till now found Reason set a work to degrade it self , as if it were a noble exercise of its power to establish its own impotency : And indeed 't is strange to me , how you would have our Reason comprehend and reach things , that you your sel● confess to be above Reason , which is methinks , as if we were told that we may see things with our eye● that are invisible . Sophr. I do not think , that ' ti● to degrade the understanding , to refuse to idolize it , and 't is not a●● injury to Reason , to think it a li●mited faculty , but an injury to th● Author of it , to think man's understanding infinite , like his . And if what I proposed be well grounded , I assign Reason its most noble and genuine Exercise , which is to close with discovered Truths , in whose embraces the perfection of the Intellect too much consists , to suffer that perfective action to be justly disparaging to it : And a sincere understanding is to give , or refuse its assent to propositions according as they are or are not true , not according as we could or could not wish they were so ; and methinks it were somewhat strange , that Impartiality should be made a disparagement in a Judge . But , Pyrocles , leaving the reflection with which you usher'd in your Objection , I shall now consider the Argument it self , which being the weightiest that can be framed against the opinion you oppose , I shall beg leave to offer some considerations , wherein I shall endeavour to answer it both by proving my Opinion by experience , and by shewing that experience not to be disagreeable to Reason . Pyrocl. I shall very willingly listen to what you have to say on such a subject . Sophr. I shall then in the first place alledge the experience of many persons , and divers of them great Wits , who have perplexed themselves to reconcile , I say , not the Grace of God , but even his Prescience to the liberty of mans will , even in bare moral actions : And I have found partly by their Writings , and by discourse with some of them , that the most towring and subtle sort of Speculators , Metaphysicians , and Mathematicians , perchance after much racking of their brains , confess themselves quite baffled by the unconquerable difficulties they met with , not only in such abstruse subjects , as the nature of God , or of the humane Soul , but in the nature of what belongs in common to the most obvious Bodies in the world , and even to the least portions of them : You will easily guess that I have my eye on that famous controversie , Whether or no a continued quantity ( which every body , as having length , bredth , depth , must be allowed to have ) be made up of Indivisibles . Of the perplexing difficulties of this Controversie , I might give you divers confessions , or complaints made by a sort of men too much accustomed to bold assertions and subtle Arguments , to be much disposed to make acknowledgments of that kind : But I shall content my self with the testimony which one of the more famous modern Schoolmen gives both of himself and other learned men , and which if I well remember , he thus expresses . Aggredimur comtinus compositionem , cujus hujusque non separata difficultas omnium Doctorum male ingenia vexavit , neque ullus fuit qui illam non pene insuperabilem agnoscat . Hanc plerique terminorum obscuritate , illorumque replicatis & implicatis distinctionibus , & subdistinctionibus obtenebrant , ne aperté capiantur desperantes rem posse alio modo tractari neque rationis lucem sustinere , sed necessario confusionis tenebris obtegendum , ne argumentorum evidentiâ detegatur . And though he had not been thus candid in his confession , yet what he says might be easily concluded by him , that shall duly weigh with how great , though not equal force of Arguments , each of the contending parties imputes to the opinion it opposes , great and intolerable absurdities as contained in it , or legitimately deducible from it . Eug. I have not the vanity to think that the weakness of my Reason ought to make another diffident of the strength of his : But as to my self , what Sophronius has been saying cannot but be confirm'd by several tryals , wherein having exerted the small abilities I had to clear up to my self some of the difficulties about Infinites : I perceived to my trouble , that my speculations satisfied me of nothing so much , as the disproportionateness of those abstruse subjects to my reason . But , Sophronius , may it not be well objected , that though the Instances you have given , have not been hitherto cleared by the light of Reason ; yet 't is probable they may be so hereafter , considering how great progress is , from time to time , made in the discoveries of Nature , in this learned Age of ours . Sophr. In answer to this question , Eugenius , give me leave to tell you first , that you allow my past discourse to hold good for ought yet appears to the contrary : Whence it will follow , that your Objection is grounded upon a hope , or at most a Conjecture about which I need not therefore trouble my self , till some new discoveries about the things in question , engage me to a new consideration of them . But in the mean while , give me leave to represent to you in the second place , that though I am very willing to believe , as well as I both desire and hope it , that this inquisitive Age we live in , will produce discoveries that will explicate divers of the more hidden mysteries of Nature , yet I expect that these discoveries will chiefly concern those things , which either we are ignorant of for want of a competent History of Nature , or we mistake by reason of erroneous Prepossessions , or for want of freedom and attention in our speculations . But I have not the like expectations as to all Metaphysical difficulties , ( if I may so call them ) wherein neither matters of Fact , nor the Hypothesis of subordinate parts of Learning , are wont much to avail . But however it be , as to other abstruse Objects , I am very apt to think , that there are some things relating to that infinite and most Monadical Being ( if I may so speak ) that we call God , which will still remain incomprehensible even to Philosophical understandings . And I can scarce allow my self to hope to see those Obstacles surmounted , that proceed not from any Personal infirmity , or evitable faults , but from the limited nature of the Intellect : And to these two considerations , Eugenius , I shall in answer to your question , add this also : That as mens inquisitiveness may hereafter extricate some of those grand difficulties , that have hitherto perplexed Philosophers ; so it may possibly lead them to discover new difficulties more capable than the first , of baffling humane understandings . For even among the things wherewith we are already conversant , there are divers which we think we know , only because we never with due attention , tryed whether we can frame such Ideas of them , as are clear and worthy for a rational seeker and lover of truth to acquiesce in . This the great intricacy that considering men find , in the notions commonly receiv'd of space , time , motion , &c. and the difficulties of framing perspicuous and satisfactory apprehensions even of such obvious things , may render highly probable . We see also that the Angle of Contact , the Doctrine of Asymptotes , and that of surd numbers and incommensurable Lines , all which trouble not common Accomptants and Surveyors , ( who though they deal so much in numbers and lines , seldom take notice of any of them ) perplex the greatest Mathematicians , and some of them so much , that they can rather demonstrate , that such affections belong to them , than they can conceive how they can do so : All which may render it probable , that mens growing curiosity is not more likely to find the solutions of some difficulties , than to take notice of other things , that may prove more insuperable than they . Tim. This conjecture of yours , Sophronius , is not a little favoured by the Rota Aristotelica ; for though the motion of a Cart-wheel is so obvious and seems so plain a thing , that the Carman himself never looks upon it with wonder ; yet after Aristotle had taken notice of the difficulty that occurr'd about it , this trivial Phaenomenon has perplex'd divers great Wits , not only Schoolmen , but Mathematicians , and continues yet to do so , there being some circumstances in the progressive motion and rotation of the circumference of a Wheel , and its Nave , or of two points assigned , the one in the former , and the other in the latter , that have appeared too subtle ( and even to modern ) Writers , so hard to be conceived and reconciled to some plain and granted Truths , that some of them have given over the solution of the attending difficulties as desperate , which perchance , Pyrocles , would not think strange , if I had time to insist on the intricacies that are to be met with in a speculation , that seems so easie as to be despicable . Sophr. Your Instance , Timotheus , must be acknowledged a very pregnant one , if you are certain that a better account cannot be given of the Rota Aristotelica , than is wont to be in the Schools , by those Peripateticks that either frankly confess the difficulties to be insoluble , or less ingenuously pretend to give solutions of them , that suppose things not to be proved , or perhaps so much as understood ( as Rarefaction and Condensation strictly so called ) or lose the question and perhaps themselves , by running up the dispute into that most obscure and perplexing Controversie de compositione continui . Eugen. I am content to forbear pressing any further at present an Objection ; much of whose force depends on future contingents , and I shall the rather dismiss the proof drawn from experience , that I may the sooner put you in mind of your having promised us another Argument to the same purpose , by manifesting the opinion to be agreeable to Reason . Sophr. I understand your pleasure , Eugenius , and shall endeavour to comply with it , but the difficulty and intricateness of the Subject of our discourse , obliges me to do it by steps ; and for fear we should want time for more necessary things , I will not now stay to examine whether all the things that hitherto have appeared above Reason , be impenetrable to us , because of an essential disability of our understandings , proceeding from the imperfection and limitedness of their nature , or only because of some other impediment , such as may be especially the condition of the soul in this life , or the infirmities resulting from its state of union with a gross and mortal body . Forbearing then to discourse how this came into my mind , and what thoughts I had upon it , I shall proceed in my considerations ; and to clear the way for those that are to follow , I shall in the first place observe to you , that whatever be thought of the faculty in abstracto , yet Reason operates according to certain Notions or Ideas , and certain Axiomes and Propositions , by which as by Prototypes or Models , and Rules and Measures , it conceives things , and makes estimates and judgments of them . And indeed when we say that such a thing is consonant to Reason , or repugnant to it , we usually mean that it is either immediately or mediately deducible from , or at least consistent with , or contradictory to one or other of those standard Notions or Rules . And this being premis'd , I consider in the next place , that if these Rules and Notions be such , as are abstracted only from finite things , or are congruous but to them ; they may prove useless or deceitful to us , when we go about to stretch them beyond their measure , and apply them to the infinite God , or to things that involve an Infiniteness either in multitude , magnitude , or littleness . To illustrate and confirm this notion , give me leave to represent in the third place , that in my opinion all the things that we naturally do know or can know , may be divided into these two sorts : The one such as we may know without a Medium ▪ and the other such as we cannot attain to , but by the intervention of a Medium , or by a discursive act . To the first belong such Notions as are supposed to be connate , or if you please innate , such as that Two contradictories cannot be both together true . The whole is greater than any part of it ; Every ( entire ) number is either even or odd , &c. And also those other Truths , that are assented to upon their own account without needing any medium to prove them ; because that as soon as , by perspicuous terms , or fit examples , they are clearly proposed to the understanding , they discover themselves to be true so manifestly by their own light , that they need not be assisted by any intervening Proposition , to make the Intellect acquiesce in them ; of which kind are some of Euclids Axioms , as that , If to equal things equal things be added , the totals will be equal ; and that two right lines cannot include a space . To the second sort of things knowable by us , belong all that we acquire the knowledge of by Ratiocinations , wherein by the help of intervening Propositions or Mediums , we deduce one thing from another , or conclude affirmatively or negatively one thing of another . This being supposed , and we being conscious to our selves , if it were but upon the score of our own infirmities and imperfections , that we are not Authors of our own nature ; for ought we know it may be true , and all the experience we have hitherto had , leads us to think it is true , that the measures suggested to us either by sensations , the results of sensible observation , or the other instruments of knowledge , are such as fully reach but to finite things or Beings , and therefore are not safely applicable to others . And divers of those very Principles that we think very general , may be ( if I may so speak ) but gradual notions of truth , and but limited and respective , not absolute and universal . And here give me leave , as a farther consideration , to take notice to you , that though perfect Syllogism be counted the best and most regular forms that our Ratiocinations can assume , yet even the laws of these are grounded on the doctrine of Proportions : For even between things equal there may be a proportion ( namely that of equality ) upon which ground I suppose it is , that Mathematical Demonstrations have been publickly proposed of the grand Syllogistical Rules . And in consequence of this , I shall add that Geometricians will tell you , that there is no proportion betwixt a finite line and an infinite , because the former can never be so often taken , as to exceed the latter , which ac●cording to Euclid's definition of Proportion , it should be capable to do . Of which Premises the use I would make is to perswade you , that since the understanding operates but by the Notions and Truths 't is furnished with , and these are its instruments by proportion to which it takes measures , and makes judgments of other things ; these Instruments may be too disproportionate to some Objects to be securely employed to determine divers particulars about them : So the eye being an instrument which the understanding employs to estimate distances , we cannot by that safely take the bredth of the Ocean , because our sight cannot reach far enough to discover how far so vast an object extends it self . And not only the common instruments of Surveyors that would serve to measure the height of an house or a steeple , or even a Mountain , cannot enable them to take the distance of the Moon ; but , when Astronomers do , by supposition , take a chain that reaches to the Centre of the Earth , ( and therefore is by the Moderns judged to be near four thousand miles long ) even then I say , though by the help of this and the Parallaxes , they may tolerably well measure the distance of some of the neerer Planets , especially the Moon● yet with all their great industry● they cannot by the same way ( o● perhaps any other yet known ) wit● any thing tolerable acurateness , measure the distance of the fixed Stars ; the Semidiameter of the Earth , bearing no sensible proportion to that of so vast a Sphere as the Firmament , whose distance makes the Parallaxes vanish , it being as to sence all one , whether at so great a remove , a Star be observ'd from the Centre , or from the surface of the Earth . Eug. In a matter so abstruse , a little Illustration by examples , may be very proper and welcome . Sophr. 'T is scarce possible to find very apposite examples , to illustrate things of a kind so abstruse and heteroclite as those may well be suppos'd , that do surpass our Reason . But yet some assistance may be borrowed from what we may observe in that other faculty of the mind , which is most of kin to the Intellect , I mean the Imagination : For when , for instance , I think of a Triangle or a Square , I find in my fancy an intuitive Idea ( if I may so call it ) of those figures that is a Picture clear and distinct , as if a figure of three sides or four equal sides , and Angles were placed before my eyes . But if I would fancy a myriagon , or a figure consisting of ten thousand equal sides , my Imagination is overpowered with so great a multitude of them , and frames but a confused Idea of a Polygon with a very great many sides : For if ( to speak suitably to what the excellent Des Cartes has well observed in the like case ) a man should endeavour to frame Ideas of a Myriagon or a Chiliagon , they would be both so confused , that his Imagination would not be able clearly to discriminate them , though the one has ten times as many sides as the other . So if you would imagine an Atome , of which perhaps ten thousand would scarce make up the bulk of one of the light particles of dust , that seem to play in the Sunbeams when they are shot into a darkned place , so extraordinary a littleness not having fallen under any of our Senses , cannot truly be represented in our imagination . So when we speak of Gods Primity ( if I may so call it ) Omnipotence , and some other of his infinite Attributes and Perfections , we have some conceptions of the things we speak of , but may very well discern them to be but inadequate ones : And though divers Propositions relating to things above Reason , seem clear enough to ordinary Wits , yet he that shall with a competent measure of attention , curiosity , and skill , consider and examine them ; shall find that either their parts are inconsistent with one another , or they involve contradictions to some acknowledged or manifest Truths , or they are veil'd over with darkness and incumbered with difficulties , from whence we are not able to rescue them . Thus when the side and Diagonal of a Square are proposed , we have clear and distinct Ideas of each of them apart , and when they are compared , we may have a conception of their incommensurableness . But yet this negative notion , if it be throughly considered , and far enough pursued , clearly contains that of a strait lines being divisible in infinitum ; and that divisibility is incumbred with so many difficulties , and is so hard to be reconciled to some confessed dictates of Reason , that ( as we have seen already ) Philosophers and Geometricians that are convinc'd of the truth , are to this day labouring to extricate themselves out of those perplexing intricacies . I will not trouble you with the puzling , if not insuperable difficulties , that incumber the doctrine of Eternity , as 't is wont to be proposed in the Schools of Divines and Philosophers , lest you should alledge that these difficulties spring rather from the bold assumptions and groundless subtleties of the Schoolmen , than from the nature of the thing it self : But I will propose somewhat that cannot be denyed , which is , that some substance or other , whether , as I believe , God , or as the Peripateticks say , the World , or as the Epicureans contend , Matter , never had a beginning , that is , has been for ever . But when we speak of an eternity à parte ante ( as they call it ) we do not speak of a thing whereof we have no conception at all , as will appear to a considering person , and yet this general notion we have is such , that when we come attentively to examine it , by the same ways by which we judge of almost all other things , the Intellect is non-plus'd : For we must conceive , that the time efflux'd since Adam ( or any other man as remote from us as he is said to have been ) began to live , bears no more proportion to the duration of God , or of Matter , than to those few minutes I have imployed about mentioning this instance . Nay if we would be Aristotelians , the same thing may be said as to those men , that lived many thousand millions of years before the time we reckon that Adam began to live in : For each of these times being finite and measurable by a determinate number of years , can bear no proportion to that infinite number of years ( or somewhat that is equivalent ) which must be allowed to a duration that never had a beginning . And as there are some things whose nature and consequences pose our Faculties , so there are others , whereof though we have a notion , yet the modus operandi is beyond our comprehension ; I do not mean only the true and certain modus operandi , but even an intelligible one . As , though divers learned men , especially Cartesians , and that upon a Philosophical account , assert , that God created the world ; yet how a substance could be made out of nothing ( as they , and the generality of Christians confessedly hold ) I fear we cannot conceive . And though all Philosophers , very few excepted , believe God to be the Maker of the World ( out of pre-existent matter ) yet how he could make it but by locally moving the parts of the Matter it was to consist of , and how an incorporeal substance can move a body , which it may pass through without resistance , is that which I fear will be found hardly explicable : For if it be said , that the Soul , being an immaterial substance , can never the less move the Limbs of the humane Body rightly dispos'd , I shall answer that it does not appear that the rational Soul doth give any motion to the parts of the Body , but only guide or regulate that which she finds in them already . Timoth. May it not then be rationally said , that by making observations of such things that are the proper Objects of our faculties , and by making legitimate deductions from such observations , and from our other knowledges whether innate or acquired , we may come to be certain , that some things are , and so have general and dark Ideas of them , when at the same time we are at a loss to conceive how they can be such , or how they can operate and perform what they do , supposing the Truth and sufficiency of some other things we are convinced of . To be short , negative apprehensions we may have of some priviledged things , and positive , but indistinct apprehensions we may have of others , and that is enough to make us in some sort understand our selves , and one another , when we speak of them , though yet when we sufficiently consider what we say , we may find that our words are not accompanied with clear , distinct , and symmetrical conceptions , of those abstruse and perplexing things we speak of . And since , as hath been already shewn , we find by experience , that we are unable sufficiently to comprehend things , that by clear and legitimate consequences may be evinc'd to be , why should not this cogently argue , that some of our conceptions may be of things , to which somewhat belongs that transcends our Reason , and surpasses our comprehension ? And if I would play the Logician with Pyrocles , I would tell him that his Objection destroys his Opinion : For since he talks to us of what is incomprehensible , that term must or must not be attended with some suitable Idea : If it be not , let him consider , whether in his own Phrase he speaks sence and not like a Parrot ; but if it be , let him then confess , that one may have some kind of Idea of a thing incomprehensible . But , Pyrocles , whether or no you think I prevaricate in this , you will not , I hope , suspect me of doing it , in adding that when natural Theology had taught men , ( as well Philosophers as others ) to believe God to be an infinitely perfect Being , we ought not to say that they had no Idea of such a Being , because they had not a clear and adequate one . And since Aristotle discourses ex professo and prolixly enough , de infinito , and cites the ancienter Philosophers for having done so before him , and since ( besides his Commentators and Followers ) Democritus , Epicurus , followed by Gassendus and other late Philosophers , maintain either that the world is boundless , or that space ( real or imaginary ) is not finite in extent , or that the world consists of Atoms infinite in number ; I hope you will not put such an affront upon all these great persons , as to think they said they knew not what , when they discoursed de infinito , as they must have done , if they spake without Ideas of the things they spake of , though it may be justly supposed , that the Subject being infinite , the Ideas they framed of it , could not be comprehensive and accurate . Eug. So that according to you , Sophronius , it may be said , that by reason we do not properly perceive Things above Reason , but only perceive that they are above Reason , there being a dark and peculiar kind of Impression made upon the understanding , while it sets it self to contemplate such confounding Objects , by which peculiarity of impression , as by a distinct and unwonted kind of internal sensation , the understanding is brought to distinguish this sort of things ( namely ) transcendent or priviledg'd ones from others , and discern them to be disproportionate to the powers with which it uses throughly to penetrate Subjects , that are not impervious to it . As when the Eye looks into a deep Sea , though it may pierce a little way into it , yet when it would look deeper , it discovers nothing but somewhat which is dark and indistinct , which affects the sensory so differingly from what other more genuine objects are wont to do , that by it we easily discern , that our sight fails us in the way before it arrives at the bottom , and consequently that there may be many things conceal'd there , that our sight is unable to reach . Timoth. I guess , Gentlemen , by the silence you seem to conspire in , after so long a debate , that you have now said as much as at present you think fit to say for and against this Proposition , that there are Things above our Reason . Sophr. I shall not , for my part , cross your Observation , Timotheus , but instead of adding any new proofs , shall only desire you to look back upon those I have presented you already , and to let me remind you , that of the two Arguments by which I attempted to shew that there are some things above Reason , the first and chiefest was suggested by Experience , and the other which was drawn from the nature of things and of man , was brought as 't were , ex abundanti , to illustrate and confirm the former , and give occasion to some hints about priviledg'd Subjects . And therefore though I hope what has been discours'd by these Gentlemen and me , may be able to perswade Pyrocles , that the acknowledgment that some things are above Reason may fairly comply with the dictates of it , yet whatever he thinks of the cogency of our discourse , the truth of the main conclusion may be sufficiently evinc'd by our first Argument drawn from experience : For if we really find , that there are things which our Reason cannot comprehend , then whether the account these Gentlemen and I have given , why our faculties are insufficient , for these things be good or not ; yet still some true account or other there must be of that insufficiency . And as we should very thankfully receive from Pyrocles , any better account than what we have propounded , so if he cannot assign any better , I hope he will joyn with us in looking upon this , as very agreeable to our Hypothesis ; since hereby some things must appear to us so sublime and abstruse , that not only we find we are not able to comprehend them , but that we are unable to discern so much as upon what account it is that they cannot be comprehended by us . Eug. I am not averse , Sophronius , from your Paradox about gradual notions , and I am the more in clin'd to think , that some of the Axioms and Rules that are reputed to be very general , are not to be in differently extended to all Subject and cases whatsoever ; when I consider the differing apprehension that the mind may frame of the same object , as well according to the vigour or ( if I may so call it rank of the understanding , as according to the differing information 't is furnished with : For if on● should propose to a child , for in●stance , of four or five years old the demonstration of the one hu●●dred and seventeenth Propositio● of Euclid's tenth Book , wherein 〈◊〉 proves the side and Diagonal 〈◊〉 a Square to be incommensur●●ble , thongh possibly he may be ●●ble to read the words that expre●● the Theorem , and though he ha● eyes to see the Scheme imploy●● for the demonstration , yet if 〈◊〉 should spend a whole year about 〈◊〉 you would never be able to make him understand it , because 't is quite above the reach of a Childs capacity : And if one should stay till he be grown a man , yet supposing him to have never learned Geometry , though he may easily know what you mean by two incommensurable lines , yet all the reason he has attained to in his virile age , would but indispose him to attain to that demonstration ; for all the experience he may have had of lines , will but have suggested to him as a manifest and general truth , that of any two strait lines we may by measuring find how many Feet , Inches , or other determinate measure , the one exceeds the other . And though one that has been orderly instructed in all that long train of Propositions , that in Euclid's Elements precede the one hundred and seventeenth of the tenth Book , will be also able to arrive at an evidence of this truth , that those two Lines are incommensurable ; yet ( as Sophronius formerly noted ) how it should be possible that two short Lines being proposed , whereof each by it self is easily measurable among those innumerable multitudes of parts into which each of them may be mentally divided , there should not be any one capable of exactly measuring both , is that which even a Geometrician that knows it is true is not well able to conceive . But Gentlemen , that you may not accuse my digression , I shall urge these comparisons no further , my scope in mentioning them being to observe to you , that for ought w● know to the contrary , such a diffe●rence of intellectual Abilities as i● but gradual in Children and Men● may be essential in differing rank● of Intellectual Beings . And so 〈◊〉 may be , that some of those Axiom that we think general , may , whe●● we apply them to things whereo● they are not the true and prope● measures , lead us into error , thoug● perhaps Intellects of an higher o●●der may unriddle those difficulti● that confound us men , which conjecture I should confirm by some things that would be readily granted me by Christians , if I thought it proper to play the Divine in a discourse purely Philosophical . Pyrocl. You , Gentlemen , have taken the liberty to make long discourses , and I shall not much blame you for it , because 't is a thing as more easily , so more speedily done , to propose difficulties than to solve them ; yet methinks amongst you all , you have left one part of my Objection unanswer'd , not to say untouch'd . Sophr. I suppose , Pyrocles , you mean what you said about discerning invisible things with the Eye , but I purposely forbore to take notice of that , because I foresaw it might be more seasonably done , after some other points had been clear'd : Wherefore give me leave now to represent to you , as a Corollary from the foregoing discourses , that nothing hinders but that we may reasonably suppose , that the great and free Author of humane nature , God , so framed the nature of Man , as to have furnish'd his Intellective Faculty with a light , whereby it cannot only make estimates of the power of a multitude of other things , but also judge of its own nature and power , and discern some at least of the limits beyond which it cannot safely exercise its act of particularly and peremptorily judging and defining . And now that God , who ( as I said ) is a most free Agent , may have given the mind of Man such a limited nature , accompanied with such a measure of light , you will not I presume deny but the question is , you will tell me , whether he hath done so ? But I hope what has been formerly discoursed by these Gentlemen and me , has put that almost quite out of question . However , I shall now invite you to observe with me , that the Rational Soul does not only pass judgments about things without her , but about her self , and what passes within her : She searches out and contemplates her own spirituality and union with the Body . The Intellect judges wherein it s own nature consists , and whether or no it self be a distinct faculty from the Will ; and to come yet closer to the point , be pleased to consider , that Logick and Metaphysicks are the works of the Humane Intellect , which by framing those disciplines , manifests , that it does not only judge of Ratiocinations , but of the very Principles and Laws of Reasoning , and teaches what things are necessary to the obtaining of an Evidence and Certainty , and what kind of Mediums they are from whence you must not expect any demonstrative Arguments , concerning such or such a subject . To these things it is agreeable , that if we will compare the bodily Eye with the Understanding , which is the Eye of the Mind , we must allow this difference , that the Intellect is as well a Looking-glass as a Sensory , since it does not only see other things but it self too , and can discern its own blemishes or bad conformation , or whatever other infirmitiesit labours under . Upon which consideration , we may justifie the boldness of our excellent Verulam , who when he sets forth the four sorts of Idols ( as he calls them ) that mislead the studiers of Philosophy , makes one of them to be Idola Tribûs , by which he means those Notions , that tho' radicated in the very nature of mankind , are yet apt to mislead us , which may confirm what I was saying before , that the Soul , when duly excited , is furnished with a light , that may enable her to judge even of divers of those original Notions , by which she is wont to judge of other things . To be short , the Soul upon tryal may find by an inward sence , that some things surpass her forces , as a blind man that were set to lift up a rock would quickly find it too unweildy to be manag'd by him , and the utmost exercise of his strength would but convince him of the insufficiency of it , to surmount so great a weight or resistance ; so that we do not pretend that the Eye of the Mind should see Invisibles , but only that it shall discern the limits of that Sphere of Activity , within which Nature hath bounded it , and consequently that some Objects are disproportionate to it . And I remember that Aristotle himself says , that the eye sees both light and darkness , which expression , though somewhat odd , may be defended by saying , that though since darkness is a Privation , not a Being , it cannot properly be the object of sight , yet it may be perceived by means of the Eye , by the very differing affection which that Organ resents , when it is imprest on by luminous or enlightned Objects , and when it is made useless to us by darkness . Timoth. What you have said , Sophronius , has in great part prevented one thing that might be said to strengthen Pyrocles his objection , namely , that whereas when we see with our bodily eyes , there is besides the outward Organ an internal and rational faculty , that perceives by the help of the eye , that which is not directly the object of sight in the Eye of the Mind , the Intellect , there is but one faculty to perceive and judge : For according to your notion , it may be well answered , that the Intellect being capable by its proper light , to judge of it self and its own acts as well as of other things , there is no need of two Principles , the one to perceive and the other to judge , since one is sufficient for both those purposes . Pyrocl. When I have time to reflect on all that I have heard alledg'd amongst you , Gentlemen , I shall consider how far your Arguments ought to obtain my assent : But in the mean while I must tell you , that they will scarce have all the success I presume you desire , unless you add somewhat to free me from what yet sticks with me of a scruple , that is much of the nature of that which I formerly proposed , being this ; How we can justifie our presuming to discourse at all of things transcending Reason ? For I cannot understand how a man that admits your opinions , can intelligibly speak ( and to speak otherwise mis-becomes a rational creature ) of what is infinite or any thing that surpasses our reason ; since when we discourse of such things , either our words are , or are not accompanied with clear and distinct Ideas or conceptions of the things we speak of : If they be not , what do we other than speak nonsence , or ( as hath been already said ) like Parrots entertain our Hearers with words , that we our selves do not understand ; and if they be , then we do in effect comprehend those things , which yet you would have me think to be on some account or other , Incomprehensible . Sophr. I acknowledge this difficulty , Pyrocles , to be a great one ; but yet I think it not so great as that it ought to interdict us all discoursing of things above Reason : And this would perhaps appear probable enough , if , as your objection borrows much of what you have formerly alledg'd , so I may be allowed , as well to repeat some things as propose others , in making answer to it . Timoth. I for my part shall not only give you my consent to do so , but make it my request that you would do it , for when I look back upon our conference , methinks I plainly perceive that partly the objections of Pyrocles , and partly some ( I fear impertinent ) interpositions of mine , have kept your discourse from being so methodical as otherwise you would have made it , and therefore to be reminded of some of the chief points of your doctrine , as well as to connect them with those you shall judge fit to strengthen or illustrate them , may much conduce to make us both understand it more clearly , and remember it better . Eug. I am much of your mind , Timotheus , but though my interpositions have been far more frequent and much less pertinent than yours , yet I am not troubled that the method of our conference has been so much disturb'd ; because I think such a free way of discoursing , wherein emergent thoughts if they be considerable , are permitted to appear as they arise in the mind , is more useful than a nice method in a debate about an uncultivated and highly important subject , in which I think we should aim at first rather to inquire than to resolve , and to procure as many hints and considerations as we can , in order to our fuller information against our next meeting , without suppressing any that is true or useful , only because it agrees not so well with a regular method , as it does with the design of our conference . Sophr. Without reflecting upon either of those Gentlemen that have been pleased to accuse themselves , I shall readily comply with the motion made by Timotheus , and after having proposed some distinctions make application of them . And the better to clear this matter in reference to Pyrocles's objection , I shall first take the liberty to make some distinctions of the Notions or conceptions of the Mind , and for brevity sake give names to those I have now occasion to employ . I consider then , that whether the conceptions or Ideas we have of things be simple or compounded , they may be distinguished into such as are particular or distinct , and such as are only general , dark , and confus'd , or indistinct : So when a Navigator to unknown Countries first gets a sight of Land , though he may be satisfied that it is Land , yet he has but a very dark and confus'd picture of it made in his eye , and cannot descry whether or no the shore be rocky , or what Creeks or Harbours ( if any ) it have in it ▪ much less whether the Coast be well inhabited , and if it be , what kind of buildings it has ; all which he may plainly and distinctly see upon his going ashore . And this mention of the Sea puts me in mind to point at another distinction , which is that of some things we have an adequate , of others , but an inadequate conception ; as if we suppose the Navigator I was speaking of , should look towards the main Sea , though he might see a good way distinctly , yet at length it would appear so darkly and confusedly to him , that at the verge of the sensible Horizon , his sight would make him judge that the Sea and Sky come together , and yet he would conclude that the utmost part of the Sea he could descry , was but a part of the Ocean , which may , for ought he knows , reach to a vast extent beyond the visible Horizon . To our confused , and often also to our inadequate conceptions , belong many of those that may be called Negative , which we are wont to imploy when we speak of Privations or Negations , as Blindness , Ignorance , Death , &c. We have a positive Idea of things that are square and round , and black and white , and in short of other things , whose shapes and colours make them the objects of our sight : Bu● when we say , for instance , that 〈◊〉 Spirit or an Atome is invisible 〈◊〉 those words are attended with a ne●gative conception , which is com●monly but dark and confused be●cause 't is indefinite , and remove● or lays aside those marks , by whic● we are wont clearly to perceive an● distinguish visible substances : An● when we say that such a thing 〈◊〉 impossible , we have some kind o● conception of what we speak of , b●● 't is a very obscure and indistinc● one at best , exhibiting only a gene●ral and very confused representat●●on of some ways , whereby on● might think the thing likely to b● effected if it were at all perform●●ble , accompanied with a percept●●on of the insufficiency of tho●● ways . There is yet another diff●●rence in the notions we have 〈◊〉 things , which though not wont●● be observed , is too important to 〈◊〉 here pretermitted , and it is thi● That of some things we have ●●knowledg , that for want of a fit●● term may be called primary or direct , and of some other things the knowledge we have is acquired but by inferring it from some more known or clearer truth ; and so may be called inferr'd or illative knowledge . As when a Geometrician defines to me an Hyperbole , I quickly gain a clear and distinct Idea of it , but when he proves to me that this Hyperbole may have such a relation to a strait line which he calls Asymptote , that this line being continued still comes nearer and nearer to the prolonged side of the Hyperbole , and yet how far soever both be drawn , 't will never come to touch it , his subtil demonstrations present me with an infer'd or illative truth , at which we arriv'd not but by the help of a train of ratiocinations , and on which if we exercise our imagination , we shall find this factitious truth , if we may so call it , accompanied but with a very dim and confused Idea . To the foregoing distinctions , give me leave to add but this one more , which belongs chiefly to the not●●ons we have of true or false propos●●tions , namely , that of our concept●●ons of things , some are Symmetrici●● ( if I may so call them ) or every wa● consistent , by which I mean th●● that have these two qualification● the one that all the parts are consi●●●ent among themselves , and the ●●●ther that the entire Idea is consi●●●ent with all other truths ; and so●● are Chymerical or Asymmetrical , 〈◊〉 which I understand those that a● either self-destroying by the contr●●riety of the parts themselves th●● are made up of , as if one sho●● talk of a triangular square , or a 〈◊〉 shiny night ; or being extravaga●● lead to some manifest absurdit●● that may be legitimately inferr●● from them , or into inextrica●● difficulties , or involve a real rep●●●nancy to some acknowledg'd tru● or rule of Reason . To what I have hitherto said 〈◊〉 must add these two observation ▪ The First , that the mind of Ma●● so framed , that when she is 〈◊〉 instructed and is not wanting to her self , she can perceive a want of light in her self for some purposes , or of clearness and completeness in the best Idaeas she is able to frame of some things , and on this account can so far take notice of the extent and imperfection of her own faculties , as to discern that some objects are disproportionate to her ; As when we attentively consider the dimensions of space , or ( if the Cartesians judge aright , that body is nothing but extended substance ) those of the Universe , we may by tryal perceive that we cannot conceive them so great , but that they may be yet greater , or if you please may exceed the bounds , how remote soever , which our former conception presum'd to assign them ; which may be illustrated by what happens to the eye , when it looks upon the main Sea ; since we easily grow sensible that how far soever we can discover it , yet our sight falls far short of the extent of that vast object . And 't is by the sense which the mind has of her own l●●mitedness and imperfection on cer●tain occasions , that I think we ma●● estimate what things ought no● and what ought to be looked upo● as Things above Reason ; for by th●● Term , I would not have you thin●● I mean such things as our ration●● faculty cannot at all reach to , 〈◊〉 has not any kind of perception 〈◊〉 for of such things we cannot in pa●●ticular either speak or think li●● men : But my meaning is this , th●● whereas the rational Soul is consc●●ous to her own acts , and feels , th●● she knows divers sorts of thin●● truly and clearly ; and thereby ju●●●ly concludes them to be within 〈◊〉 compass of her faculties ; when 〈◊〉 contemplates some few things th●● seem to be of another order , she● convinc'd that however she stra●● her power , she has no such Ide● or perception of them , as she 〈◊〉 or may have of those objects th●● are not disproportionate to her ●●●culties : And this is my first Obse●●vation . The other thing that I was to observe about the nature of the Mind is , that 't is so constituted , that its faculty of drawing consequences from known truths , is of greater extent than its power of framing clear and distinct Idaeas of things ; so that by subtle or successive inferences , it may attain to a clear conviction that some things are , of whose nature and properties ( or at least of some of them ) it can frame no clear and satisfactory conceptions . And that men should be better able to infer propositions about divers things , than to penetrate their nature , needs the less be wondred at , both because 't is oftentimes sufficient for our uses to know that such things are , though that knowledge be not accompanied with a clear and distinct Idaea ; and because oftentimes the Rules ( such as , whatever is produced must have a cause ; and , from Truth , nothing rightly follows but Truth ) are clear and easie that enable the Mind to infer conclusions about things , whose nature is very dark , and abstruse . Eug. I know , Sophronius , that you have not laid down these preliminary distinctions and remarks without designing to make use of them , which the little time that now remains to manage our conference in , calls upon you to proceed to do . Sophr. I was just going to say , Eugenius , that after what I have premised , I hope it may now be seasonable to apply the newly delivered Notions to the three sorts of things that I formerly represented as being in some sence above reason . For I consider , that there are some objects of so immense and peculiar a nature , that ( if I may so speak ) by an easie view of the mind , that is without any subtle and laborious disquisition , the Soul discerns , and as it were feels the Object to be disproportionate to her powers : And accordingly if she thinks sit to try , she quickly finds her self unable to frame conceptions of them fit to be acquiesc'd in , and this sort of Objects I do upon that account call inconceivable , or ( on some occasions ) supra-intellectual . But when by attentively considering the attributes and operations of things , we sometimes find that a thing hath some property belonging to it , or doth perform somewhat , which by reflecting on the beings and ways of working that we know already , we cannot discern to be reducible to them or derivable from them , we then conclude this property or this operation to be inexplicable ; that is , such as that it cannot so much as in a general way be intelligibly accounted for , and this makes the second sort of our things above Reason . But this is not all , for the Rational Soul that is already furnished with innate , or at least primitive Idaeas and Rules of true and false , when she comes to examine certain things and make successive inferences about them , she finds ( sometimes to her wonder as well as trouble ) that she cannot avoid admitting some consequences as true & good which she is not able to reconcile to some other manifest Truth or acknowledged Proposition : And whereas other Truths are so harmonious , that there is no disagreement between any two of them , the Heteroclite Truths I speak of appear not symmetrical with the rest of the body of Truths , and we see not how we can at once embrace these and the rest , without admitting that grand absurdity which subverts the very foundation of our reasonings , That Contradictories may both be true . As in the controversie about the endless divisibility of a strait line , since 't is manifest that a line of three foot for instance is thrice as long as a line of one foot , so that the shorter line is but the third part of the longer , it would follow that a part of a line may contain as many parts as a whole , since each of them is divisible into infinite parts , which seems repugnant to common sence , and to contradict one of those common Notions in Euclid , whereon Geometry it self is built . Upon which account I have ventured to call this third sort of things above Reason Asymmetrical or Unsociable , of which eminent instances are afforded us by those controversies ( such as that of the compositio continui ) wherein which side soever of the question you take , you will be unable directly and truly to answer the objections that may be urged to show that you contradict some primitive or some other acknowledged truth . These , Eugenius , are some of the considerations by which I have been induced to distinguish the things that to me seem to over-match our Reason , into three kinds . For of those things I have stil'd Unconceivable , our Idaeas are but such as a moderate attention suffices to make the mind sensible that she wants either light or extent enough to have a clear and full comprehension of them : And those things that I have called Inexplicable , are those which we cannot perceive to de - upon the Idaeas we are furnished with , and to resemble in their manner of working any of the Agents whose nature we are acquainted with : And lastly , those things which I have named Unsociable , are such as have Notions belonging to them , or have conclusions deducible from them , that are ( for ought we can discern ) either incongruous to our primitive Idaeas , or when they are driven home , inconsistent with the manifest Rules we are furnished with , to judge of True and False . Eug. I presume , Sophronius , that by sorting things above Reason into three kinds , you do not intend to deny but that 't is possible one object may in differing regards be referred to more than one of these sorts . Sophr. You apprehend me very right , Eugenius , and the truth of what you say may sufficiently appear in that noblest of Objects , God. Timoth. We owe so much to God , the most perfect of Beings , not only for other blessings , but for those very Intellects that enable us to contemplate him , that I shall be very glad to learn any thing that may increase my wonder and veneration for an Object , to whom I can never pay enough of either . Sophr. You speak like your self , Timotheus , and I wish I were as able as I ought to be willing , to satisfie your desire : But since we are now discoursing like Philosophers , not Divines , I shall proceed to speak of that gloriousest of Objects , But as his Nature or some of his Attributes afford me instances to the purpose , for which I presum'd to mention him . When God therefore made the World out of nothing , or ( if Pyrocles will not admit the Creation ) when he discerns the secretest thoughts and intentions of the Mind , when he unites an immaterial Spirit to a humane Body , and maintains , perhaps for very many years , that unparallel'd union with all the wonderful conditions he has annex'd to it ; when , I say , he doth these and many other things , that I must not now stay to mention , he supplies us with instances of things that are Inexplicable : For such operations are not reducible to any of the ways of working known to us ; since our own Minds can but modify themselves by divers manners of thinking ; and as for things without us , all that one body can do to another by acting on it , is to communicate local motion to it , and thereby produce in it the natural consequences of such motion ; in all which there is no action like any of those I just now ascrib'd to God. And if we consider that the praescience of those future events that we call contingent , being a perfection , is not to be denyed to God ; who is by all acknowledged the perfectest of Beings and that yet the greatest Wits that have laboured to reconcile this infallible praecognition with the liberty of mans will , have been reduced to maintain some thing or other , that thwarts some acknowledged truth or dictate of Reason : If we duly consider this ( I say ) it will afford us an instance of truths , whose consistency and whose symmetry with the body of other truths , our Reason cannot discern , and which therefore ought to be referred to that sort of things above Reason , that I call Unsociable . And now I come to the third sort of these things which is that I formerly mention'd , first under the name of Incomprehensible or supra-intellectual : which Title , whether or no it belongs to any other Object , ( which I will not now enquire ) doth certainly belong to God , whose Nature comprehending all perfections in their utmost possible degrees , is not like to be comprehensible by our minds , who altogether want divers of those perfections , and have but moderate measures , ( not to call them shadows ) of the rest . We are indeed born with , or at least have a power and divers occasions to frame an Idaea of a Being infinitely perfect , and by this Idaea we may sufficiently discriminate the Original of it , God , from all other Objects whatsoever . But then , when we come to consider attentively & minutely what is contained in the notion of Omnipotence , Omniscience , Eternity , and those other divine Attributes that are all united in that great confluence and abys● of perfections , God ; we may be● sure to find , that our faculties are exceedingly surmounted by the vastness and gloriousness of that unlimited and unparallel'd object 〈◊〉 about which , as we can discove● that it exists , and that it possesse● all the perfection we can conceive● so we may at the same time discern● that it must have degrees of perfection , which because of the inferiority of our Nature , we are not able to conceive . And yet this discovery of God● Incomprehensibleness may be mad● without subtle disquisitions , an● without trains of consequences● though not without due attention● by a direct view of the Mind ( if 〈◊〉 may so term it ; ) who finds her self upon tryal as unable fully to measure the divine perfections as the dimensions of space , which we can conceive to be greater and greater , without ever being able to determine any extent beyond whose limits they cannot reach . Pyrocles . I suspected Sophron. by the tenour of your Discourse that the last Questions these Gentlemen asked you , diverted you from saying somewhat more than you did by way of application of your preceding Discourse . Sophron. I was then indeed about to make , as I now shall , this use of what I had been saying ; that I readily acknowledge that 't is an arrogance to talk of infinite or of priviledg'd things , with the same confidence , or to pretend to do it with the same clearness , wherewith knowing men may speak of things unquestionably within the compass of our Intellect : But that this need not hinder us from speaking , nor doth disable us from speaking rationally of priviledg'd things themselves . For all the notions that are allowable are not of the same sort or order ; and if none were to be admitted but those that enable us to comprehend the Object , that is , which give us a clear and distinct knowledge of all that it contains or that belongs to it , I must confess that we have no good Notions of priviledg'd things in particular ▪ but then I must add , that I fear we have few or none even of many things that we think our selves very knowing in . And when we speak of things as being above Reason , though we have no clear , distinct and adequate Notion o● them , yet we may have a general confus'd and inadequate Notion of them , which may suffice to make us discriminate their respective Objects from all else , and from one another ; as may be observ'd in several , Idaeas that are negatively fram'd , such as those we have o● invisible , incomprehensible , and in others which I formerly call'd Inferr'd ; because they accompany the remote Inferences whereby one truth is concluded from another : as when Geometricians infer from some propositions in Euclid that any strait line may be divided farther and farther without stop . For of this and some other propositions about priviledg'd things , we are not quite destitute of allowable Notions ; as may appear by some of the admirably ingenious Speculations of Mathematicians about the Affections of surd Numbers , and about incommensurable Magnitudes ; about some of which we have no such clear and symmetrical Conceptions as we have of many other things , that are of a nearer and more intelligible order . And on this occasion I shall not scruple to acknowledge , that partly by my own Experience , and partly by the Confessions of others , and by their unsuccesful Attempts , I am induc'd to think that God , who is a most free Agent , having been pleas'd to make Intelligent Beings , may perhaps have made them of differing Ranks , or Orders , whereof Men may not be of the Principal ; and that whether there be such Orders or no , he hath at least made us Men , of a limited nature ( in general ) and of a bounded Capacity . Congruously to this I think also , that he hath furnished man either with certain innate Ideas or Models and Principles , or with a Faculty or Power and Disposition easily to frame them , as it meets with occasions ( which readily occur ) to excite them : But because that ( as I lately noted ) God intended the mind of Man but of a limited Capacity , his Understanding is so constituted that the inbred or easily acquir'd Idaeas and primitive Axioms wherewith it is furnished , and by Relation or Analogy whereunto it judges of all other Notions , and Propositions , do not extend to all knowable Objects whatsoever ; but reach only to such as have a sufficient Affinity , or bear some proportion to those Primary Idaeas and Rules of Truth , which are sufficient if duly improv'd , to help us to the attainment , though not of the perfect knowledge of truth 's of the highest Orders , yet to the Competent Knowledge of as much truth as God thought fit to allow our minds in their present ( and perchance laps'd ) Condition , or state of Union with their mortal Bodies . Eugen. Your Opinion , Sophron. if I apprehend it aright , contains two very differing Assertions ; one that it is allowable to contemplate and even to discourse of things above Reason , since we may have some Conceptions of them , though they be but very dim and imperfect : and the other , that we ought not to look upon , or speak of such Objects as things that we comprehend , or have even such a measure of knowledge of , as we have of things that are not priviledg'd . For of these we are not to speak but with a peculiar Wariness , and modest Diffidence . Sophron. You have express'd my thoughts Eugen. since I Intend not to injoyn silence , or disswade Curiosity , but yet forbid presumption , in reference to priviledg'd things . Timoth. And truly Sophron. I see no Reason to repine at the limits which your late Discourse hath in imitation of the Author of nature himself , assign'd to human Knowledg . For the number of priviledg'd things is altogether inconsiderable in comparison of the multitude of other things , to which our knowledge may be improv'd to reach ; and which it far more concerns us to know well , than it doth to resolve puzling Questions about things incomprehensible ; there being within the compass of those truths , enough to employ , and reward our Curiosity without straining and tiring our Reason about Objects that transcend it . And yet even about these , some disquisitions may be allow'd us , for an object that on the account of some of its properties may be a priviledg'd one ; may have divers other things belonging to it , that do not surpass our Reason , and whose knowledge may therefore be attain'd , by the due employment of it . Thus we usefully study the nature of Bodies , which make up the Object of the Excellent Science of Natural Philosophy ; though the true Notion of Body in general be a thing so difficult to frame , that the best of our Modern Philosophers can by no means agree about it . Which I do not wonder at ; because if we pursue the notion of a Body to the uttermost ; 't will lead us to the perplexing controversie , De compositione continui , and there you will not deny , but that the understanding will be left in the dark . Thus Surveyors , Carpenters , Architects , and many others know divers Affections of the square Figure that are of great use to them in their respective Employments , though that property of the square , that its side and diagonal are incommensurable , be unknown to most of them ; and if they were told of it , and would prosecute the Speculation , would involve them in exceeding great and probably insuperable difficulties . Sophron. To confirm what you have been telling us , Timoth. I shall venture to add , that even about priviledg'd things , our inquiries , if modestly and discreetly manag'd , may not only be allowable but sometimes profitable . For even of such Subjects a studious search may bring us to know more than we did , though not so much as we would , nor enough to be acquiesc'd in . So that such enquiries may probably teach us , to know the Objects better , and our selves better too ; by giving us such a sensible discovery of the insufficiency of our Understandings to comprehend all sorts of things , as may be very useful , though not pleasing , and may richly recompence us , for the pains that ended in so instructive a disappointment . And let me add to the pertinent instances that have been mention'd , the noblest that can be given ; I mean the Contemplation of God himself . For he hath so ordered all things , that 't is scarce possible for us , to be destitute of an Idaea of him , which will at least represent him as an existent Being , and more perfect than any other Being ; and yet when we come with sufficient Application of mind to pry into the wonderful Attributes of this most singular and adorable Being , we are , as was lately observ'd , sure to find our selves unable to comprehend so unbounded an Object . Which yet ought not to discourage us from so noble a Study , since we are allow'd the great contentment and honour to make further and further discoveries of the excellentest of Objects , by that very immensity of his perfections , that makes it impossible for us to reach to the bounds of his Excellency , or rather to discover that it has any bounds at all . But , Gentlemen , I perceive I have been so transported by the mention of this vast and divine Subject , in whose Contemplation 't is so easie , and so pleasant to lose ones self , that I have forgot the notice Eugen. gave me , a pretty while since , that the time allotted for our present conference was then near expiring . And therefore I shall leave you to pick out of the Excursions to which your interpositions tempted ( not to say oblig'd ) me , the Applications , that I intended to make more methodically of the distinctions I laid down . And I am the less troubled to be hindred from proposing to you my thoughts about the way of distinguishing priviledg'd things from others , because we have a domestick Monitor , or a kind of an internal Criterium always at hand to help us . For I think it may well be said , that the wise Author of Nature has endued the Understanding with such a quick , though internal , Sensation ( if I may so call it ) that when due attention is not wanting , it can feelingly discern between other Objects , and those that are disproportionate to its ability . As even in Beasts , the eye is so fram'd ( according to the institution of Nature ) that if it be obverted to the bright noon-day-Sun , there needs no Monitor , but the operation of the same Sun , to make it wink ; ( and perhaps water ) and thereby discover it self to be dazled and overpowr'd by the disproportionate Object . Pyroc . I confess your Discourses , Gentlemen , have made an unexpected Impression upon me ; but whether that will amount to a Conviction will scarce appear till our next Conference . Only thus much I shall tell you now , that it would much facilitate our agreement in Opinion , if you did not contend for altogether so much ; but would be pleas'd to leave it undertermin'd , whether Man's intellectual Faculty it self is uncapable by the help of any degree of light , to discover and know those things , which you call above Reason ? and would content your selves to say , That there are some things belonging to these Subjects , which we must confess we have less clear and distinct Notions of , than we have even of the difficultest of those things , that are acknowledg'd not to surpass our Reason : And that if we will take upon us , to determine positively and particularly about these transcendent things , we must employ ways of Reasoning , congruous to their peculiar natures . Sophron. I shall readily consent not to expect your final Resolution , before our next meeting , having no cause to fear that time , will be unfriendly to her Daughter Truth . Timoth. And in the mean while , Pyrocles , I am glad to find by the last part of what you just now said , that you seem to be no longer indispos'd to admit some things , that ( at least in our present state ) do some way or other surpass our Reason . For I think that instead of exalting that faculty , we injure and defraud it , if we do not freely allow it , as much enjoyment of Truth as we are able to procure it : And consequently if Geometry , or Revelation , or Experience , assure us of divers things of which we can know but That they are , and what they do , not , what they are , and how they act , we must neither refuse , nor neglect the study of such Truths , any more than we would refuse to look into any other Objects , than those that we can look through ; And therefore to enrich the Intellect as much as we are able , we must entertain , not only those Truths , that we can comprehend , but those also , how sublime soever , that we can have any certain , though but a very imperfect Knowledge of , Especially since those remote and abstruse Subjects may be as much more noble as more dark than others , and thereby render an imperfect Discovery of them , more desirable , than a far clearer one of Inferior things . FINIS . ADVICES IN JUDGING OF Things SAID TO TRANSCEND REASON . The Speakers Arnobius , Eugenius , Pyrocles and Timotheus . Arnob. I Was very glad , Gentlemen , to learn this morning of Sophronius some things , whence 't was easie to conclude , that by the Discourse you had with him last night , he has made it allowable for me to demand , and rational for you to grant , nay to proffer me , a Dispensation of the Task you imposed on me at our last meeting . For tho' he spake with the modesty that became him of your Conference , and gave me , but a hasty and imperfect Account of what pass'd between you ; yet I think I may presume , that by his Discourse Pyrocles himself was at least inclin'd , and you two , Gentlemen , fully perswaded to admit , that there are Things above Reason ; which was the main point about which you expected at our last Congress that I should entertain you , at our then next , or now present meeting . Eugen. I deny not , that Sophronius's Considerations were prevalent on Timotheus and me ; and have , I hope , made a good impression on Pyrocles himself ; but that ought not to hinder us from coming , as we now do , to claim your promise of entertaining us about things above Reason . And if you will needs be dispens'd with from repeating those Considerations that Sophronius has employed already , ( tho' I doubt not but by repeating them , you would both strengthen and advance them ; ) we will not be rigid Exactors of our Right : but yet we must not remit your Task , tho' we are content to change it . For I question not but these Gentlemen will consent with me , to discharge you of your promise of discoursing of the Arguments that may infer some things to be above Reason , if you will please to afford us your Thoughts , about the ways of avoiding to be imposed on by our selves or others , when such sublime Subjects are treated or discours'd of . Arnob. Tho' in the recital of your Conference , Sophronius did but touch on several Subjects whereon it would be proper for me to insist , in the Discourse you seem to expect from me ; yet I am apt to fear , that he has so prevented me in what I should say , that he has left little or nothing for me to do , but to make Repetitions of what you have heard already much better express'd : which will be an Employment far enough from being grateful , either to you or me . Eugen. Your Modesty , Sir , is not like to defeat our Curiosity ; and that you may not think your self hardly used , or condemned to bear Repetitions ; be pleased to take notice , both that , what we desire as a Favor , we might claim as a Compensation , and that the things we expect from you now , are not Arguments to make out that there are things above Reason , but that you would afford us some Rules and Directions how to regulate the Ratiocinations we make ; and estimate those we meet with , about such Transcendent Subjects . Arnob. I hope Eugenius , you do not in earnest think me so vain as to pretend to frame a Logick about things above Logick ; or magisterially to deliver Rules about things that are as Anomalous , as they are either Remote or Abstruse . Besides that all you have said , do's not exempt me from a fear , that by reason of Sophronius's omitting divers points of his Discourse , and my imperfect Remembrance of those he transiently and summarily mention'd , he has anticipated much of what were otherwise proper for me to say . But yet because 't is possible that his thoughts and mine , may have lead us , to have made some Reflections that are not at all the same ; and that even when others happen to be coincident , it may be not altogether useless , that I should endeavour to inlarge some things that he has but hinted , and illustrate or vindicate some others that will not be prejudic'd by being cleared , or confirm'd ; and above all this , because I would shew you , that I am willing to comply with you somewhat to the hazard of my Discretion , I shall not refuse to offer you some , not Rules , but Advices ; provided you freely interrupt me , when I begin to trouble you with the Repetition of any thing that you have , tho' I have not heard before ; and provided too , that you look not on these Advices so much as directions to find the truth in such abstruse matters , as Cautions that may chance to assist you to avoid some Errors and Mistakes . Eugen. We are not so scrupulous but that we shall upon your own terms gladly receive your thoughts , whatever names you please to give them . Arnob. I shall then without further preamble comply with your Commands , and propose as my First Advice . That about Priviledg'd Subjects themselves , we do not admit any ( affirmative ) assertion without such proofs , to evince it , as are sufficient in their kind . I hope Gentlemen that Sophronius has so far declar'd to you , what is to be meant by Priviledg'd things , that though it be a new term , yet I need not solicitously explain it ; and may think it sufficient to intimate in few words that they are things of a very Heteroclyte and Abstruse Nature , and have belonging to them such peculiar Affections and Attributes , as require that in judging and reasoning of them we should employ Notions and Rules congruous to their particular Condition ; some of them superadded to , & others perhaps differing from , those that men generally & safely enough make use of about common & familiar things , that are of a nature less impervious to our Understandings . And if the shortness of this Summary Description , should leave it less clear than I hope you find it ; I foresee there will divers occasions of illustrating it , by instances and other ways , occur in the Sequel of our Discourse : In order to which I shall , after this short and necessary Digression , return to the lately given First Advice ; and tell you that 't is grounded upon this Consideration , that 't is not reasonable to give assent to any thing as a Truth , but upon a sufficient Reason of that Assent . And tho' we may well grant in the general , that a thing which ●urpasses our Reason may have belonging to it some affection that is also above Reason ; yet we are not in particular to believe that this or that Affection doth belong to it , without particular and competent proof . For since about a Priviledg'd thing , as well as about any other , Propositions may be fram'd , and often are so , that are contrary to one another ; to assent to both , were to be sure to believe one falsity , if not two . And if we will assent but to one , we must either judge at Adventures , or allow our selves to examine the Mediums of Probation , employed on both sides , and thereupon judge , why one of the Propositions is to be assented to , and the other rejected . Pyrocles . I am glad Arnobius , that you allow your self and us this manly freedom without which our Understandings were lyable to be impos'd on in matters of the highest Concernment : For there scarce ever did , or I fear ever will , want some men who either out of Ignorance and passive Delusion , or out of self-Confidence , or out of Design , take upon them , with great boldness , to affirm what they please about priviledg'd Subjects , and when they are opposed in their Extravagancies by Ratiocinations they cannot answer , they urge , that these things being above Reason , are not to be judged of by it : But of such men as these I usually demand whether their own Assent to the things they would have us believe , be grounded upon some Rational Argument , or not : If they say , 't is not , they are fools to believe it themselves ; and I should add to the number of fools , if after this acknowledgment , I should believe them : But if they say they do , I desire them to produce their Argument ; for since 't is fram'd by a Human Understanding , the force of it may be also comprehended & judg'd of by a Human Understanding : And 't is to no purpose to say , that the Subject surpasses Human Reason ; for if it do so indeed , it will surpass theirs as well as mine , and so leave us upon even terms . And let the thing assented to , be what it will , the assent it self ought to be founded upon a sufficient Reason , and consequently upon one that is intelligible , to the Human Intellect that is wrought on by it . Eûgen . I willingly allow , that there is a great difference between the being able and oblig'd to know the nature or cause of a thing , and the being able to give an intelligible account of the motives that induce our assent to it ; and without such motives the assent may by chance be given to what is a truth , but that will not hinder it from being an irrational Assent . Timoth. I was not ill pleas'd Arnobius , with the Caution you employ'd in the close of your Advice , where , by saying that the positive Proofs you require to evince an Assertion about a priviledg'd thing , must be sufficient in their Kind , you plainly intimate that you do not exact rigid Demonstrations of such Assertions : And indeed it were not reasonable you should ; for since 't is manifest , that there are many Truths , such as Historical and Political ones , that by the nature of the things are not capable of Mathematical or Metaphysical Demonstrations , and yet being really Truths , have a just Title to our Assent , it must be acknowledg'd , that a rational Assent may be founded upon Proofs that reach not to rigid Demonstrations , it being sufficient that they are strong enough to deserve a wise mans Acquiescence in them . And therefore if any things can be made out to be reveal'd by God concerning his own Nature , or Actions , or Decrees , we ought firmly to believe them , because that , of some of those things , as his Praescience , Mercy , &c. We can have no better Proofes ; and of others , as what he did before our World was made ; and what he will do with us after we are dead , we can have no other considerable Proofes at all . And the Objection made by Pyrocles against the assenting to audacious Propositions fram'd by imposing Men , will not reach our Case : for there is no reason to think , that because an Object surpasses an humane Understanding , it must therefore surpass the Divine Intellect it self . And even in things that are transacted in the Mind of Man himself ; I may learn from another that is not my Superior , what I can by no means attain to know , unless he be pleased to discover it to me . As that he was at such a time , thinking of the Creation of the World , or resolving how to dispose of his Son , and what Recompence he designs to give a Servant that he has not yet entertained . Pyrocles . About things of such a kind as you now mention , Timotheus , I shall not dissent from you ; because these are things , that tho' not discoverable by our Reason till we be informed of them , are yet clearly knowable by our Reason , when we are informed of them . But that there should be things , which tho' perspicuously proposed , should not be comprehensible by our understanding , is such an affront to that noble Faculty , that I confess it has much indisposed me to grant ( what I am yet unwilling peremptorily to deny , ) that there are , as Sophronius would have us think , not only some priviledged things , but more than one kind of them ; which if we do admit , it will place such narrow Limits to our Understandings , that we must despair of the desireablest knowledge of all , namely that which is conversant about the noblest and sublimest Objects . Eugenius . Leaving to Sophronius the management of a Point he has studied , and which I have not now time solemnly to Argue ; I shall only tell you in general that I see no necessity , That Intelligibility to a humane Understanding , should be necessary to the Truth or Existence of a thing ; any more then that Visibility to a Humane Eye , should be necessary to the Existence of an Atome , or of a Corpuscle of Air , or of the Effluvium's of a Loadstone , or the Fragrant Exhalations of Ambergris , and Musk from a perfumed Glove ; I might here observe , that even by the same Sence some Creatures may discern things that may not be perceptible to others : as no attention or application of the Organ ( or the Nose ) will inable a man to perceive the Effluvia expiring from the stale Footsteps of a hunted and unseen Hare or Dear , tho' Hounds , and especially Blood-hounds , will have a vivid Preception of such Odours , and by their help , trace and persue the flying and unseen Beast . This , I say , may be observed in Favour of my present Argument ; but 't will perhaps be a more proper illustration to represent , that the natural Incapacity of a Childs Intellect , to understand the abstruse Affections of Parabola's , Hyperbola's and the incommensurable Lines of a Square , hinders not those Figures , from being contained in rerum naturâ , or their Affections from being true and demonstrable . And tho' we do admit some priviledged things in the Sence above declared , yet , ( to say somewhat to obviate Pyrocles's Fear ) there is no necessity that we should be interdicted all Knowledge of those sublime Objects , in which there are many things , whereof , or of their Consequences , we must confess our selves ignorant . Thus elder Geometricians knew very well what a Rectangular Triangle was , when they conceived it to be a Figure consisting of three strait Lines , two of which comprize a right Angle ; though probably for a great while they did not know so much as all its chief Properties or Affections : since for ought appears , before Pythagoras , ( who offered a Heccatombe to the Muses in gratitude for the Discovery ) it was not known that the Square of the Hypothenusa is equal to the Squares of both the other Sides ; and much more likely it is , that they were not able to solve those Difficulties ( that continue to perplex even our Age ) which attend that endless divisibility of Lines , that is inferrible from that Equality of the two Squares to the single Square . And besides the inscrutable Perfections of God , some of his Works are such , that , notwithstanding the compleat Knowledge of them surpasses our Forces ; yet there remains so many things , as well worthy to be known , as possible to be attained by us , that they will allow Exercise enough to the Wits of all the Philosophers in the World. And besides that , as I have been saying , even about these priviledged Subjects themselves , divers considerable things may be discovered , if they were altogether impenetrable by our Understandings , yet their Number is so small , that they would leave a large Scope for human Knowledge to diffuse and improve it self . For 't is not every thing that is hard to be understood or contrary to the common Rules of Probability , that has a right to pass for a priviledged thing , for so the Paradoxes about Srud Quantities , of Isoperimetal Figures ; duplicate and triplicate Proportion , and divers other surprising Doctrines that are capable of Mathematical Demonstrations , would be priviledged things . Nor are all those worthy of this Title that are by many proposed and embraced as Philosophical Mysteries , for , such are the Peripateticks Substantial Forms , which really are not priviledged things , but Scholastic Chimeras . But tho' I shall not presume positively to set down the discriminating Bounds and Signes of priviledged things , yet most if not all of them being such , as are either primary in their kind , as God himself , and the things whose Nature flows immediately from him , or else things that if thorowly inspected , do necessarily involve the consideration of some kind of Infinitum , or else are such that tho' in some main Questions about them one side must be taken , both sides are encombred with absurdities , or scarce superable Difficulties : Those I say being all ( or some of them ) the usual marks that belong to priviledged things , you will easily grant , that their Number is not near so great as their abstruseness ; and that therefore Pyrocles and his Philosophical Friends need not fear to want employment for their Curiosity . And for farther Answer to his Objection I shall add that we must regulate our Belief by our Perceptions , not our Wishes , and must not conclude , that because 't were desirable for us , that all things were penetrable to our humane Understandings , there is really nothing that is not so : and we can no more conclude that we are as knowing as Angels , because we wish we were so , than that we are as immortal as they , because we would never die . But as for those few things that have belonging to them , Properties so extraordinary , as to make it probable , even at the first sight , that their Nature must be very abstruse and difficult be fully discover'd by us , I hope Pyrocles will allow , that things of so Heteroclite a Nature may challenge an exemption from some of the rules imployed about common things ; And that really such Rules as I mean , and some also of the vulgar Notions cannot always be safely extended to such Subjects , I forbear to shew in this place ; only because I would not too long at once interrupt Arnobius ; and I expect to have a good opportunity to speak again of this Subject , before our Conference be ended . Tim. You may then , I presume , Arnobius , as soon as you please , favour us with your second Advice . Arnob. I shall readily obey you , Timotheus , by proposing it thus : The Second Advice , or Rule . That we be not hasty to frame Negatives about Privileg'd Things , or to reject Propositions or Explications concerning them ; at least , as if they were absurd or impossible . 'T is easie to observe in the Speculation of natural things themselves , how unsafe 't is not only to affirm , but in divers Cases also reject opinions , before men have any thing near a competent Historical Information of what belongs to the Subject they take upon them peremptorily to judge of . And therefore it must in reason be thought much more unwary to be forward to resolve upon Negative Propositions about things which we our selves acknowledge to be above the reach of Human Reason , which since they are , 't will become us at least to forbear a rude and insulting way of rejecting the opinions of Learned Men that dissent from us about such things ; since the sublimity of the Subject should make mistakes about them the more easie to be pardon'd , because they are difficult to be avoided ; and our own sharing in the disability of penetrating such abstruse things , should keep us from being over-confident , that we also may not be mistaken , and incline us to tolerate other mens opinions about matters wherein we our selves have but opinion , not science . Pyr. But have not you formerly advised us not to suffer our selves to be impos'd upon by proofless Assertions , even about privileg'd things ? Arnob. I did so , and do so still : but there is a great deal of difference between believing a proofless affirmation about things which the affirmer does not know to be true , and framing Negative Conclusions against Opinions , which , for ought we yet clearly know , may be true : and therefore my present advice is very consistent with my former : for here I counsel only , either a suspension of Judgment , when there appears no proof on either side sufficient to sway the Intellect ; or such a wary and unprejudic'd assent to opinions that are but faintly probable , that the mind may be ready to receive , without either obstinacy , or surprise , any better argument that shall conclude the contrary of the opinion we favour'd before . Eugen. But methinks 't is hard to avoid the framing of Conjectures , even about those sublime Subjects , concerning which we can frame but conjectures , and those often very slight ones . Arnob. I confess an absolute suspension of judgment is a very uneasie thing , nor do I strictly require you should entertain no conjectures ; but only that we should consider that we may be easily mistaken in them , and by further information see cause to lay them down , and perhaps exchange them for contrary ones : my thoughts of this matter may be perchance somewhat illustrated by supposing that we four were walking in a High-way , and discover'd as far off as our eyes could reach , some erected and moving body of human stature ; tho we should by its shape and walking safely enough conclude that 't were no other animal than a man , yet what manner of man he were , as old , or young , handsome , or ugly ; we should not be able to discern , and consequently , could have no sufficient ground to determine . And as if I should affirm him to be a young man or handsome , you may justly censure me of rashness ; so if because I cannot prove my conjecture , you should resolutely deny that he is a young man or handsome , I should think you guilty , tho not of an equal , yet of a censurable unwariness , because , for ought you know to the contrary , he may be what I guess'd him to be . And tho we are naturally so uneasie under fluctuation of mind , that for my part I confess ( and it may be you may be subject to the same Infirmity ) I should scarce forbear resembling in my thoughts the man we speak of to some body or other that I knew , yet I should justly think that Conjecture to be very fallible , and both expect that when I should come to have a nearer and clearer view of him , I might see cause to dismiss my first Idea for that which this new and better prospect would afford me , tho it were quite differing from that I ●ad formerly entertain'd , and should represent him , that my forward thought perhaps resemble , to a young man of my acquaintance with black curl'd hair , and a ruddy complexion , to be pale and wrinckled , with grey hair curl'd like a pound of Candles . The Application , I suppose , I may spare . But Gentlemen , I would not be understood in the preceding Discourse , as if I were against all framing of Negative Propositions about privileg'd Things ; my design being but to dissuade from hasty ones : For sometimes 't is much more easie and safe to deny things , than to affirm them to belong to a Subject that surpasses our Reason . And the observation may be of use , especially in two cases ; one , when the Negative we assert is grounded not upon Axioms taken from the usual course of Nature , or upon Propositions dubious , or remote from the first Principles of knowledge , but upon either Catholick and Metaphysical Axioms , or else upon Truths manifestly flowing from some clear , tho inadequate notion we have of the nature of the things we treat of . The other Case is , when we have a clear and sufficient proof by Revelation , or otherwise , of the positive Attributes of the things we contemplate ; for then we may safely deny of that Subject any other thing that is really inconsistent with that positive Attribute . Upon which account it is , that tho we do not fully comprehend what God is , yet knowing by the clear Light of Nature ( and if we be Christians ) believing it upon the account of Revelation , that he is a Being Intelligent and infinitely perfect , we may safely deny against Epicurus , Vorstius , and Mr. Hobbs , that he is a Corporeal Substance , as also that he is Mortal , or Corruptible . Pyrocl. I shall not trouble you , Arnobius , to inlarge upon your last Advice , but willingly receive the ●avour of your next . Arnob. Which shall be this : The Third Advice , or Rule . That a matter of Fact or other Truth about Privileg'd Things being prov'd by Arguments competent in their kind , we ought not to deny it meerly because we cannot explain , or perhaps so much as conceive the Modus of it . 'T is no very difficult Task to justifie this Advice ; but I may do it the better , if you give me leave to frame and premise a Distinction , for want of which I have observed a want of Clearness in several Discourses , where the term Modus has been employed : for sometimes we would deny so much as a possibillity , that one thing can belong to , or be truly said of another ; as when we say we understand not how one Creature can create another ; or how there can be a Line that is neither straight , nor crooked ; or a finite ( whole ) number that is neither even nor odd . But most commonly we mean by our not understanding the Modus of a thing , that we do not clearly and distinctly conceive after what manner the Property or other Attribute of a Subject belongs to it , or performs its operations . The first kind of Modus may , for distinctions sake , be called a possible Modus ; and the other , an actual modus . Now in both the foregoing Acceptions of the term Modus , we may find Instances fit for our present purpose . For we cannot imagine , How a short Line or other finite Quantity can be endlesly divisible , or ( on the contrary ) how Infinite Parts should make but a Finite Total : and yet Geometry constrains us to admit , That it is so . But tho there be but few Instances of this kind , yet of the other sort of our Nescience of the Modus of things , there may be found more Instances than we could wish there were ; for even in natural and corporeal things the eager disputes of the acutest Philophers , and the ingenuous Confessions of the most judicious and moderate , sufficiently manifest , that as yet we know not the manner of operating whereby several Bodies perform what we well know they bring to pass . And not to enter into those nice and tedious Disputes of the cause of the Cohesion of the parts of matter in the smallest , most principal , and most primary Bodies , perhaps without going out of our selves , the way whereby the Rational Soul can exercise any power over the humane body , and the way whereby the Understanding and the Will act upon one another , have not yet been intelligibly explain'd by any . And the like I may say of the Phaenomena of the Memory , especially in those in whom that faculty is eminent . For 't is a thing much more fit to be admired , than easie to be conceived , how in so narrow a compass as part of a Human Brain , there should be so many thousand distinct Cells or Impressions as are requisite to harbour the Characters or Signatures of many Languages , each of them consisting of many thousand differing Words , besides the Images or Models of so many thousand Faces , Schemes , Buildings , and other sensible Objects , and the Ideas of so many thousand Notions and Thoughts , and the distinct Footsteps of almost innumerable multitudes of other things : and how all these shall in so narrow a compass have such deep and lasting Impressions made for them , and be oftentimes lodged so exactly in the order wherein they were at first committed to the memory ( and that perhaps many years before ) that upon a sudden command of the Will , or a slight casual Hint , a whole set of Words , Things and Circumstances will in a trice , as it were , start up and present themselves even in the very Series , order and manner that so long before belong'd to them . And I doubt not , but that besides those abstruse things , about the Modus , of which the more candid Philosophers have confessed their Ignorance , there would many others have been taken notice of , if we did but as seriously and impartially inquire into the Nature of all the things we are pleased to think we know . And when I reflect on the yet depending Disputes between Philosophers and Mathematicians about the nature of Place and Local Motion , which are things so obvious and familiar to us , I should , tho I had no other Inducements , be inclin'd to think , that we should find difficulties enough in many other Subjects wherein we do not now take notice of any , if we particularly studyed their nature ; and that our acquiescence in what we have learned about many things proceeds not from our greater knowledge of their nature , but from our having exercised less curiosity and attention in considering it . And if in things Corporeal , that are the familiar objects of our Senses , we are often reduc'd to confess our Ignorance of the Modes of their inexisting or operating , I hope it will not be denyed , that to a Being wholly unapproachable by our Senses , natural Theology may be allowed to ascribe some things whose Modus is not attainable by our understanding : As the Divine Prescience of future Contingents ; which as 't were impious , to deny as to the truth of the thing ; so I fear 't is impossible to explicate as to the Modus of it . Eugen. If it were at this time proper for me to meddle with things of that kind , I should not much scruple to say in favour of the Christian Religion , that divers Tenents granted both by Christians , Jews , and Heathens , as parts of natural Theology , to me seem as difficult to be con●ived , as divers of those Mysteries that for their unintelligibless are fiercely opposed in Reveal'd Theology . I will not take upon me to judge of others ; but for my part I confess , I do not much better understand , how an Intellect and a Will and Affections are distinctly inexistent in God , in such sort as they are wont to be attributed to him , than how in him there can be a Trinity ; stated , not as some Schoolmen explicate , or rather darken it , but as the Gospel delivers it : I can as little explain by any thing in Nature , how God , who is an immaterial Substance , can move Matter , as how he can create it : nor would it at all satisfie me to tell me , that a Rational Soul moves a Human Body ; for I do not allow , that it gives any motion to the Body , but only guides that which other Agents have put the parts of it into . And tho it did produce motion in the Body , my scruple would yet remain ; for the Cartesians themselves confess , that the power the Soul has of so much as determining the motion of the Body belongs to it , not upon any Physical Account , but by the particular Appointment and immediate Power of God , who would have that Power one of the Conditions or Properties of the Union of the Soul and Body . So that to me , who desire to have it explained how an immaterial Substance can move Matter , and consequently , how God can do it , it will be no satisfaction to say , that the Rational Soul can move the Body 't is joyned to , since that Power is referred merely to God's Appointment : And the question is , how God himself can be conceived to move matter . Arnob. I know not whether upon the same Grounds which I do not disallow , I may not add , that whereas by many 't is looked upon as an inconceivable thing that God should see mens Thoughts , to me it appears as little intelligible how he can know their outward Actions : For since we have no way of discerning the particular motions of Mens Bodies , but by some of our Senses , especially our sight ; and since those Sensations themselves necessarily require Organs duly constituted , that is , made up of divers parts , fram'd and joyn'd after such a determinate manner , I see not how we can explain the Perception of visible Objects without an Eye , or so much as any Corporeal Organ , or Substance ; especially since 't is , and that very justly , asserted , that the Deity is not united to any portion of matter , as the Human Soul is to the Human Body . And to these Instances , others to the same purpose might be added , but that I think it fitter to mind you , that of those it already mention'd amongst us , there are some that I presume you will judg referable to that which I lately called a possible Modus ; since it seems , toto genere , as they speak , inexplicable , how the Attribute inexists in the Subject , and after what manner the Cause can produce the Effect ascribed to it . Tim. I know you too well , Gentlemen , to suspect , you mean , by this , to deny to God either the power of moving matter , or that of perceiving all its motions . Arnob. You may well take that for granted , and you may remember , that to prevent mistakes , I was careful in proposing my Advice to except those things for which there is some positive proof competent in its kind . Pyrocl. One may then , without surprising you , ask what kind of proofs those may be ? Arnob. A full Answer to that Question would take up too much of that little time that is allowed us before it grow dark , to go thorow the Advices that yet remain unspoken of . But yet to comply with you as far as my haste will permit , I shall name two or three kinds of positive proofs , that may be employed on such occasions as we speak of . And first , if there be an effect that we discern must proceed from such a Cause , or Agent , we may conclude that such a Cause there is , tho we do not particularly conceive how , or by what operation 't is able to produce the acknowledg'd effect : Thus , tho a man otherwise of a good Judgment , being wholly a stranger to the Mathematicks , cannot conceive how a skillful Astronomer can many years before hand fore-tell Eclipses to a day and hour , and perhaps to a few minutes ; yet when the success does , as it often happens , verifie such Predictions , he will be satisfied , that the maker of them had the skill to foreknow the things foretold in them . And so the generality of Learned Men among us , who are not so much acquainted with that part of Navigation , which some Moderns have by a Greek Name called Limen-Euretica , or the Art of steering to Harbours , cannot well conceive how a Ship , that is , for instance , in the vast Atlantick Ocean above a thousand miles from any shoar , should be so directed as to arrive just at a little Harbor not Cannon-shot over , which perhaps neither the Pilot , nor any other in the Ship ever saw . And yet as little as we can distinctly conceive how such an Art of finding Ports can be framed , we scruple not to allow there is such an one , because Navigators to the East and West Indies , could not without the Guidance of such an Art find the remotest Ports they are bound for . A second sort there is of positive proofs consisting of those Consequences that are clearly and legitimately inferr'd from any manifest acknowledg'd , or already demonstrated Truth . To this sort belong divers Mathematical Propositions and Corollaries , which tho being nakedly proposed they seem incredible to the generality of Learned Men , and sometimes to Mathematicians themselves , are yet fully assented to , because they clearly follow from either manifested or demonstrated Truths . Thus many cannot conceive how 't is possible there may be a million , for instance , of Circles , ( or as many more as you please ) whose Circumferences shall each of them come nearer and nearer to one another , and to a straight Line assign'd , and yet none of them either touch , much less cut , either any other Circle , or that Line but in one and the same point . And yet this is one of the odd Propositions that Geometers have rightly deduc'd as Corollaries from the sixteenth of Euclid's third Element . And tho we cannot clearly conceive how two Lines , that at their remotest ends are but little distant from each other , should perpetually incline towards each other without ever concurring ; yet Geometricians , that is , the rigidest Reasoners that we know of , have been compell'd admit this in the Linea Conchoides of Nicomedes , to name no more . But tho , ( not to touch the same strings too often ) I thought fit to mention these Instances ; yet whether you judge them sufficient or no , you will allow that which may be taken from the endless divisibility of a Line : For tho , if I misremember not , Sophronius told me , he took notice to you how unable we are to have a satisfactory apprehension , how a short line as well as a long , can be divided into more and more parts without any stop ; yet Geometricians generally admit this , because it may be clearly deduc'd from some Geometrical Truths , and particularly from the incommensurableness of the Side and Diagonal of a Square : And if you will allow me to have once more recourse to Divine Prescience , I may add another acknowledg'd instance by representing , that Philosophers have admitted that , because they judged it clearly to follow from the infinite Perfections of God ; tho , how he can foresee Contingency the most judicious and modest of them did not pretend their Reason was able to conceive . Timoth. To these two kinds of positive proofs mention'd by Arnobius , I doubt not but he will give me leave to add Divine Revelations , if competently attested ones can be produc'd ; and therefore I will not by going about to evince this , spend any of the time he reserves for the remaining Rules , to which he may , for me , advance assoon as he thinks fit . Arnob. I accept the Liberty you offer me , Timotheus , to proceed to my next Advice ; which is this . The Fourth Advice , or Rule . That when we treat of Privileg'd Subjects , we are not bound always to think every thing false , that seems to thwart some received Dictate of Reason . As great a Paradox as this may at first blush appear , yet it will need little more to make it out than the application of some things already delivered on occasion of the two foregoing Advices , of which this is indeed little more than a Corollary . For it being evident , that as a great part of the Dictates of Reason are Negative , so Negative Propositions do usually spring from the repugnancy we judge that some things have to some positive Dictate of Reason ; if those positive Dictates contain but gradual and limited Truths ( to borrow Sophronius his Terms ; ) and come to be unduly extended to privileg'd Subjectss it may very possibly happen , that a thing may be really true , that yet must appear false , if it be judg'd of by its congruity to one of those limited , and but respective Dictates of Reason . 'T is also clear , that not only in Philosophy , but natural ( as well as reveal'd ) Theology the usual ground on which we reject many things is , that we judge them unintelligible . And I censure not the practice in general , but I think it may easily mislead us , when it is extended to things that we may discern to transcend our Reason , as for ought yet appears , some of the Modus's even of things Corporeal are found to do . And we think we have made complete Enumerations of the several ways of inexistence of an Attribute in a Subject , or of the operation of one thing upon another , when indeed we have overlook'd one or other , and perhaps that which we have thus pretermitted may be the true one ; tho it may be also that no attention and diligence of ours could in some Cases have served our turn , the Modus inquired after being not conceivable to us , tho it may be too a higher than a human Intellect . Pyrocles . The School-Philosophers for many Ages in the Catalogues they made of the ways of a Bodies working upon another at a distance ; did not think of the true ways by which Odors and Sounds are communicated to us , and therefore had recourse to certain unintelligible things , which they were pleas'd to call Species Intentionales . Whereas those modern Naturalists that philosophize freely , acknowledge , that Odors are communicated by Effl●viums , exhaling from the odorous Body , and fitted to affect our Nostrils , and Sounds are transmitted to the Ear by the undulating motion which the Air is put into by the impulse of the vibrating , or otherwise agitated parts of the sonorous Body . Timoth. Methinks we need not go out of our selves to find Instances of both the parts of what Arnobius was last saying , if we admit , as I question not but we rationally may , this Tenet of the generality of Philosophers , both ancient and modern , That the Reasonable Soul is an immaterial Substance : For then ; whereas men think they have sufficiently enumerated the ways of determining the motion of a Body , by saying , that the determination must be made either in the Line wherein the Impellent that put it into motion made it move , or in the Line wherein it was determined to move by the situation of the resisting Body that it met with in its way ; the motions of the animal Spirits , if not also some other internal parts of the Body , may , the Body being duly disposed , be determined by the human Will ; which is a way quite differing from the other . And how this Attribute , I mean the power of determining the motion of a Body , without any power to impart motion to that Body , should belong to an immaterial Creature , which has no Corporeal Parts to resist the free passage of a Body , and thereby change the Line of its Motion , is not yet , nor perhaps ever will be in this life , clearly conceived by us men , tho there is no doubt , but that he , who indowed the Soul with this Attribute or Power , perfectly understands , both how it exists in the Soul , and how the Soul by exerting it , operates on the Body . Pyrocles . But can any thing seem more unreasonable than to embrace opinions that contradict the Rules of Reason ; which practice , if it be once allowed , why should we trouble our selves to investigate what is congruous or incongruous to Reason , since the making a discovery , that an opinion is repugnant to it , will not assure us of that opinions being false . Arnob. A person less knowing and equitable than Pyrocles would have spared this double Objection , if he had remembred , what hath been formerly said , applicable to our present purpose , and what kind of things they are that we are discoursing of : But to remind him a little of them , I shall desire him to consider with me , that I no way disallow the rejecting of Opinions that are found contrary to those Rules of Reason , at the framing of which the things opin'd about were duly taken into consideration : But in Cases not thought on when such Rules were devised , we are not always bound to submit to be judged by them ; and to maintain an opinion unconformable to such a Rule , may be not to oppose a genuine and absolute dictate of Reason , but to rectifie one that is erroneously thought so , by shewing , that the Rule is expressed in more Catholick and Indefinite Terms than it ought to have been . And of two opinions you will not deny that that is the most rational that is most agreeable to those Rules of Reason , that are framed upon the fullest Information . Eugen. 'T is not difficult to gather from what you have said , Arnobius , that in the Rule you proposed to us ; very few of the Cases that occur in ordinary discourse , or even in that of Philosophers , will be at all concern'd . And in these few Cases wherein you intend the Rule should take place , you are careful to obviate inconveniences by a double caution . The first that you suppose , that the opinion that claims an exemption from the common Rules , is not an arbitrary or precarious Tenet , but sufficisufficiently made out by proper Arguments . And the second , by declaring , that 't is not to contradict right Reason , but bad Reasoners to give limitation to Rules that have been too hastily fram'd and conceiv'd in too general Terms , by men , who either were not competently inform'd of the variety of Particulars , when they took upon them to make Analyses and Enumerations ; or else presum'd to infer , that a thing was not , because they did not understand the Modus of its existence or operation . Arnobius . You take my sense right , Eugenius , and I have often thought , that the causes of the great clamor that is made against some men for not obsequiously submitting to , what some others call the Rules of Reason , are , that men do not sufficiently understand the nature of things and themselves , but entertain too narrow conceptions of the former , and too high an opinion of the later . Pyrocles . The Dictates of Reason being the surest , if not the only safe Rules , that Nature has given us to frame our Discourses and Ratiocinations by ; I confess I am , tho not fully resolv'd , yet very unwilling , to allow any Conclusion that is not conformable to them : or to admit that any thing should be so highly privileg'd , as to be exempted from the Jurisdiction of Reason , whose genuine Declarations they are . Eugenius . This Objection , Pyrocles , seems to me to be grounded rather upon an ambiguity of Terms , than the true nature of Things . For Reason is oftentimes taken for a Set of Notions and Propositions employ'd and acquiesc'd in by this or that sort of Reasoners , that are wont to have names given them from this or that particular Discipline , as Astronomy , Chymistry , Opticks , &c. of whose receiv'd Doctrines they are supposed to be entirely maintainers . But it is also with at least as much propriety , used to signifie the rational faculty it self ; furnished with the light that accompanies it when it is rightly disposed and informed . In the first of these two Senses it seems but reasonable to allow , that some things ought to have the privilege to be exempted from being judg'd by some of the same Rules that are employ'd to judge of other things by ; for some of these Rules were fram'd upon a slight consideration of common and familiar things , either by the vulgar , or by men that for want of skill or application of mind did not critically consider the distinct natures of things , and yet presum'd to settle Rules that other mens inadvertence or laziness has made them receive for certain Dictates of Reason : whereas other natures should have been then considered as well as those : and by reason of their not having been so , the Rules I speak of are not always proper and safe , when they are applyed to these over-looked natures . Thus Successive Beings , as Time and Local Motion , do in some Cases require to be estimated by other measures than Substances , whether material , or incorporeal ▪ And so also the more nice Metaphysicians , especially among the Moderns , have thought themselves obliged to discourse of Moduses , Relations , Privations , Extrinsecal Denominations , &c. in a very differing way from that which belongs to Bodies and Spirits ; tho the unskilful ( even among otherwise learned men ) have been wont , and still are apt , to confound all these Subjects ; by applying to them indiscriminately the same Rules , or , as they think them , Dictates of Reason . But besides what may be said of these long unregarded or undistinguished natures , there are other entities that are more generally and familiarly taken notice of , wherein I may think one may find instances more applyable to my present purpose . For I observe , that tho all other actual Beings are compounded ( to speak in the language of the Schools ) of Essence and Existence ; yet according to the notion of Metaphysicians as well as Divines , it must be acknowledg'd , that the simplicity of the Divine Nature is such as to exclude from God even this kind of composition . And indeed the notion we have of a Being infinitely perfect , imports , that , tho in no other Being , yet in this , those two are inseparable ; for actual existence being a perfection , must needs belong to the Nature of a Being infinitely perfect . The generality of Philosophers , after Aristotle , conceive Place to be the immoveable and immediately contiguous concave Surface of the ambient Body , so that 't is a kind of Vessel that every way contains the Body lodg'd in it ; but with this difference that a Vessel is a kind of moveable place , as when a Bottle of Wine is carried from the Cellar to the Table ; but place is an immoveable Vessel , or a Vessel considered as immoveable : now supposing with : Aristotle , and the generality of Philosophers , the plenitude of the world , it may be truly said , that all Plants , Animals , Minerals , Stars and other Bodies are each of them in such an Aristotelian place as has been describ'd ; whence it has been usually said by Philosophers , that what is in no place ( I hope they meant it only of Bodies ) is not at all ; yet it appears not how the outermost Heaven , whether that be the Firmament , or no , I need not here inquire , can be properly said to be in a place , since these Philosophers asserting the World to be finite , must grant there is no ambient body without it to contain it . And I shall add on this occasion , that if the outermost Heaven should be impell'd by the irresistible power of God in a straight line this way , or that way , there should ensue a motion without change of place , for the outermost Heaven was in none before , and does not by its progression come to be contain'd by a new ambient Body . And in this case even according to those modern Favourers of Aristotle that approve Des ' Cartes his definition of local motion ( which indeed is far more intelligible than Aristotle's ) the world may be said to move without changing of place ; for it does not pass from the Neighbourhood of some Bodies to that of others ; since comprising all Bodies , and yet being bounded , there is no body for it to leave behind , nor any beyond it for it to approach to ; and tho the Cartesians in their Hypothesis of the indefinitess of the World do partly avoid the force of what I have been saying ; yet besides what may be rationally urg'd to shew , that if the world be not more than indefinite , it must be really finite ; I consider that the Cartesians , tho upon grounds of their own , must allow what I was observing , namely , that tho every particular body in the Universe is naturally capable of Local Motion . Yet the Universe it self is not ; and tho every particular body in the world have some determinate Figure ; yet the world it self , being indefinite , has not so . Whereas Aristotle and the Philosophers that have lived since his time , have generally admitted the division establish'd by him , of all Entities , into Substance , and Accident , and accommodated their Rules to one of them , or both : The Learned Gassendus and his Followers , have introduc'd a third sort of things , as not being either Substances , or Accidents : and these if you will admit , you will I presume , admit too , that they may be privileg'd from their Rules calculated for other Natures . Of this kind of things , the Gassendists make Place or Space to be . For they will not allow it to be a Substance , because it is neither body , nor spirit , but only somewhat that has a capacity to receive or contain bodies , and would subsist , tho God should annihilate all the Substances he has created . And for the same reason it is not to be called an Accident , since that necessarily requires a Substance to reside in ( according to that received Axiom ) Accidentis esse , est inesse , whereas in case of the annihilation of the world it self , and consequently all Substances that compose it , their place or space would still remain , and be capable of admitting a new world of the same extent , if God should be pleased to create it ; whence Gassendus wittily infers , that Bodies are rather accidental in respect of place , than space in respect of Bodies . But without staying to examine this Paradox , I shall venture to say in general , that he who shall with an heedful , and unprejudiced eye , survey the several Hypotheses , or Systems , maintain'd by the differing Sects of Philosophers , may find , that tho the Instances will not be all of them the same ; yet there is none of these Systems in which one may not observe some thing or other , to which every one of the Rules that reach to the other Snbjects treated of in that Philosophy , cannot safely be apply'd . And indeed the mind of man being naturally far more desirous to know much , than to take the pains requisite to examine , whether he does so or not , is very prone to think that any small number of things that it has not distinctly considered , must be of the same nature and condition with the rest that he judges to be of the same kind . For by thus attaining to the knowledge of things , by way of Inference , the mind gratifies at once both its vanity , and its laziness ; looking upon these Conclusions , as marks of the excellency of its rational faculty , whilst they rather proceed from a want of the due exercise of it . Pyrocles . But if the receiv'd Dictates of Reason be not always safe grounds to proceed upon in our Discourse , I would gladly know by what Rules we shall judge of those Rules , and discover them to be erroneous , in case they be so , and by what measures we shall estimate truth and falsehood , in those things wherein the use of those Rules must be laid aside . Arnobius . Your double objection , Pyrocles , I confess to be weighty enough to deserve a considerate answer , and to give you the sum of mine in few words , I shall tell you , that in my opinion , since there is no progress in infinitum in the Criteria of truth , and that our faculties are the best instruments that God has given us to discover , and to examine it by , I think a clear light or evidence of perception shining in the understanding , affords us the greatest assurance we can have , ( I mean in a natural way ) of the truth of the judgments we pass upon things , whether they be other things , or the vulgar rules of reasoning , or subjects that claim a privilege from those rules . And here give me leave to consider , that it is not by induction , but by evidence , that we know , that ex vero nil nisi verum sequitur . By which it appears , that the innate light of the rational faculty is more primary , than the very Rules of Reasoning , since by that light we judge even of the lately mention'd Axiom which is it self the grand principle of Ratiocinations made by Inference . Eugenius . This matter may be perchance somewhat illustrated by observing that , as the understanding is wont to be look'd upon as the eye of the mind ; so there is this Analogy between them , that there are some things that the eye may discern ( and does judge of ) organically , if I may so speak , that is , by the help of instruments : as when it judges of a Line to be streight by the applicasion of a Ruler to it , or to be perpendicular by the help of a Plumb-line , or a Circle to be perfect by the help of a pair of Compasses : But there are other things which the eye does perceive ( and judge of ) immediately and by intuition , and without the help of Organs or Instruments ; as when by the bare evidence of the perception it knows that this colour is red , and that other blue , and that Snow is white , not black , and a Char-coal black , not white ; and such a Picture is very like , or another unlike to the face it was drawn to represent . For thus there are some things that the Intellect usually judges of in a kind of Organical way , that is , by the help of certain Rules , or Hypotheses , such as are a great part of the Theorems and Conclusions in Philosophy and Divinity . But there are others which it knows without the help of these Rules more immediately , and as it were intuitively by evidence or perception ; by which way we know many prime notions and Effata , or Axioms Metaphysical , &c. as that Contradictory Propositions cannot both be true ; that from truth nothing but truth can legitimately be deduc'd ; that two things that are each of them equal to a third thing , are equal to one another ; that a whole number is either even or odd . And 't is also upon this evidence of perception ; that we receive with an undoubted assent many primitive Ideas and notions , such as those of extended Substance or Body , Divisibility , or Local Motion , a streight Line , a Circle , a right Angle , and many other things that it would be here superfluous to mention . Arnobius . I think the internal Light that the Author of Nature has set up in mans Intellect qualifies him , if he makes a right use of it , not only to apply the Instruments of Knowledge , but also to frame , and to examine them . For by the help of this Light , the Understanding is enabled to look about , and both to consider apart , and compare together , the natures of all kinds of things ; without being necessitated to employ in its Speculations , the Rules or Dictates of any particular Science or Discipline ; being sufficiently assisted by its own Light , and those general Axioms and Notions that are of a Catholick Nature , and perpetual truth ; and so of a higher order , than the Dictates , or Rules of any particular or subordinate Science or Art. And by these means the Understanding may perceive the imperfection and falsity of such Rules or Theorems , as those men that look no higher , nor no further than their own particular Science or Art , embrace for certain and unquestionable . Thus when Philosophers observ'd that they could frame a clear notion of a thing without considering whether it were actually in being or not ; or even when they suppose that 't is not actually in being ; as we can frame a clear conception of a Rose in Winter , when there are none to be found growing ; and have a clear notion of a Myriagon , tho 't is very like there is no such Figure really existent in the world . They have generally concluded , that the essence of things is differing and separable from their existence . And yet when we consider that God is a Being infinitely perfect , and that actual existence being a perfection , must belong to Him ; we may by the same light of Reason that dictated Essence & Existence to be two separable things in all other Beings , discern that they must be inseparable in God ; and consequently that the forementioned Rule , tho more general than almost any other , is not absolutely universal : but must be limited by the light of Reason . And thus also Philosophers , considering that not only all sorts of Bodies , but the immaterial Souls of Men , ( and Angels themselves , supposing such Beings ) are all endowed with Qualities which are Accidents , have included it in the very notion of a substance , to be the subject of Accidents , or as the Schoolmen speak , substare Accidentibus ; and accordingly substantia is wont to be derived à substando : But the infranchised Intellect , finding in it self a notion of an absolutely perfect , and therefore existent Being ; and considering that to be the subject of Accidents , is not a thing agreeable to the highest perfection possible ; it concludes , that in God there are no Accidents . And this Conclusion has been embraced as a part , not only of Christian , but of Natural Theology ; and maintain'd by divers Philosophers themselves , upon Metaphysical and other meerly rational grounds . In short , the native light of the mind may enable a man , that will make a free and industrious use of it , both to pass a right judgment of the extent of those very Dictates that are commonly taken for Rules of Reason , and to frame others on purpose for priviledg'd things , so far forth as they are so . But I fear , Gentlemen , the fourth Advice I have ventured to offer you , has by its tediousness , made you justly impatient of being detain'd by it so long : and therefore I shall advanced to the Fifth ; which imports , The Fifth Advice , or Rule . That where Privileg'd Things are concern'd , we are not always bound to reject every thing , as false , that we know not how to reconcile with some thing that is true . Pyrocl. You may call this an Advice , but I doubt others will style it a Paradox , and possibly , think it one of the greatest that ever was broach'd . Arnob. Yet perhaps you will find by and by , that it may be in great part made good by what has been already discoursed , and by you admitted . I think it will not be doubted , but that there are , or may be conceived streight Lines , whereof one is a hundred or a thousand times longer than another : 'T is also generally granted , that a longer Line consists of , or may afford more parts than a shorter ; for a Line equal to the shorter , being taken out of the longer , and consequently just as divisible as it , there will remain of the longer Line another Line , perhaps many times exceeding the shorter Line : And lastly , 't is generally acknowledged , that no Number can be greater than infinite ; since if the lesser number were capable of accession ( as it must be , if it fall short of another number ) it would need that accession ( or a greater ) to make it infinite , which yet 't is supposed to be already . Pyrocl. I see not yet to what all this may tend . Arnob. You will quickly perceive it , when I shall have desired you to reconcile these Propositions with the demonstrations of Geometers of the endless Divisibility of all streight Lines ; whence they deduce , that tho they be very unequal among themselves , yet the shortest of them contains , or may afford infinite parts . Pyrocl. But is there any thing more clear to humane understanding , or more supposed in almost all our Ratiocinations , than that two Truths cannot be contradictory to each other . Arnob. Tho I am far from affirming , that one Truth can really contradict another truth ; yet I think that which is but a gradual or limited truth , may in some few cases not be reconcileable by Us , to an absolute and universal Truth . For , I think we may ( with Sophronius ) distinguish those Propositions we call true , into Axioms Metaphysical , or Universal , that hold in all Cases without reservation ; and Axioms collected or emergent ; by which I mean such as result from comparing together many particulars that agree in something that is common to them all . And some of these , tho they be so general , that in the usual Subjects of our Ratiocinations they admit of no exceptions ; yet may not be absolutely and unlimitedly true ; of which I know not whether I formerly gave you an instance , even in that Axiom which ( almost ) all meerly Natural Philosophers have supposed and built on , that , ex nihilo nihil fit , which , tho at least one of the highest of gradual or collected Truths , may yet be not universally true , since , for ought we know , God that is acknowledged to be a Being that is infinitely perfect , may have , and may have exercised , the power of Creating . And in such Cases as this , not to be able to reconcile a truth concerning a privileged thing with a Proposition that generally passes for true ( and in other Cases is so indeed ) will not presently oblige us to reject either Proposition as false , but sometimes , without destroying either , only to give one of them a due limitation , and restrain it to those sorts of things , on which 't was at first grounded , and to which 't was , because of mans ignorance , or inconsiderateness , that 't was not at first confin'd . And if the Miracles vouch'd either for the Christian , or for any other Religion , be any of them granted to be true ; ( as almost all mankind agrees in believing in general , that there have been true Miracles ; ) it cannot well be deny'd but that Physical Propositions are but limited , and such as I called Collected Truths , being gathered from the settled Phaenomena of Nature , and are lyable to this limitation or exception , that They are true , where the irresistible power of God , or some other supernatural Agent is not interpos'd to alter the course of Nature . Pyrocl. But do you think , there are no inconsistent Propositions that you would call Truths , wherein you cannot shew that one of them is but a gradual or emergent Truth ? Arnob. 'T is one thing to inquire whether men have yet discerned , or I am able to make out , that one of the Propositions you speak of is but a limited truth ; and another , to inquire , whether speaking absolutely and universally , it may to any Intellect appear to be no more than such . For first I consider , that the Reason why we judge things to be repugnant , Being , that the Notions or Ideas we have of them seem to us inconsistent , if either of these notions be wrong framed , or be judged of by an unfit Rule , we may think those Propositions , to be contradictory that really are not so ; as , if you heedfully mark it , you shall find , that those that are wont to employ their imaginations about things that are the proper Objects of the Intellect , are apt to pronounce things to be unconceivable , only because they find them unimaginable ; as if the Fancy and the Intellect were Faculties of the same extent : Upon which account some have so grosly err'd , as to deny all immaterial Substances , and chose rather so far to degrade the Deity it self , as to impute to it a Corporeal Nature , than to allow any thing to have a Being that is not comprehensible by their Imagination , which themselves acknowledge to be but a Corporeal Faculty . But besides this mistake of things repugnant , which arises from the mis application or mis-management of our discerning Faculties , I consider in the next place , that there may be another that proceeds from the Imperfection and Limitedness of our Understanding , which being unable to judge of privileged things at the same rate that it does of other Objects , may sometimes be unable to discover that reconcileableness that a more illuminated and penetrating Faculty may discern . This may be illustrated by what usually happens at Sea , ( for there mens Prospect is the most free ) when looking towards the Main , the Sky and the Waters seem to meet at the edge of the ( sensible ) Horizon , tho indeed they are as far distant as Heaven is from Earth ; and on the other side if you skillfully mix together the dry and fine powder ef Orpiment , and that of Indico , you will produce a green colour , as is known to Painters , and the eye takes notice but of an uniform mixture , in which it sees neither blew nor yellow : But if , ( as experience shews ) you look on this mixture with a very good Microscope , the emergent colour will disappear ; and you will plainly see instead of it , blew and yellow grains of the powders distinct from one another . Which Instances may serve to shew the imbecillity of our visive Faculty ; and the later of them may teach us , that a thing may appear one and differing , as 't is looked upon by a more or less discerning sight . But an instance more home to our present purpose may be afforded by yellow Diamonds , which because of their Colour , not only other Men , but the generality of Goldsmiths ( in whose error I have sometimes shared ) take to be counterfeit Gems , or at best but right Topazes , whereas very skillful Lapidaries , will by sure signs discover and acknowledge them to be true Diamonds , notwithstanding their seeming difference from unquestion'd ones , and account them to be of the same nature with that noblest kind of Jewels . Whence we may learn that a more skillful Judge may discern an agreement in things that almost all other men think they see manifestly to be of distant natures . Eugenius . Give me leave , Gentlemen , to say on this occasion , that I have several times observed , that men judge some things to be irreconcileable , not only when they are both of them represented to the understanding in the form of Propositions ; but when one of them is but a notion , or a current difinition . For divers of these notions do contain in them a Proposition , or are equivalent to it ; As when a Circle is defin'd to be a Figure contain'd in a Line , all whose parts are equally distant from the middle-most Point or Center , this definition contains an affirmation of the essential property of a Circle ; and by the generality of Geometricians is therefore discriminated from that Conick Section which they call an Ellipsis , tho that be also a Figure terminated by one curve Line . And because you are versed in Mathematicks , I shall on this occasion shew you by a Geometrical Instance , that if a man have not genuine and adequate notions of the things he judges of , he may confidently , and even upon very probable grounds , judge things to be inconsistent , that in reality , are not so . For if an ordinary Cultivater of Mathematical Disciplines should hear one man say , that such a Figure is an Ellipsis , and another affirm it to be a Circle , he would think their assertions to be inconsistent , having his mind prepossessed with an Ellipsis's , being a Conical Section , whose properties must therefore ( he supposes ) be very differing from those of a Circle ; whereas such wary Geometricians as the Learned Doctor Wallis * will tell him , that the vulgar notions of Conick Sections are not adequate to the Figures producible by them : For when a right Cone is cut quite through by an inclining Plane , the figure produced by the Section agrees well with the received notion of an Ellipsis , in which the Diameters are of unequal length ; yet if the Plane cut the Cone parallel to the Basis , that Conick Section will be a true Circle , having all its Diameters equal . 'T is indeed an uncommon and unheeded account , but such an one upon which I have observed not only Logicians , but Philosophers themselves to err about judging things reconcileable or inconsistent ; that if a man be not sufficiently acquainted with the nature of any of the two things under consideration ( and much more if he be ignorant of , or mistaken about both ) he may think there is a contradiction between things , wherein a Superior or more piercing Intellect may discern a consistency ; for taking it for granted , that he knows one thing to be a truth , if some other thing be affirm'd to be so , which he has not understanding or skill enough to see how to reconcile to it , 't is no wonder , that how well soever this may be evinced , he should as little know how to admit , as how to reject it . This may be partly illustrated , and partly prov'd by instances drawn from the Mathematicks themselves : For a Novice in Arithmetick , for example , finding That , according to his Rules , there is not one mean proportional number between 4 and 32 , will scarce be able to reconcile that Proposition to this other , That there are two mean proportionals between the mentioned numbers ; For he may with great appearance of Reason ask , how , if there be not so much as one mean proportional , there can be two ? Whereas those that are acquainted with the nature of Ranks or Series of numbers proceeding in Geometrical Proportion , will easily discern that between those two recited , both the number 8 , and the number 16 ; are mean proportionals . Timotheus . Tho I disallow not your Instance , Eugenius , yet I shall be willing to hear one or two others of a less abstracted Nature . Eug. To obey you , Timotheus , I shall add , that if an old School-Philosopher , or a Mathematician not acquainted with the later Discoveries made by Telescopes , should hear one man say , that the Moon is the most enlightned , when she appears full to us , and another affirm that she is more inlightned at the New Moon than at the Full , he would readily conclude , upon the supposition ( which he makes no doubt of ) that the Moon receives all her light immediately from the Sun , that the affirmation of the later ( Astronomer ) cannot be true ; which yet he would not conclude , if he knew ( what is discovered by Telescopes ) that the Moon is as well inlightned by the Earth , as the Earth by the Moon ; upon which score , whereas at the Full she receives but those Beams that come to her directly , from the Sun , at the Change she receives both them in that part of her Body that is obverted to him , and those other Beams of his that are reflected from the Terrestrial Globe to that part of the Moon that is nearest to us . And to the foregoing Instance , I shall add one more , that seems apposite enough to Arnobius's Purpose , and 't is , that before Pythagoras , not only the vulgar of the Greeks , but their Philosophers and Mathematicians too , observing oftentimes that a bright Star preceded the Rising Sun , and that frequently also ( on other days ) after Sun-set , another Star appear'd , that was none of the fix'd ones ; they confidently concluded from the so distant times of Apparition , that the Sun was attended by two differing Stars , to which accordingly they gave two differing names : But Pythagoras , who was a far better Astronomer ( as may be guessed , among other things , by his maintaining in those early times the motion of the earth about the Sun ) undertook to disabuse them , and effected it . Now if one that had observed Venus only in the mornings , should have affirm'd , that besides the six known Planets , there was but a seventh ( namely the Phosphorus ) which preceded the Rising Sun ; and another , ( that had taken notice notice of her only in the Evenings ) should assert , that besides the same six known ones , the only seventh was that called Hesperus , which sometimes appear'd after his Setting ; a By-stander would presently have concluded , that their Assertions were not reconcileable , either to one another , or to the truth ; which ( in his judgment ) was , that there must be no less than eight visible Planets ; and yet Pythagoras , who had more skill , and more piercing wit , did , ( as was lately noted ) discern and teach , that these two Phaenomena were produc'd by one and the same Planet Venus , determined by its peculiar motion ( about the Sun ) to shew it self near our Horizon , sometimes before he ascends it , and sometimes after he had left it . Such instances as these , tho offered but as illustrations , may perswade us from being too forward to reject every proposition , that we see not how to reconcile to what we take for a truth ; provided the distrusted proposition be such as we would acquiesce in , if we could reconcile it to that supposed Truth . Timotheus . From this Discourse , Eugenius , and that of Arnobius , which preceded it , I think one may gather , that according to you two , when two Propositions are laid down , whereof one is made evident to us by Experience , or by Reason , acting within its own Jurisdiction or Compass ; and the other is sufficiently proved by being mathematically demonstrated , or duly attested by Divine Revelation , we ought not to reject either of these propositions , as no truth , meerly because we do not yet know how to reconcile them : but we should rather think , that the collected Proposition , is but a gradual , or limited truth ; or else we should consider , that we knowing but so imperfectly as we do the particular natures of privileg'd Subjects , for ought we know a superior Intellect may be able to discern a friendly agreement between what is deliver'd about that Subject , and the affirmation that seems repugnant to it , tho we are not quick-sighted enough to perceive this Agreement . And this , how strange soever you may think it , Pyrocles , may not only be countenanc'd by such things as Eug. lately said , but both you your self , and almost all mankind do de facto seem to practise it , in the case of the Divine Prescience of mans free Actions . Eugenius . What you contend for , Gentlemen , may perhaps be thought the more receivable , if one should argue thus : First either the Propositions said to be repugnant , are both really true , or they are not ; If it be answered , that they are not , the difficulty is at an end : for there is none at all to conceive a true Proposition , should contradict a false one . But , secondly , if both the Propositions be supposed to be true , it must be affirm'd , either that they are reconcileable , or that they are not ; if it be said , they are not , then Pyrocles his objection is out of doors ; for it cannot then be reasonable to say , that the two Propositions , tho inconsistent with one another , must necessarily be one or other of them inconsistent with the truth . But this I presume he will by no means assert , and consequently , must say , that the Propositions are reconcileable . Upon which answer I shall demand , how that can be , unless a superior Intellect , such as unquestionably the Divine is , can discover an agreement between Propositions wherein we cannot discern it . For our not being able to discern it , is you know professedly supposed in the case we discourse of . Pyrocles . But , Arnobius , will not this Doctrine make us very liable to have falsities imposed on us at the pleasure of bold and dictating men ? Arnob. Not , if it be limited to the subjects wherein alone I would have it admitted ; for if neither of the things treated of be a privileg'd one , but both in the jurisdiction of ordinary reason , I do not only consent , but ( in my first Advice ) require , that the Propositions fram'd about them be estimated according to the common Dictates of Reason . And even in cases where one of the Propositions is about a privileg'd thing , I do not at all think fit , that it should be received in spite of its being repugnant to the gradual truth delivered in the other , unless it can by some other Argument sufficient in its kind be proved to be true ; and in that case , that , what I plead for , ought to be admitted , is implyed by the suffrage of almost all mankind , in that case , which was just now pertinently mentioned by Timotheus : for tho men know not how to reconcile the Liberty of mans will , with the infallible knowledge that God has of those Actions that flow from it , yet they have unanimously judged it reasonable to believe both Free-will and Prescience ; the former , because they felt it in themselves ; and the later , partly because the foreknowledge of things being manifestly a perfection , ought not to be denyed to God , whom they looked upon as a Being supremely perfect ; and partly because some actions and events that they all judg'd to flow from mens free-will , were , as the generality of men believ'd , foretold by Prophetick Oracles . But except in such cases as I have been naming , I am altogether of Pyrocles's mind , that since we have scarce any way of discovering a Falsity , but by its being repugnant to somewhat that is true ; to deny , that in cases within the juridiction of ordinary Reason , the repugnancy of a Proposition to any manifest truth , ought to sway our Judgments , were to deprive us of the usefullest Criterion to discriminate between Falshood and Truth . Timoth. For my part , who believe with many Philosophers , as well Heathen as Christian , that humane Souls owe their origine to God , and with almost all Philosophers , ( for I know what the Stoicks held ) that as he is the supreme Being , so he is a most free Agent , I see not why , as he has given to Corporeal Beings divers Qualities , very differing in their degrees of Nobleness ; so he might not give to the Intelligent Productions of his Power and Will , various degrees of Intellectual Capacities as well as a limitedness of Nature . And as it will not follow , that because we can see with our eyes very small Objects , and imagine such as are yet much smaller , either the eye , or the imagination can ever reach to so small an Object as an Atome ; so it will not follow that because we are able to frame Conceptions of immaterial Beings , we must therefore be able to understand the nature of God , and the Harmony of all his Monadical Attributes . A little Boy may have a clear notion of three , four , five , or other smaller numbers , and yet may be unable to frame good conceptions of Triangular and other Polygon Numbers ( as some call them ) and much more of the abstruse affections of surd Numbers , and the Roots of the higher Algebraical Powers . To discern particular Truths is one thing , and to be able to discover the Intercourse and Harmony between all Truths , is another thing , and a far more difficult one ; as a Traveller may upon the English Shoar know that he sees the Ocean , and upon the Coast of Affrick be made to do the like , and at the East Indies also he may know that he sees the Ocean ; and yet not know how those so distant Seas communicate with each other , tho that may be manifest enough to a Cosmographer . Arnob. What you say brings into my mind , that I have sometimes thought God and men enjoy Truth , as differingly as they do Time. For we men , as we enjoy time but by parcels , and always leave far the greatest part of it unreach'd to by us ; so we know but some particular Truths , and are always ignorant of far more than we attain to . Whereas God , as his eternity reaches to all the portions of time ( or measured Durations ) so his Omniscience gives him at one view a prospect of the whole extent of Truth : ( As if a man could see the whole River of Nilus with all its turnings and windings from its hidden Springs to its entrance into the Sea. ) Upon which account he sees all particular Truths , not only distinct , but in their Systeme , and so sees a Connexion between those that to us seem'd the most distant ones . Arnob. There remains now , Gentlemen , but one part more of your penance to be undergone ; for 't is high time , I should hasten to the relief of a Patience I have so long distress'd , and therefore I shall give it but one exercise more , and conclude your Trouble with some reflections on this last Advice . The Sixth Advice , or Rule . That in Privileg'd Things we ought not always to condemn that opinion which is liable to ill Consequences , and incumbred with great inconveniencies , provided the positive proofs of it be sufficient in their kind . That this Advice may be the more easily admitted , I shall separately suggest three things , which I desire may be afterwards considered all together . First , that clear positive proofs , proportionate to the nature of things , are genuine and proper motives to induce the understanding to assent to a proposition as true ; so that 't is not always necessary to the evidence and firmness of an Assent , that the Intellect takes notice of the Consequences that may be drawn from it , or the difficulties wherewith it may be incumbered . This is plain in those Assents which of all others , at least that are meerly natural , are by knowing men thougt to be the most undoubted and the best grounded ; I mean the Assents that are given to the Truth of Geometrical Demonstrations : And yet , Euclid , for instance , in all his Elements of Geometry , in some of which surprising Paradoxes are delivered , ( as in the sixteenth proposition of the third Book , and the 117th of the tenth Book , to name no more ) contents himself to demonstrate his Assertions in a Mathematical Way , and does not , that I remember , answer or take notice of any one Objection : and the Geometricians of our days think they may safely receive his Propositions upon the Demonstrations annexed to them , without knowing or troubling themselves about the subtleties employed by the Sceptick Sextus Empiricus , or others of that Sect in their writings against the Mathematicians , and all Assertors of assured knowledge . The second thing I would offer to your consideration , is , that the former part of our Discourse has manifested , that there are some things which our humane and imperfect understandings either cannot , or at least do not , perfectly comprehend : and that nevertheless men have not refrain'd from presuming to dogmatize and frame Notions and Rules about such things , as if they understood them very well . Whence it must needs come to pass , that if they were mistaken ( as in things so abstruse , 't is very like they often were ) those that judge by the Rules they laid down , must conceive the Propositions opposite to their mistakes , to be liable to very great , if not insuperable Difficulties and Objections . And this second Consideration , in conjunction with the first , will make way for the third , as a natural production of them , which is , That , as we need not wonder that privileged things , which are wont to be so sublime as to have been out of the view of those that fram'd the Rules whereby we judge of other things , should be thought liable to great Objections by them who judge of all things only by those Rules ; so we should not require or expect more evidence of a Truth relating to such things , than that there are for it such sufficient positive Reasons , as notwithstanding Objections and Inconveniences , make it , upon the whole matter , worthy to be embraced . Pyrocles . But can that be worthy to be assented to , which is liable to Objections and Inconveniences , which the maintainers confess they know not how to avoid ? Does not your Euclid himself in some of his Demonstrations imploy that way of reasoning which some of his Latine Interpreters call Deductio ad Absurdum ? Arnob. Euclid indeed ( as well as other Mathematicians ) besides that more satisfactory way of direct probation , which perhaps he might have oftner imployed than he did , has sometimes where he thought it needful , made use of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 you speak of . But in these cases he never goes out of the Discipline he treats of , and confining himself to Arguments drawn from quantity , he urges nothing as absurd , but what is undeniably repugnant to some Truth he had already demonstrated , or to those clear and undisputed Definitions , Axioms , or Postalata , which he supposes to have been already granted by those he would convince . But tho he thus argues to prove that his Readers cannot contradict him without contradicting themselves ; yet we find not that he was at all solicitous to clear those Difficulties that so quick-sighted a man could not but know some of his Theorems to be attended with : but contents himself to demonstrate the incommensurableness of the Side and Diagonal of a Square , without troubling himself to take notice of the Difficulties that attend the endless Divisibility of a Line , which would follow from what he demonstrated . But , Pyrocles , to look back to the first part of your Objection , tho what you say will hold in ordinary Cases , yet such peculiar ones , as we are speaking of , deserve a particular Consideration . About some privileged things there are , and about some others there may be contradictory Opinions ( taking that term in a strict sense ) maintain'd . Now as both of these cannot be true , so one of them must be so : as , tho it be hotly disputed whether Quantity be endlesly divisible , yet certainly it either must , or must not be divisible without end : And as was formerly observed which side soever you take , the Inconveniencies will be exceeding great , and perhaps there will lye Objections scarce to be directly answered . And since one of the two opposite Opinions must be true , it will not always be necessary , that an opinion must be false , which is incumbred with great difficulties , or liable to puzzling Objections . And therefore if the positive proofs on one side be clear and cogent , tho there be perplexing Difficulties objected by the other ; the truth ought not for their sake to be rejected ; because such difficulties proceeding usually either from notions that men presume to frame about things above their reaches , or from Rules that were not made for such points as are in dispute , the Objections are not to be judged so well founded , as is that acknowledged Principle in Reasoning , that from Truth , nothing but truth can be legitimately inferr'd . Eugen. I confess I have always thought it reasonable in such Cases to compare , as well the positive proofs of one opinion with those of the other , as those Objections that are urg'd on either side ; and there make my estimate upon the whole matter ; tho with a peculiar regard to that opinion that has a great advantage in point of positive Arguments ; Because , as Arnobius observ'd , those are the proper Inducements to the Assent of the Intellect : And then the Objections may well enough be suspected to proceed from the abstruse nature of privileg'd things , and the over-great narrowness of the Rules that men are wont to judge of all things by . For we may have a sufficiently clear proof that a thing is , whilst we have no satisfactory conception of its manner of existing or operating ; our illative knowledge , if you will allow me so to speak , being clearer , and extending further than our intuitive or apprehensive knowledge . Arnob. But even about things that we cannot sufficiently understand , we may in some cases exercise our Reason , in answering objections that are thought not to be at all answerable , because they are not directly so . For we may sometimes shew , by framing in another case a like Argument , which , the Adversary must confess , does not conclude well , that neither does the Argument that contains his Objection conclude aright . This I could exemplifie ( tho that may seem no easie Task ) but that I fear I should want time to propose Examples , whose being very paradoxical would make them need much proof ; which you who I fear are quite tired already , would want patience to hear . Wherefore I shall rather recommend to you one Observation , which I take to be of no small moment and use , when we contemplate things of the nature of those we have been discoursing of : and it is this , that we must not expect to be able , as to privileg'd things , and the Propositions that may be fram'd about them , to resolve all Difficulties , and answer all Objections ; since we can never directly answer those , which require for their solution a perfect comprehension of what is infinite : as a man cannot well answer the Objections that may be made against the Antipodes , the Doctrine of Eclipses , that of the different Phases of the Moon , and of the long days and nights of some months apiece , near the Poles , ( not now to name that more abstruse part of Astronomy , the Theory of the Planets ) unless he understand the nature of the Sphere , and some other Principles of Cosmography . FINIS . Notes, typically marginal, from the original text Notes for div A28958-e270 Ovied contr . 17. Phys . Rationem habere inter se quantitates dicuntur quae possunt multiplicatae , sese mutuo superare . Definit . 5. Elem. V. Euclidis . Notes for div A28958-e5520 * See his Treatise de Sectionibus Conicis .