Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHT OF NATURE 
 
 PURSUED. 
 
 BY ABRAHAM TUCKER, ESQ. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. 
 
 BY SIR H. P. ST. JOHN MILDMAY, BART. M. P. 
 
 J)t C^irtJ 3Uttton. 
 
 COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG AND SON, 73, CHEAPSIDE; 
 
 SOLD BY R. GRIFFIN AND CO., GLASGOW ; R. M. TIMS, DUBLIN ; 
 AND ALL BOOKSELLERS. 
 
 1834.
 
 G. H. Davidson, 
 TudorStreet, Bridge Street, BtoekMan.
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR . . v 
 
 INTRODUCTION . o&Sl " 1 
 
 CHAP. I. Faculties of the Mind . . ,. .11 
 
 II. Action .... Ufej , . . 22 
 
 III. Causes of Action . . ... .27 
 
 IV. Ideal Causes . -r . y> . . 33 
 V. Motives ; , "'.^ . .38 
 
 VI. Satisfaction . . . '/. 45 
 
 VII. Sensation . .. . . ..' .78 
 
 VIII. Reflection . .' . .' .83 
 IX. Combination of Ideas . ^ . ... 87 
 
 X. Trains . . . . / .95 
 
 XI. Judgment . . . ' . .105 
 
 XII. Imagination and Understanding . . . . 127 
 
 XIII. Conviction and Persuasion , . . . 136 
 
 XIV. Knowledge and Conception . . . . . . 139 
 
 XV. Composition of Motives , .. . . 143 
 
 XVI. Species of Motives . . '^ .146 
 
 XVII. Production of Motives . . . . 148 
 
 XVIII. Translation ...'. . ' . .150 
 XIX. Sympathy .' .' ' .' . .. . 153 
 
 XX. Introduction of Motives . ... . . 155 
 
 XXI. Passions . . . . \ . 159 
 
 XXII. Pleasure '. '. '. . . .175 
 
 XXIII. Use ^ . , . . ' . 184 
 
 XXIV. Honour '. . '. . . 188 
 XXV. Necessity . . . . .V . ; . 197 
 
 XXVI. Reason '. '. .' ''. . 200 
 
 XXVII. Ultimate Good ' . ,, ... . 204 
 
 XXVIII. Rectitude . , . . .211 
 
 XXIX. Virtue . . . . . 215 
 
 XXX. Prudence . . . . .225 
 
 XXXI. Fortitude , . . . .231 
 
 XXXII. Temperance . . - . . .236 
 
 1C9G795
 
 IV CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXXIII. Justice . . L*^ P V, 24 
 
 XXXIV. Benevolence . . . ' . .248 
 XXXV. Moral Policy . . . . . 258 
 
 XXXVI. Limitation of Virtue . . . . 267 
 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 CHAP. I. Substance . . . . . 276 
 
 II. Compound Substances . * , 281 
 
 III. Divisibility of Matter . . .. . 286 
 
 IV. Existence of Mind . . . . 297 
 
 V. Spirit . . . . . .303 
 
 VI. Duration of Mind . . . . 312 
 
 VII. Effects and Causes . ."* f** . 316 
 
 VIII. Chance, Necessity, and Design . .' " . 323 
 
 IX. The First Cause . . . ..327 
 
 X. Incomprehensibility . . . .331 
 
 XL Unity . . . .. ' ' . .' . 334 
 
 XII. Omnipresence . . . . . . 336 
 
 XIII. Eternity . ' . "V" i; ". . 338 
 
 XIV. Omnipotence . . . '."'"., 340 
 XV. Omniscience . . . . . 344 
 
 XVI. Goodness . . . . . 351 
 
 XVII. Equity . . " . ; . . 362 
 
 XVIII. Two Characters in God ", _ J j: '.''. 365 
 
 XIX. External Nature ' . '/ ". . 368 
 
 XX. Hypotheses . . . . .. ;; . 381 
 
 XXI. Vehicular State . '. r . '. 384 
 
 XXII. Mundane Soul . . . '. ; ''".- 399 
 
 XXIII. The Vision . . ,, T f , 420 
 
 XXIV. Nature of Things . . : . . 494 
 XXV. Providence . . . . . 517 
 
 XXVI. Freewill . . . . . . 540 
 
 XXVII. Equality . . . . ! V, 595 
 
 XXVIII. General Good . ,. . . .612 
 
 XXIX. Divine Justice .' .. . '':."' ". 623 
 
 XXX. Duration of Punishment , ' . ",' 646 
 
 XXXI. Re-enlargement of Virtue ". . ".'"". 661
 
 SOME ACCOUNT 
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 ABRAHAM TUCKER, ESQ. 
 
 I HAVE often heard it lamented by admirers of Mr. Tucker's writings, 
 that no account has been hitherto given to the world of his private life : 
 and it has been suggested to me that in offering a new edition of the 
 " Light of Nature" to the public, some biographical sketch would be ex- 
 pected at my hands. 
 
 I regret my inability to comply with these suggestions so fully as my in- 
 clination, and the unfeigned respect, veneration, and gratitude which I feel 
 towards the memory of Mr. Tucker would dispose me to do. 
 
 The life of a man devoted to study and retirement, to the investigation 
 of metaphysical truth, and the practice of religious duties, can indeed hardly 
 be expected to afford much in the detail to amuse or interest the public : 
 and the uniform regularity of the life of the author of the " Light of Na- 
 ture" was certainly interrupted by few extraordinary occurrences. But 
 instruction might possibly be afforded and example held out to future ex- 
 cellence, by tracing the several incidents which may be supposed to have 
 influenced the mind and genius of such an author, to have given the ori- 
 ginal bent to his course of study, and turned his thoughts into that channel 
 in which they continued to flow. I am, however, enabled to add nothing 
 upon these points to the short history which Mr. Tucker has given of the 
 disposition and progress of his own mind, in the following passage : 
 
 "My thoughts," he says, "have taken a turn from my earliest youth 
 towards searching into the foundations and measures of right and wrong; 
 my love for retirement has furnished me with continual leisure, and the 
 exercise of my reason has been my daily employment." 
 
 The account which I am about to give of the most important events of 
 his life, (if any events can be said to be important of a life so retired and 
 undiversified,) is necessarily rendered more imperfect by the loss of a near 
 relation, " Mrs. Judith Tucker," by whom alone I could have been fur- 
 nished with materials for a fuller statement. 
 
 All that I now offer to the public is collected from what I can remember 
 to have heard from her, when alive, from some biographical notes which 
 she left behind her, and from some scattered hints and notices which 
 
 VOL. i. b
 
 VI SOME ACCOUNT OF THK 
 
 Mr. Tucker's own papers supply. And however otherwise unimportant or 
 uninteresting the narrative may be, I have preferred to leave it so, rather 
 than to embellish it with anything for which I had not the most indisputable 
 authority, and am contented that it should pretend to no other merit than 
 that which would have been esteemed its greatest recommendation by him 
 whose life it is intended to commemorate, a strict and faithful adherence to 
 the truth. 
 
 The family of Mr. Tucker is of Somersetshire extraction, but he was 
 himself born in London on the second of September, 1705. His father, 
 who appears to have been a merchant of some eminence in the city, married 
 Judith, daughter of Abraham Tillard, Esq. and died in his son's infancy, 
 leaving him to the guardianship of his uncle, Sir Isaac Tillard, a man 
 remarkable for the purity of his morals and the austere integrity of his 
 character. Of the memory of this relation Mr. Tucker, to the latest hour 
 of his life, never failed to speak with extreme affection and gratitude, fre- 
 quently observing that he was indebted for every principle of honour, be- 
 nevolence, and liberality which he possessed, to the indefatigable pains and 
 bright example of his uncle. It appears, however, that although Mr. 
 Tucker might be greatly obliged to Sir Isaac Tillard for the early seeds of 
 those moral principles with which his conduct and writings were afterwards 
 so eminently tinctured; he did not probably receive much assistance 
 from him in the usual accomplishments of modern education : I have fre- 
 quently heard him say, that when called on, as a boy, to pay a periodical 
 compliment to some distant relations, he was invariably referred by his 
 guardian to St. Paul's Epistles, as the most complete model of epistolary 
 correspondence . 
 
 Mr. Tucker was educated in a school at Bishop's Stortford, which he 
 quitted in 1721, and was entered a gentleman commoner at Merton Col- 
 lege, where it appears that he devoted the principal part of his time to 
 metaphysical and mathematical pursuits. During his residence in the Uni- 
 versity, he found means in the intervals of leisure from more serious appli- 
 cation, to make himself complete master of the French and Italian languages, 
 and to acquire a considerable proficiency in music, for which he possessed 
 great natural talents. 
 
 About the year 1724, he went into chambers in the Inner Temple, where 
 for some time he applied very closely to the law, in which he acquired such 
 a degree of knowledge as enabled him to conduct with advantage the ma- 
 nagement of his own affairs, and frequently to render very essential service 
 to his friends and neighbours ; but his fortune not requiring the aid of a 
 profession, to the pursuit of which neither his constitution nor his inclina- 
 tion were adapted, he was never called to the bar. While he continued at 
 the Temple, he commonly passed the vacation in tours through different 
 parts of England or Scotland, and once made a summer excursion into 
 France and Flanders. 
 
 In 1727, he purchased Betchworth Castle, near Dorking, an ancient 
 seat of the Browns, and formerly part of the extensive possessions of the 
 Earl of Arundel. As this purchase was considerable, and included a large 
 tract of landed property, Mr. Tucker immediately set about acquiring every 
 sort of information that is generally thought necessary to the advantageous 
 management of land. With his usual industry he committed to paper a 
 great variety of remarks which he either had made himself, collected from 
 his neighbours and tenants, or selected from different authors, both ancient 
 and modern, who have treated on rural economy.
 
 L1KK OF TUB AUTHOR. VU 
 
 In 1736, Mr. Tucker married Dorothy, daughter of Edward Barker, of 
 East Betchworth, Cursitor Baron of the Exchequer, and Receiver of the 
 Tenths. By this lady, who died in 1754, he had two daughters: Judith, 
 who survived him, inherited his estates, and died unmarried in 1795, and 
 Dorothea Maria, who in 1763 married Sir Henry PauletSt. John, Baronet, 
 of Dogmersfield Park, in Hamphire, and died in 1768, leaving no issue but 
 the writer of these remarks. 
 
 As my grandfather had always lived with his wife on terms of the tenderest 
 harmony and affection, he was severely afflicted by her death. As soon as 
 the first excess of his grief was somewhat mitigated, he occupied himself 
 in collecting together all the letters that had passed between them at periods 
 when they were accidentally separated from each other, which he trans- 
 cribed twice over, under the title of " The Picture of Artless Love." One 
 copy he gave to Mr. Barker, his father-in-law, and the other he kept, and 
 frequently read over to his daughters. 
 
 His active mind, after this event, became engaged in the education of 
 his children, to whom he himself taught French and Italian : he also in- 
 structed them in many other branches of science which he thought might, in 
 future, contribute to their advantage or amusement: but he was, above all, 
 careful to instil into their minds the purest principles of morality, benevo- 
 lence, and religion. 
 
 In the year 1755, at the request of a friend, he worked up some mate- 
 rials that were sent him, into the form of a pamphlet, under the title of 
 " The Country Gentleman's Advice to his Son on the Subject of Party 
 Clubs." This little tract I have seen, though it has long since been out of 
 print. It seems to have been dictated by no party feelings, even in the 
 person by whom the materials were compiled, but generally cautions )x>ung 
 men against engaging in political societies in which their passions are liable 
 to be inflamed, and, from the zeal and enthusiasm of the moment, their 
 honour often pledged to support measures which their cooler reason and 
 reflection disapprove. 
 
 Mr. Tucker had no turn for politics : he was very strongly solicited, on 
 several occasions, to offer himself as a representative for the county in which 
 he resided, to which situation both his landed property and his private cha- 
 racter gave him the best pretensions. This he uniformly refused. He 
 was once only prevailed on to attend a county meeting at Epsom, where 
 party ran very high, and though he took no active part in the proceedings 
 there, he was introduced into a ludicrous ballad, where he is described, 
 with several other gentlemen of respectability and talents, as confounded by 
 the superior powers and eloquence of the Whigs of that day, Sir Joseph 
 Mawbey and Humphrey Cotes. This circumstance afforded to Mr. Tucker 
 abundant matter for humorous animadversion, and whenever politics were 
 the subject of conversation he seldom failed to advert to the ill success of 
 his only essay in public life ; and was so much amused with the figure he 
 made in verse, that he set the ballad to music. 
 
 From the papers which Mr. Tucker left behind him, it does not appear 
 that previous to the year 1755, he had any thoughts of the work which he 
 afterwards completed, nor has the former editor, nor have I, been able to 
 ascertain from what circumstance he was first induced to undertake it. 
 About the year 175G, however, he began " The Light of Nature Pursued." 
 He made several sketches of the plan of his work, (one of which he af- 
 terwards printed in the shape of a dialogue,) before he finally decided on 
 the method he should pursue ; and after he had ultimately arranged and.
 
 Vlii SOME ACCOUNT OF THE 
 
 digested his materials, he twice transcribed the whole copy in his own hand. 
 Conscious of the defects in his style, he had it in contemplation, as he says 
 himself, to have revised and corrected in some degree the most inharmonious 
 and inelegant passages in the work, Vefore he sent it to the press, though 
 for various reasons assigned in his Introduction, he never accomplished his 
 design. 
 
 To qualify himself, however, for appearing before the public as an Author, 
 he had employed a considerable portion of his time, previous to his great 
 undertaking, in studying, with the utmost accuracy, the most elegant 
 Greek and Latin classics, in order, (as far as it is possible in the more ad- 
 vanced periods of life,) to supply the defects of early education : and he 
 actually took the pains of translating the most admired pieces of Cicero, 
 Demosthenes, Pliny, &c. several times over. 
 
 Of these studies many have been thrown aside and destroyed, but I 
 am still in possession of such a collection as is sufficient to show that Mr. 
 Tucker's industry and perseverance have been very rarely surpassed. 
 
 He published the first specimen of his work in 1763, under the title of 
 " Freewill," which seems to have been a selection from four octavo volumes, 
 which he afterwards printed in 1765, under the fictitious name of " Edward 
 Search." Why he assumed a feigned name, I am ignorant, but I am dis- 
 posed to ascribe it altogether to his disinclination to attract public notice. 
 The remainder of the work was edited by his daughter, from a manuscript, 
 and published with the real name of the Author, some time after his decease. 
 
 At a late period of life he printed, but did not publish, a little tract on 
 vocal sounds, wherein he attempts, very ingeniously, with the aid of a few 
 additional letters, to fix the pronunciation of the whole alphabet in such a 
 manner that the sound of any word may be conveyed on paper as easily as 
 by the voice. This little treatise was composed in support of certain posi- 
 tions which he had advanced at a literary meeting of some of his friends, 
 and on which a difference of opinion had arisen. Having occasion in the 
 course of this work to speak of the Hexameter metre, he expresses his con- 
 viction, " that the English is as capable of that mode of versification as the 
 Greek or Latin languages." To exemplify this opinion, he subjoins a hasty 
 attempt of his own, from which it may not be thought foreign to my pre- 
 sent purpose to insert a very short extract. The Classical Reader will im- 
 mediately perceive that it is a literal translation of part of Virgil's account 
 of the Pythagorean doctrine. 
 
 A spirit eternal penetrates through earth, sky, and ocean, 
 Mounts to the moon's lucid orb, and stars in countless abundance ; 
 One soul all matter invigorates, gives life to the system, 
 O'er each particular member diffuses alertness ; 
 Thence men and all animals sprung forth, beasts and feathered fowl, 
 And whatever monsters swarm through the watery kingdom. 
 &c. &c. &c. 
 
 Mr. Tucker also published, probably at an earlier period, a pamphlet 
 entitled, " Man in quest of Himself, by Cuthbert Comment," in reply to 
 some strictures that appeared in a note on Search's Freewill, in the Monthly 
 Review of July, 1763. In the latter end of it he explains his view in the 
 publication, namely, " in reply to a doctrine advanced, that the mind and 
 material elements fluctuate and change into one another ; which seems a 
 revival of the old atheistical notion, that a perceptive and active being may 
 be formed of senseless and inert principles."
 
 LIFE OF THK AUTHOR. 
 
 Mr. Tucker, though by no means of an athletic form, or a robust con- 
 stitution, possessed great bodily activity. He always rose early in the 
 morning to pursue his literary labours. During the winter months, he 
 commonly burnt a lamp in his chamber for the purpose of lighting his own 
 fire. After breakfast he returned again to his studies, for two or three 
 hours, and passed the remainder of the morning in walking, or in some 
 rural exercise. As he was remarkably abstemious, he lost but little time 
 at the table, but usually spent the early part of the evening in summer in 
 walking over his estate, collecting information on all agricultural subjects 
 from his tenants, and committing the result of their practical experience to 
 paper. In winter he completed the regular measure of his exercise, by tra- 
 versing his own apartment, and after accomplishing the distance he had 
 allotted to himself, he employed the remainder of the afternoon in reading 
 to his daughters. In London, where he resided some months every year, 
 his time was apportioned, nearly in the same manner, between study and 
 relaxation ; and he commonly devoted much of his evenings to the society 
 of his friends, relations, and fellow- collegians, among whom he was parti- 
 cularly distinguished for his dexterity in the Socratic method of disputation. 
 His walks were chiefly directed to the transaction of any incidental busi- 
 ness, always choosing rather to execute his own commissions, even of the 
 most trivial nature, than to entrust them to a third person. This singula- 
 rity arose from the construction of his mind, which was rarely satisfied 
 without some object in view ; and when no inducement presented itself, he 
 would sometimes walk from Great James Street, where he resided, to St. 
 Paul's or to the Bank, to see, as he would good-humouredly observe, what 
 it was o'clock. 
 
 Mr. Tucker lived in habits of considerable intimacy, when in town, with 
 a near relation who had a house in the same street. This was Mr. James 
 Tillard, a gentleman highly distinguished by his classical attainments and 
 general knowledge ; and who was one of the numerous authors of that time 
 who opposed by their writings the opinions of Bishop Warburton. 
 
 It does not appear that his intimacy with Mr. Tillard, during the progress 
 of this controversy, led Mr. Tucker to take any part in the dispute, though 
 I am disposed to believe that he thought lightly of some opinions of the 
 learned prelate, from an admirable specimen of sarcastic humour which I 
 met with in one of his private letters, in evident reference to a passage in 
 the Bishop's work on the Divine Legation of Moses. 
 
 His incessant application gradually weakened his eyes, and, at length, 
 brought on cataracts, which increased so much in consequence of a fever in 
 1771, that he could no longer amuse himself by reading, and soon after- 
 wards became totally blind. 
 
 This affliction, the greatest that could befall a man of his pursuits, he not 
 only bore with composure and resignation, but with the utmost cheerfulness, 
 being frequently much diverted with the mistakes into which his infirmity 
 betrayed him. 
 
 His favourite object, however, was not abandoned in consequence of this 
 calamity, his mechanical ingenuity enabling him to direct the construction 
 of a machine which guided his hand, and helped him to write so legibly that 
 his productions were easily transcribed by an amanuensis. 
 
 It was at this period that the amiable character of his daughter had occa- 
 sion to display itself. It would be impossible to do justice to the filial affec- 
 tion, to the nice and unwearied attentions, by which she contrived to mitigate 
 the weight of her father's misfortune. She transcribed the whole of his vo-
 
 X SOMH ACCOUNT OF THE 
 
 luminous work for the press : and so entirely did she devote her time, like 
 Milton's daughter, to those pursuits which would make her most useful to 
 her father, that she applied herself to the study of the Greek language, in 
 which she made such a proficiency as to be enabled to preserve to her father, 
 during the remainder of his life, an intercourse with his favourite authors, of 
 which his misfortune must otherwise have deprived him. 
 
 During Mr. Tucker's blindness, he completed the latter volumes of the 
 " Light of Nature ;" but before the necessary arrangement of their publi- 
 cation were concluded, he was seized, in 1774, with an illness which proved 
 fatal ; and he died, as he had lived, with perfect calmness and resignation. 
 
 Having thus stated the few particulars I have been enabled to select from 
 the manuscripts in my possession, relative to the Life of the Author of the 
 " Light of Nature," I shall venture to offer a very few observations on the 
 edition which I have thought it my duty to publish. 
 
 To attempt any commentary on the work itself, would be presumptuous 
 on my part ; the most ample testimony has already been given to the ori- 
 ginal genius, the moral excellence, the benevolence, and the perspicuity of 
 the Author, by many of the most enlightened men of the present age. Some 
 of them, with that spirit of liberality which accompanies pre-eminent talents, 
 have openly acknowledged the assistance which they have derived from 
 Mr. Tucker's researches. 
 
 I have thought it incumbent on me, as his sole surviving representative, 
 to reprint his work, in consequence of the various applications which have 
 been made to me on account of the increased demand for it, and the scarcity 
 of the remaining copies. 
 
 It has indeed been suggested to me, that an abridgment of the whole of 
 these volumes might have been more acceptable to the world at large, or 
 that the bulk might have been conveniently reduced by the omission of the 
 most abstruse and metaphysical parts, without injury to the general argu- 
 ment and essential object of the work. 
 
 Feeling, however, the great difficulty that must attend such an abridg- 
 ment or selection, and conscious of my own insufficiency for the undertak- 
 ing, and entertaining moreover some scruples as to the right of an editor 
 to compress or curtail the work of his Author according to his own no- 
 tions of convenience or improvement, I have judged it most expedient, 
 on mature consideration, to republish it as it came from the pen of Mr. 
 Tucker. 
 
 I am aware that the immediate connection between the various subjects 
 treated on in the work, may not appear obvious to many of Mr. Tucker's 
 readers, and that something in the nature of an analysis of the general 
 scheme of the Author would have been extremely desirable. I was indeed 
 in liopes to have offered some observations on this head to the public, from 
 the pen of Sir James M'Intosh, had not the pressure of professional en- 
 gagements interfered. 
 
 It will be observed, that I have ventured to restore a Chapter [Word, 
 or Logos] which treats on a point, that has, been thought, by the most able 
 Commentators on the New Testament, to be involved in much doubt and 
 obscurity. I am aware, that in this instance, I expose myself to the cen- 
 sure of many of Mr. Tucker's warmest admirers, by whom I may be ac- 
 cused of something more than indiscretion, in submitting opinions to the 
 public eye, which the prudence and good sense of his immediate successor 
 had thought it wise to suppress in the former edition. I must, however, 
 observe, with the most sincere veneration for the memory of the person to
 
 LIFE OF THE AUTHOR. XI 
 
 whom I have had frequent occasion to allude, that the circumstances under 
 which the work is now sent to the press, are widely different from those 
 under which it made its first appearance. 
 
 Whether the Author, when he puhlished the fragment on Freewill, had it 
 in contemplation to extend his materials to the present length of the work, 
 or whether he found himself gradually led on as he pursued his suhject, 
 must remain a doubt. His earliest production is unquestionably the most 
 abstruse of all his works, nor did the four volumes he published before his 
 death meet with that encouragement from the public which they have sine? 
 been thought to deserve. Their title was unfortunate, and contributed to 
 raise prejudices against them. At the time of the publication many fanciful 
 theories were afloat on subjects of religious controversy : these had dis- 
 gusted the public, and a work professing in its title-page to pursue the 
 Light of Nature might be reasonably suspected as unfavourable to the doc- 
 trines of Revelation. On this ground, therefore, it was thought advisable 
 by the respectable authorities with whom the late Editor consulted when 
 she printed the posthumous works of her father, to suppress a part of them 
 which did not appear essential to the general scheme of the Author, and 
 might tend to confirm the prejudice raised by the title. But the motive 
 which operated most strongly on the mind of the late Mrs. Tucker, on this 
 occasion, was her conviction that her father was strictly and conscientiously 
 attached to the doctrines of the Church of England, and she was cautious 
 of hazarding anything which might expose his principles to an opposite 
 construction, and which, she was aware, would be eagerly caught at by 
 those who differed from the established persuasion. 
 
 Such were the motives which influenced the conduct of the former Editor, 
 in suppressing a Chapter which treats on the construction of the four first 
 verses in the Gospel according to St. John. Her objections to its publica- 
 tion, however judicious at that moment, have now lost much of their 
 weight. The prejudices excited by the title have vanished on the world 
 becoming acquainted with the contents. The religious and moral principles 
 of the Author have stood the test of public investigation, and no longer 
 remain open to misapprehension. The sentiments, the doctrines, the argu- 
 ments, and the illustrations in every part of the work are equally those of 
 Mr. Tucker, and the particular Chapter of which I am speaking was pre- 
 pared in his own hand-writing for the press. The great and benevolent 
 object of the Author was the establishment and promulgation of truth : his 
 conjectures (for they are no more,) on this abstruse point, should they 
 prove satisfactory, may lead to that desirable end, by their publication : 
 should they be thought otherwise, it can reflect no discredit on his me- 
 mory, to have hazarded an unsuccessful opinion on a subject which the 
 most learned and enlightened men have acknowledged themselves unequal 
 to explain. 
 
 H. P. ST. JOHN MILDMAY, M. P.
 
 " I no not know of any work in the shape of a philosophical treatise that contains so 
 much good sense so agreeably expressed. The character of the work is, in this respect, 
 altogether singular. To the ingenuity and closeness of the metaphysician, he unites the 
 practical knowledge of the man of the world, and the utmost sprightliness, and even 
 levity of imagination. He is the only philosopher who appears to have had his senses 
 always about him, or to have possessed the enviable faculty of attending at the same time 
 to what was passing in his own mind, and what was going on without him. No difficulty 
 ever escapes his penetration ; every view of his subject, every consequence of his princi- 
 ples, is stated and examined with scrupulous exactness." HAZLITT. 
 
 ** 
 
 "There is one work to which I owe so much, that it would be ungrateful not to confess 
 the obligation : I mean the writings of the late Abraham Tucker, Esq. part of which 
 were published by himself, and the remainder since his death, under the title of the 
 ' Light of Nature Pursued, by Edward Search, Esq.' I have found in this writer more 
 original thinking and observation upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand, than 
 in any other, not to say in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is 
 unrivalled." PA LEY.
 
 THE 
 
 UGHT OF NATURE PURSUED. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 RELIGION and MORALITY, being of universal concern to persons of all 
 conditions and denominations, as well with regard to their present happiness 
 as their future expectations, have always engaged the thoughts of such as 
 were disposed to think seriously upon anything ; and the minds of men 
 being variously turned, that natural fondness which attaches every one to 
 the decisions of his own judgment, especially in matters nearly affecting his 
 interest, has given birth to innumerable disputes among the learned in all 
 ages ; from whence great disorders and mischiefs have frequently arisen 
 among the rest of mankind. But though contention has never ceased, nor 
 is ever likely to cease, yet the particular subjects exciting it from time to 
 time have often changed : one set having divided the ancient philosophers, 
 another the doctors in the reign of school divinity, and another the several 
 sects of Christians at and after the reformation. 
 
 All these old topics of litigation are now happily laid aside, or lie dormant 
 in the closets of the studious, where they are treated of as matters of spe- 
 culation, giving no disturbance to the world in general. The principal, or 
 perhaps only question agitated with any degree of warmth and earnestness 
 in these times and countries, seems to be, Whether Reason alone be sufficient 
 to direct us in all parts of our conduct, or, Whether Revelation and super- 
 natural aids be necessary. For upon this hinge the merits of our present 
 religious disputes chiefly turn, rather than upon external evidence, which 
 one may observe always carries more or less weight with men, according as 
 they are prepossessed either in favour or prejudice of the doctrines enforced 
 thereby ; nor indeed would deserve regard at all without prospect of some 
 advantage to accrue from the result. For, were a Revelation proposed 
 which should offer nothing more than we could discover by our own sagacity, 
 or attain by common industry, nobody would think it worth while to be at 
 any trouble either in recommending or entering upon an examination of its 
 authenticity. 
 
 Upon this question, concerning the sufficiency of Reason, many treatises 
 are written, and much thrown out in the pulpits and in private conversation : 
 nor would means be neglected of interesting the populace in the dispute, 
 which from a dispute would then become a quarrel and occasion of civil 
 commotions, did not our laws wisely provide for the maintenance of peace 
 and good order by restraining the fiery zeal of some and wanton licentious- 
 ness of others. While the contest stands thus confined within the limits 
 of argumentation, no very mischievous consequences can ensue. We need 
 
 VOL. !. B
 
 2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 not fear truth should lie long overwhelmed under the sophisms of falsehood : 
 it will always rise at last triumphant over the strongest opposition ; or rather, 
 like gold, which comes brighter and purer out of the furnace, will get clear 
 of that rust and dross that gathers upon the soundest doctrine by too long 
 quiet. When men are all of a mind they grow careless, seldom giving 
 themselves the trouble to enter into the grounds of what passes current by 
 universal consent : or else graft their own airy imaginations upon the solid 
 substance. But the vigilance of an adversary suffers no foreign mixtures 
 that will not stand the strictest scrutiny : and his misrepresentations give 
 occasion for what remains, to be fully explained and more clearly un- 
 derstood. 
 
 But how great advantages soever may accrue from controversy, it is 
 attended by no less inconvenience. It draws off men's attention from the 
 main end of Religion, which is to make them better, by leading them, insen- 
 sibly into a persuasion that orthodoxy on one hand, and freedom from 
 bigotry on the other, is to stand in lieu of all the practical duties of life : it 
 destroys that mutual good-will and esteem from whence the benefits of 
 society chiefly result ; and it cuts off half the means of improvement, by 
 shutting our eyes against the clearest truths and most shining examples 
 presented by those of whom we have received an ill impression. For it is 
 no uncommon thing to combat an opinion or vilify an action of the person 
 we dislike, merely because they are his, without once considering the merits 
 of either. 
 
 Wherefore, the worst kind of disputing is that which proceeds solely in 
 the spirit of opposition, tending to overthrow but not to establish : for there 
 is scarce any system so bad as not to be better than none at all. He that 
 pulls down his neighbour's house does him a diskindness, however inconve- 
 nient soever it were, unless he furnishes him with a plan and materials for 
 building one more commodious. Let every man by my consent offer what- 
 ever he thinks beneficial to the public; we stand obliged to him for his 
 good intentions, however ineffectual they may prove, or how much soever 
 we may perceive him mistaken ; provided he does not meddle with the 
 opinions of others until he finds them standing directly athwart his way ; 
 then indeed disputation becomes necessary, but it is never desirable, nor 
 perhaps ever excusable, unless when absolutely necessary. 
 
 In order to avoid this disagreeable necessity as long as possible, it seems 
 advisable to begin with building upon ground that nobody claims or that 
 we all possess in common : I mean, by working upon principles universally 
 agreed to, and gathering all the conclusions they will afford that may be 
 serviceable to the world, and wherein everybody may acquiesce without 
 prejudice to his favourite tenets. For there are many inducements to 
 prudence, to honesty, to benevolence, to industry, acknowledged by per- 
 sons of all persuasions ; and if these were improved to the utmost, much 
 good might be done to mankind, both towards advancing their knowledge 
 and regulating their behaviour, before we need touch upon any controversial 
 matters. 
 
 This method appears likely to render the benefit of our endeavours more 
 extensive, because, being looked upon as a common friend, we shall be 
 heard favourably by all : nor is it impossible that our interposition ma}' 
 bring the contending parties into better humour with one another, rendering 
 them more candid, more open to conviction, by showing they agree already 
 in many respects themselves were not aware of. If we can trace out a. 
 resemblance of each other's features in their own, they may consider them
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 as marks of a relationship, and abate of that shyness which makes everyone 
 averse to whatever comes from a stranger or an alien. Perhaps, too, it 
 may tend considerably towards shortening disputes ; for as no difference 
 can be voided unless by premises whereto both sides will assent, the more 
 of these can be collected, the firmer they are established, and the readier 
 they lie at hand, there will remain the less to do afterwards towards 
 determining matters in debate. 
 
 Now there is one tract of ground claimed by none as his peculiar pro- 
 perty, namely, so much as lies within the province of reason. Both 
 believer and unbeliever will admit that there are certain truths and certain 
 duties discoverable by our own care and sagacity, that our reason is of some 
 use to us, and that we ought to make the best use of it in our power. 
 This therefore is what I purpose to attempt, to try what may be done by 
 the exercise of our reason, either for the advancement of knowledge or 
 guidance of our conduct, without pretending to determine beforehand 
 whether we may furnish ourselves this way with everything for which we 
 have occasion, without embracing or rejecting what other helps may be 
 afforded us from elsewhere. Since it is allowed on all hands that reason 
 may do something for us, let us avail ourselves of that something she is 
 capable of, be it little or be it much ; this surely will not indispose us against 
 receiving further benefits from supernatural assistance, if any such are to 
 be had. Such an attempt cannot justly offend either party : for if reason 
 be sufficient, what can we do better than listen attentively to her voice ? 
 and if she be not sufficient, how can this be better evidenced than by 
 putting her upon the trial, in order to see what she contains ? If we shall 
 find her anywhere at a nonplus, or her stores exhausted and our wants still 
 remaining unsupplied, we shall the more readily recur to supplies afforded 
 from another treasury. 
 
 But who is able to ransack all the stores of reason, or compute the exact 
 amount of the riches she possesses ? For my part, I am far from fancying 
 myself equal to the task ; nor do I imagine it can be performed by and 
 single person, but must be completed, if ever, by the successive endeavours 
 of many ; and on this very plea I found my justification. For although 
 what can be managed by a few, we choose to entrust only with consummate 
 masters in the business, yet in works requiring numbers to execute them, 
 an indifferent workman may be admitted to give a helping hand. It is the 
 duty of every one to serve the public in such way for which he is best fitted, 
 how slender soever his ability may be ; and this is the only way wherein I 
 have any chance of making myself useful. I have neither constitution nor 
 talents for active life, neither strength nor fund of spirits for hard study, 
 nor been bred to any profession : but my thoughts have taken a turn from 
 my earliest youth towards searching into the foundations and measures of 
 right and wrong ; whatever nature gave me has been cultivated by a careful 
 education, and improved further by as much application as I could bear the 
 fatigue of; my love of retirement has furnished me with continual leisure, 
 and the exercise of my reason has been my daily employment : the service 
 therefore I am to do must flow from this exercise or not at all. And it 
 must arise from the exercise not the strength of my reason : I pretend to 
 no sagacity capable of striking out uncommon discoveries, my dependance 
 must rest solely upon my care and vigilance, which keep me constantly upon 
 the watch for such sparks of light as occur from time to time spontaneously : 
 the coldness of my natural temperament inclines me to caution and sus- 
 
 B 2
 
 4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 picion, so I do not hastily embrace the most striking ideas until having 
 turned them again and again in my thoughts, in order to discern the 
 genuine rays of truth from the flashy meteors of delusion : whatever of the 
 former I can gather, I preserve diligently, laying them by in store against 
 any further use that may be made of them. For I am a kind of miser in 
 knowledge, attentive to every little opportunity of gain. Though my income 
 be small, I lose nothing of what comes to hand ; all I can &rape, I place 
 out at interest, still accumulating the interest upon the principal, as well 
 knowing that this is the only way for one of moderate talents to raise a fortune . 
 
 Let not any man expect extraordinary strokes of penetration from me : I 
 shall present him with nothing but what he may have had within his view 
 before : I pretend only to remind him of things that may have slipped his 
 memory, or point out to him objects that may have escaped his notice : if I 
 shall offer him anything new, it will be not more than he would have found 
 naturally resulting from things he knows already, had he held them as 
 steadily under contemplation, or placed them together in the same situation, 
 as I do. Therefore I do not presume to dictate or impose my notions upon 
 others, nor desire any more regard or attention than one would readily give 
 to any common person, upon matters wherein he has been constantly con- 
 versant from his childhood ; nor even here do I wish my word might be 
 taken any farther than shall appear reasonable in the judgment of the hearer. 
 
 Many efforts have been made, as well by ancients as moderns, for inves- 
 tigating the principles of reason and establishing a solid structure of 
 morality ; and though they have all fallen short of the end proposed, yet 
 have they not entirely failed of success. The foundations indeed have not 
 yet been discovered or laid open to the view and satisfaction of all men ; 
 but much of the covering that obscured them has been from time to time 
 removed, and the hollowness of many spots whereon great labour used to be 
 wasted has been made appear. Mr. Locke in particular has contributed not 
 a little to facilitate the increase of knowledge, by pointing out the sources 
 and channels from whence it must be derived, and clearing away that in- 
 cumbrance of innate ideas, real essences, and such like rubbish, that obstructed 
 the searches of the studious formerly ; so that the reasonings of men are 
 become more accurate, more solid, and if one may so say, more reasonable, 
 than they were before. I cannot expect to run such lengths as he has 
 done ; but if 1 may advance one little step further in the way that he leads, or 
 suggest a single hint that may be improved by some abler hand for the real 
 benefit of mankind, I shall not think that I have laboured in vain nor lived 
 in vain. Whatever I may be able to do, I stand indebted to Mr, Lcoke for, 
 having learned from him which way to direct my observation, and how to 
 make use of what I observe. I should be proud of being thought to resemble 
 him, not as a copy but an imitation, endeavouring to catch the spirit of my 
 original, and then letting that spirit operate in its own manner. Every one 
 has something in his air and gait peculiar to himself; and if he goes to tread 
 scrupulously in the steps or assume the gestures of another, he will move 
 awkwardly and make very little progress. 
 
 But how high a veneration soever I may have for Mr. Locke, it does not 
 rise to an implicit faith, leaving me at liberty to dissent from him in some 
 few instances ; and as this happens very seldom, I am not sorry it does 
 happen at all, because it assures me that in other particulars I am not drawn 
 by the influence of a great name but by the force of conviction. In matters 
 of science, another may prepare the evidences and place them in their proper 
 light and order, but the decision ought always to be a man's own. But I
 
 INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 am never better pleased than when a difference, seemingly wide at first, 
 lessens by degrees, and at length vanishes upon a nearer inspection, and 
 entering more thoroughly into his ideas ; because then I find my judgment 
 tallied with his, even before I knew of it myself.- 
 
 And I receive the like proportionable satisfaction upon the like occasion 
 with respect to the opinions of others ; for I have so little the spirit of 
 contradiction, that I do not willingly disagree with anybody even in points 
 of speculation, but endeavour at all possible means of reconcilement. 
 I have too great a deference for the understandings of others, to believe 
 they ever embrace naked error uncovered with truth : therefore presume 
 the worst set of tenets must contain a mixture of something that is right, 
 or else they would not have gained credit. The business then is to sepa- 
 rate the sterling from the dross, or rather restore it to its original purity. 
 For however chimerical the transmutation of metals may have proved, 
 there is a transmutation of truth into falsehood : many propositions by 
 expositions, qualifications, or restrictions, maybe made either time or false: 
 perhaps most of the impositions upon mankind have been introduced into 
 the world by the perverse use of this art. If, then, I can transmute a 
 mischievous opinion back again into its primitive innocence, and I have 
 sometimes succeeded beyond expectation, I may lawfully use it as current 
 coin, and reckon it as a part of my stock in knowledge. My door stands 
 open to receive whatever valuable comes in from all quarters ; and as 
 different wares are deemed contraband by different powers, I am forced, in 
 defence of my property, to fight by turns on opposite sides of the same 
 question ; not as a Drawcansir, hewing down both friend and foe, but as a 
 mediator, labouring to reconcile jarring interests. By this practice of 
 joining in alliance with various parties, I take a tincture of those among 
 whom I converse ; so that it will be no wonder if I should be found here- 
 after adopting the sentiments, or talking in the strain of an enthusiast, 
 a bigot, a visionary, a sensualist, a freethinker, a sceptic ; yet, I hope, 
 without inconsistency or wavering of opinion. 
 
 Nor can anybody justly take scandal hereat. Those who place all in a 
 freedom of thought, will not surely blame me for giving a latitude to my 
 thoughts, and following whithersoever my judgment shall lead me : I will 
 not trouble them with anything I shall judge trifling, or of no use, or that 
 has not stood the test of my own examination. If I shall sometimes seem 
 to shake the main pillars of morality as well as religion, it will be only 
 when I conceive them slid off their proper basis upon the loose earth, in 
 order to restore them: in this case it is necessary to undermine the ground 
 whereon they stand, to make room for the levers whereby they may be 
 raised to a bottom where they may remain for ever firm and immoveable ; 
 nor shall I attempt to remove any until I have found a place fitter for their 
 reception and support. Those who maintain an established form of 
 doctrine can receive no injury from me. For whenever I consort with 
 them, as they may expect from my conformable temper will frequently 
 happen, they will have in me a competent witness to the reasonableness of 
 their doctrines, against whom no exception can be taken for prejudice or 
 partiality. And if I shall run into extravagances, they may draw an 
 argument from thence, to show the danger of trusting to our natural 
 strength alone : for if one who has constantly paid his court to reason from 
 his childhood, has had a liberal education and continual leisure, and ex- 
 amined every thing with coolness, care, and impartiality, yet misses of his 
 aim and bewilders himself in mazes, or lies entangled in absurdities, how
 
 6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 can it be expected, that the common herd of mankind, without preparation, 
 without thirst of knowledge, without command of their time, immersed hi 
 business, pleasures, or passions, and driven forcibly along by the torrent 
 of example, should ever strike out a complete rule of conduct or system of 
 opinion, without some better guidance than that of their own sagacity ? 
 
 Since, then, my attempt can draw no ill consequences, and should it do 
 no good will do no hurt, I may proceed without fear or scruple to such 
 exercise of my reason as I am capable of making. But reason cannot 
 work without materials, which must be fetched from nature ; and not all 
 nature neither, for the greatest part of her stores lie beyond our reach. Of 
 what stand within our ken, some we discern by immediate intuition, others 
 we gather by inference and long deductions of reasoning. It seems ex- 
 pedient then to begin with the things lying nearest to us, these being the 
 premises which must help us to investigate others more remote. Now 
 what is nearer to a man than himself, his sensations, thoughts, and actions ? 
 These, therefore, I purpose to examine in the first place, rather than hunt 
 after abstract notions or essences of good or evil; which can only be 
 discovered, if ever, from a careful observation of the former. In natural 
 philosophy, the experimental method is now universally preferred before 
 the hypothetic, as the surer and more effectual : the like method may be 
 practised in morality, with this only difference, that there is no occasion 
 to make experiments on purpose; for everything we see, or hear, or feel, 
 or do in our ordinary converse or common occurrences of life, are so many 
 experiments whereon to build our conclusions. From hence we may best 
 discover our own nature, as we can best discover the nature of bodies from 
 their operation ; and by diligently observing what we do, how we come to 
 act in such or such manner, together with the consequences and effects of 
 our actions, we shall be likely to lay the surest measures for our conduct, 
 and attain the clearest knowledge of what we ought to do. 
 
 Some have supposed with Plato, that moral and other qualities have an 
 existence of their own, distinct from that of the substances whereto they 
 belong ; that they may be clearly apprehended independently of the subject 
 possessing them ; that they are eternal and immutable, whereas all other 
 things fluctuate and vary, changing their forms perpetually ; therefore that 
 science must stand firmest which is built upon such an immoveable foun- 
 dation. I shall not stay now to examine the truth of this assertion : it is 
 enough to observe, that whatever independent existence may belong to 
 qualities, we can only come to the knowledge of them by the substances 
 wherein they inhere : nature exhibits nothing abstracted to our view ; the 
 abstract must be learned from the concrete. We should never have known 
 what whiteness was, had we not seen something white ; nor hardness, had 
 we not felt something hard. So neither could we have known what justice 
 or goodness were, had we not seen the actions of men, and observed how 
 their sentiments influence their behaviour. Besides, how solid a science 
 soever may be erected on ideal qualities, it rests hi speculation only, and 
 contributes nothing to our better accommodation, unless relating to such 
 qualities wherein mankind has some concern ; and what are of this kind 
 can only be ascertained by experience and observation. 
 
 From these sources, therefore, we must fetch our materials, and when 
 we have gotten competent store of them, I am so far from being an enemy 
 to abstract reasonings, that I shall pursue them as far as can be desired, 
 keeping an eye all along upon use, and correcting my theory from time to 
 time by a reference to facts. I am rather apprehensive of incurring censure
 
 INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 by pursuing them too far, or seeming to have forgotten or lost sight of 
 the main subject proposed; for I may probably spend a great deal of time 
 in metaphysical disquisitions before I mention a word either of morality or 
 religion. But the knowledge of religion and morality arises from the 
 knowledge of ourselves; at least, in my own private meditations I have 
 always found, that whenever I have endeavoured to trace them to their 
 first principles, they have led me to consider the nature of the mind. 
 This then we may look upon as the groundwork and foundation ; and he 
 that would have a firm superstructure must allow sufficient time for laying 
 the foundation well. While this is doing, we work underground : you 
 see we are very busy, but to what purpose is not so readily visible : no- 
 thing appears useful, nothing convenient, nothing serviceable for the pur- 
 poses of life. Have but patience until we come above ground, and then, 
 perhaps, you will see a plan arising that promises something habitable and 
 commodious, and which could not have stood secure without the pains we 
 have been taking underneath. Let it be observed further, that my archi- 
 tecture partakes of the military as well as the civil kind : I am not only 
 to build houses, churches, and markets, for the accommodation of life, 
 but fortifications too for repelling the attacks of an invader: and this must 
 be done substantially and begun early, for it will be too late to think of 
 making our outworks after the assailants have opened their trenches. 
 
 Perhaps I may enter deeper into metaphysical niceties than I should have 
 deemed requisite or allowable had not others done the like before me ; not 
 that the authority of example justifies whatever we can find a precedent for, 
 but the practice of others renders some things indispensable which were 
 needless in themselves. The profession of arms is an honourable, useful, 
 and necessary profession ; yet if all the world would agree to live without 
 soldiers, there would be no occasion for soldiers in the world at all : but 
 since neighbouring nations will keep their standing armies, we must do the 
 like, or shall lie liable to perpetual insults and invasions. So likewise the 
 common notices of our understanding might sufficiently answer all the 
 purposes we could expect from them, would all men agree to follow them 
 attentively : but since we shall meet with persons every now and then who 
 will be drawing us aside from the plain road of common sense into the 
 wilds of abstraction, it is expedient for us to get acquainted with the 
 country beforehand, to examine the turnings and windings of the labyrinth, 
 or else they will mislead and perplex us strangely. We have but one of 
 these two ways to secure ourselves against their artifices : either by resolv- 
 ing never to meddle with any subtilties at all, or by going through with 
 them. The same rule holds good here as we find given in poetry, Drink 
 deep, or taste not the Castalian spring ; for a large draught will often allay 
 the intoxication brought on by a small one. Wherefore your dabblers in 
 metaphysics are the most dangerous creatures breathing j they have just 
 abstraction enough to raise doubts that never would have entered into 
 another's head, but not enough to resolve them. 
 
 The science of abstruse learning, when completely attained, is like 
 Achilles' spear, that healed the wounds it had made before ; so this know- 
 ledge serves to repair the damage itself had occasioned ; and this perhaps 
 is all it is good for : it casts no additional light upon the paths of life, but 
 disperses the clouds with which it had overspread them before : it advances 
 not the traveller one step on his journey, but conducts him back again to 
 the spot from whence he had wandered. Thus the land of philosophy con- 
 tains partly an open champaign country, passable by every common under-
 
 8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 standing, and partly a range of woods, traversab'le only by the speculative, 
 and where they too frequently delight to amuse themselves. Since then 
 we shall be obliged to make incursions into this latter tract, and shall 
 probably find it a region of obscurity, danger, and difficulty, it behoves Us 
 to use our utmost endeavours for enlightening and smoothing the way 
 before us. 
 
 There seems to be no likelier method of answering this purpose than that 
 of Plato, if one could be so happy as to copy him : I mean, in his art of 
 illustrating and exemplifying abstruse notions by the most familiar instances 
 taken from common life, though sometimes of the lowest and basest kind. 
 We find him indeed rebuked, particularly in the Hippias, or Dialogue upon 
 Beauty, for introducing earthen crocks and pitchers into discourses upon 
 philosophy : and if the plainness of ancient times could not endure such 
 vulgar images, what quarter can we expect for them in this nice and refined 
 age ? But when one cannot do as one would, one must be content with 
 what one can : I shall pay so much respect to my contemporaries, as 
 never to offend their delicacy willingly ; therefore shall choose such illustra- 
 tions as may appear fashionable and courtly, as well as clear and luminous, 
 wherever I have the option ; but where I want skill to compass both, shall 
 hope for indulgence, if I prefer clearness and aptness before neatness and 
 politeness, and fetch comparisons from the stable or the scullery, when 
 none occur suitable to my purpose in the parlour or the drawing-room. 
 
 With respect to ornament of style, I would neither neglect nor principally 
 pursue it, esteeming solidity of much higher import than elegance, and the 
 latter valuable only as it renders the other more apparent. I pretend to 
 but one quality of the good orator, that of being more anxious for the suc- 
 cess of his cause than of his own reputation : but having observed that the 
 same matter meets a different reception according to the manner wherein it 
 is conveyed, and that ornaments properly disposed, and not overloaded, 
 make the substance more intelligible and inviting, I am desirous of putting 
 my arguments into the handsomest dress I can furnish, not for the sake of 
 show, but in order to gain them a more ready and more favourable ad- 
 mittance ; with the same view as a surgeon desires to have the finest polish 
 upon his lancets, not for the beauty of the instruments, but that they may 
 enter the easier and pierce the surer. 
 
 As for the laying down of my plan, and choice of the methods to be taken 
 in pursuit of it, those of course will be left to my own management, who 
 may be supposed better acquainted with the nature and particulars of my 
 design than a stranger. Therefore my reader, if I have any, will please to 
 suspend his judgment upon the several parts until he has taken a view of 
 the whole ; and even then I hope will not hastily pronounce every thing 
 superfluous, or tedious, or too refined, which he finds needless to himself ; for 
 I am to the best of my skill to accommodate every taste, and provide, not only 
 for the quick, the reasonable, and the easy, but for the dull, the captious, 
 and the profound. 
 
 There is the better encouragement to try the strength of reason upon 
 the subject of morality, because many judicious persons, Mr. Locke for one, 
 have pronounced it capable of demonstration equally with mathematics: 
 but how much soever morality may be demonstrable in its own nature, the 
 demonstration has hitherto been found impracticable, being prevented, I 
 conceive, by one main obstacle Mr. Locke has pointed out, that is, because 
 the ideas and terms belonging to it are more indistinct, unsettled, and 
 variable, than those of number or measure. The difference between ninety-
 
 INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 nine and a hundred is discernible to everybody, and as well known as that 
 between a hundred and a thousand ; no man calls that an inch which ano- 
 ther calls an ell ; nor does the same man sometimes conceive a yard to 
 contain three feet and sometimes four. But the case is far otherwise in the 
 language of ethics : if one receives contrary commands from two persons to 
 each of whom he owes an obligation, who can determine the preference 
 where the obligations bear so near a proportion as ninety-nine to a hundred? 
 What this man esteems an honour, the next accounts a disgrace ; and if the 
 same person were asked his idea of virtue, freewill, obligation, justice, or 
 favour, it is odds but he will vary in his notions at different times, nor ever 
 be able to fix upon a definition, himself will always abide by. Since then 
 we see what it is that hinders our moral and metaphysical reasonings from 
 proceeding with the same justness as our mathematical, let us endeavour to 
 remove the impediment by fixing a steady and determinate sense to our 
 terms ; for so far as we can compass this, so near shall we approach towards 
 the certainty of demonstration ; and I am persuaded that in cases of the 
 highest importance we may often arrive, if not at mathematical demon- 
 stration, yet at a degree of evidence that shall command as full and merit as 
 unreserved an assent. 
 
 This persuasion will lead me now and then to bestow more time than I 
 could wish upon the signification of words : such disquisitions, 1 fear, may 
 appear tedious and irksome to many, notwithstanding that no pains in my 
 power shall be spared to make them easy, smooth, and palatable ; but I hope 
 to find excuse in the absolute necessity of the thing. For without accuracy 
 of language it is impossible to convey a chain of close reasoning to others, 
 or even to be sure of carrying it on unbroken ourselves ; because we must 
 always deliver our conceptions by words, and for the most part we think 
 in words, that is, when we would recall an idea to our minds, the word 
 expressive of it generally occurs first to usher it in ; but if the word should 
 have shifted its meaning without our perceiving it, as too frequently hap- 
 pens, we shall run a hazard of drawing conclusions without a consequence. 
 There is not the same danger in mathematics, because the terms there 
 employed are either peculiar to that science, or such as constantly carry the 
 same precise idea upon all common occasions, as relating to objects under 
 cognizance of our senses. But ethics being chiefly, and metaphysics 
 entirely, conversant in ideas of reflection, of which we have greater mul- 
 titudes than words to express them, we are necessitated to use the same 
 mark for various significations : as in scoring at cards, where the counters 
 stand sometimes for units, sometimes for threes, fives, tens, or fifties, 
 according to their positions, or according to the game, be it whist, crib- 
 bage, or piquet. And yet the ideas in our reflection being fleeting and 
 transitory, passing to and fro, present before us this moment, and gone the 
 next, we have no other method of fixing them than by annexing them to 
 particular words. It is true the studious often affect to employ technical 
 terms, hoping thereby to escape the confusion incident to the language of 
 the vulgar : but these, being all either common words restrained to a par- 
 ticular sense, or else derived from words of general currency, partake in 
 some measure of the slippery and changeable quality of their primitives : 
 nor can even the thoughtful always agree with one another, or maintain a 
 consistency with themselves, in the application of their terms. 
 
 Wherefore in these sciences philology must go along with philosophy, 
 not as a partner or companion, but as an attendant or handmaid. For the 
 knowledge of things is our principal aim, and criticism no further than
 
 10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 shall be found expedient to secure our meditations against confusion, and 
 our discourses against misapprehension. I may think myself entitled to 
 the liberty others have taken of coining new words, or extending, re- 
 straining, or a little altering the signification of old ones ; but shall never 
 use this liberty so long as I can do without it. I would rather make it my 
 business to distinguish the various senses belonging to words already cur- 
 rent, as they stand in different expressions, or are employed upon dif- 
 ferent occasions : if this could be sufficiently remarked and borne in mind, 
 it would prevent mistakes as effectually as if every idea had a particular 
 name appropriated to itself alone. 
 
 I shall need great indulgence with respect to the manner of my per- 
 formance, wherein I fear will be found a degree of wildness and deviation 
 from the ordinary rules of composition : I was the less scrupulous in ad- 
 hering to them during the course of my work, as depending upon a subse- 
 quent revisal for setting matters to rights, but upon trial I perceive that 
 correction is not my talent : I have made some few additions in the first 
 part, as of two entire chapters, the first and the twentyfourth, the beginning 
 sections in that of the vehicles, the visit to Stahl in the vision, and the six 
 concluding sections of the last chapter ; but for the rest, am forced to give 
 out the first running off with very little alteration. This disappointment 
 falls the lighter, because what amendments I had hoped to make, would 
 have tended only to the better look and appearance of the work, for which 
 I am much less solicitous than for the substance. I do not pretend in- 
 sensibility to reputation ; but my first and principal wish is to be of some 
 little service to my fellow-creatures by suggesting some observations which 
 they may improve to their advantage ; and my greatest concern to avoid 
 doing hurt by misleading into notions of dangerous tendency. Under this 
 caution I must warn the reader against judging too hastily upon the last 
 chapter of this volume, for I should be very sorry to have him take his 
 idea of virtue from the very exceptionable figure wherein she is repre- 
 sented there. But he will please to observe that I proceed solely upon the 
 view of human nature, without any consideration of Religion or another 
 world, and will expect no completer edifice than can be erected upon such 
 scanty bottom : and that he may not sit down with a notion of my be- 
 lieving the plan of morality ought to lie upon no other ground, I entreat 
 his attention to the two concluding sections of that chapter ; from whence 
 he may augurate that I have a larger scheme in reserve, whereon my 
 building will make a very different appearance from what he sees it here ; 
 and possibly it may be shown in good time that I had my reasons for 
 drawing this imperfect sketch before I proceeded to designs more extensive. 
 I shall now begin to work upon my foundation, which was proposed to 
 be laid in human nature ; and having taken the line and plummet in hand, 
 shall look for directions in the contemplation of the mind, the manner 
 and causes of action, the objects affecting us, and their several ways of 
 operation.
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED. 
 
 HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 CHAP .1 
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 
 
 WHOEVER considers the frame and constitution of Man, must observe that 
 he consists of two parts, Mind and Body. And this division holds equally 
 good, whatever opinion we may entertain concerning the nature of the mind ; 
 for, be it an immaterial substance, be it a harmony, or be it a certain con- 
 figuration of corporeal particles, at all events it does not extend to the 
 whole of the human composition. There are several things within us which 
 cannot belong to the mind under any notion we may conceive of it j such 
 as the bones, the muscles, the sinews, the blood, the humours, and even the 
 limbs and organs of sensation, because, by losing some of these, we lose 
 nothing of our mind : when an arm is cut off, or an eye beat out, though 
 the man become less perfect, the mind remains entire as before ; the har- 
 mony is not dissolved, the mental compound disunited, or the spiritual 
 substance destroyed. 
 
 How variously soever we may think of the mind, every one will readily 
 acknowledge the body to be a very complicated machine, containing muscles, 
 tendons, nerves, organs of motion, organs of sensation, and a multitude of 
 other inferior parts. But with these we have no immediate concern ; our 
 purpose being principally to consider the mind, but the body with its mem- 
 bers no further than as they concur with the mind or serve as instruments 
 in the performance of its operations. 
 
 2. Now in pursuit of this inquiry we shall find it requisite to distinguish 
 between the faculties of the mind and the faculties of the man, of whom the 
 mind is only a part. For in all compounds there are some properties be- 
 longing to the parts separately, and others resulting from the composition 
 or joint action of the united parts. Thus, he that should describe the first 
 mover in one of those curious pieces of workmanship made to exhibit various 
 appearances by clock-work, would speak untruly in saying it had the pro- 
 perties of showing the time of the day or year, rising and setting of the 
 luminaries, courses of the planets, concert of the Muses, or dance of the 
 beasts after Orpheus, for these are all properties of the machine : the part 
 under consideration has no other property than to gravitate, if it be a weight, 
 or to expand, if it be a spring ; and this single quality of gravitation or 
 elasticity produces the various movements above mentioned, according to the 
 several works whereto at different times it is applied. 
 
 In like manner we hear of many faculties ascribed to man, such as
 
 12 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 
 
 walking, handling or speaking, hearing, seeing or feeling, which manifestly 
 do not belong to the mind, since it can exercise none of them without aid 
 of the body : we can neither walk without legs, handle without arms, nor 
 speak without a tongue; neither hear without ears, see without eyes, nor 
 touch without fingers. But though the mind has some share in the per- 
 formance of all these actions, yet the faculties it exerts are not so various 
 as the operations it produces : for it is by one and the same faculty of the 
 mind that we walk, handle, or speak, and by one and the same faculty that 
 we hear, see, or touch ; which faculty produces different effects according 
 to the different bodily organs whereto it is applied. 
 
 Nevertheless, there is this difference observable with respect to the mind 
 itself, that upon some occasions, as in walking, handling, speaking, it affects 
 and acts upon the body ; on others, as hearing, seeing, feeling, it is itself 
 affected and acted upon by the body. Hence we reasonably gather that the 
 mind possesses two faculties ; one by which we perform whatever we do, 
 and another by which we discern whatever presents itself to our apprehension. 
 The former has usually been styled the Will, and the latter the Under- 
 standing. 
 
 3. Faculty is the same as Power, or rather a particular sort of power; 
 being generally appropriated to those powers only which belong to animals. 
 We get our idea of power, says Mr. Locke, from the changes we see made 
 in things by one another ; upon seeing gold melted by the fire, we consider 
 a quality in the fire of changing the gold from a solid into a fluid state ; 
 and upon seeing wax blanched by the sun, we conceive the sun must have 
 a quality to alter the colour of the wax. But the same quality working 
 upon different subjects does not always produce the like effect, therefore, 
 that it ever does, appears owing to some quality in the subject whereon it 
 operates : thus, if gold melts in the fire, not only the fire must have a qua- 
 lity of melting, but the gold likewise a quality of being melted ; if wax 
 blanches in the sun, it is not enough that the sun possesses a quality of 
 blanching, but there must be a quality of being blanched in the wax. The 
 qualities of fire remain the same, whether you throw gold or clay into it ; 
 yet upon..casting in the latter no liquefaction will ensue, solely for want of 
 the quality of being liquified in this latter. These qualities are called Powers 
 in the writings of the studious, and distinguished into two kinds by the 
 epithets of active and passive powers ; both of which must concur in 
 producing every alteration that happens, to wit, an active power in the 
 agent to work the change, and a passive in the recipient to undergo it. 
 
 According to this distinction it will appear that of the two faculties of 
 the mind before spoken of, one is active and the other passive : for on 
 every exertion of our Will, the mind causes some motion, change oi situa- 
 tion, or alteration of the subject it acts upon ; and in every exercise of our 
 understanding, the mind passes either from a state of insensibility to a 
 state of discernment, or from one kind of discernment to another, as from 
 sights to sounds, or tastes or reflections, according to the variety of objects 
 that act upon it. 
 
 4. We readily enough conceive ourselves active in the exertions of our 
 Will, but by the common turn of our language we seem to claim an ac- 
 tivity in the exercises of our understanding too; for we generally express 
 them by active verbs, such as to discern, to see, to observe, and apply 
 the passives of those very verbs to the objects when we say they are dis- 
 cerned, seen, observed ; all which carry an import of something done by 
 ourselves and something suffered by the objects from us. Yet a very little
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 13 
 
 consideration may show us, that in all sensations at least the objects are 
 agents and ourselves the patients. For what is sight but an impression of 
 things visible upon our eyes and by them conveyed to the mind ? what is 
 sound but the percussion of air upon our ears and thence transmitted 
 through the like conveyance? In all these cases the sensations are caused 
 by bodies without us, and are such as the respective bodies are fitted to 
 produce: the mind can neither excite nor avoid nor change them in any 
 manner; it can neither see blue in a rose nor hear the sound of a trumpet 
 from a drum, but remains purely passive to take whatever happens to it 
 from external objects. Nor is the case different in hunger and thirst, the 
 pleasant feel of health or uneasiness of distempers, though proceeding 
 from internal causes ; for nobody can doubt of these sensations being 
 raised by the humours or some parts of our body, which though within 
 the man yet lie without the mind; and, therefore, with respect to that are 
 truly external agents. 
 
 5. Thus it appears evidently that we are passive in sensation of every 
 kind : but the matter is not quite so plain in the business of reflection, 
 which the mind seems to carry on entirely upon its own fund, without aid 
 of the body, without intervention of the senses or impression of any thing 
 external, acting solely and immediately in and upon itself. 
 
 Yet supposing the mind acts in this manner, it does not prove the un- 
 derstanding to be active herein, it proves only that the mind is both 
 agent and patient at once. As a man who after holding his right band 
 to the fire claps it upon his left, although active in the motion of one 
 hand, is nevertheless passive in feeling warmth with the other ; for what- 
 ever power he may have to move his hands, it would signify nothing if he 
 had no feeling. So admitting that the mind furnishes its own thoughts in 
 and from itself, although it acts in producing the thoughts, nevertheless 
 is it passive in discerning them when produced ; for whatever power it 
 may have to generate reflections, all will avail nothing without a power of 
 discernment. 
 
 But we may justly question whether the supposition above made be true 
 in fact, whether the same thing ever does act wholely and solely upon 
 itself, or whether the notion of action does not require two substances, 
 one to act and the other to be acted upon. I know we are often said to 
 perform actions upon ourselves, as when Cato slew himself at Utica ; but 
 he did it with a sword, therefore his action was exerted upon that, and he 
 was passive in receiving the wound made by the sword. And if a mother, 
 upon the loss of her child, beats her breast in despair, neither is this an 
 acting of one thing upon itself, although she uses no instrument ; for 
 every compound is one in imagination only, in nature and reality it is as 
 many things as the component parts it contains : because the hand which 
 strikes and the breast which suffers are parts of the same woman, therefore 
 we may say she beats herself; but consider them separately, and the hand 
 will appear as individually and numerically distinct from the breast as if 
 they had belonged to different persons. And if we transfer our expression 
 from the whole to the parts, we shall find ourselves obliged to change the 
 form of it : for though we may say the woman beats herself, we cannot 
 say the same either of the hand or the breast. In short, it seems to me 
 difficult to frame a conception of any one individual thing acting imme- 
 diately and directly upon itself, or without some instrument or medium in- 
 tervening between the power exerted and effect produced thereby. 
 
 6. But this abstruse reasoning from the nature and essence of action
 
 14 FACULTIES OF THE MIND, 
 
 may not satisfy everybody, as it may not be understood by some and not 
 agreed to by others ; the conceptions of men, in their abstract notions 
 especially, being widely different. Let us therefore consider what passes 
 in our minds in the work of reflection, in order to try whether we can 
 gather any lights towards determining the question from experience. And 
 this will furnish us with numberless instances wherein reflections intrude 
 upon the mind whether we will or no : a recent loss, a cruel disappoint- 
 ment, a sore vexation, an approaching enjoyment, a strong inclination, an 
 unexpected success, often force themselves upon our thoughts against our 
 utmost endeavours to keep them out. Upon all these occasions the mind 
 shows evident marks of passiveness, the Will wherein its activity lies being 
 strongly set a contrary way : it suffers violence, and that violence must be 
 offered by something else, for it cannot be suspected here of acting upon 
 itself, the action produced being directly opposite to that it would have, 
 and the state whereinto it is thrown the very reverse of what it wishes : 
 when it wishes content, it is overwhelmed with anxiety and disquiet like a 
 torrent ; and when it would rest in calmness, passion, expectation and im- 
 patience rush upon it like an armed giant. 
 
 7. The same experience testifies of other reflections coming upon us 
 without though not against our Will. How many fancies, conceits, trans- 
 actions, observations, and I may say, arguments, criticisms and measures 
 of conduct, shoot into our thoughts without our seeking ? If we go 
 abroad on one errand, another suddenly occurs ; visiting such a friend, 
 buying such a trifle, seeing such a sight that lies opportunely in our way. 
 When a man coming off from a journey throws himself carelessly into an 
 easy chair, and being desirous of nothing but rest, falls into a reverie, 
 what a variety of objects pass muster in his imagination ! The prospects 
 upon the road, occurrences happening to him, his acquaintance at home, 
 their faces, characters, conversations, histories, what he has seen, 
 what he has done, what he has thought on during his journey or at other 
 times. His mind remaining all the while half asleep, for though the 
 understanding wakes, the Will in a manner doses, without preference of 
 one thing before another, without attention to any particular part of the 
 scene, but suffering all to come and go as it happens. Can the mind in 
 this indolent posture be said to act upon itself when it does not act at all ? 
 Yet ideas innumerable are produced, which must necessarily proceed from 
 the act of some other agent extrinsic to the mind and individually distinct 
 from it. 
 
 8. Let us now consider voluntary reflection, such as recollecting, study- 
 ing, meditating, reasoning, deliberating, and the like, wherein the mind 
 from time to time calls upon the thoughts it wants, and is if ever both 
 agent and patient in the same act. Yet even here, if we examine the 
 matter closely, we shall find that the mind does not call up all our 
 thoughts directly by its own immediate command, but seizes on some clue 
 whereby it draws in all the rest. In meditation, though we choose our 
 subject, we do not choose the reflections from time to time occurring 
 thereupon. In reasoning, we seek after some conclusion which we cannot 
 obtain without help of the premises ; or hit upon some discovery, a 
 stranger to our thoughts before, and therefore not under our obedience. 
 Deliberation and investigation are like the hunting of a hound ; he moves 
 and sniffs about by his own activity, but the scent he finds is not laid, nor 
 the trail he follows drawn by himself. The mind only begins a train of 
 thinking or keeps it in one particular track, but the thoughts introduce
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 15 
 
 one another successively. I believe few persons, how well acquainted 
 soever with Virgil, can repeat the second line of his ^Eneid with- 
 out beginning with the first : we see here the second line brought to 
 our remembrance, not by the mind, but by the first line, which therefore 
 must be deemed a distinct agent or instrument employed by the mind in 
 bringing the second to our memory. Whoever will carefully observe what 
 he does when he sets himself down to study, may perceive that he pro- 
 duces none of the thoughts passing in his mind, not even that which he 
 uses as the clue to bring in all the others ; he first withdraws his attention 
 from sensible objects, nor does he then instantly enter upon his work; 
 some little time must be given for reflection to begin its play, which pre- 
 sently suggests the purpose of his inquiries to his remembrance and some 
 methods of attaining it; that which appears most likely to succeed, he 
 fixes his contemplation upon, and follows whithersoever that shall lead, or 
 checks his thoughts from time to time when he perceives them going 
 astray, or stops their course if he finds it ineffectual, and watches for its 
 falling into some new train ; for imagination will be always at work, and if 
 restrained from roving in all that variety of sallies it would make of its own 
 accord, it will strike into any passages remaining open. Therefore we may 
 compare our student to a man who has a river running through his grounds 
 which divides into a multitude of channels : if he dams up all the rest, the 
 stream will flow in the one he leaves open ; if he finds it breaking out into 
 side branches, he can keep it within bounds by stopping up the outlets ; if 
 he perceives the course it takes ineffectual for his purpose, he can throw a 
 mound across, and let it overflow at any gap he judges convenient. The 
 water runs by its own strength without any impulse from the man, and 
 whatever he does to it, will find a vent somewhere or other : he may turn, 
 alter or direct its motion, but neither gave nor can take it away. So 
 it is with our thoughts, which are perpetually working so long as we wake, 
 and sometimes longer, beyond our power to restrain : we may control 
 them, divert them into different courses, conduct them this way or that, as 
 we deem requisite, but can never totally prevent them from moving. 
 Which shows they have a motion of their own independent of the mind, 
 and which they do not derive from its action, nor will lay aside upon its 
 command. 
 
 9. We may remark further that the mind cannot always call up those 
 thoughts which for the most part lie ready to appear at our summons. 
 How often do we endeavour in vain to recollect a name, a transaction, a 
 circumstance, we know extremely well ? How often do we try to study 
 without.effect, to deliberate with various success, and perplex ourselves with 
 difficulties we have heretofore made nothing of ? Sometimes we find our- 
 selves totally incapable of application to any thing ; sometimes unapt for 
 one kind of exercise but ready at another : mathematics, ethics, history, 
 poetry, business, amusements, have their several seasons wherein the 
 thoughts run more easily into each of them than any other way. Which 
 affords a strong presumption that the mind employs some instrument, 
 which when not at hand or unfit for service it cannot work at all, nor 
 pursue the train of thought it attempts. 
 
 The more narrowly we examine our procedure in all exercises of the 
 understanding, the more firmly we shall be persuaded that the mind uses a 
 medium by whose ministry it obtains what it wants. Both in sensation 
 and reflection of our own procuring, the mind acts upon the medium and 
 that again acts upon the mind : for as in reading we only open the book,
 
 16 FACULTIES OF THE MIND, 
 
 but the page presents the words contained in it to our sight : so in think- 
 ing we set our imagination to work, which exhibits appearances to our 
 discernment. 
 
 10. If we go about to examine what those mediums are we find so 
 necessary to the mind, it will presently occur that the ideas floating in our 
 imagination are to be ranked among the mediums : and it may be worth 
 while to bestow a little consideration upon these ideas. 
 
 We use idea sometimes for the very discernment the mind has of some 
 object or thought passing in review before it, and sometimes more pro- 
 perly for the thing or appearance so discerned. It is obvious that when I 
 speak of ideas as mediums, I must understand them in the latter sense ; 
 not as effects produced in the understanding, but as causes immediately 
 producing them. 
 
 Idea is the same as image, and the term imagination implies a receptacle of 
 images : but image being appropriated by common use to visible objects, 
 could not well be extended to other things without confusion ; wherefore 
 learned men have imported the Greek word idea, signifying image or 
 appearance, to which, being their own peculiar property, they might affix as 
 large a signification as they pleased. For the image of a sound or of good- 
 ness would have offended our delicacy, but the idea of either goes down 
 glibly : therefore idea is the same with respect to things in general as 
 image with respect to objects of vision. 
 
 In order to render the notion of ideas clearer, let us begin with images. 
 When a peacock spreads his tail in our sight, we have a full view of the 
 creature with all his gaudy plumage before us : the bird remains at some 
 distance, but the light reflected from him paints an image upon our eyes, 
 and the optic nerves transmit it to the sensory. This image, when arrived 
 at the ends of the nerves, becomes an idea and gives us our discernment of 
 the animal ; and after the bird is gone out of view, we can recal the idea of 
 him to perform the same office as before, though in a duller and fainter 
 manner. So when the nightingale warbles, the sound reaches our ears, and 
 passing through the auditory nerves, exhibits an idea affecting us with the 
 discernment of her music : and after she has given over singing, the same 
 idea may recur to our remembrance or be raised again by us at pleasure. 
 In like manner our other senses convey ideas of their respective kinds, 
 which recur again to our view long after the objects first exciting them 
 have been removed. 
 
 These ideas having entered the mind, intermingle, unite, separate, throw 
 themselves into various combinations and postures, and thereby generate 
 new ideas of reflection, strictly so called, such as those of comparing, 
 dividing, distinguishing, of abstraction, relation, with many others : all 
 which remain with us as a stock for our further use upon future occasions. 
 1 1 . Here perhaps I shall be put in mind that I have before supposed 
 two substances necessarily concurring in every action, one to act, and the 
 other to be acted upon ; and thereupon asked whether I conceive ideas to 
 be substances. To which I answer, No : but as such answer will seem to 
 imply a contradiction, the only agents in the business of reflection being 
 ideas which nevertheless are not substances, I shall be called upon to 
 reconcile it. 
 
 For which purpose I shall have recourse again to the image employed 
 before. When we look upon a peacock, what is that image conveyed to 
 us considered in the several stages through which it passes ? Not any 
 thing brought away by the light from the bird, and thrown in upon us
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 17 
 
 through our organs, but a certain disposition of the rays striking upon our 
 eyes, a certain configuration of parts arising in our retina, or a certain 
 motion excited thereby in our optic nerves : which disposition, configura- 
 tion, and motion, are not substances, but accidents in ancient dialect, or 
 modifications according to modern philosophers. But accident or modifi- 
 cation cannot exist by itself, it must have some substance to inhere in or 
 belong to, which substance is indeed the agent upon all occasions. Never- 
 theless we commonly ascribe the action to the modification, because what 
 kind it shall be of depends entirely upon that : for the same rays, the same 
 retina, the same nerves, differently modified by the impulse of external 
 objects, might have served to convey the image of an owl or a bear, or any 
 other animal to our discernment. Therefore that last substance, what- 
 ever it be, which immediately gives us the sensation, is the agent acting 
 upon our mind in all cases of vision : and in like manner that something 
 so or so modified which presents to our discernment, is the agent in all 
 cases of mental reflection, which modification we call our idea : but because 
 we know nothing more of the substance than the operation it performs, 
 therefore if we would speak to be understood, we can say no otherwise 
 than that the idea is the thing we discern. 
 
 What those substances are whereof our ideas are the modification, 
 whether parts of the mind as the members are of our body, or contained 
 in it like wafers in a box, or enveloped by it like fish in water, as many 
 expressions current in use might lead us to imagine, whether of a spiri- 
 tual, corporeal, or middle nature between both, I need not now ascertain ; 
 nor indeed can I until the sequel of our inquiries in the progress of this 
 work shall by degress have brought us better acquainted with some par- 
 ticulars relating to them. All I mean at present to lay down is this. 
 That in every exercise of the understanding, that which discerns is nume- 
 rically and substantially distinct from that which is discerned : and that an 
 act of understanding is not so much our own proper act as the act of 
 something else operating upon us. 
 
 12. After all that has been said, I think we may look upon the passivity 
 of the understanding as fully established. But active power alone, says 
 Mr. Locke, is properly power : and however men of thought and reading 
 may suppose two powers necessary to effect every alteration, an active in 
 the agent to work the change, and a passive in the recipient to undergo it ; 
 men of common apprehensions cannot find this power in the latter. If 
 they see one man beat another, they readily enough discern a power in 
 him that beats, but they cannot so easily conceive the other's defeat owing 
 to his power of being beaten, which they rather look upon as weakness 
 and defect of power. So when they see gold melt in the fire, they ascribe 
 the melting to an inability in the gold to resist the force of fire, as stone 
 or clay, or other fixed bodies might do, which have a stronger power to 
 hold their parts together. 
 
 If Faculty be derived from Facility, it implies active power, and that 
 in the highest degree ; for if I with much ado can heave up a huge folio 
 upon an upper shelf, my servant who can toss it up with facility must 
 have a much greater degree of strength ; and probably this term was 
 pitched upon to denote the surprising agility and readiness shown by the 
 mind upon most occasions, as well of acting as discerning. The term 
 Faculty I believe has been generally applied by most men to the under- 
 standing, nor do I wonder it should, because we do not minutely consider 
 
 VOL. i. c
 
 18 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 
 
 the progress of action nor the stages through which it passes ; therefore 
 when we observe the same action beginning and ending in the same thing, 
 and do not take notice of any medium or instrument employed to carry it 
 on, we naturally conceive the same thing acting upon itself. But there is 
 a distinction between an immediate and a remote effect : I never denied 
 that the mind acts upon itself remotely, I know it does so very frequently 
 both in procuring sensation and reflection. For what is reading, heark- 
 ening, singing, tasting a sweetmeat, warming our hands at the fire, but 
 sensations excited in the mind from something done by itself ? When we 
 read, the opening the book, turning to the proper page, running our eyes 
 along the lines, and fixing our attention thereupon, are our own acts; and 
 the sight of the words and sense of the author conveyed thereby are of our 
 own discernment. When we study, it is we ourselves who pat our ima- 
 gination into a posture for thinking, and the reflections, determination, or 
 discovery resulting therefrom, are effects produced in ourselves. 
 
 Besides that the measure of our understandings gives scope to the range 
 of our wills ; men of duller apprehension cannot perform many things 
 which those of quicker apprehensions can : perhaps the difference really 
 lies in the instrument we have to use, but is commonly supposed in the 
 mind itself. Therefore the extent of our active powers depending upon 
 the sensibility of our understanding, this is deemed a part of them, and 
 denominated by the same appellation ; for being found to have a share in 
 the performance of our actions, because they could not be performed with- 
 out it, it lays claim to the title of an active power. 
 
 Thus we see the mind invested according to common conception with 
 two powers ; but in philosophical strictness, and in propriety of speech, if 
 we may take Mr. Locke's judgment of that propriety, it has only one 
 power, namely the Will, and one capacity, namely the Understanding. 
 Yet as I find them both sometimes termed powers, as well by Mr. Locke 
 as by other writers upon this subject, I shall comply with the prevailing 
 custom, and make no scruple to speak of our passive power and acts of 
 the understanding, as I see no inconvenience therein ; having already de- 
 clared my opinion that they are truly passions of the mind, and acts of 
 something else. 
 
 13. But I cannot be quite so complaisant with respect to names given 
 the~faculties, as I apprehend great mischiefs arising therefrom ; for being 
 terms of common currency we shall find it very difficult, perhaps impos- 
 sible, at all times to disjoin them from the sense generally affixed to them 
 by custom : which frequently ascribes acts that do not belong to them, or 
 acts of one to the other, or complicated acts wherein both concur jointly 
 to either singly. By which means we shall run a great hazard of per- 
 plexing ourselves, and talking unintelligibly to others, or what is worse, of 
 making syllogisms with four terms, and thereby leading both into mistakes. 
 
 Observe how men express themselves as well in their serious discourses 
 as in their ordinary conversation, and you will see them appropriating the 
 term understanding to that knowledge, skill, or judgment, resulting from 
 experience in particular things : as when they talk of understanding such 
 a language, of a divine understanding the Scriptures, a lawyer the 
 statutes, a painter colours, or a mealman the different goodness of corn in 
 a market. If any one asks, Sir, do you understand this paragraph in a 
 book, he does not mean Can you read it, but Do you know the sense of 
 it ? if he asks whether you understand the bell, he does not inquire whe- 
 ther you hear it, but whether it rings to breakfast or chaj-el. Whereas
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 19 
 
 seeing the letters of a paragraph and hearing the sound of a bell are acts 
 of the faculty as much as understanding the drift of them : and the same 
 objects convey their sensations to the novice, if his senses be perfect, as 
 fully though not so usefully as to the man of skill. When we improve or 
 enlarge our understanding by learning, we do nothing to our faculty, for 
 that we must take as nature gave it us ; nor can any application increase 
 or diminish our natural talents ; we can only lay in a larger stock of ma- 
 terials for them to work upon. Like a man who cuts down a wood to 
 extend his prospect, he does nothing to his eyes nor encreases their power 
 of vision, but only opens a larger field for them to expatiate in. 
 
 So what we call exercises of our understanding are in reality exercises 
 of our reason, not the single act of either, but the joint work of both 
 faculties; such as reading, composing, deliberating, contriving, and the 
 like, wherein the mind employs both her powers and certain instruments 
 besides in a series of actions tending to some end proposed. Whereas 
 every notice of our senses, every wild imagination, every start of fancy, 
 every transient object or thought exercises our faculty. What need divines 
 and philosophers exhort us perpetually to use our understandings ? Their 
 admonitions were superfluous if they meant the faculty, for this we use 
 without ceasing while awake, nor can we choose but do so. The little 
 master playing at pushpin uses his faculty, for that discovers to him the 
 situation of the pins, and thereby directs his fingers how to shove one 
 across another. When Miss Gawky lolls out at window for hours toge- 
 ther to see what passes in the street, she uses her faculty all the while; 
 for by that she discerns the coaches going by, a woman wheeling potatoes 
 in a barrow, or a butcher's apprentice with a dog carrying his empty tray 
 before him. How oddly would it sound to say this pretty trifler makes as 
 much use of her understanding as the laborious patriot, who spends his 
 time and himself in contriving schemes for the public good ? Yet we 
 cannot deny her this honour if we speak of the faculty, for both equally 
 furnish that with constant employment. How shall we take these expres- 
 sions, A man of no understanding, or That has lost his understanding? 
 for the veriest idiot or madman, if he can see and hear and remember and 
 fancy, possesses the faculty of discerning objects in such manner as his 
 senses convey them or his imagination represents them. 
 
 14. So likewise the term Will in common acceptation stands for some- 
 thing very different from our active power, as appears evidently by our 
 frequently talking of doing things unwillingly or against our Wills : for 
 the mind has one only active power whereby it brings to pass whatever it 
 performs, nor is it possible to do any one thing without exerting that ; 
 therefore it would be highly absurd to talk of acting without or against 
 our Will in this sense. But by acting against our Will we mean against 
 the liking, against the grain, against the inclination, which being observed 
 to set us commonly at work, for we do most of our actions because we like 
 them, hence the cause is mistaken for the effect, and the liking gets the 
 name of the power operating to attain it : and if we find inclination draw- 
 ing one way and obligation or some cogent necessity driving another, our 
 compliance with the latter we call acting against our Will. 
 
 If we view this compliance separately in its own light, this also appears 
 to us an act of our Will. Suppose a girl, living with some relation from 
 whom she has large expectations, invited to a ball which she would go to 
 with all her heart, but the old lady thinks it improper; therefore she stays 
 
 " c 2
 
 20 FACULTIES OF THE MIND, 
 
 at home, and says she does it sorely against her Will. Ask her whether 
 anybody could have hindered if she had resolved positively upon going. 
 No, says she, but to be sure I would not go when I knew it must have 
 disobliged my aunt : I should have been a great fool if I had. You see 
 here by saying I would not go, she looks upon the staying at home as an 
 act of her Will, and thus the Will appears to act against itself; which 
 were impossible if Will stood for the same thing in both sentences. This 
 leads us to another sense of the word wherein it signifies a dictate of pru- 
 dence, a judgment or decision of the understanding, whose office it is, not 
 that of the Will, to discern the expedience and propriety of measures pro- 
 posed for our conduct. But because our judgment many times influences 
 our actions, and perhaps we flatter ourselves it does so always, therefore 
 we denominate it our Will, by a like mistake of the cause for the power 
 working the effect. 
 
 Do not we frequently join will and pleasure together as synonymous 
 terms ? Now not to insist that pleasure is no action but a feeling of the 
 mind, we use this expression upon occasions wherein it cannot relate to 
 our active power. It is his Majesty's will and pleasure that the parliament 
 should assemble : what has this to do with the faculty of the King ? the 
 members must come by their own activity ; they derive no motion, nor 
 power of motion from the crown. Oh! but the King must do some act 
 whereby to signify his pleasure, or they will not know what to do in obedi- 
 ence thereto. Who doubts it ? But when we speak of will and pleasure 
 we do not understand the act of declaring, nor any power exerted to per- 
 form it, but the thing so declared; and what is that but the royal judgment 
 that such assembling will be for his service. 
 
 When we are called upon to curb, to restrain, to deny our Wills, what 
 are we to understand by these exhortations ? or how shall we go about to 
 practise them ? Why by resolving strongly not to let our Will have its 
 bent. But is it in our power to resolve ? Yes, you may pluck up a reso- 
 lution if you will take pains. This Will then whereby we form the resolu- 
 tion must be different from that we control : which carries an appearance 
 of two Wills, one counteracting the other. Hence Man has been often 
 represented as containing two persons within him : the old man and the 
 new, the flesh and the spirit, reason and passion, the intellectual and sen- 
 sitive soul, Plato's charioteer and pair of horses ; each having a Will of 
 its own, perpetually thwarting, contending, and struggling with each other, 
 sometimes one getting the direction of our actions and sometimes the other. 
 Nevertheless when we reflect that these actions are all of our own perform- 
 ance, we are at a nonplus to determine which of these Wills is our own, 
 and which of these persons ourselves. 
 
 15. To get rid of the ambiguity clinging to vulgar terms, the words 
 Volition and Velleity have been coined, and applied, one to that Will 
 which gets the mastery, and the other to that controlled thereby. Thus 
 the young lady who excused herself from the invitation had a velleity to 
 go, but a volition to stay away. But velleity can scarce be called a power, 
 for a power which never operates is no power at all : Velleity gives birth 
 to none of our motions, it may strive and struggle a little, but volition 
 always carries the day. Our actions constantly follow our volition, such 
 as that is such are they, and what action of those in our power we shall 
 perform depends solely thereupon. Yet neither can we deem volition the 
 same as power, since the one may be where the other is not : a man who 
 sits still may have the power to walk, but he has not the volition, and that
 
 FACULTIES OF THE MIND. 21 
 
 is the only reason why he does not walk. Again, our powers, as Mr. 
 Locke has shown, are indifferent to every action within their compass: hut 
 a perfect indifference is no volition, it produces nothing but a total indo- 
 lence nor does volition come until the mind exerts itself upon something. 
 Therefore volition is not so much a power as the turn or direction of our 
 power upon particular occasions : just as the turn of the wind is not a 
 power, but only the direction the wind takes at any time. Yet the clouds 
 constantly follow the turn of the wind, such as that is such are their 
 courses, and it depends solely thereupon to determine whether they shall 
 travel to the east or to the west, to the north or to the south : neverthe- 
 less, nobody can think the turn of the wind is the force or power by which 
 the wind carries the clouds along. 
 
 16. Nor does there want room to believe that the double sense of the 
 word understanding has given rise to many disputes, Whether the Will 
 always follows the last act of the understanding or no. For observing 
 that we are generally prompted to action by something we discern pleasant 
 or expedient, and being taught to look upon every discernment as an ex- 
 ertion of the understanding faculty, we conceive our motions governed by 
 our understanding. Then again finding that common usage, the standard 
 of language, has appropriated understanding to knowledge, judgment, 
 reason, the result of thought or experience from which we too frequently 
 and notoriously swerve in our conduct, we bewilder ourselves in mazes 
 without ever coming to an issue. And when we canvass the point with 
 one another, whichever side of the question we take, it will be easy for an 
 antagonist to produce expressions from authors or persons of undoubted 
 credit proving the contrary. Nor shall we be able to satisfy our opponent 
 or ourselves, because we cannot settle what is properly an act of the un- 
 derstanding, and whether it be the same with an act of the faculty. 
 
 Mr. Locke complains of the faculties being spoken of and represented 
 as so many distinct agents : not that I suppose any body ever seriously be- 
 lieved them such, but by talking frequently of the understanding, discerning, 
 judging, representing things to the mind or determining the Will, and of 
 the Will obeying or disobeying the understanding, or directing our active 
 powers, we slide insensibly into an imagination or temporary persuasion of 
 their being agents, and proceed in our reasonings upon that supposition, 
 which must necessarily many times mislead and confound us. But neither 
 he nor I can descry any other agent in the mind besides the mind itself: 
 nor can I distinguish any more than two steps in the action of the mind, 
 the discerning what is to be done, and the doing it ; or any more than 
 three substances concerned in the whole process, the object, the mind, and 
 the subject whereon it operates. Thus when upon seeing an orange tossed 
 at your head, you instantly hold up your hand to save your face : the orange 
 is the object, the mind is the discerner and sole actor upon your hand, 
 which is the subject. Or more accurately, the further end of the optic 
 nerve, or that other substance, if any such there be, whereof the idea of 
 the orange is the modification, we call the object ; and that inner end of 
 some nerve or other nearer substance employed by the mind in moving the 
 arm, is the subject. 
 
 17. Perhaps I may be thought too nice in the last part of this expla- 
 nation, but there are folks who push their refinements a bar's length be- 
 yond me, and draw out the process of action much farther than I can pre- 
 tend to. For besides our active power, they in their great bounty give us 
 an elective power too, without which the former cannot wag a finger ; and
 
 22 ACTION. 
 
 according to their way of discoursing, the matter seems to stand thus. 
 Understanding and passion, like two council, plead their causes on opposite 
 sides, while the Will, an arbitrary monarch, sits umpire between them, 
 and by virtue of its prerogative or elective power gives the preference to 
 either as it pleases, without regard to the weight of their arguments, or 
 creates a new preference not suggested by either : this being done, the bill 
 goes to the understanding, which discerning the preference so given, pro- 
 nounces it good, and adds the sanction of its judgment thereto : then it 
 returns back to the volition where it receives the royal assent, and is from 
 thence transmitted to the active powers as officers of government in order 
 to be carried into immediate execution. 
 
 Wherefore in hopes of escaping all these perplexities, I shall crave leave 
 to call the faculties by other names, to wit, the active power, or simply 
 power, activity or energy of the mind, and the passive power, perceptivity 
 or discernment : for I think these cannot be mistaken for agents having 
 powers of their own, nor for instruments distinct from the mind, and em- 
 ployed by it in the performance of its works. Nevertheless, as one is 
 never more easily understood than when using the language current in 
 vogue, I shall not totally discard the old terms Understanding, Will, and 
 Volition, nor scruple applying them to the faculties as often as I can do it 
 safely, and when the occasion introducing or context accompanying them 
 shall ascertain their meaning beyond all dangers of misapprehension. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 ACTION. 
 
 I HAVE heard of a formal old gentleman who, finding his horse uneasy 
 under the saddle, alighted and called to his servant in the following man- 
 ner. Tom, take off the saddle which is upon my bay horse and lay it 
 upon the ground, then take the saddle from thy grey horse, and put it upon 
 my bay horse, lastly, put the other saddle upon thy grey horse. The fellow 
 gaped all this while at this long peachment, and at last cried out, Lack a- 
 day, Sir, could not you have said at once, Change the saddles ? We see 
 here how many actions are comprised under those three little words, 
 Change the saddles, and yet the master, for all his exactness, did not par- 
 ticularize the tenth part of them ; lifting up the flap of the saddle, pulling 
 the strap, raising the tongue, drawing out the buckle, taking up the 
 saddle, pulling it towards him, stooping to lay it down, lifting up his body 
 again, and so forth. But had he stayed to enumerate all the steps his man 
 must take in executing his orders, they would not have got home by 
 dinner time. Therefore expedience recommends compendious forms of 
 speech for common use, and puts us often upon expressing a long course of 
 action by a single word, else we could make no dispatch in our discourses 
 with one another : for were we to describe all the motions we make in any 
 business transacted, we must spend more time in the narrative than we 
 did in the performance. 
 
 But our horseman, though by far too minute and circumstantial for the 
 fine gentleman, was not enough so for the philosopher. Whoever would 
 penetrate into the nature of things, must not take them in the lump, but 
 examine their several parts and operations separately. The anatomist,
 
 ACTION. 23 
 
 when he would teach you the structure of the human body, does not content 
 himself with telling you it has head, limbs, body, and bowels, for this you 
 knew before and was knowledge enough for common occasions : he lays 
 open the muscles, injects the veins, traces the nerves, examines the glands, 
 their strainers, vessels, and tunicles. And the naturalist goes further, he 
 describes the little bladders whereof every fibre consists, their communica- 
 tion with one another, the nitro-aerious fluid pervading them, distending 
 their coats, thereby shortening the string and producing muscular motion. 
 Thus to become intimately acquainted with our mind we must, as I may 
 say, dissect it, that is, analyze action into its first constituent parts. The 
 action of the Drama or Epopee, the critics say must be one and entire, 
 or the performance will prove defective. To that of a play they allow the 
 compass of a natural day ; that of the Iliad takes in, I think, twenty-nine 
 days, and that of the yEneid six years. We may look upon actions of this 
 enormous bulk till we are tired without learning anything from thence con- 
 cerning the structure of the mind : let us therefore consider what is truly and 
 properly a single action, and try how far that will help us in our researches. 
 
 2. A single action I take to be so much as we can perform at once, for 
 the present moment only lies in our power nor does our activity reach any 
 farther. What our future actions shall be, depends upon our future voli- 
 tions ; we may determine and resolve long beforehand, but it is well known 
 our resolutions frequently change, and when the time of execution comes, 
 we shall do what is then in our minds, not what we had there before, if the 
 two happen to differ. 
 
 I will not pretend to calculate how many actions we may perform in any 
 given space of time, as some have computed how many particles of air 
 would lie in an inch : but certainly the motions of our mind are extremely 
 quick. When upon finding yourself thirsty in a sultry day you snatch up 
 a cup of liquor, if after you have gotten it half way up, you espy a wasp 
 floating on the surface, you thrust it instantly from you ; which shows that 
 one volition is not sufficient to lift your hand to your mouth, for you see 
 the mind may take a contrary turn in that little interval. How nimble are the 
 motions of the fencer and the tennis player ! the hand perpetually follows 
 the eye and moves as fast as the objects can strike upon that ; but between 
 every impulse of the object and every motion of the hand, an entire percep- 
 tion and volition must intervene. How readily do our words occur to us 
 in discourse, and as readily find utterance at the tongue the moment they 
 present themselves ! The tongue does not move mechanically like a clock, 
 which once wound up will go for a month, but receives every motion and 
 forms every modulation of voice by particular direction from the mind. 
 Objects and ideas rise continually in view ; they pass without ceasing be- 
 fore us, vary, appear and vanish ; for what is so quick as thought ? Yet 
 volition keeps pace with perception and sometimes perhaps out-strips it : 
 for in speaking the word MIND the whole idea seems to present in one per- 
 ception, but there must be four several volitions to guide the tongue suc- 
 cessively in pronouncing the four different letters. Not that volition runs 
 more ground than perception, but follows close with unequal steps, like 
 young Julus after his father : for when you read you see the whole word 
 together, and consequently the D before you pronounce the M. 
 
 3. In very nice works we lie under a necessity of spinning .very fine, but 
 though we are obliged sometimes to split the hair we need not quarter it. 
 Therefore I shall call one action so much as passes between each percep- 
 tion and the next, although this action produce several contemporary mo-
 
 24 ACTION. 
 
 tions. And anybody may see with half an eye that our larger actions, such 
 as we speak of in common conversation, consist of those under actions : for 
 as days, months, years, and all measurable portions of time are made up of 
 moments, so all our performances and transactions are made up of mo- 
 mentary acts. A walk consists of steps, a game at chess of moves, a 
 description of particulars, a narration of circumstances, and discourse in 
 general, whether serious or trifling, labored or careless, of words and 
 syllables, each whereof must have its distinct volition to give it effect. 
 
 Nor does there need much penetration to observe how sociably the two 
 faculties lead one another, as I may say hand in hand, not only in entering 
 upon our works but through all the steps necessary to complete them. If 
 you would walk to any place, it is not enough to use your understanding 
 before you set out in choosing the nearest or most commodious way, but 
 you must use your eyes all along to conduct your steps : for should you 
 shut them a moment, you might chance to run against a post, or tread be- 
 side the path. If you are to discourse on any subject, when you have 
 chosen your matter and settled your form, the business is not all done ; you 
 must consult your judgment from time to time during the delivery for pro- 
 per expressions and proper tones of voice. Even your perpetual gabblers, 
 who let their tongues run before their wits, cannot proceed with one 
 faculty alone, for though they talk without thinking, they do not talk with- 
 out perceiving : their ideas draw through their imagination in a string, 
 though it proves indeed only a rope of sand without pertinence and without 
 coherence. 
 
 4. But these single acts, though confined to a moment of time, may con- 
 tain several coexistent parts. For we make many motions together by one 
 and the same exertion of our activity ; we may reach out our hands, step 
 with our feet, look with our eyes, speak and think at once. And the like 
 maybe said of perception, for we can see, hear, feel, discern, remember, all 
 at the same instant. I know not whether I may have occasion hereafter 
 to consider the parts of action, but for the present I stick to my definition 
 before laid down, terming the whole scene of ideas presented together 
 to our view one perception, and the whole exertion of our activity, upon 
 how many subjects soever operating, one volition, which though without 
 duration may have a large scope : just as your mathematical surfaces 
 which, though void of thickness, may extend to a very spacious cir- 
 cumference. 
 
 The not observing the shortness of action, has given occasion I believe 
 to the notion mentioned at the end of the last chapter concerning distinct 
 agents and various powers in the mind : for by help of this clue we may 
 unravel the mystery, and discover that what was esteemed the act of 
 several agents, was indeed successive acts of the mind exerting her two 
 faculties at different times. When several ideas present themselves toge- 
 ther, the mind cannot always judge immediately between them, for their 
 colours change for a while, fading and glowing alternately, or the scales 
 of judgment and inclination rise and fall by turns; the mind being sensible 
 of this, sees nothing better than to hold them in her attention until the 
 colours settle or the balance fixes ; as soon as that happens she perceives 
 which of them is the stronger, and this some people fancy done by an 
 elective power, wherewith the Will gives a preference of its own, because 
 the preference follows in consequence of a voluntary attention. Or per- 
 haps a new colour sparkles out unperceived before, or a new weight falls 
 into the scale : and this they call creating a preference. When the prefer-
 
 ACTION. 25 
 
 ence becomes visible, the mind instantly discerns it, and pronounces the 
 object good whereon it alights; and having now no further use for contem- 
 plation, she looks out for proper measures of execution, which as soon as 
 they occur she puts immediately in practice. 
 
 5. Nor will it be useless to take notice that in common speech we con- 
 fine action to outward motions and exercises of our bodily powers : as 
 when we distinguish between an active and a sedentary life, between sea- 
 sons of action and seasons of deliberation : which expressions look as if 
 we thought ourselves totally inactive in the latter, and so indeed we natu- 
 rally may at first sight because we can show no effects of our activity, 
 But every volition produces some effect, although not always discernible ; 
 and every production of our own, be it of a fleeting thought or a per- 
 manent work, springs from our volition. If a man retires from busi- 
 ness into his closet, we cannot necessarily conclude he does nothing 
 there ; for whatever indolent posture he may throw his body into, his mind 
 may find constant employment all the while. Now the mind has only one 
 active power to serve her upon all occasions; therefore acting and thinking 
 are the same with respect to the power enabling us to go through them ; 
 they differ only in the subjects operated upon. When the mind withdraws 
 from the world, she may roam about her own habitation ; when she ceases 
 to act upon the limbs, she may nevertheless act upon herself, that is, raise 
 ideas to pass in review before her. 
 
 6. There is another division of action I find made by Mr. Locke into 
 action properly so called, and forbearance, which latter he seems to think 
 requires the interposition of the Will as much as the former : thus if a 
 man asks his friend to take a walk, it is equally an exertion of his Will- 
 whether he refuses or accepts the offer. But I cannot readily understand 
 how a mere forbearance to act is any exercise of our active power at all : 
 it seems to me rather a discernment of the other faculty that we do not 
 like the thing proposed, which discernment or dislike we have seen before 
 is frequently taken for our W T ill. What we call a forbearance I apprehend 
 to be generally a choice of some other action. We will not walk because 
 we had rather ride, or talk, or think, or do something else : we forbear 
 to act because we would consider first what is proper to be done ; or we 
 forbear to deliberate any longer because the time of action is at hand. 
 When we make several motions together, we may forbear one and continue 
 the rest, for while walking and discoursing with a companion we may 
 point at some distant object, which after he has seen we may let our hand 
 fall to our side : but this I do not look upon as any volition of ours, it 
 is rather a ceasing of volition with respect to the arm, which falls down 
 by its gravity, not by our power, and would do the same were we at that 
 instant utterly to lose our active faculty. Nevertheless it must be owned 
 that forbearance is sometimes the sole point we set our minds upon and 
 take pains to effect. When Rich sits as an equestrian statue in one of his 
 pantomimes, we take him for the very marble he represents, for he moves 
 neither head nor body nor limbs, he wags neither eye nor finger, but con- 
 tinues wholly inactive ; what he thinks of all the while, whether of the 
 audience or profits of the house, neither you nor I can tell, but if any 
 such thoughts rove in his fancy their rovings are accidental, his mind being 
 intent on nothing else but forbearance from all manner of motion. We 
 cannot deny this attention to be an effort of the mind, but then it is not a 
 forbearance, it is an actual watching of the ideas as they rise, and exclud- 
 ing such as would prompt him to motion. Perhaps his face itches, or the
 
 26 ACTION. 
 
 stirrup presses against his ancle, and he wants to relieve himself, but 
 checks those desires as fast as they start up, and if by this care he can 
 avoid every volition to move, his purpose is answered without anything 
 further to be done. For our limbs do not move of themselves, nor unless 
 we will to move them : therefore that they remain motionless is not owing 
 to volition, but to the absence of volition. 
 
 Should we think the limbs do not move because we will Not to move 
 them, this would be sliding back into the vulgar sense of the word Will, 
 wherein it stands for inclination or judgment : for a Will not to move is 
 an act of the other faculty, being no more than a dislike to motion, or a 
 discernment of its impropriety, which produces no volition nor exertion of 
 our activity at all upon the object so discerned. 
 
 7. Some immovable postures we keep ourselves in by a continual effort 
 of the mind. If our statue holds up a truncheon in the right hand, he 
 must keep his arm in that position by his own strength : but this cannot, 
 in any light, be deemed a forbearance, for if he forbears to exert himself 
 but for a moment, the arm will fall downwards by its own weight. 
 
 If there is any such thing as a total forbearance of action, I conceive it 
 must be in reverie after a fatigue, or when we lie down in order to sleep. 
 Ideas run to and fro in our fancy uncalled, without attention, without pre- 
 ference or rejection of anything occurring, and the mind seems to remain 
 entirely passive. But since whatever passes does not proceed from voli- 
 tion, where shall we find marks of any volition at all ? Were we to sup- 
 pose the mind utterly divested of her active power just at her entrance 
 upon the scene, I do not see how anything could fall out otherwise than 
 it does. 
 
 8. But we very rarely find a necessity of considering action so minutely 
 as to distinguish the restraining those workings of imagination, which 
 would excite us inadvertently to motions we choose to avoid, from the 
 forbearance consequent thereupon : and since forbearance often requires a 
 stronger effort of the mind than action itself, for it will cost us more pains 
 to forbear cutting faces, swearing, or any other foolish habit we have got 
 than to practise them, therefore I shall not scruple to ascribe forbearance 
 to volition, for so it may be remotely though not directly; and after the 
 example of Mr. Locke, to include that together with any actual exercise 
 of our powers under the general name of action. 
 
 9. One remark more shall conclude the chapter. In speaking of action, 
 besides the several co-existent motions and several successive volitions 
 before-mentioned, we ordinarily comprehend several operations of other 
 agents acting in a series towards completing the purpose we had in view, 
 provided we conceive them necessarily consequent upon our volition. Thus 
 when Roger shot the hawk hovering over his master's dove-house, he only 
 pulled the trigger, the action of the spring drove down the flint, the action 
 of the flint struck fire into the pan, the action of the fire set the powder in 
 a blaze, that of the powder forced out the shot, that of the shot wounded 
 the bird, and that of gravity brought her to the ground. But all this we 
 ascribe to Roger, for we say he brought dowa the felon ; and if we think 
 the shot a nice one, applaud him for having done a clever feat. So like- 
 wise we claim the actions of other persons for our own, whenever we ex- 
 pect they will certainly follow as we shall direct. When Squire Peremp- 
 tory distrained his tenant for rent, perhaps he did no more than write his 
 orders in a letter, this his servant carried to the post, the postman con- 
 veyed it into the country, where it was delivered to the steward, who sent
 
 CAUSES OF ACTION. 27 
 
 his clerk to make the distress. Yet we ascribe the whole to the Squire's 
 own doing, for we say he distrained his tenant, and call it a prudent or a 
 cruel act, according as we think of the circumstances of the case. 
 
 Hence the law maxim, he that does a thing by another, does it himself ; 
 which though valid in Westminster-hall will not hold good in the school of 
 metaphysics, for there we shall find nothing an act of the mind that is not 
 the immediate product of her volition. But for the uses of prudence and 
 morality we must recur back again to the common language, because we 
 cannot judge of the merits of men's doings without taking the conse- 
 quences into our idea of the action. Pulling a trigger, or drawing cha- 
 racters upon paper, are neither good nor bad, right nor wrong, considered 
 in themselves : but as the trigger so pulled shall occasion the slaughter of 
 a man, or of some vermin, or only a bounce in the air ; as the characters 
 so drawn shall tend to the necessary security of our property, or to bring a 
 hardship upon our neighbour, or shall carry no meaning at all, we pro- 
 nounce the action prudent or idle, moral or wicked. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 CAUSES OF ACTION. 
 
 PHILOSOPHERS of old have observed several causes necessary to concur 
 in producing an effect ; and have distributed them into several classes, 
 which they have distinguished by epithets of their own invention. Who- 
 ever will look into Seneca, may find the causes of Plato, of Aristotle, and 
 some others, amounting I think to eight or ten classes a-piece. But since 
 those sages have given us different lists, I presume the matter of distri- 
 bution to be arbitrary, being left to every one's discretion to rank his 
 causes under such classes as he shall judge most convenient to himself in 
 marshalling his thoughts. 
 
 I shall not set myself to study for a complete list of the causes con- 
 tributing to human action, but shall name only such as occur at present ; 
 which are the material, the formal, the ideal, the final, the instrumental, 
 and the efficient. Thus when you sit down to an entertainment, the 
 victuals are the material causes of your eating, for you could not eat if there 
 were none ; their wholesomeness and palatableness the formal, for if they 
 were raw or corrupted, or in any unsuitable form, you would not eat 
 them ; your sight of them and knowledge of their qualities the ideal, for 
 without them you would not know how to proceed in eating ; the grati- 
 fication of your appetite the final, for if you had not this end in view you 
 would scarce think it worth while to eat ; your knife and fork the instru- 
 mental, for without them you could not cut your meat ; and the mind or 
 body the efficient, for by them you perform the action of eating. I say 
 mind or body disjunctively, with reference to the different lights in which 
 you may regard them : for if you consider the eating as an act of the mind, 
 then is the mind the sole efficient, and the hands and mouth only instru- 
 mental causes ; but if as an act of the man, then the whole compound, 
 mind and body together, is the efficient cause. 
 
 I do not intend a dissertation upon all these causes severally in their 
 order : some I may dwell more largely upon, others perhaps I may scarce 
 ever mention again, nor do I give the above as a complete list to which no
 
 28 CAUSES OF ACTION. 
 
 new articles could be added. For my aim is not mere curiosity or theory, 
 how much soever I may seem to deal that way ; I have something useful 
 in my eye, though it lies at a distance, and I must travel many a weary 
 step before I can arrive at it. 
 
 But as I would not run on of my own head without regard to the 
 sentiments of anybody else, I must observe that there are persons who deny 
 the mind to be an efficient cause at all, and they being men of learning, 
 probity, and reputation, it would not be civil to pass by them without 
 exchanging a word or two. 
 
 2. Dr. Hartley gives us a very different account of sensation and 
 muscular motion from all we ever learned before from our masters and 
 tutors. We used to hear that the muscles and organs were so many 
 bundles of nerves and fibres, which were little hollow pipes containing a 
 very fine liquor called animal spirits ; that these spirits were the carriers 
 serving us in our traffic upon all occasions, perpetually hurrying to and fro, 
 so:ne carrying sensation from external objects to the mind, and others 
 bringing back motion from thence to the limbs. But he tells us the nerves 
 are solid capilaments, having neither hollowness nor liquor within them, 
 but surrounded on all sides with ether, which is a subtile fluid, extremely 
 moveable and elastic, intimately pervading all bodies whatever, even the 
 most compact and solid. That the nerves lie constantly upon the stretch 
 like the strings of a harpsicord, and like them quiver and vibrate upon the 
 -slightest touch received at either end, which vibrating causes similar 
 vibrations in the circumambient ether. That those vibrations of ether, 
 which he calls sensory vibratiuncles, excite perceptions in the mind, and at 
 the same time agitate the ether standing round the muscular fibres, which 
 agitation, termed by him motory vibratiuncles, causes those fibres to vibrate 
 and propagate their motion along one another quite to the fingers' ends. 
 That the sensory vibratiuncles, like waves raised in a pond upon throw- 
 ing in a stone, extend to distant parts out of view, and being reverberated 
 by the banks, recoil again at other times, or mixing together form new 
 vibratiuncles, thereby furnishing us with ideas of reflection. 
 
 Thus the mind remains totally inactive, reduced to one faculty alone, for 
 the Will, which he terms expressly a certain state of the vibratiuncles, 
 belongs to the ether, not to her : she sits a spectator only, and not an 
 agent of all we perform ; she may indeed discern what is doing, but has 
 no share in what is done : like the fly upon the chariot wheel, she fancies 
 herself raising a cloud of dust, but contributes nothing towards increasing 
 it : she may lay mighty schemes, and rejoice in the execution, but in reality 
 does nothing herself ; she can neither move the limbs nor call ideas to her 
 reflexion, the whole being brought to pass by the action of vibratiuncles 
 upon one another. The mind in this case resembles a man who thrusts his 
 hand among the works of a clock ; he may feel the movements, and, by 
 long practice, may acquire a skill in distinguishing the hours, and knowing 
 when the clock will strike ; if he perceives the hour of dinner approach, 
 this may set his mouth a watering, and raise an appetite of hunger, which 
 he thinks influences his Will to strike, and thereby gives notice to the cook 
 that it is time to take up dinner. 
 
 3. On the other hand, the late Bishop of Clogher goes into a contrary 
 extreme, for he allows us neither ether, nor nerves, nor organs, nor limbs, 
 nor external substances, nor space, nor distance. He does not deny we 
 have perceptions of all these matters, but says, we have no communion 
 with the things themselves, nor can penetrate into them, and therefore can
 
 CAUSES OF ACTION. 29 
 
 know nothing of their existence, our knowledge consisting wholly of per- 
 ceptions existent only in the mind : and since we find some perceptions to- 
 tally dissimilar from anything in the objects exciting them, as colour, 
 sound, pain, and pleasure, how can we assure ourselves the rest are not so 
 likewise, such as magnitude, solidity, figure, situation and motion? There- 
 fore, for aught we can tell, our perceptions may arise from other guised 
 objects than these whereto we attribute them, or perhaps may all flow 
 continually from one and the same source : and because they possibly may, 
 he concludes, by an inference common among persons of lively imagination, 
 that they certainly do. Thus the life of man turns out a mere vision and 
 delusion. We dream of taking long journies, traversing countries, encom- 
 passing the globe, but really never stir a foot from home : we please our- 
 selves with the thought of traversing among an infinite variety of objects, 
 whereas in good truth we sit in perpetual solitude, having nothing but 
 ourselves to converse with. For Hanipstead Hill you stand upon, Harrow, 
 London, Blackheath, Banstead Down, you see from thence, are not those 
 enormous piles and masses lying miles asunder from each other, as you 
 suppose, but only perceptions huddled together into a mathematical point 
 in your mind ; nor with your utmost stretch can you carry your eye an inch 
 beyond yourself. 
 
 But here occurs an objection from the regularity of perceptions arising 
 upon the application of proper objects to excite them, which seldom frus- 
 trate our expectation. When my fingers are cold, upon holding them to 
 the fire I shall find them grow warm : if then I have neither fingers nor 
 fire, how comes it that I feel a real warmth from an imaginary fire ? If I 
 have neither mouth nor meat, how comes it that I taste the savour of 
 visionary roast beef ? Oh ! says the right reverend, our perceptions are 
 thrown upon us by an invisible intelligent agent, who supplies them in such 
 regular order that they may seem to come in a chain of causes and effects. 
 If you have a perception of cold in your fingers, and of a fire in the room, 
 this is followed by a perception of approaching them to the fire, which 
 again is followed by a perception of warmth And this succession of per- 
 ceptions often extends to different persons, in order to keep up our inter- 
 course with one another. If you chance to perceive yourself thirsty, there 
 succeeds a perception of ringing the bell, this is succeeded by a perception 
 in your servant of hearing his master ring, and running up-stairs to receive 
 his orders, next in succession comes your fancy of seeing him stand in the 
 room, upon which, though you have neither tongue nor voice, you fancy 
 yourself bidding him bring you some beer, then he instantly fancies he 
 runs down and fetches up the mug, and lastly, your fancy of quenching 
 your thirst closes the whole imaginary scene. 
 
 4. Thus these two gentlemen represent the mind as an idle insignificant 
 thing, never acting at all, but always gaping and staring at what passes. 
 Both equally divest her of all employment whatsoever, though in different 
 ways : one by finding other hands to complete all her business for her, and 
 so leaving her no work to do : and the other by sweeping away her whole 
 stock of materials, and so leaving her nothing to work upon. 
 
 But though they seem to stand directly in my way, I have so little spirit 
 of opposition that I shall not endeavour to push them down if I can any- 
 how slip by them. W T herefore to avoid dispute, I shall put myself upon 
 the country, leaving the matter in issue to a fair trial by my neighbour?, 
 upon a full and fair examination of such evidence as their own experience
 
 30 CAUSES OF ACTION. 
 
 shall offer. And as I find the opinions above cited have not made many 
 converts among mankind, I need not he in much pain for the verdict. 
 
 In the mean while I shall venture to proceed upon these Postulata : 
 That the bodies we daily see and handle, actually exist in as great variety 
 of magnitudes, forms, and situations, as we commonly suppose, and our 
 operations upon them are of our own performance : that Westminster-hall 
 is bigger than a nutshell, and the moon somewhat higher than the weather- 
 cock : that the clothes I wear are not the same thing with the glass 
 window I look at ; that I hold a real pen, and have a real paper before me, 
 that my hand would not write unless I moved it, that the thoughts I write 
 down are the products of my own labour and study, and that the ideas 
 floating in my brain would produce neither meditation nor outward action, 
 if I forbore to exert myself. All who are willing to grant me thus much, 
 mav listen as long as they find me to their liking ; the rest may turn their 
 heads aside as from one who builds without a foundation. 
 
 5. Yet upon second thoughts I wish these latter would cast a glance or 
 two more upon me, as they might possibly find something turning to their 
 account. For who knows what effect the characters I draw upon paper 
 may produce upon the ether within them ? The rays of light reflected 
 from thence, striking upon their eyes, may possibly excite sensory vibra- 
 tiuncles affecting their minds with some little degree of pleasure ; or rolling 
 round their better shaped understanding, may recoil again in more im- 
 proved forms, exhibiting useful measures of conduct, and at the same time 
 raising motory vibratiuncles proper for carrying the same into practice. 
 Or on the other system, who knows what a train of imaginations my per- 
 ception of scribbling may drag after it ? When we reflect how ready the 
 mechanical members of our literary commonwealth are to entertain ideas 
 of presenting everything they can get to the public, it Will not appear 
 unlikely that some printer may fancy himself printing off the fancies I 
 seem to write down, and then some bookseller may fancy himself spreading 
 open a book in his shop window ; the next in succession may be some idle 
 passenger, who, having little else to do, may fancy himself perusing the 
 pages ; this perchance may introduce a perception of something amusing, 
 or by great good luck of some useful observation, which may possibly 
 draw after it a perception of benefit received in the practice. 
 
 If I can light upon any little hint which may do real service to some- 
 body or other, I care not through what channels it is conveyed : whether 
 by the ordinary methods of persuasion, illustration and argumentation, as 
 commonly apprehended, or by agitating the sensorial and motorial ether, 
 or by beginning a succession of perceptions. I trouble not my head for 
 the means, so they prove effectual to the purpose intended. 
 
 Having thus slid through the crowd without jostling anybody, which 
 pleases me better than if I had overthrown half a dozen opponents ; and 
 gotten behind them into my former track, with an open road before me, I 
 shall even jog on poberly and quietly in quest of whatever I can find de- 
 serving notice. 
 
 6. But notwithstanding that we have assumed the mind an efficient 
 cause, we must acknowledge she has not strength enough to do our busi- 
 ness alone without some foreign help. Not that I pretend to limit the 
 mind's iuternal efficacy, or to determine exactly how great or how small it 
 may be for aught I know she may have force sufficient to remove moun- 
 tains, could he apply her force immediately to the whole width of their
 
 CAUSES OF ACTION. 31 
 
 bases ; but this is riot her case with respect to the limbs employed in our 
 service. The old notion of the mind's existing like the estate of a copar- 
 cener in law jargon per my and per tout, or being all in every part 
 throughout the whole human frame, has been long since exploded : we 
 now rest convinced that the mind does not act herself upon the limbs, but 
 draws them to and fro by tendons, muscles, nerves, and fibres ; which 
 latter our anatomists have traced to the brain, where they find them grow 
 smaller and smaller, till at last they quite lose them through their extreme 
 minuteness : and though we cannot thoroughly agree where she resides, 
 yet wherever her place of residence be, she keeps constantly there in kingly 
 state, never making wanton excursions to the toes or fingers, but exercising 
 her executive power upon them by the ministry of those imperceptible 
 fibres. 
 
 Now there needs not much argument to show, that if you are to act 
 upon bodies at a distance by some string or other medium, you cannot 
 exert more strength upon them than your medium will bear : consequently 
 the mind, be she as mighty as a giant, can impart no more of her might to 
 the limbs than her fibres are capable of conveying : what could Goliah or 
 Sampson do if you allowed them only a single cobweb to work with ? They 
 would not have power to stir a silver thimble ; for if they went to push, the 
 string would bend, if to pull, it would break. Yet when one tossed his 
 weaver's beam and the other carried the gates of Gaza, they performed their 
 prodigious feats by tender filaments slighter than a cobweb, undiscernible 
 with a microscope. 
 
 7. To solve this difficulty, we are put in mind that the human body is a 
 most admirably contrived machine, and by machinery a small power may 
 be made to perform the works of a greater : and we are shown strings of 
 bladders representing the nerves, which upon blowing into them will shorten 
 considerably and draw after them whatever hangs to the end of the string. 
 But let us consider what all your writers upon the mechanical powers agree 
 in, that no machinery whatever can lessen the momentum necessary for 
 performing any work required, which momentum is compounded of the 
 strength of the power and the velocity wherewith it moves : therefore, if 
 you would lessen the power you must increase the velocity in proportion, 
 to make the product of both, when multiplied together, equal. Thus, a man 
 by help of a lever may raise double the weight he could lift by his own 
 strength, but then that end of the lever he holds must move double the 
 space the weight passes through in rising. I have seen a curious engine 
 compounded of wheels, screws, and pulleys, whereby a lady, with a single 
 hair of her head, might raise a stone of two hundred weight : the hair was 
 fastened to a wheel something like the flyer of a jack, and in raising the 
 weight an inch, the wheel turned round as many inches as there would have 
 required hairs to lift up the stone directly without any engine at all. 
 
 Let us now reflect on the greatness of our works, for great I may call 
 them compared to those tinder threads we have to work with, as likewise 
 how suddenly we often perform them, and we shall scarce find time to 
 make up for the deficiency of our strength by an increase of our velocity. 
 I remember when I attended a course of experiments at the university, we 
 were told a man's greatest strength lay in the muscles of his hams, and in 
 order to try their force, an irpn ring was screwed into the floor having a 
 pretty strong cord tied to it ; this one of the company wound round his 
 waist, then standing just over the ring and raising up his body, broke the 
 cord asunder by main strength. At the same lime our professor told us
 
 32 CAUSES OF ACTION. 
 
 that if a machine were contrived to move by weights, and act with the force 
 exerted by all the muscles of a man of ordinary size when he jumps from 
 the ground, it would require a weight of I think thirty thousand pounds. 
 Now suppose a person sees a huge stone rolling directly towards him, which 
 he did not observe till it was just ready to strike him, how nimbly will he 
 jump out of the way ! But if the mind performed this leap by an inflation 
 of bladders with her nitro-aerious breath, she must either give so strong a 
 puff" as would burst their flimsy coats into atoms like an explosion of gun- 
 powder, or if she breathed in such gentle manner as not to hurt them, she 
 would want time for the length of her puff": for the current of her breath 
 must run at least the space of a mile to throw up the whole body an inch, 
 which cannot be conceived possible in so little an instant of time as between 
 the discernment of the danger and springing up of the feet from the ground. 
 
 8. Wherefore it seems more than probable the mind has always some 
 good friend at hand ready to assist her weakness, and the main of that 
 strength she exerts upon the limbs comes from some other quarter than 
 her own store-house. Whether this help flows from the animal spirits, 
 ether, or that unknown pressure causing gravitation and cohesion, or what 
 else you please, it is no matter ; but that there is another force within us 
 besides our own, capable of acting upon the muscles, we may be convinced 
 by convulsive motions, wherein the mind has no concern, nor volition any 
 share, yet they sometimes imitate, and generally exceed the vigour of our 
 voluntary actions. Perhaps there lies a mighty weight of some subtile fluid 
 thrown from our animal circulation, and bearing constantly against the 
 orifices of our nerves, but prevented from entering by certain little sliding 
 valves kindly provided by nature for our use : the mind then has nothing 
 more to do than draw aside the valves, and in rushes the torrent. The 
 mind in this case works like the miller of an overshot mill he has shoots 
 lying over every one of his wheels, stopped by flash-boards at their upper 
 ends, against which the water lies bearing always ready to drive the wheels 
 whenever it can find a passage : so the miller, by drawing a little board, 
 which any child might pull up with a finger, turns the stream upon this 
 wheel or that as he pleases, and twirls round a massive stone which he 
 could not stir with both his arms. But as comparisons seldom go on all 
 four, the mill and the human machine differ in one respect : the miller, when 
 he takes up his flashes, lays them it may be on the bank, goes whistling 
 into his mill, and thinks no more till his grist is ground, for the water will 
 work on for ever unless he shuts it out again : but the valves used by the 
 mind fall back again of themselves when the mind withdraws her activity. 
 Therefore, if you would point with your hand at some object for any time, 
 you must continue to exert yourself all the while : for the moment the mind 
 forbears her volition, the valves close, the stream ceases to flow upon the 
 brachial muscles, and the arm, no longer supported, falls to your side. 
 Then again the likeness returns upon disorders in each : for should an eel 
 wriggle under any of the flash-boards, this might give the water a passage 
 without any act of the miller : or should some flood buoy them quite out of 
 their places, and pour down a larger stream than usual, the wheels might 
 turn with more violence than the miller could throw upon them at other 
 times. So some foulness of our juices may work under the valves, keeping 
 them open whether we will or no : or the boiling of a fever may stretch them 
 beyond their natural width, and produce convulsions stronger than anything 
 the mind can effect by her volition. 
 
 Nevertheless, as we ascribe the grinding of our corn to an act of the
 
 IDEAL CAUSES. 33 
 
 miller, because he sets the mill at work when and in what manner he pleases ; 
 we may with equal justice ascribe our actions to the performance of the mind, 
 because it depends entirely upon her of what kind they shall be. If we 
 consider them as acts of the mind, they extend no further than to drawing 
 back the valves, whereof she remains the sole efficient cause : if as acts of 
 the man, we may still deem her an efficient cause, because the other powers 
 co-operating stand always ready in waiting for her direction, and whatever 
 happens afterwards follows necessarily in the nerves, muscles, or limbs, in 
 consequence of the motion by her first begun. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 IDEAL CAUSES. 
 
 UNDER the class of ideal causes I comprehend all those notices of our 
 senses and judgments of our understanding, which direct us from time to 
 time in every step of our proceedings : which is giving a larger compass 
 than I believe Plato allowed them, for he understood by an ideal cause only 
 that plan or design of any work laid in our own thought before we go about 
 it. Thus when a painter draws a picture, whether from some original or by 
 his own fancy, he takes his idea either from the original standing before him 
 or from some archetype of his own invention. But besides this archetype, I 
 conceive other ideal causes necessary to finish the picture : our painter must 
 have an idea of his canvass, his pallet, his brushes, his colours, he must 
 know where they lie, what they will do, and how to handle them ; and must 
 receive fresh information continually from his eyes, his hands, and his re- 
 flection, or he will make but bungling work. Nor is this archetype wanting 
 except only for works of design and contrivance : whether Plato received an 
 ideal cause for all our common actions I know not, but this nobody will deny 
 me, that we cannot proceed in the least of them without repeated directions 
 from our senses or reflection. We can neither walk, nor write, nor cut our 
 victuals, without using our eyes, our feeling, and applying some little degree 
 of attention. Whatever we go about, we must have some notion of the 
 thing we mean to do, and of the means or motions proper to perform it. 
 
 2. Yet if we consider carefully how small a part of our actions is properly 
 our own, there will appear something very mysterious and unaccountable 
 in them : for we shall find that, strictly speaking, we have no idea of any 
 one thing we do, nor of the manner how we do it. I have shown in my 
 last chapter that we do not move our limbs ourselves, and have supposed 
 certain valves which open to let in the stream that moves them : I do not 
 warrant this for a right account of the matter, having given it for want of 
 a better, and until a better shall be given I may find excuse for continuing 
 t6 use this. In a former place, upon the subject of voluntary reflection, I 
 have supposed certain channels, by stopping some of which, we can turn the 
 current of our imagination into any course we like best : perhaps nature may 
 have furnished us with valves too here, to serve us for stoppers. How little 
 share then of our mightiest performances can we justly claim to ourselves ? 
 Our own proper action, the action of our mind, extends no further than to 
 opening the valves, nor perhaps so far neither ; for she may have little 
 imperceptible fibres to pull them by. Yet she neither sees nor feels either 
 
 V0. I. D
 
 34 IDEAL CAUSES. 
 
 valve or fibre, nor has any notion or perception of them; she knows not 
 
 how m any thev be, where they lie, nor to what they fasten. 
 
 If the master of a large family had his study hung round with bells, one 
 reaching to the dressing-room, another to the nursery, another to the kitchen, 
 another to the stable, and so to each of his offices : when he went to use 
 them, besides his knowledge of the person he would call, he must know the 
 proper bell, in what quarter of the room it hangs ; common sense must direct 
 him that lie is to stretch out his hand to the handle and pull downwards 
 rather than lift up, and his eye must guide the motion of his hand in taking 
 hold ; for were the bells newly put up, and he not instructed in their several 
 uses, or were he left quite in the dark, he might pitch upon the wrong as 
 well as the right, and fetch up the cook when he desired to see my lady, or 
 wanted to speak with the coachman. 
 
 In like fashion, the closet of our mind is hung round with multitudes of 
 strings reaching to the eyes, the mouth, the hands, the feet, and every 
 member of our body ; we know not their number, their situation, nor the 
 member to which they respectively belong ; we know not which lies on the 
 right side or the left, in the ceiling or the floor, before or behind ; nor the 
 manner in which we must proceed to work, whether by pushing or pulling, 
 by lifting up or weighing down, by screwing, turning, or driving as with the 
 stroke of a hammer. Yet have we all our limbs perfectly at command, we 
 put them upon services, which they do not fail to execute according to our 
 expectations, and all this without knowing what we do to compass our inten- 
 tions. We feel a desire of helping ourselves with victuals, and strait our arm 
 stretches out towards the dish ; we want to be on the other side the room, 
 and instantly our foot steps forward to convey us. Whence then have we 
 this surprising dexterity in a state of utter darkness ? How do we escape 
 perpetually making egregious blunders ? How comes it that we never pull 
 the wrong string, since we cannot discern or distinguish them from one 
 another ? How comes it that we never kick about with our legs when we 
 would handle with our arms, that we do not toss up our nose instead of 
 turning our eyes, that we do not loll out our tongue when we go to chew 
 our meat ? To such questions as these I can give no other answer than by 
 an exclamation. How wonderful are the works of nature ! how admirable 
 her contrivance in all parts of this our human machine ! exceeding the skill 
 of man to find out, the utmost stretch of our understanding to comprehend ! 
 
 3. But here, perhaps, Dr. Hartley, if he be not gone out of hearing, 
 ,/ may give me a hip, and call out, Prithee, friend, do not think to slip so 
 easily by me ; I must stop you with a remark or two upon your last obser- 
 vation. You say the mind draws her valves without any discernment of 
 what she does, therefore their opening is not owing to discernment, since it 
 may be effected without any : bat you require an ideal cause for every 
 action of the mind, therefore must not we conclude that this motion of the 
 valves is not an act of the mind but of some corporeal agent which can act 
 by impulse without any idea at all ? You admit that those discernments 
 we have are not of the action nor of the instrument primarily employed, 
 but of some remote consequence worked thereby. You have an idea of 
 speaking, but none of the measures you must take to perform it : therefore 
 you have not an adequate ideal cause, because your idea does not take in 
 the valves opening to the muscles of your mouth and tongue, which valves 
 you must nevertheless draw up before you can bring out your words. 
 May not we then presume that discernment is not the cause but concomi- 
 tant of action, or co-effect of the same cause, given us for our entertainment
 
 IDEAL CAUSES. 35 
 
 rather than use in directing our conduct ; and we are led only to esteem it 
 the cause of our motions by seeing it constantly precede them ? just as we 
 say the swallows bring us summer because they come always before it ; not 
 that they have any hand in lengthening our days, ripening our corn, or 
 producing other effects of summer. 
 
 You may remember I have told you of a German of great repute among 
 our brethren of the faculty, who asserts that all our automatic motions, 
 that is, our motions purely mechanical, such as the circulation of the blood 
 and other juices, were originally voluntary : so that the child before birth 
 works out that whole plan of animal economy which is to support and serve 
 him during his state of manhood, by his own industry during his state of 
 gestation. If you will not believe this outlandish man, believe your own 
 senses. Your breath comes and goes of its own accord when you do not 
 think of it ; when you do, it seems your own act : for upon the lungs 
 being full you perceive them uneasy, which puts you upon puffing out their 
 contents ; upon their becoming empty you feel a want of fresh air, which 
 urges you to draw in a supply. In sound sleep, fainting, or extacy, the 
 lungs continue their play, which you must allow they do mechanically at a 
 time when the mind remains wholly senseless and inactive : while awake 
 and well, your lungs make their strokes at regular and equal intervals if 
 you let them alone, yet you may lengthen, shorten, accelerate, or retard 
 their motions as often as you please to interfere. To read the long periods 
 of Demosthenes or Cicero, you must stretch them far beyond their natural 
 length : to make your stops rightly, to lay your accents or emphasis pro- 
 perly, you must break, increase or abate of their violence, from time to 
 time, as occasion shall require. All this the young school-boy must learn 
 to do with laborious application of mind ; but you, who have been long 
 inured to the work, I suppose perform it so easily that, upon having at- 
 tended closely to the sense of your author for a while, you cannot after- 
 wards resolve with yourself whether it were your own particular volition or 
 some mechanical power that accommodated the length of your breath to the 
 length of your sentences, and the checks, the strength, and softness of that, 
 to your various modulations of voice. 
 
 Since then we find our automatic and voluntary actions so similar as that 
 we cannot well distinguish them asunder ; since what was once voluntary 
 becomes afterwards automatic, and what we sometimes acknowledge me- 
 chanical appears at others an effect of design : may not we fairly conclude 
 them both of the same kind, effected alike by the mutual action of vibrati- 
 uncles, and that our discernment is not a direction to us what we shall do, 
 but a foresight only of what will be done ? For what needs volition to 
 produce an event that may as well come to pass without it ? The region 
 of our active ether extends much wider than the prospect of the mind, so 
 that she sees a part only and not the whole of what passes there: the tides, 
 which lie near enough to excite perception in the foetus, may remove 
 further off upon the growth of the body; and those which ordinarily roll a 
 little beyond our ken, may be brought within distance by attention. In 
 both cases the vibratiuncles, whether near or remote, hold on their course 
 after the same manner : the only difference is this, in one case we discern 
 them, or as you call it, the ideas they exhibit, in the other we do not. 
 When we see what is doing preparatory to action, we judge it voluntary ; 
 when we know nothing of the matter, we account it automatic. 
 
 4. Now against this second attack I shall make the same defence as I
 
 36 IDEAL CAUSES. 
 
 did upon the former, namely, by an appeal to my neighbours, desiring 
 them to determine the matter between us : and that they may have some 
 particular case to judge upon, I shall offer them a feigned issue in imitation 
 of those directed out of the court of chancery. Suppose the mind of a 
 man separated from his body without any of those diseases, accidents, or 
 disorders in the latter, which ordinarily bring on our dissolution : let the 
 limbs, the muscles, the fibres, the juices, the ether, if any such there be, 
 remain in the same state as before : how would this body behave after the 
 separation ? I in my declaration must aver that though the pulse might 
 continue to beat, the animal secretions be carried on, and the lungs to play, 
 it would do nothing further : its palate in some few hours might come 
 into that state which affects us with hunger ; but having no sensation, it 
 would not call for dinner, walk down stairs, sit at table, help itself to 
 victuals, nor converse with the company. The Doctor in his plea, to be 
 consistent with himself, must insist that it would perform all this and 
 everything else one might expect from a reasonable creature: and thus the 
 point is brought to an issue. 
 
 Or if the court should think it beneath their dignity to take cognizance 
 of a fictitious case which never actually happens, I shall present them with 
 one that may have fallen under their own observation. Have they never 
 seen a careless nurse sitting by candle-light with a young baby in her 
 arms, gabbling among her gossips, without attention to her charge ? The 
 child stretches out its hand to play with the candle, and upon touching the 
 flame instantly snatches it away, crying and squalling as if its little heart 
 would break. Here then was a volition, that is in the Doctor's language, 
 a certain state of the sensory vibratiuncles, proper to agitate such motory 
 as would have continued the motion of the hand until the fingers had 
 grasped the snuff. What then breaks off this motion and turns it to a 
 contrary ? is it solely the action of the flame, in putting the tide of vibrati- 
 uncles into a new course ? or is it the smart felt by the child, which in- 
 fluences it to exert its activity in a different manner ? But the discern- 
 ment of pain belongs confessedly to the mind alone : how different notions 
 soever we may have of colour, magnitude, distance, all who have seriously 
 thought upon the matter unanimously agree to place the sensation of pain 
 in the mind itself, not in any objects, organs, or fluids, contributing to 
 excite it. This then is the question waiting for a determination; and if 
 there should be hands holden up on both sides, I shall demand a division. 
 As many as are of opinion that the soulless body above mentioned would 
 neither eat nor drink nor talk like other folks ; or that the child, were it not 
 for the sense of pain, would still go on to play with the candle after its 
 fingers were burnt, come along with me : as many as are of the contrary, 
 turn back again after the Doctor. 
 
 For I think we may go each his several way without being solicitous for 
 the success of our cause, as we need not alter our measures according to 
 the verdict. He well knows how strong the tide of vibratiuncles runs 
 which sets the fingers a scribbling, and that it would be labour lost to en- 
 deavour at stopping them ; and indeed why should he desire to do so 
 unless he sees them running into dangerous currents ? Nor can I find 
 reason for pursuing a different plan upon either principle : my design 
 drives at bringing men better acquainted with their mind and that inner 
 part of their constitution wherewith it has immediate intercourse, in hopes 
 they may strike out some light therefrom, which may direct them to the 
 better management of their faculties. If I shall be so happy as to succeed
 
 IDEAL CAUSES. 87 
 
 in any single instance of an addition to their stock of useful knowledge, it 
 is all one whether this improves their judgment and puts them upon think- 
 ing or acting for themselves, or whether it agitates their ether into 
 salutary vibratiuncles which shall do their business for them whether they 
 will or no. I shall find my intention equally answered in both cases, and 
 the service I may do will rise to the same amount in the upshot. 
 
 5. Upon a review of this whole chapter, without entering into a nice 
 disquisition of what motions are of our own operation and what purely 
 mechanical, we may justly conclude that in all voluntary actions the mind 
 must have a discernment, if not of the very act she performs, yet of some 
 bodily motion or other distant consequence effected thereby : and for the 
 most part we take continual direction from our senses, our judgment, and 
 our experience, shaping the manner of our proceedings according to the 
 notices they afford us : which justifies me in ranking ideas among the 
 causes of action. 
 
 But as it is a hard matter to please everybody, many people perhaps will 
 chide me for staying so long to talk with the Doctor. What a pother do 
 you make, say they, about nothing ! What a deal of pains to convince us 
 the sun shines at noon- day ! Every child sees that we cannot move 
 without the direction of our senses. Common sense and common expe- 
 rience inform us that we never discourse without a notion of conveying our 
 thoughts to one another ; that we never do anything without having an 
 idea of something we would be at. 
 
 In excuse to this rebuke, I beg leave to observe, that we do not always 
 advert to what we perfectly know, and in reasoning upon abstruse matters 
 often mistake, for want of reflection upon things we are extremely well 
 acquainted with. Therefore they may look upon me, not as unveiling a 
 secret unknown to them before, but as pointing out an observation they 
 cannot fail of making themselves upon such notice ; and desiring them to 
 bear in mind as an axiom to be employed upon further occasion, That we 
 have ideal causes of our proceedings, and shape our actions from time to 
 time according to the models by them exhibited. Besides, they may 
 please to remember I told them in my introduction, that my architecture 
 partakes of the military kind : I must provide against attacks as well as for 
 commodious habitation. And by another figure I compared the land of 
 metaphysics to a wilderness abounding in by-paths and intricate mazes : 
 while we travel the plain road of common sense, we shall meet with pro- 
 found speculatists who will every now and then be drawing some of the 
 company aside into the wood : therefore it behoves us to get acquainted 
 with all the turnings and windings beforehand, that we may know where 
 to look for our lost sheep and how to bring them back again. In the mean 
 while, those who were not inveigled, may sit down upon the turf until they 
 see us come out of the bushes again, and their good nature no doubt will 
 pardon an excursion that was needless to them but necessary for their 
 fellow-travellers. Such necessities may possibly occur more than once : we 
 may be put to prove that snow is white, that we know our own houses, or 
 remember anything happening to us yesterday : and upon these occasions 
 we must take the method we have done already of submitting ourselves to 
 a trial by jury. There is no more received rule in logic than this, Against 
 psrsons denying principles there is no argumentation : when we have to 
 deal with an adversary of this cast, all pleadings are vain ; we must pro- 
 ceed directly to an issue, appealing to common sense and experience for 
 the truth of our principle, after stripping it of all that sophism and equivo-
 
 38 MOTIVES. 
 
 cation wherewith it has been artfully overclouded, and reducing the question 
 in dispute to a naked fact or single proposition which anybody can judge 
 of and understand. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 MOTIVES. 
 
 HAVING in my list of causes assigned a particular class to the final, I 
 shall treat of them distinctly, though in reality they are a species of the 
 ideal, as the latter are of our ideas in general. For many ideas pass in 
 review before us which have no share at all in our actions : and many 
 serve us for a guidance in our conduct which yet did not prompt us to pur- 
 sue it. While we stand talking at a window, passengers may go by with- 
 out drawing our attention ; we see them move along, but do nothing 
 different nor in a different manner from what we should have done had 
 they not appeared ; the sight of our companion and our knowledge of 
 language direct us which way to turn our head and how to express our- 
 selves : these ideas perhaps we had before we entered upon our discourse, 
 which we do not begin till another idea arises, probably of entertainment 
 or of giving or receiving some information. When a man walks, he may 
 see bushes growing by the way side, cows grazing in the field, birds flying 
 in the air, without regarding or making any use of the notices they offer : 
 these then are part of his ideas, but not ideal causes, which are the shape 
 of his path and several marks whereby he knows his way ; yet neither are 
 these the final cause, but health, exercise, diversion, business, or some 
 other end, he proposes to himself in walking. 
 
 This final cause we commonly style the Motive, by a metaphor taken 
 from mechanical engines which cannot play without some spring or other 
 mover to set them at work : and because we find action usually follows 
 upon the suggestion of proper motives, therefore we conceive them moving 
 the mind to exert herself. Thus, by a light figure, we hear her frequently 
 compared to a balance, and the motives to weights hanging in either scale. 
 But if we will apply this comparison to the mind, I think it suits her better 
 in the exercises of her understanding than in her volitions ; for it is the 
 judgment poises the motives in its scale to try which of them preponderate, 
 nor does volition ensue until the weight be determined. 
 
 Some there are who will not allow the mind to act upon motives at all, 
 or at least assign her a limited power which she exercises sometimes of 
 acting against or without them, or of giving them a weight which does not 
 naturally belong to them ; they say, she plays tricks with her balance, like 
 a juggling shopkeeper who slides his little finger slily along one side of the 
 beam, and by pressing upon it, makes twelve ounces of plums draw up a 
 pound of lead. It must be owned, to our shame, that we too frequently, 
 practise these scurvy tricks to cheat those who have dealings with us, and 
 what is more fatal, to cheat ourselves into error and mischief: but I hope 
 to make it appear in due time that this is done, not by a free will of 
 indifference overpowering the force of our motives, but by privately slipping 
 in or stealing out the weights in either scale, which we often get a habit of 
 doing so covertly that we are not aware of the fraud ourselves. 
 
 2. Now how shall we manage to steer safely between two opposite ex- 
 tremes ? The doctors Hartley and Berkeley would not allow the mind an
 
 MOTIVES. 39 
 
 efficient cause of her own actions : the maintainers of indifference make 
 her not only the efficient cause of her actions but of their causes too, for 
 they will have it that her activity supplies the place of final causes, or gives 
 force to motives. 
 
 I shall remark, in the first place, that they distinguish between acting 
 and choosing, to which latter only they ascribe the privilege of indifference. 
 Whether such distinction has any foundation in nature I have already sug- 
 gested some reasons to question, and may canvass the point more thoroughly 
 hereafter when a proper occasion shall offer. But since they admit we never 
 proceed to action without motives, that our choice sometimes arises from 
 the decision of our judgment without our interposition, and that motives 
 often operate so forcibly we cannot resist them : this is going a great way, 
 and it will be but one little step further to show that acting upon our ideas 
 is acting as well as upon our limbs : which will entitle us to inquire upon 
 the subject of those choices we make in consequence of something done by 
 ourselves, whether some motive does not influence us in everything we do 
 towards bringing on the determination. 
 
 In the next place, I would beg leave to ask them, how they become so 
 well acquainted with their own actions beforehand as to lay schemes and 
 plans for their future conduct, and depend upon their adherence thereto ? I 
 suppose they do not pretend to the spirit of prophecy, and without that, I 
 do not see how we can know any future event, otherwise than by our know- 
 ledge of the causes : for an event, independent on antecedent causes, must 
 remain absolutely contingent until it comes to pass. Yet do they lay, claim 
 to commendation for their steadiness in adhering to their plan : the mind 
 then must remain indifferent during the whole time of such adherence, else 
 they would forfeit their claim which they rest solely upon the right exercise 
 of this privilege. For did not the mind retain her freewill of indifference 
 either to keep or to break a resolution already taken, how much soever we 
 might applaud them for resolving, we could owe them no applause for 
 performing. 
 
 Then as to their resting the merit of actions solely upon the due use of 
 this freedom of indifference, without which, say they, we shall have no room 
 to praise or blame, to reward or punish : have patience, and perhaps in the 
 sequel of these inquiries we may find other sources of distributive justice 
 besides this privilege. What if we should discover approbation and censure 
 so little inconsistent with the efficacy of motives that they act themselves as 
 such, and become due solely for the influence they are likely to have upon 
 our behaviour ? 
 
 But as I find the work of improving my own knowledge much more 
 agreeable to my taste than that of battling the opinions of others, I shall 
 leave my antagonists in possession of their indifference for the present, if 
 they still think fit to claim it after all the evidence produced against their 
 title by Mr. Locke ; and shall proceed in my consideration of final causes, 
 in hopes thereby to kill two birds with one stone. For while in pursuit ot 
 my journey, minding only my own business, I may happen to discover motives 
 for every species of action, and then indifference must quit the field of 
 course, as having nothing to do there. Nor can we take a better method 
 for the recovery of our right than by enclosing the whole contested ground, 
 piece by piece, until there be not a spot left whereon the liberty of indifference 
 may rest its foot. 
 
 3. To prevent mistakes, when I speak of the efficacy of motives and of 
 their moving the mind to exert herself, I desire it may be understood that
 
 40 MOTIVES. 
 
 these are figurative expressions ; and I do not mean thereby to deny the 
 efficacy of the mind, or to assert any motion, force, or impulse imparted to 
 her from the motives, as there is to one billiard ball from another upon their 
 striking ; but only to observe that motives give occasion to the mind to 
 exert her endeavours in attaining whatever they invite her to, which she 
 does by her own inherent activity, not by any power derived from them. 
 And all mankind understand the matter so, except perhaps some few persons 
 of uncommon sense and superfine understandings. When the poet makes 
 Belinda ask, What mov'd my mind with youthful lords to roam ? would he 
 have you believe that vanity, pleasure, desire of conquest, hope of an ad- 
 vantageous match, or any other motive you can assign, made all those mo- 
 tions contained in the idea of roaming ? No, surely it was the lady herself 
 by her own vigour and sprightliness. When she sits down to her toilet, 
 unnumbered treasures ope at once. What opes the treasures ? Why the 
 J maid, with her hands, not with her desire of tiffing out her mistress in a 
 killing attire. And it is this agency of the mind which denominates an 
 action ours, for whatever proceeds from other efficient causes does not 
 belong to us. Therefore you see, when the maid had sylphs to work for 
 her, he describes the performance, though done by her hands, to them 
 instead of her, And Betty's prais'd for labours not her own. 
 
 Nobody will deny that we sometimes act upon motives, that we follow 
 where they lead us, and that we should have acted otherwise had they not 
 presented or had other motives appeared in the opposite scale to outweigh 
 them. How many people flock to hear Handel play upon the organ ! they 
 follow him to the Haymarket, to Covent Garden, to the Foundling Hospital ; 
 had he not been to perform they never would have stirred from home, but 
 if their doctor had told them that going abroad might prove fatal to their 
 health, they would have forborne. Therefore motives have a natural 
 efficacy to put us upon action, and we need no other spring to move us so 
 long as we have store of them ; nor need we fea'r the want of a continual 
 supply, when we consider how many occasions of life, of amusement, of 
 business, we have to provide for, and how many idle fancies to gratify. 
 
 But we run into frequent mistakes concerning the operation of motives, 
 for want of first settling accurately with ourselves what they be. A motive 
 I conceive is the prospect of some end actually in view of the mind at the 
 time of action and urging to attain it : whereas we are apt to take for 
 motives any reasons we can allege in justification of our conduct. If any 
 body should ask why you make your stated meals at breakfast, dinner, and 
 supper, every day, I warrant you would answer, Why, I could not live 
 without eating. But reflect a little with yourself. Do you think of starving 
 every time you run down stairs to dinner ? Do not you go because you 
 are hungry, because you like the victuals, because you will not make the 
 family wait, because it is your usual hour ? How then can the preservation 
 of life, which is the farthest of anything from your thoughts, be your mo- 
 tive of eating ? If you would dissuade a debauchee from his courses, you 
 tell him of the discredit he will bring upon himself from all wise and judi- 
 cious persons : yet he still goes on as before, and this you call acting against 
 a powerful motive. But is it so in fact with him ? Perhaps the approba- 
 tion of your musty sober fellows weighs nothing in his estimation ; he feels 
 no other weight in his scale besides the gratification of appetite : therefore 
 he follows the only motive inclining him to action. 
 
 4. But as Hermogenes was a singer even when he did not sing; and the 
 cobbler retains his appellation after he has shut up his stall and sits among
 
 MOTIVES. 41 
 
 his fellow topers at the two-penny club ; so motives still preserve their 
 character with us while they lie dormant in the box and do not operate in 
 the scale. If we know a man has covetousness or ambition, we impute all 
 his actions to that motive; so that a politician cannot take an airing but we 
 suppose him going on some deep design, nor a miser step into his closet 
 but we conclude him counting over his bags. But besides our general 
 motives of conduct, we have many little desires and whimsies which come 
 in every now and then for a share of our motions ; and unless we get 
 acquainted with these, we cannot account for a man's behaviour in parti- 
 cular instances. 
 
 Few of us I hope are without some prudential motives in store, and 
 those being the most creditable, we would willingly ascribe all our motions 
 to them, not observing what other inducements may slip in unawares to 
 weigh down the scale or so cover it as to leave no admittance for anything 
 else : for inclination and humour so mimic the garb and gestures of reason 
 that we take them for her very self. Sometimes two motives occur toge- 
 ther both inciting to the same action, and in this case we cannot rightly 
 tell to which it belongs: because we can judge the efficacy of causes no 
 otherwise than by their effects. This last deceit is greatly promoted by 
 that aptness of inclination to draw reason after her, not as a friend to 
 consult with, but as an advocate to support her cause : for reason, which 
 ought always to keep upon the bench, too often descends to the bar, and 
 then we take her arguments for judgments of court, and applaud ourselves 
 for having paid them a due obedience. When the minister labours to ex- 
 tend the prerogative which he has under his own management, he thinks 
 himself all the while pursuing the public good: when the parson vexes his 
 parishioners with lawsuits, he, good man, would be contented with his 
 present income, but he must not injure his successors : when the young 
 girl chooses her mate for black eyes, white teeth, a frolic air and sprightly 
 prattle, she despises all mercenary views, and pays regard only to solid 
 merit and happiness. 
 
 In short, we shall find it extremely difficult with our utmost care and cir- 
 cumspection to know our real motives, as well in general, what stock of them 
 we have, as what weighed with us upon every particular occasion. For we 
 seldom attend to our motive at the instant of its operation, and if we go to 
 recall it afterwards to our reflection, another shall start up in its place. 
 Nor do we know the true weight of our motives before trial. While we 
 hold them in the scale of contemplation they feel exceeding heavy, where- 
 upon we confidently form resolutions of bearing pain, encountering dangers 
 and surmounting difficulties, supposing that our motive fastened thereto, 
 like lead to a bludgeon, will give it a force that shall bear down all op- 
 position ; but when the time of action comes, they are found wanting in the 
 balance, and lie lighter than a feather. 
 
 There is a vulgar saying, That we measure other folks' corn by our own 
 bushel: therefore we wonder at their proceeding when running in a dif- 
 ferent channel from our own, because we judge of their sentiments by 
 those we feel ourselves. One is apt to cry, I should have done otherwise 
 had I been in such an one's place, that is, had you had the same materials, 
 abilities, or opportunities as he: but are you sure you should have acted 
 otherwise had you had the same notions, ways of thinking, and motives 
 too, without any mixture of those you now possess ? For our desires vary 
 as much as our faces, and what works powerfully upon one, may have no 
 influence at all upon another. If we see a person bringing great damage
 
 42 MOTIVES. 
 
 upon one who has never offended him, without any inducement either of 
 pleasure or profit to himself, we stand in astonishment that anybody can 
 behave so absurdly without the least motive to urge him; and ascribe his 
 procedure to mere perverseness of will. For we find no motives in our 
 own storehouse that could engage him: resentment, gratification of some 
 appetite or self-interest, may have surprised us sometimes into unwarrant- 
 able actions, but we feel no temptation to do mischief for mischief's sake, 
 and therefore can conceive no such in another. But there are tempers 
 with whom mischief itself acts as a powerful motive ; some dispositions 
 there are utterly void of humanity, whose place is supplied by a love of in- 
 justice and cruelty: even freak and wantonness may do much upon a mind 
 where there is no consideration either of benevolence or prudence to weigh 
 against them. 
 
 5. Motives frequently introduce and give life to one another. Your 
 coachman entered into your service for a livelihood; this led him to obey 
 your orders, which directed him to take care of your horses; this put him 
 upon providing hay for them, and that induced him to inquire where the 
 best was to be had. While on his way to the market, he thinks of nothing 
 but the shortest road to get thither; this therefore is the sole motive he 
 has now in view: but if the prior motives had not operated, none of the 
 subsequent would have had any influence upon him. 
 
 For the most part we portion our time into large actions tending to some 
 distant end not presently accomplished, which consists of under parts, and 
 admits many bye actions not belonging to the principal. He that travels 
 to York, goes most likely upon some business: he divides his journey into 
 several stages, and while upon each, thinks of nothing but getting well to 
 his inn: this then is his motive for the time. On the road he finds himself 
 weary and alights, or thirsty and stops at the door of some public house, 
 or perhaps he enters into discourse with the passengers in going along, or 
 stands still to look at some magnificent building. All these have separate 
 motives of their own; refreshment, thirst, amusement, or curiosity, which 
 bear no relation to his main design. 
 
 While we work, or study, or converse, we often change our posture, 
 turn our eyes, and make many side motions having no connexion with the 
 purpose we are about. But have we not motives for those excrescences of 
 action ? We feel ourselves uneasy in one posture, and therefore exchange 
 it for another; we look out for new objects because those before us have 
 cloyed our eyes; we find some trifling amusement in every exercise of our 
 activity. For employment seldom so totally engages us as to fill up all the 
 spaces of our time, but restlessness, whimsy, or habit, come in to supply 
 the vacancies. The busy mind of man cannot lie a moment inactive: she 
 works incessantly with both her faculties while awake, and if her weightier 
 motives suspend their action ever so little, some lighter will slip in to keep 
 her in play: for she has often been compared to an exceeding fine balance, 
 that will turn with the slightest hair when nothing lies in the opposite 
 scale; and she has her drawers stocked with the grains of fancy as well as 
 the pounds of reason. 
 
 While one motive urges to action, another may model the shape of it. 
 When a grave divine and powdered fop enter the room together, civility 
 prompts them alike to pay their compli'iicnts to the company, but decency 
 leads one to a sober manly deportment, and affectation drives the other 
 into a mincing step, a fantastic air, and an over-delicacy of expression. 
 
 The designs that generate our larger actions take time in the forming,
 
 MOTIVES. 4? 
 
 we see them grow by degrees to maturity, and have leisure to contemplate 
 them : but the ideas causing our lesser motions, like lightning, flash, strike, 
 and vanish; they pass so swiftly we cannot get a look at them nor re- 
 member their existence. Besides, our weighty motives having the largest 
 influence upon our lives, deserve our greatest regard, and we commonly 
 apply our whole attention to them, overlooking all the rest so far as scarce 
 to know we have any such belonging to us, or to mistake them for some- 
 thing else. Therefore we say, The motive of prudence, but the impulse of 
 fancy, the force of habit, or the sally of imagination : and sometimes term 
 the motion of these latter mechanical, supposing volition had no share in 
 them, or at other times ascribe them to the privilege of indifference for 
 want of discerning the motive that made a difference between one idle 
 motion and another. But whoever desires a thorough acquaintance with 
 the mind, ought to bestow some thoughts upon her little motives, since 
 they have so considerable a share in our actions, and if we are not aware 
 of them, will so cover the scale as to prevent the weighty motive from .re- 
 entering, or slip in at improper times, thereby producing a total avocation 
 from the business in hand, or at least an interruption of our proceedings. 
 
 6. Nor must I omit to take notice of a certain magic that seems to 
 alter the condition of our motives ; they fluctuate and vary unaccountably, 
 fading and regaining their colours, losing and retrieving their weight. An 
 idea, that yesterday appeared vivid and strong, shall to-day show no sign 
 of vigour at all ; we still see it in the same form and position of parts as 
 before, but it looks pale and lifeless, and feels as nothing in our hand. A 
 thing we were extremely fond of at one time, we care not a pin for at another; 
 what we admire this hour, we despise the next. Even virtue and pleasure 
 have their seasons of engaging ; not only as they appear or disappear to our 
 thoughts, but when we have a full and distinct view of their features, we do 
 not always find them strike upon us with equal allurement. 
 
 This fluctuation of our motives I believe has opened another door to the 
 notion of a freewill of indifference ; for observing that the mind does not 
 always proceed to action instantly upon the suggestion of motives, that 
 others of them oftener prevail than we should expect, that she resists the 
 strongest passions and breaks through the firmest resolutions ; we conclude 
 she has an authority of her own independent of the motives, so that they 
 cannot act until having first received her royal assent, but she can give any 
 of them a preference without regard to their respective weights, and by 
 taking part with inclination, can give it strength to overpower judgment, 
 or by siding with the latter enable it to master the former. But all this 
 may as well be accounted for by the variable quality of motives : while they 
 continue changing their colours the balance keeps nodding to and fro, the 
 mind perceives she has not a just estimation of their weights, and this is a 
 motive with her to suspend action until the balance settles, and then it is 
 the preponderating weight, not the mind, that sinks down the scale. When 
 you have formed a resolution, so long as the considerations inducing you 
 to make it retain their original vigour, and those you rejected their original 
 weakness, and no new matter not taken at first into consideration interferes, 
 you will surely adhere to your resolution : but if the tables turn, if that 
 which was strongest .becomes weakest, or fresh inducements not provided 
 against before fall into the opposite scale, you will as surely break it. And 
 that such accidents frequently happen, every one may satisfy himself who 
 will attend carefully to the difference there is in our ideas of a thing between 
 the time of resolving and the time of executing.
 
 44 MOTIVES. 
 
 Tis true we do sometimes play tricks with our balance, making it incline 
 to either side as we please ; but then this is done by art, not by strength 
 or authority, and always brought about by the application of motives. For 
 we have a power over our ideas, as has been remarked before, by stopping 
 some of their channels to turn them into what other courses we like best, 
 thereby excluding some ideas, and calling up others to our thoughts. We 
 may close our ears against the admonitions of wisdom, or may hear them 
 without attending, or may fill our imagination with something else that 
 shall hinder them from entering; but it impeaches not the weight of a 
 motive, nor shows your superior strength, that it does not operate when 
 you will not let it come into the scale. And whoever watches himself 
 narrowly when he practises this juggling, may always discern some motive 
 of prejudice, favour, wilfulness, or shame of being overcome, which puts 
 him upon the artifice ; so that the mind will be found not so perfectly indif- 
 ferent as she pretends in the very exercise of her indifference. 
 
 7. Here I shall take the liberty to stop a moment while I recommend it 
 to every man to study diligently his motives of action ; to examine what 
 stock he has, as well of the permanent as of the transient kind, as well of 
 his grand undertakings as of his sudden motions and manners of proceeding ; 
 what are their respective weights, either absolutely or comparatively, with 
 one another ; to remark how they introduce or mutually affect each other, 
 how they fluctuate, their seasons of vigour and faintness ; to distinguish 
 what motive actually swayed with him upon every particular occasion. If 
 he can do all this completely, he will discover the impositions of others, 
 and what is better, will avoid imposing upon himself, which is the worst of 
 all deceits. As the world goes, we lie under the necessity sometimes of 
 alleging specious motives which did not influence us. A man asks you to 
 lend him money which you have reason to think he will not repay, but you 
 dare not tell him so, then you must put him off with excuses : but you 
 ought always to know your own real motive. If the mind ever exerts a 
 power of willing as well as acting, she performs that work by the instru- 
 mentality of motives, for therein lies her whole strength. When she per- 
 fectly knows her tools, where they lie, what they will do, and when they 
 are in proper order, she may take her measures surely with respect to her 
 moral and prudential conduct, and attain what the poet calls a life unac- 
 quainted with disappointment. In short, I look upon the study of our 
 motives as conducing more than any one thing to that most useful of all 
 sciences, The knowledge of oneself. 
 
 8. We have seen how the same considerations do not weigh alike with 
 different persons, nor with the same person at different times ; how they 
 fluctuate and vary, their colours change to and fro, their weight diminishes, 
 vanishes, and returns again, their form and parts continuing all along the 
 same. Hence it appears that motives are compound ideas, containing some- 
 thing whereon the force of the whole and its title to be deemed a final 
 cause depends, which when wanting it loses its essence : for a motive 
 having lost its force is no motive at all, nor the cause of anything. It 
 remains then that we turn our thoughts to seek for that ingredient which 
 gives efficacy to the compound, and denominates it a motive.
 
 45 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 SATISFACTION. 
 
 PLEASURE seems at first sight to bid the fairest for being that ingredient 
 which gives weight to our motives, and we find by experience in multitudes 
 of instances that it proves a sufficient inducement with us to act, for we 
 perform many of our actions because we like them. And perhaps this 
 may be the thing according to some notions of pleasure, for the word is not 
 always taken precisely in the same sense. But it is the safest way to settle 
 the meaning of our words by the standard of custom, and if we under- 
 stand the term as it is commonly understood, we shall find pleasure often 
 insufficient to perform the office of a motive, for we do many things against 
 our liking. Pleasure in vulgar estimation stands opposed to business, duty, 
 works of use, and necessity : yet in all these we feel some engagement, 
 self-approbation, or complacence of mind, that carries us through with them. 
 Pleasures, usually so called, often lose their gust, they satiate and cloy 
 upon repetition, and nauseate instead of inviting. Therefore Mr. Locke 
 has fixed upon the term Satisfaction, as being more extensive, compre- 
 hending all that complacence we feel as well in business as diversion, as well 
 in the works of prudence as in the starts of fancy. I cannot follow a better 
 authority, especially as I find nothing within my own experience or obser- 
 vation to contradict it : therefore shall adopt his term Satisfaction to ex- 
 press that vivifying ingredient which gives life and vigour to our motives. 
 But to prevent misapprehension, I think it necessary to subjoin a few- 
 remarks, in order to ascertain what I conceive we both understand by 
 Satisfaction. 
 
 2. In the first place, I scarce need to take notice of what is obvious to 
 every one, that we are not always in so happy a situation as to choose 
 between enjoyments which we will prefer ; we are sometimes reduced 
 to the hard necessity of choosing between evils, which of them we judge 
 the lightest. The pleuretic lying on his left side does not expect plea- 
 sure by turning to the other ; he has no more in view than a diminution 
 of pain. Mischief and displeasure seize upon us unawares, and we think of 
 nothing but how to deliver ourselves from them : dangers threaten, and 
 our care tends solely to escape them. Now in all these cases we are 
 prompted to what we do by uneasiness, therefore uneasiness has an efficacy 
 to set us at work as well as satisfaction ; and accordingly Mr. Locke has 
 given them both for distinct principles of action, though I have blended 
 them together into one. But this I do not from any variance in opinion, 
 but for convenience and shortness sake : and I think the junction may be 
 made without any violence, for as a penny saved is a penny gotten, and the 
 miser looks upon it as an actual gain if he can procure the abatement of a 
 payment, so every diminution or avoidance of uneasiness is an approach 
 towards satisfaction. Therefore, though I may speak of them apart, when- 
 ever necessity shall so require, yet for the generality I shall consider satis- 
 faction only, and hope what I say of this will, with very little variation, be 
 found applicable to the other. 
 
 3. In the second place, if any man desires to know what satisfaction is, 
 he must not expect to learn it by definition from rne ; I can help him no
 
 46 SATISFACTION. 
 
 further than by pointing out where he may find it himself. Let him reflect 
 no what he feels when anything happens that pleases him, when he sits 
 down to a well furnished table with a good appetite, when he reads a 
 diverting book, when he receives news of some desirable event, when he 
 looks back upon some performance for which he can applaud himself. Nor 
 let him stop here, but carry on his contemplation to the common occur- 
 rences of life : when he applies to the business of his profession , or gives 
 orders to his servant, or hears a newspaper, or takes his hat off the pin to 
 go abroad, he will find that complacence in his most ordinary actions which 
 renders life valuable. For bare existence has no other worth than as it 
 serves for a basis to happiness, for we cannot be happy without being at 
 all ; but we all value our lives at a high rate, which we could not do, con- 
 sidering how thinly pleasures are scattered in the world, unless we found 
 something satisfactory in almost everything we do upon the most trifling 
 occasions. Some men live contentedly without pleasure, as that stands in 
 the vulgar sense for an intense degree of enjoyment ; but your melancholic 
 persons, after having lost that glee which others feel in every common 
 exercise of their powers, quickly grow weary of life. Therefore we must 
 look upon satisfaction as the general term, containing under it joy, delight, 
 pleasure, amusement, complacence, engagement, content, as the several 
 stages. The lowest degree of satisfaction suffices to put us in motion when 
 no higher intervenes ; in our idle hours or vacant spaces of time we turn 
 our eyes to look at a butterfly, or put down our hands to remove the flap 
 of our waistcoat that had gotten between us and the chair. For the mind 
 uses a nicer balance than the master of the mint : a cobweb will draw clown 
 the scale when nothing offers to counterpoise. Her understanding indeed 
 is liable to mistake, being ill served by its ideas, which exhibit things fre- 
 quently under wrong appearances, but her volition follows exactly accord- 
 ing to her apprehension of things. 
 
 4. When the mind has no grand purpose in view, she can fully content 
 herself with any little trifle that presents ; if she finds herself easy, and 
 pleasure does not solicit, nor business urge, nor danger threaten, she rests 
 perfectly satisfied with her condition, desiring nothing further. Which 
 induced Hyeronymus to place happiness in vacuity or absence of pain, that 
 is, in mere ease ; supposing the sweetest pleasures engage us no otherwise 
 than by creating a want of themselves, which fills us with an uneasiness 
 we cannot remove without attaining them. But I may venture to refer it 
 to the first man you meet in the street, whether there is not a real and 
 sensible difference between actual pleasure and the bare absence of pain : 
 for if this were sufficient to constitute happiness, we must be happy during 
 every sound nap or fainting fit ; because while the senses are gone so that 
 we feel nothing, we certainly do not feel pain. 
 
 The same consideration I suppose led Epicurus to maintain that all plea- 
 sures were equal in degree, and differed only in kind, for the lowest of 
 them satisfies the mind, and the highest can do no more : therefore a man 
 finds as complete satisfaction in pulling up the heel of his slipper in the 
 morning, as he does in recovering his only child that had been stolen away 
 . last week by a gipsy. But this contradicts daily experience, which tes- 
 tifies that we find a much greater relish in some pleasures than we do in 
 others. A man may sit picking his fingers after dinner with perfect tran- 
 quillity of mind, but this is nothing to compare with the joy he feels on 
 hearing the voice of an intimate friend at the door. Nor is it true that the 
 mind can satisfy herself with little pleasures, unless when greater are not
 
 SATISFACTION. 47 
 
 to be had or not apprehended in the imagination ; who would not leave his 
 trifling amusements upon being invited to a diversion he is extremely fond 
 of, if no prudential or other motive withhold him ? Why need the mind 
 ever suspend her choice between two pleasures proposed until she has 
 determined which is the greater, if either of them would answer her 
 purpose alike ? Therefore when several satisfactions offer together, that 
 apprehended the greatest always prevails and carries away volition from the 
 rest : nor can it be said to do so by the uneasiness of wanting it ; for 
 though we sometimes would forego an opportunity but that we fear we shall 
 blame ourselves for having slipped it, yet this is not always the case ; we 
 frequently quit a lesser pleasure for a greater instantly upon summons, 
 without the least thought of what we might suffer by a self-denial. There 
 is the like difference of degree in uneasiness ; when several accost us at 
 once, we fly that which presses the hardest. So if satisfaction pulls one 
 way and uneasiness drives another, whichever is the strongest overpowers 
 the other and gives the turn to our motion. 
 
 Happy is it for us that we can content ourselves with a small pittance of 
 satisfaction, for else our lives would pass most uncomfortably : poignant 
 pleasures and high delights rarely come in our way, and we should have 
 nothing but uneasiness to fill up the large intervals, between them. How 
 miserably would the shopkeeper and the artizan spend their days, if they 
 could work no longer than while the dread of starving hung over them ! 
 This perhaps might drive them into their several occupations at first, but 
 their work furnishes them with an amusement that wholly engages their 
 thoughts, and while they content themselves with finishing their tasks, they 
 remove the evil -without having it perpetually stare them in the face. 
 What enterprize of moment could we perform ; what business requiring a 
 length of time could we complete, if we might never stir without some very 
 powerful incitement to spur us ? How many useful acquirements should 
 we miss, if the apprehension of their being useful were not enough to 
 move us, without having some particular signal service they will do us 
 under contemplation ? our dearest pleasures seldom drop into our mouths, 
 but we must do many things to prepare for their reception, and what we 
 do preparatory thereto partakes of the nature of business. For how lively 
 expectations soever we may entertain at our entrance upon an undertaking, 
 they cannot keep up their vigour during the course of a long work, which 
 we pursue with that quiet complacency accompanying our ordinary motions. 
 It has been commonly observed that a man can never succeed in any 
 sicence, art, or profession, unless he takes a liking to it, but the liking 
 here requisite need not arise to that high pitch as to render the fatigues of 
 profession an uninterrupted scene of transport or delight. Hence we find 
 that our gentle satisfactions, taken together in their whole amount, are 
 much more valuable than our higher enjoyments ; as exceeding them 
 greatly in number, as furnishing us principally with employment for our 
 time, and as serving us in our most useful and important occasions. 
 
 5. In the third place I shall remark, that although I have assigned satis- 
 faction for the active ingredient of our motive, yet, if we examine- the 
 matter strictly, it is not very satisfaction but the prospect or idea of it ; for 
 these are different : one may have the full idea of a toothache one does not 
 feel, and of a diversion one does not partake of. Now we no not use to 
 enter upon action but for some end, which end is some satisfactory percep- 
 tion attainable thereby. Even when we walk for walking sake, it is not the 
 bare motion, but the pleasant feel of our limbs, or of the air, that excites
 
 48 SATISFACTION. 
 
 us. But this perception follows upon the action, and had no existence at 
 the instant when the motive operated. Therefore it is not the substance, 
 but the prospect or expectance of satisfaction, which makes that part of the 
 compound rendering it a motive. And this expectance, though sometimes 
 fallacious, suffices to put us in motion : the child, that went to play with 
 the candle, expected pleasure but found only smart ; and the coward, who 
 runs away from his own shadow, expected a mischief that would not have 
 attacked him. 
 
 Since, then, expectation is not the same with the thing expected, it fol- 
 lows that we may pursue satisfaction without being in a state of enjoyment, 
 and fly uneasiness without being in a state of suffering. The former does 
 not often happen, because, being founded upon delusion, we soon discover 
 our expectations to be delusive upon trial, which then changes our pros- 
 pect, and we change our measures accordingly. Yet it does happen some- 
 times; for those who have made pleasures their constant employment, 
 quickly cloy themselves with the frequent repetition of them, yet still pursue 
 them with delusive hopes of the same relish they used to find heretofore, 
 and run from diversion to diversion, in restless expectation of an enjoyment 
 they cannot attain. But uneasiness exciting us to avoid it, may continue 
 to operate without delusion : for if we find our endeavours upon trial 
 effectual to ward off a mischief, this will encourage us to repeat them as 
 often as the danger presents, and so long as we can keep evil aloof, we 
 shall not fall into a state of suffering. If two old acquaintance, who had 
 not met for some years before, were to espy one another on the opposite 
 Bides of the Haymarket, probably they would run together into the middle 
 of the street, if the weather were fine and the ground dry, where they would 
 join in an agreeable conversation : in the midst of their discourse they see 
 a coach fifty yards off driving directly towards them, I suppose they would 
 remove out of the way to one side or other, still continuing their talk. 
 What then is it puts them upon this action ? not satisfaction, for they pro- 
 pose no addition to that by changing their ground : it is no other than the 
 uneasiness of being trampled upon by the horses, which, because they can 
 avoid without trouble, makes no interruption of their enjoyment. He that 
 walks along Cheapside must turn and wind perpetually to avoid jostling the 
 other passengers ; the prospect of uneasiness he would feel upon running 
 against people, induces him to all those motions, which yet makes no abate- 
 ment of any satisfaction he may have in the errand he goes upon, nor 
 throws him into a state of suffering. 
 
 6. For my fourth remark, I shall observe that present satisfaction is the 
 end we constantly have in view on proceeding to action. Nor does this 
 contradict what I have just been endeavouring to prove, for by present sa- 
 tisfaction I would not be understood so strictly as to mean the satisfaction 
 we actually have at the instant of acting : for this is no subject of action, 
 nor can receive alteration thereby. We cannot unfeel the pain we feel by 
 any effort of ours, nor does the pleasure we now have need an effort to 
 procure it. But the satisfaction we propose in every exertion of our 
 activity is that of the moment next immediately ensuing, and this may be 
 called present satisfaction without any impropriety of speech. For we are 
 constantly told the present time only is in our power, the past being gone 
 and the future lying out of our reach : but this present time is in reality 
 the next succeeding instant, that alone being the subject of our power, for 
 we do not act in order to obtain what we have already. Perceptions flow 
 in upon us without intermission, and we generally have a foresight of them
 
 SATISFACTION. 49 
 
 before they come, as also a power many times to alter their course by the 
 proper application of objects or management of our organs : therefore we 
 keep constantly upon the look out ; while we see that such perceptions as 
 we like will rise of their own accord, we have nothing to do, when they 
 will not, we use our activity to procure them. In all action there are three 
 things to be considered, the prospect or expectation, the action itself, and 
 the perception to be introduced thereby : the first has no other value than 
 as it directs us what action to pursue, nor the second than as it tends to 
 procure the third, so that our business lies in helping ourselves to procure 
 satisfactory or escape uneasy perceptio.ns. But as we must every instant 
 have some perception or other, we must provide for the next ensuing per- 
 ception, and as soon as that is had, another to follow immediately after 
 furnishes us with the like employment ; so that our wants, starting up suc- 
 cessively without intermission, require a continual supply ; which confines 
 our cares to the present moment, leaving the provision for future moments 
 to our subsequent endeavours. 
 
 This accounts for what Mr. Locke has fully proved to be fact, that good, 
 the greater good acknowledged and apprehended to be such, does not 
 always determine the Will : and I may add, it never does, unless by means 
 of the satisfaction we feel in making advances towards it ; for if any distant 
 advantage can raise in us a desire of attaining it, the gratification of this 
 desire will afford a present satisfaction. And that remote good and evil 
 have such effect upon us daily experience bears witness : we flatter ourselves 
 often with distant hopes, and shudder at future dangers; we contemplate 
 with pleasure the prospect of enjoyments afar off, and look with horror upon 
 misfortunes before they come. Suppose a person, in whose knowledge and 
 veracity you could fully confide, should say to you, Sir, you shall continue 
 in plenty and the possession of everything you can desire to-day and to- 
 morrow, but the third day your estate shall be seized, your children carried 
 into bondage, and your body afflicted with painful distempers : would not 
 the news fill you with a cruel anxiety ? On the other hand, had you been 
 tormented with the gout for a long while, and after having tried many re- 
 medies to no purpose had lost all hopes of relief, should you receive the 
 like assurance that in two days' time you should be set at ease and perfectly 
 cured : should not you feel an exhilarating joy that would overpower the 
 pangs of your distemper ? And the like happens proportionably upon the 
 prospect of anything useful or detrimental, pleasurable or troublesome, in a 
 lower degree. 
 
 7. This presentiment of the future makes the great privilege of human 
 nature ; for were we void of it we should have nothing but appetite to 
 follow, like the brute creatures : but our concern for the morrow creates 
 another appetite which prompts us to escape mischiefs that must be guarded 
 against beforehand, and pursue great advantages that require much time 
 and labour to attain. It likewise lengthens our pleasures beyond their 
 natural measure, for enjoyment generally holds only for a little moment, 
 but expectation, hope, and successful pursuit, often supply us with a con* 
 stant fund of delight for a long season. But on the other hand, it is 
 attended with some inconveniences, by tormenting us sometimes with 
 unavoidable evils before they come near us, and making us tremble at 
 imaginary dangers that would never have fallen upon us. 
 
 And these derivative satisfactions fluctuate as much as the original : for 
 we do not always find equal relish in the same enjoyment, nor does the 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 50 SATISFACTION. 
 
 prospect of it always appear in colours equally vivid. Neither can we ob- 
 serve any other rule in this change of colours than that they generally 
 heighten upon the nearer approach of the enjoyment. But the very pros- 
 pect of an attainable good, or an avoidable evil, commonly proves satisfac- 
 tory ; therefore, however it may sometimes happen otherwise, for the most 
 part we continue in a state of enjoyment, in some degree or other, during 
 the pursuit of a benefit we hope to acquire, or avoidance of a mischief we 
 can easily ward off. Whence comes the saying, Hope makes the heart glad. 
 8. Fifthly, I shall take notice that satisfaction always attracts, and 
 uneasiness always repels ; and either of them operates according to the 
 present occasion. If some advantage invites, we set ourselves instantly to 
 pursue it ; if a greater starts up in view, we quit the former and run after 
 the latter : if mischief approaches, we set ourselves to prevent it : and 
 while it continues to hang over us, we continue our efforts to keep it aloof. 
 Therefore to me it seems that both satisfaction and uneasiness have a like 
 efficacy to make us either change or adhere to our measures, as occasion 
 shall require. But Mr. Locke ascribes the change of action solely to un- 
 easiness, and the continuance of it to satisfaction ; it behoves me to give 
 my reasons for departing from so great an authority. 
 
 I shall allege first, that, properly speaking, there is no such thing as a 
 continuance of action, all our perceptions and all our volitions being transient 
 and momentary. What we term a continuance is indeed only a repetition 
 of successive perceptions and volitions of the same kind : just as a spout 
 continues to run while it pours forth innumerable drops without any in- 
 terval between. So if you stare at the same picture for half an hour toge- 
 ther, the sight comes by successive rays of light affecting your eyes in the 
 same manner, and the perceptions raised thereby, although exactly similar, 
 are individually distinct. And if you keep pointing with a stick for the 
 same time, successive volitions hold up your hand, for should you forbear 
 to repeat them, your arm would fall instantly to your side. 
 
 But waving this nicety, let us consider a series of motions, all proceed- 
 ing upon one plan and with the same design, as a continuance of action : 
 yet I think one may produce instances wherein we depart from our design, 
 and change our measures without being driven by the lash of uneasiness. 
 Suppose a man sitting down to his harpsichord intending to play through 
 an opera of Corelli : in the midst of his diversion enters a messenger to 
 tell him, that, if he will come away directly to the minister, he may be 
 instated in a considerable preferment he had long wished and ardently 
 sought for. Is it uneasiness or joy that makes him leave his music and 
 run to catch up his hat ? Suppose a company of young folks agreeably 
 entertained in dancing ; somebody tells them of a fine fire- work just going 
 to be played off in a neighbouring garden : I will not ensure they shall not 
 all run instantly to the window. When their curiosity a little abates and 
 before the sight begins to cloy, some one puts them in mind of their 
 dancing, perhaps the rest take the admonition and they run back to their 
 sport as hastily as they quitted it. Surely this is a change of action and a 
 departure from the plan laid down for the employment of the night : yet I 
 appeal to any gentleman or lady, who may have experienced such an inci- 
 dent, whether they feel the least spice of uneasiness either in breaking off 
 their diversion or returning to it again. On the other hand, suppose a 
 man travelling through a lonely forest infested with a gang of desperate 
 villains, who murder all they meet ; he sees them coming towards him, 
 and has but just time to jump into a stinking bog, where lie can hide his
 
 SATISFACTION. 51 
 
 bead behind a little bush : the rogues halt at a small distance from him, 
 where they sit chattering perhaps an hour or two, all which time I suppose 
 he will hardly quit his lurking hole. Now what is it holds him to this 
 continuance of action ? is it satisfaction ? He sees none and expects none 
 by sticking up to the shoulders in dirt and nastiness. Is it any other than 
 the uneasy dread of falling into their hands, where he can expect nothing 
 but misery and destruction ? 
 
 9. But I am so averse to differing from Mr. Locke, that whenever I 
 cannot bring my notions to tally with his, I hunt about for all expedients 
 to reconcile them, so that I may hold my own consistently with those he 
 entertains. And such expedient is most likely to be found by observing 
 upon the unsteadiness and variableness of language. The most careful, as 
 well as the giddy, use their words in various significations. Your men of 
 close application, though taking their terms from the common language, 
 find themselves under a necessity of recasting them in a mould of their 
 own, to fit them for purposes that were not wanted in the usual intercourses 
 of life : and sometimes the moulds they severally use differ from one ano- 
 ther in some little particular. What if this should be the case between 
 Mr. Locke and myself ? Might we not then think the same at bottom, 
 while we express ourselves by opposite sides of a contradiction ? Perhaps, 
 what he calls a continuance of action I should call a continuance of courses ; 
 and so there is no repugnance, because we are not talking of the same 
 thing. 
 
 Now in order to understand what I mean by courses, please to take 
 notice that we have each of us a set of views, aims, and desires, leading us 
 into those courses of behaviour which fill up the employment of our lives ; 
 and though we may frequently step aside out of one track into another, we 
 still continue to pursue courses of the same set. The word carries this 
 sense in common conversation when we speak of virtuous or vicious courses: 
 nor is a man reckoned to alter his courses because he quits the exercise of 
 one virtue, or gratification of one vicious appetite, for that of another, as 
 opportunity occurs. Neither does every turning after other pursuits at 
 intervals make a discontinuance of the first : for some are of such a nature 
 as not to be completed but by returning to the work at distant seasons with 
 large gaps and spaces intervening. Thus a man may continue a course of 
 physic though he dispatches business, takes diversions, and does many 
 things between whiles. Therefore Mr. Locke would probably say of the 
 man that left his harpsichord to get a place, that he had two desires direct- 
 ing his courses, the love of music, and of money or honour, and when the 
 latter drew him away from the former, here was no change of measures, 
 but the continuance of a pursuit he had long since been engaged in. Tire 
 dancers were following a course of pleasure which kept them on in the same 
 road, how much soever particular objects might vary. That the poor tra- 
 veller was held in his quagmire by self-preservation, which is a main prin- 
 ciple influencing us in the course of our lives, and which we never throw 
 aside until some hard pressure of fortune shall make us uneasy with our 
 being. 
 
 And that Mr. Locke had these courses in view appears manifest from the 
 instances he makes use of in support of his assertion ; which are that of 
 " an idle fellow whom you shall not move to industry, convince him never 
 so much of the advantage plenty has over poverty, make him see and own 
 never so plainly that the handsome conveniences of life are better than 
 
 B 2
 
 52 SATISFACTION. 
 
 nasty penury, so long as he can content himself with the latter and finds no 
 uneasiness in it. And of a worldling, who, though never so well per- 
 suaded of the advantages of virtue, that it is as necessary to a man who 
 has any great aims, as food to life, yet enters not upon any action in pursuit 
 of this confessed greater good until he hungers and thirsts after righteous- 
 ness, and feels an uneasiness in the want of it." 
 
 Now I shall not deny that we seldom, if ever, fail to continue our courses 
 of action so long as they prove satisfactory, nor change them until they be- 
 come insipid and cloy, or lead into inconveniences that gives us a disgust 
 of them. Neither can you well reclaim a man from vicious courses by the 
 offer of satisfaction, for you have none to propose that will be such to him : 
 the pleasure and ease of virtue arise from the practice of it, and he who has 
 never practised it will see nothing inviting in it. Therefore you must begin 
 with him by representing the mischievous tendencv of his evil doings, and 
 if you can bring him to a dread and abhorrence of them, which shall make 
 him uneasy under the apprehension of them, you may prevail upon him to 
 change his measures. There are, indeed, besides the satisfaction your pro- 
 ficients in virtue feel in every exercise of it, certain rewards and fruits that 
 any man would desire, but these operate at first by the uneasiness they 
 create in the want of them. For when a man has taken a resolution of 
 purchasing those rewards, the solicitations of old habits will frequently 
 draw him back into his old courses, upon which the uneasiness and vexa- 
 tion of having failed in his resolution may drive him to renew it again, and 
 while he adheres, the uneasiness of denying his other desires still torments 
 him : so that he must remain in a state of uneasiness while the change is 
 making, and until it be completed by the old habits entirely losing their 
 vigour. Which makes good the observation of ancient and modern ages, 
 that the paths of virtue are thorny and rugged at their entrance, but lead 
 into a pleasant and delightful country. 
 
 10. Thus, though I have represented action in a different light from Mr. 
 Locke, we must not therefore be thought to differ in substance, but in our 
 manner of handling it. For though I do not pretend to a clearer, perhaps 
 I may to a more microscopic eye : I consider action more minutely, endea- 
 vouring to analyze it into its primary parts. Now the shape and other 
 circumstances belonging to the parts may vary greatly from those of the 
 whole. Look upon your table, and you see it round or square, or of some 
 other regular form : hold your eye near the wood, and you will perceive it 
 waving in veins, or running in longitudinal fibres : the little particles com- 
 posing it attract and cohere strongly to one another, but the table neither 
 attracts nor coheres to the paper, the ink-bottle, nor the penknife you lay 
 upon it. So if a habit of drinking be taken as one action, it may always 
 be continued so long as a man can satisfy himself in the practice, and 
 always broken off as soon as the uneasiness of a gout, or other mischief 
 brought upon him thereby, shall exceed his fondness for the liquor : and yet 
 the single acts whereof that large action consists may spring from satisfac- 
 tion or uneasiness, indifferently, as either happens to present. For he may 
 change his bottle either because he dislikes that standing before him, or be- 
 cause he pleases himself with the thought of tasting another sort ; and he 
 may stay some time at the tavern for the pleasure of the company, and con- 
 tinue there after that pleasure ceases, to avoid the uneasiness of going home, 
 where he will not know what to do with himself. 
 
 Since then, nature has furnished me with a microscope, why should I cot 
 accept her favour, for she bestows not the slightest of her gifts in vain ?
 
 SATISFACTION. 53 
 
 The Temple of Knowledge cannot be built without the concurrent labours 
 of many artificers working with various qualifications. Who then shall 
 blame me for making such use as I can of my little talent in pursuing minute 
 discoveries that persons of larger views overlook ? Should I fail of doing 
 any good service myself, somebody else may turn them to better advantage : 
 for it is no uncommon thing in the sciences, as well as arts and manufac- 
 tures, to see one man prepare materials for another to work up. However, 
 if my health and spirits hold, I shall strive hard but I will make some tex- 
 ture out of my materials that a man shall find convenient for his service, 
 without sending it to another operator to be finished. 
 
 1 1 . I hope matters are pretty well accommodated with Mr. Locke in 
 regard to the difficulty before mentioned ; but I do not know how I shall 
 come off with him upon another point, where he speaks of the uneasiness of 
 desire, and makes desire constantly accompanied with uneasiness. I can go 
 with him half way, so far as to admit that desire often creates us cruel un- 
 easinesses, and that the smart of their wounds rises in proportion to the 
 intenseness of our desire. But this happens only when desire meets with a 
 disappointment ; when two incompatible desires urge strongly at once, both 
 of which cannot be gratified ; when some hindrance checks or at least 
 retards desire. For while desire runs on smoothly in its course towards 
 attainment, while we want nothing besides the object we pursue, while no 
 bar stands across the way, nor difficulty occurs to check our speed, for my 
 pai t I can see nothing but continual satisfaction accompanying the progress. 
 
 I may say with Mr. Dryden, " Old as I am, for lady's love unfit, The 
 power of beauty I remember yet." I still bear in mind the days of my 
 courtship, which in the language of all men is called a season of desire ; 
 yet, unless I strangely forget ir.yself, it proved to me a season of satisfaction 
 too. But, says Mr. Locke, it is better to marry than to burn, where we 
 may see what it is that chiefly drives men into a conjugal life. This, for 
 aught I know, might be the motive with some men, who, being of an unso- 
 ciable and undomestic turn, can see nothing good in matrimony, but sub- 
 mit to it as a lesser evil delivering them from a greater. And I can excuse an 
 old bachelor for entertaining so despicable a notion of a state he never 
 experienced the pleasures of himself. Others it may be make their engage- 
 ments too hastily, and then would break them off again through the shame 
 of doing a foolish thing, till the smart of their burnings becomes intoler- 
 able, and drives them headlong into the matrimonial net. But this, thanks 
 to my stars, was not my case : my own judgment, upon mature deliberation, 
 and the approbation of my friends, gave leave for desire to take its course. 
 I might feel some scorchings in my youthful days when it would have been 
 imprudent to quench them, and while the object of desire lay at an undis- 
 cernible distance : but as the prospect drew nearer, and desire had license 
 to begin its career, it had no more the fierceness of a furnace, but became 
 a gentle flame, casting forth a pleasing exhilarating warmth. Perhaps I 
 might meet with some little rubs in the way, that gave me disturbance : if 
 my fair one spake a civil word to any tall, well-bred young fellow, I might 
 entertain some idle apprehensions lest he should supplant me. "When I took 
 a hackney coach to visit her, if we were jammed in between the carts, 
 perhaps I might fret and fume, and utter many an uneasy Pish ; but as soon 
 as we got through the stop, though desire abated not, every shadow of un- 
 easiness fled away. As near as I can remember, during the whole scene, 
 desire, close attended by satisfaction, directed all my steps, and occupied all 
 iny moments : it awaked with me in the morning, and was the last idea
 
 54 SATISFACTION. 
 
 swept away by sleep : it invigorated me in business, it heightened my diver- 
 sions, it gave me life when in company, and entertained me with delightful 
 reflections when alone. Nor did it fail of accompanying me to the altar, 
 where, laying aside its sprightliness and gaiety, as unsuitable to the solem- 
 nity of the occasion, it became more calm and decent, exhibiting the pros- 
 pect of an agreeable companion, who should double the enjoyments and 
 alleviate the troubles of life ; who should ease me from the burthen of house- 
 hold cares, and assist me in bringing up a rising family ; whose conversation 
 should be a credit to me abroad, and a continual feast to me at home. Nor 
 yet did possession put an end to desire, which found fresh fuel to keep it 
 alive from time to time, in mutual intercourses of kindness and hearty 
 friendship, in communication of interests, counsels and sentiments ; and 
 could often feed upon the merest trifles. How often, having picked up some 
 little piece of news abroad, has desire quickened my pace to prattle over it 
 at home ! how often, upon hearing of something curious in the shops, have 
 I gone to buy it with more pleasure than the keenest sportsman goes after 
 his game ! Thus desire, leading delight hand in hand, attended us for many 
 years, still retaining its first vigour, although a little altered in shape and 
 complexion ; until my other half was torn from me. Then indeed desire 
 left me, for it had nothing now to rest upon, and with it fled joy, delight, 
 content, and all those under desires that used to put me upon the common 
 actions of the day ; for I could like nothing, find amusement in nothing, 
 and care for nothing : and in their stead succeeded melancholy, tasteless- 
 ness, and perpetual restlessness. And though I called in all my philosophy 
 to rescue me from this disconsolate condition, it could not relieve me pre- 
 sently, but had a long struggle before it could get the better of nature. 
 
 12. I doubt not there are many persons in the world, who having been 
 as happily paired, could read the account here given of myself as feelingly 
 as ever I wrote it. As for your determined bachelors or injudicious hus- 
 bands who have married only for money, or for beauty, or for a frolic, or 
 for a bedfellow, or for they did not well know why, though they may think 
 me romantic, yet I suppose they have had desires of their own of some 
 sort or other ; eilher of raising a fortune, or of preferment, or of building, 
 or of gardening, or of sports, or of dress, or of acquisitions in learning, 
 which have engaged them in long pursuits. And I believe we shall all 
 give in our verdict unanimously upon the positive evidence of our own 
 several experience, That our desires have furnished us with the greatest 
 parts of our enjoyments in life ; and that desire, so long as it can move 
 unsuccessfully without rub or disappointment, without wanting fuel to feed 
 it, and without pain or unlucky accidents intervening, has supplied us with 
 a continual fund of satisfaction. But when desire grows languid for want 
 of fresh matter to work upon, when it cannot, like a wanton bird, hop 
 about from twig to twig, from bush to bush, continuing its play, then the 
 time hangs heavy upon our hands : when it meets with crosses or delays, 
 when it rises to impatience, or is of such a nature as to require an imme- 
 diate gratification that cannot be had ; then indeed vexation and uneasiness 
 find a ready entrance. 
 
 That the uneasiness Mr. Locke found in desire, proceeds from some of 
 those causes, may appear by the examples he produces in proof of it. 
 Desire, says he, deferred, makes the heart sick. Leave out the participle 
 Deferred, and the rest of the sentence will not hold true. Change it for 
 another, and we may lay down the contrary as a maxim ; for desire pro- 
 moted makes the heart glad. Therefore desire is not in its own nature a
 
 SATISFACTION. 55 
 
 state of uneasiness, nor unless rendered so by disappointment or delay. 
 Give me children, says Rachael, or I die ; but this was not till after a long 
 course of barrenness she began to despair of having any; when Joseph was 
 coming, we hear no more of such exclamations, yet I suppose sue still 
 continued to desire it might prove a boy. Where he speaks of the un- 
 easiness of hunger and thirst, surely he must have in his thoughts the 
 cravings of a person almost dying with either, rather than the common 
 returns of appetite at stated seasons during health. I speak only for my- 
 self : when I sit down to dinner I feel no uneasiness in being hungry, but 
 rather rejoice at having a good appetite, from whence I expect a better 
 relish to my victuals than any sauces could give them. How do other 
 people fare upon the like occasion ? If on coming home from a journe\ 
 in hot weather, you find yourself faintish and droughty, and call for a 
 glass of wine and water, have you not a pleasure in seeing the wine pour 
 from the bottle or sparkle in the glass, even before you bring it to youi 
 mouth ? And does not this pleasure arise from your desire ? for you would 
 feel it no longer on the like prospect after having fully quenched your 
 thirst. Pretty bottle, says Sganarelle, how sweet are thy little glug glugs ! 
 how envied would be my lot wert tliou to keep always full for all my pour- 
 ings ! Desire then gave the glugs their sweetness, for Sganarelle was 
 in a state of desire, not of fruition, when he solaced himself with their 
 music, the liquor having not yet entered his lips ; nor was there I suppose 
 anything very harmonious in the sound, or any other charm besides the 
 assurance of his bottle being full, and the means of accomplishing his de 
 sire abundantly at hand. 
 
 Could uneasiness alone determine the Will, how wretched must the con- 
 dition of mankind appear ! For the Will never ceases working from morn- 
 ing till night : we are always a doing, but should have nothing to do unless 
 to deliver ourselves from uneasinesses following close upon one another's 
 heels. Human life from beginning to end would be nothing but a restless 
 endeavour to throw off an evil we could never totally remove, and would 
 exhibit one continued scene of uninterrupted uneasiness. But, kind nature 
 be praised! our condition is not quite so forlorn and comfortless. We have 
 our hours, and those of activity too, wherein we can employ ourselves with 
 satisfaction and delight : and since in those pleasurable seasons we do not 
 stand idle, there must be something else besides uneasiness capable of 
 urging us to action. 
 
 13. Mr. Locke it seems once held that ancient, and till his time uni- 
 versally received opinion, That good, the greater good, understood and 
 apprehended to be such, determined the Will : he first discovered that it 
 was always something present, and no distant good, that gave the turn to 
 our activity; for which I acknowledge myself and the world greatly obliged 
 to him ; for an important and leading discovery it was, as it has let us 
 more than anything into the secret springs of human action. But since 
 new discoveries are seldom perfected at once, may I be permitted to offer 
 at an improvement, and add, that present satisfaction, as well as present 
 uneasiness is capable of performing the office. I know that distant good 
 does often operate by the uneasy want we have of it, by the shame, the 
 vexation, the regret, we feel in slipping our opportunity of gaining it, but 
 it has likewise a quality of throwing a sensible satisfaction upon every step 
 we take in advancing towards it. Which latter I conceive wants not effi- 
 cacy, especially in those who have a strong attachment to virtue and 
 prudence, or, as Mr. Locke expresses it, who hunger and thirst after righ-
 
 56 SATISFACTION. 
 
 teousness, any more than the former, to determine volition : and according 1 
 as the one or the other actuates our motions, we pursue the object of our 
 desires through the flowery meads of delight, or the thorny paths of trouhle 
 and self-denial. 
 
 14. But it may be said that, according to my own docrine ( 8), satis- 
 faction and uneasiness are not so incompatible but the one may move us 
 while the other possesses us : therefore why may not uneasiness be the sole 
 incitement constantly spurring to action, without necessarily rendering our 
 motions uneasy, while we can keep it aloof by continual efforts to escape 
 it ? I do not forget what I have there laid down, that one may fly uneasi- 
 ness without being in a state of suffering; for the prospect of the next 
 ensuing moment moves us to action, but the feel of the present denomi- 
 nates our condition : now one may have the prospect of a very different 
 sort of ground from that one stands upon. Delightful is it, says Lucretius, 
 to stand upon firm land and see the mariners tossing and toiling in a tem- 
 pestuous sea. Delightful to behold the bloody scenes of war spread over a 
 spacious field without sharing in the danger yourself. Not because there 
 is any pleasure in seeing others tormented, but because the prospect of 
 evils from which yourself are exempt is delightful. Nor I suppose would 
 your delight be the less if you were to do something towards escaping the 
 danger, provided you had certain and easy means at hand for effecting 
 your escape : were you on board the fleet, but stepping into a boat that 
 should land you safe before the storm began to rage ; or in the army, and 
 mounting an easy pad that should carry you far enough out of harm's way 
 before the battle joined. But where Locke treats of the uneasiness giving 
 birth to our actions, I cannot understand him of the prospect but of very 
 uneasiness itself; which to my thinking cannot consist with a state of 
 enjoyment, but must necessarily, according to the degree of it, throw the 
 mind into a state of suffering so long as it continues and as often as it re- 
 turns. For to the question, What determines the Will? he answers, Some 
 uneasiness a man is at present under. So that it is not timely caution 
 against an approaching mischief, but the pressure of uneasiness actually 
 felt, that alone suffices to set us at work : and this equally the same, whe- 
 ther the avoidance of evil or attainment of distant good be the object of 
 our endeavours. For, says he, there is a desire of ease from pain, and 
 another of absent positive good, in which latter also the desire and un- 
 easiness is equal : as much as we desire any absent good, so much we are 
 in pain for it. Now whether the prospect of absent attainable good does 
 always fill us with a painful want and uneasiness, I have some reasons to 
 doubt : but shall defer giving them until I have gone through my next ob- 
 servation, which may render what I have to say upon this point more easily 
 intelligible. 
 
 1 5. For my sixth remark I shall lay down, That satisfaction and uneasi- 
 ness often beget and introduce each other : the bare escape from pain 
 gives a sensible pleasure, and the loss of any great pleasure grieves us : 
 whatever affects us strongly, of either kind, generally leaves its contrary 
 behind. In time to come, says Eneas, we shall find entertainment in 
 reflecting on the hardships we now undergo. For past sufferings, not 
 likely to return, are often a feast to the mind ; and past pleasures we can 
 no longer enjoy, remembered with regret. A man just recovered from a 
 fever, finds enjoyment in the very deliverance from his disease ; he can 
 pass the day agreeably, though with his servants only about him, in a 
 manner he would have thought insipid, lonely, and irksome, at another
 
 SATISFACTION. 57 
 
 time ; for he satisfies himself with ease, and wants nothing further to divert 
 him. Thus a great deal of our good springs out of evil ; we should often 
 rust in idleness, and feel the time heavy upon our hands, were it not for 
 pain, difficulty, and danger, which rouse us to action; and though they 
 make us smart for the present, repay us abundantly afterwards by affording 
 a greater satisfaction in having surmounted them, than they gave us 
 trouble in surmounting. 
 
 On the other hand, suppose a man provided with plenty of all conveni- 
 ences, and means of ordinary amusement, and fully contented with his 
 present situation : yet tell him of some high diversion going forward in the 
 neighbourhood which he must not partake of, and you may perhaps raise a 
 want in him that shall vitiate all his other enjoyments, and throw him into 
 a state of disquiet and uneasiness. For I shall never deny that strong 
 desires do frequently raise an uneasy want of the object they fasten upon ; 
 nor that this does sometimes prevail where the satisfaction of advancing 
 towards the object would not : but I conceive this is not always the case, 
 but that desire sometimes operates by the satisfaction of pursuing, and 
 sometimes by the uneasiness of wanting, the thing desired. If a lazy fellow 
 has some acquisition greatly to his liking proposed, he may make a few 
 faint motions at first, and please himself with the prospect of possessing it, 
 but his indolence puts him off from day to day from using any significant 
 endeavours ; he then begins to reflect with himself, finds the completion of 
 his wishes no nearer than at first setting out ; this raises an uneasy want 
 of them, which grows greater and greater by degrees, till at last it over- 
 powers his slothfulness, and makes him set his hand in good earnest to the 
 plough. 
 
 1 6. That uneasiness is the motive in most of those instances mentioned 
 by Mr. Locke I shall readily agree, and might produce others wherein un- 
 easiness does the work, although pleasure in the eye of the world runs 
 away with the credit of it ; for many times it is not easy to discern which, 
 of the two determined the Will. Your debauchees, your triflers, and very 
 fashionable people, who make pleasure their sole employment, I doubt not 
 find delight in it at first ; but pleasure too often repeated abates of its 
 relish, and at length becomes wholly insipid : yet still they run on the 
 same round of diversions, thinking they follow pleasure all the while, and 
 so indeed they do, though not with satisfaction, but for want of something 
 else to amuse them, or through the cravings of an unnatural appetite 
 brought upon them by custom. Follow them to their clubs, and you may 
 hear them sing without joy, laugh without being pleased, and thrum over 
 the same jests till they grow threadbare. View them in their routs, and 
 they run on the same roll of compliments and common expressions, talking 
 incessantly without having anything to say. Peep upon them at their 
 toilets, and you will perceive dress to be a labour undergone to avoid ap- 
 pearing hideous and out of mode among company. Some real satisfactions 
 they may have when anything new or unexpected engages their fancy : but 
 chiefly I believe in going on the way to their parties, which is a kind of 
 business, being an action undertaken not for its own sake, but for some 
 end : they may then rejoice at having thrown off the insupportable burden 
 of time, and escaped the misery of staying at home alone, or may flatter 
 themselves with the same relish in their diversions they used formerly to 
 enjoy ; for delusive expectations will satisfy the mind so long as the delusion 
 holds. Thus the cloven-footed tyrant inveigles the unwary with exorbitant 
 wages at first, but having once bound them to his service, by rendering
 
 ,58 SATISFACTION. 
 
 them unfit for any other, he shortens their allowance, giving them no more 
 than just enough to persuade them they earn something, and for the most 
 part lashes them through his drudgery with scourges, or pinches them with 
 his iron claws. 
 
 Now let us do justice on all sides, and confess honestly that the virtuous 
 man does not always find delight in the practice of his virtues. There is a 
 joy, a complacence of mind which I hope every one of us feels upon acting 
 right : but there is likewise a shame, a vexation, a compunction, upon 
 acting wrong : and this latter often serves to keep us steady in our good 
 courses when the other would have failed. Could we behold virtue naked, 
 says Plato, we should find her so divinely charming that we could never 
 like anything else : but virtue is a modest virgin, she will not let you see 
 her naked until you are wedded to her ; she displays a hand, an arm, a 
 cheek, at a time, as you get further into her familiarity. Therefore how 
 much soever young admirers may be smitten with her at first sight, while 
 covered with her veil, this like all sudden desires cannot hold its vigour : 
 but the solicitations of passion or old vicious habits will draw them from 
 their pursuit, unless the general persuasion of her being a consummate 
 beauty shall raise a want of her acquaintance that may overpoise all uneasi- 
 ness beside. As for those who are become intimate with the lovely 
 creature, they may see so much of her beauties, and retain such a taste of 
 her sweetness, as shall fill them with a warm and steady delight, sufficcint 
 to make them surmount difficulties and troubles with pleasure, and if I may 
 so say, render uneasiness itself perfectly easy. I can imagine it possible in 
 theory, that a man may have so strong a relish for the practice of virtue, 
 as may make his condition happy under the greatest pain ; that he may 
 look upon all present sufferings as nothing for the exceeding weight of 
 glory that lies in store hereafter. For I know any strong desire has power 
 sometimes to pluck out the sting of pain ; I have experienced it myself in 
 little complaints, such as an aching corn or a grumbling tooth, which 
 though I have felt, I have despised and not wished to remove when eager 
 in the pursuit of something greatly to my fancy. But I much question 
 whether the acquisition of so strong a desire as shall keep a man easy in 
 Phalaris's bull, be practicable among the sons of Adam : it is a great 
 matter if we can raise inclination enough to carry us through common 
 difficulties and troubles without being hurt by them. Therefore, unless we 
 had an abhorrence of vice, and felt a want of virtue when absent, as well 
 as a delight in her company when present, we should make very little 
 advance in our progress towards her. 
 
 Thus the lives of all men, the virtuous and the vicious alike, though not 
 in equal proportion, are checquered ; not only with respest to the vicissi- 
 tudes of health and distemper, success and disappointment, favours and 
 frowns of fortune attending them, but also to the motives of joy or vexation, 
 content or disquiet, spurring on alternately to action. Desire, like a smiling 
 angel, and its bastard offspring Want, like the knight of the ill-favoured 
 face, direct our conduct by turns. While some idle passion passing by 
 holds desire in chat, the other jumps into the box ; as soon as the intruder 
 can be got rid of the rightful coachman resumes his seat. While he holds 
 the reins we roll smoothly and currently along, feasting our eyes upon the 
 gladsome prospect before us ; but when his deputy drives, clouds of noisome 
 dust obstruct our view, we feel the carriage jolt and hobble, tossing us to 
 and fro, and knocking our joints perpetually against the sides. For accord- 
 ing as desire or want actuate our motions, we are in a state of enjoyment
 
 SATISFACTION. 59 
 
 or a state of suffering : and this whether our object be some distant good, 
 or the removal from approaching evil. 
 
 1 7 . Now after what has been laid down under this sixth remark, nobody 
 will expect me to controvert with Mr. Locke, that desire often begets 
 uneasiness, and how much we desire an absent positive good, so much we 
 are in pain for it : but this I apprehend never happens until something 
 obstructs our advances towards the good desired. Want does not come 
 before, nor does the child use to be older than the parent. We cannot be 
 said to want what we may have when we please, or are in the ready way to 
 obtain, yet we desire it, or else we should not proceed in the way. Some 
 desires do not tend to immediate gratification : if a man, fond of hunting, 
 meets with friends who propose a match for the next day, he may desire to 
 make one among them, and give orders to his servant relative thereto, 
 without any want of the diversion, which, were it offered, he would not 
 choose to go upon directly, nor until he had prepared himself by a good 
 night's rest for the fatigue. What we possess we cannot be thought to 
 want, though we may desire the continuance of it ; but that is for our future 
 occasions, not to remove any present uneasiness. Every man having just 
 received his last year's income, desires I suppose to receive his next also, 
 but he does not want it, nor, had he it in hand, and were a prudent man, 
 would he make use of it for his expenses of the current year. We all desire 
 life and health, and do many things for their preservation ; but while in 
 vigour, peace, and plenty, what want do we feel of either ? Can we never 
 choose a food because it is wholesome, nor take an agreeable exercise to 
 mend our constitution, unless driven by approaching sickness, or affrighted 
 by the king of terrors staring us in the face ? We all desire the fresh air 
 we breathe, but must we never walk into the fields to enjoy a purer draught, 
 until almost suffocated by the smoke of town ? 
 
 18. Besides, although every considerable desire may have its opposite 
 want, and either of them be capable of inciting us to action, when we seek 
 for the motive we must consider what actually operated. For the mind 
 may have many motives in store which do not always enter the scale, and 
 when they do not, have no share in weighing down the balance. What- 
 ever other folks might do, Mr. Locke, I dare say, would agree with me, 
 that an action can be ascribed to no motive that was not present in the 
 thought or imagination at the time of acting. A man goes to the playhouse 
 thinking only to see the play, and there meets with an intimate acquaint- 
 ance, in whose conversation he takes great delight. Perhaps he did not 
 know the other would be there ; perhaps he had heard it last week, but 
 utterly forgot it again : amusement then was his motive ; the meeting his 
 friend had no share in his motion ; although, had that occurred to his 
 thoughts, he would have gone ten times more readily. Therefore, to dis- 
 cover the true spring of action, it is not enough to know that want is 
 capable of performing the office of a spring, but we must examine whether 
 we had such want in view at the instant of bestirring ourselves. The hard 
 student, says Mr. Locke, will not leave his studies for the pleasures of appe- 
 tite, but when hunger begins to make him uneasy, then away he goes to 
 remove it. But is this the case with every student ? When I have been 
 staring all the morning at the light of nature, till I have stared myself 
 almost blind, I find my spirits want recreation : I then throw aside my 
 papers sometime before dinner ; the veriest trifle suits my purpose best : 
 the philosopher can loll out at window like Miss Gawkey, to see the wheel- 
 barrow trundle, or the butcher's dog carry the tray, and is perfectly con-
 
 60 SATISFACTION. 
 
 tented with his situation as being fittest for the present occasion. Presently 
 the bell rings, and down run I into the parlour. Now did Whitefield and 
 Wesley endeavour to stop me, bellowing out their exhortations to abstinence, 
 self-denial, and mortification, possibly I might fret a good deal, and the 
 uneasiness of wanting my dinner urge me to exert all my might in brushing 
 by them. But by good luck they do not honour me with their acquaint- 
 ance, nor have I any of their revelations commanding me to austerities : 
 so that the thought of starving, or of what I should suffer by missing a meal, 
 never once enters into my head, and therefore cannot be the motive actuating 
 my motions. 
 
 But neither does it appear to me universally true, that how much we 
 desire absent good so much we are in pain for it. There are many little 
 goods weighty enough to turn the mental scale, but not strong enough to 
 give us pain. We have numberless gentle desires continually prompting us 
 to common actions, yet too feeble to beget any offspring. When these 
 prompt us, if the object can be readily come at, it is very well : if not, we 
 give ourselves no further concern, nor think it worth any trouble to procure; 
 we feel no want, no pain, nor disappointment, in the miss of it. Some- 
 times I walk to and fro in my garden in the country, intending only to 
 ruminate on some trifle or other ; perhaps I espy a peach that looks ripe and 
 inviting, and I reach out my hand to pluck it. Should my gardener tell 
 me, Sir, I thought to have reserved that for the company you expect to- 
 morrow, or should any other little reason occur to stop me, I should for- 
 bear ; but if nothing intervenes, I go on to complete my purpose. Now, 
 when I reflect on the state of my mind on such occasions, and examine mine 
 ideas with the closest application of the microscope, as well when I gratify 
 my fancy as when I restrain it, I cannot discern the least pain, or want, or 
 uneasiness imaginable : and therefore crave leave to conclude that something 
 else, besides want and uneasiness, is capable of determining me to the use 
 of my powers. 
 
 19. Whence then comes it that Mr. Locke and I entertain so different 
 notions concerning desire ? For we are both careful plodding folks ; not 
 used to do things hastily, but silting our thoughts, and weighing our words 
 before we deal them out. Is the difference owing to the microscopic make 
 of mine eye, that sees minuter goods, smaller actions, slenderer desires, than 
 other people ? or is there some fallacy, some equivocation, some various use 
 of language, that keeps us asunder ? Perhaps what I take for desire, while 
 successful in its career, he may call joy or hope, or by some other name. 
 Perhaps all that we do in pursuit of the same object, though I should think 
 it a series of distinct actions, and distinct volitions, he may consider as one 
 action, and one determination of the Will, which, while retaining its full 
 vigour, and the purpose not completed, we do not depart from to^make a 
 new determination until pressed by some urgent want or uneasiness. Thus, 
 if your hard student determines at breakfast to study so many hours, and 
 then take an airing abroad, while he turns over his books, or when he throws 
 them aside, here is no determination made of the Will, for that was done 
 once for all in the morning: nor can you draw him from his plan before 
 the determined time by any solicitations of pleasure ; but should his head 
 ache, or his stomach cry cupboard, the uneasiness of that might drive him 
 into a new course of action different from that he had determined upon 
 before. I wish somebody would help us to a clue to guide through this 
 labyrinth, and bring us together again ; for I am never better satisfied with 
 myself than when travelling in his company. In the mean while, though 1
 
 SATISFACTION. 61 
 
 reverence his authority beyond that of all others, whether ancient or modern, 
 in matters relating to human nature, yet he will excuse me for adhering to 
 my own judgment until it shall be altered by better information ; for he, I 
 am sure, would be the last man in the world to impose an authority upon 
 anybody, or desire to draw followers by any other force than the conviction 
 of their own judgment. Yet I still hope the difference is not a variance of 
 sentiment, but of expression, or of the manner wherein we consider the 
 same subject ; and that we travel the same road, though by different branches. 
 But as one cannot go on currently in any other way than that one is 
 acquainted with, I shall continue to proceed in my own track, trusting that 
 we shall quickly be found walking hand in hand again, and speaking almost 
 the same language. 
 
 20. In the seventh place, let it be noted, that neither satisfaction nor 
 uneasiness ever enter the mind without some other sensation or idea to 
 introduce them. For as you cannot have the pleasure of sweetness without 
 putting something sweet into your mouth, nor the delight of a prospect 
 without having some delightful prospect to look upon, so neither can you 
 procure satisfaction without seeing or hearing, or contemplating or reflect- 
 ing, on something satisfactory. And that the satisfaction is something 
 distinct from the concomitant ideas, appears manifest, because it may be 
 separated from them : for the same object, presenting in the same shape 
 and features, affects us variously, being sometimes alluring and at other 
 times insipid. One may be extremely desirous of seeing a particular play, 
 but being disappointed this week, may hot care a farthing for it the next, 
 according as one happens to be differently disposed : the play is the same, 
 the actors the same, and the opportunities the same with those you wished 
 for before, nor can you find any other difference than only the relish. This 
 makes good what I observed before, that all motives are compound ideas, 
 for though satisfaction be the only ingredient weighing in the scale, others 
 are necessary to serve as a vehicle for conveying it to the mind. 
 
 21. The eighth particular relating to satisfaction follows naturally from 
 the last : for if we cannot have satisfaction but by applying some vehicle 
 to convey it, it behoves us to look out for the proper vehicles containing 
 the desired ingredient within them. Nature makes up the mixtures herself, 
 nor have we any hand in the composition : sugar has its sweetness, gall its 
 bitterness, success its joy, and disappointment its vexation, by her provi- 
 sion : we can neither alter nor diminish the relish of things by our own 
 power. Sometimes she shifts her ingredients, taking out satisfaction and 
 leaving the vehicle insipid, or substituting uneasiness in its room : but even 
 these changes of taste are of her making, being effected by the variable 
 nature of our palates disposed to different viands at different times, nor can 
 we help ourselves or restore them at pleasure to their former state, but 
 must take objects as we find them, according to the pressing disposition 
 either of our body or mind. This nobody will deny, nor say that when salt 
 has lost its savour we have wherewith to salt it ; or that we can always 
 raise the same fondness we had for a particular diversion the other day, or 
 make nothing of a fatigue we used to undergo with cheerfulness. 
 
 22. Thus far we go on currently, without opponent or contradiction ; 
 but in this divided disputatious world one must not expect to travel any 
 road long without a check. There are people, namely, your sticklers for 
 indifferency of Will, who pretend that nature has left some of her vehicles 
 empty, indifferent to receive either satisfaction or uneasiness as we please 
 to sprinkle it upon them, or mingled up others so loosely that we can pick
 
 62 SATISFACTION. 
 
 out the vivifying ingredient, and throw in its opposite, thus changing the 
 quality of a motive, and rendering that satisfactory which was naturally 
 distasteful. Not that they deny volition always follows the last act of the 
 understanding ; but, say they, we have a certain degree of power to give 
 colours to our ideas, and control the understanding, so as to make it pro- 
 nounce sentence against the clearest decision of judgment, or strongest 
 solicitation of passion. 
 
 Here I have the pleasure of returning into my old alliance again, and 
 joining forces with Mr. Locke, whom I find as little inclined to this notion 
 of indifferency as myself. Those he had to deal with, it seems, had de- 
 livered themselves so obscurely concerning this antecedent indifference, as 
 they called it, that he could not tell where they placed it : whether .between 
 the thought and judgment of the understanding, and the decree of the will, 
 where there appears no room for anything, "or before the former, which is 
 a state of darkness exhibiting no object whereon to exercise our power. 
 But by a book not extant in his time, Dr. King upon the Origin of Evil, and 
 his profound commentator, I can discern where they place this supposed 
 indifference, to wit, between the thought and judgment of the understand- 
 ing ; that is, between the action being proposed, and the preference of that 
 action, or its forbearance : and the matter according to their representation 
 stands thus. The mind sits in judgment between several objects offered to 
 her option ; arguments occur in favour of either, and unexceptionable evi- 
 dences are produced ; she sees plainly which has the strongest cause, yet 
 gives judgment for the weakest, by virtue of her arbitrary power. Or 
 some council makes a motion of course, which never used to be denied, 
 and which there is no reason for denying; nevertheless she will reject it, 
 merely because she will. So the province of indifference lies between the 
 trial and the judgment, which the understanding pronounces by particular 
 direction from the Will, annexing the idea of best to that which had it not 
 before, and this the understanding having discerned, gives judgment ac- 
 cordingly : and that idea the will annexes by her own sole authority, after 
 full cognizance of the cause, without regard to the merits, and uninfluenced 
 by any motive at all. But there is really no motive inducing the mind to 
 .annex this idea, if any such power she has ; for acting upon our ideas is an 
 act, as well as acting upon our limbs, and she does not choose to enter upon 
 action of any kind, unless for some end proposed, or to obtain some effect 
 she conceives will prove satisfactory. Nor must we take understanding 
 here in the vulgar sense for the judgment of reason, but for every discern- 
 ment of the perceptive faculty, including the suggestions of fancy, and 
 impulses of passion ; which may start up unawares, and whisper the judge in 
 the ear, just before giving sentence, although they had not spoken a word 
 during the whole course of the trial. 
 
 Your abettors of indifference, being solemn folks, deal altogether in 
 general terms and abstract reasonings : but to my thinking, the abstract is 
 seen clearest in the concrete, for ideas fluctuate in our reflection, nor can 
 we hold them long in the same state. If you would judge between two 
 oranges you have seen a little while ago, which is the deeper coloured, you 
 will think sometimes the one, and sometimes the other : but set them close 
 together and fix your eye upon them, this will keep your idea of both 
 steady, so that you may quickly perceive which is the redder and which 
 the paler. Therefore I wish they had given us instances of some particular 
 actions, wherein they apprehended this privilege of indifference is exerted ; 
 but since they have thought it below their dignity, or unbecoming their
 
 SATISFACTION. 63 
 
 gravity, I shall attempt to do it for them, and if I can hit upon proper 
 Samples to their mind, we shall not rest in speculation alone, but shall see 
 by experience whether, in actions esteemed the most indifferent, there is 
 not some motive actually prevailing upon us to perform them. 
 
 23. But I must observe by the way, that the trial above described, is a 
 very complex action, consisting of many single acts, each of which must 
 have its several volition and several end in view, following one another so 
 close, that there is nowhere room for the power of indifferency to interfere. 
 But as the gentlemen we have to deal with seem unprovided with a mi- 
 croscope, I shall not trouble them with minute objects nor such as cannot 
 be discerned with the naked eye ; and therefore shall present them with 
 larger actions, suitable to their organs, and consider the whole compound 
 as one body. 
 
 Since then, they place the merit of their behaviour in the right use of 
 this power of indifferency, one may expect to find the effects of it most 
 apparent in the most arduous exercises of virtue. Suppose then a good 
 man, solicited by temptations, attacked by threatenings, urged by tortures, 
 to betray his country, yet he bravely resists all opposition : but has he not 
 a thorough persuasion of the advantages of well doing ; has he not a strong 
 desire of fulfilling his duty, and a vehement abhorrence of treachery ? 
 These must move him to take up his resolution, and support him in going 
 through with it : for another who had not such motives, or had them in a 
 lower degree, would undoubtedly decline the task, or fail upon trial. If 
 they should urge that all men have the like motives, would they but listen 
 to them : those who allege this, must have a different idea of motives from 
 that we have given before, and overlook the distinction between a motive 
 and a good reason for doing a thing. For how reasonable soever it may 
 be to act right, yet to him who does not discern the expedience, or can 
 satisfy himself in the foregoing it, and feel no uneasiness in the want of 
 it, it is no motive at all. 
 
 What will they say of the perfect wise man, would not he, if there were 
 any such, adhere to the dictates of his judgment without deviating in a 
 single instance ? Yet he, I suppose, proceeds in all his measures upon the 
 motive of their rectitude. So long as the matter remained doubtful, he 
 would remain indifferent to either side, and would all that while suspend 
 his action : but the moment expedience became manifest, his indifference 
 would vanish, nor would he delay the determination of his Will. What 
 will they say of those imperfect wise men we have upon earth ? Have they 
 not a quick sense of honour, and love of right conduct ? And are they not 
 therefore good and deserving because this motive influences the greate&t 
 part of their actions, and because they cannot behold villany and meanness 
 with indifference ? Do the judicious and the worthy less enjoy or less use 
 this most noble privilege of human nature than the gay, the giddy, and the 
 thoughtless, whose conduct is much more unaccountable, who frequently 
 act upon no visible motive at all, or run counter to the weightiest. 
 
 Why do they ever exhort us to this or that kind of behavionr, or to make 
 a right use of our privilege ? Does not this imply an opinion that they may 
 pievail upon us thereby to give a right turn to our indifference. Therefore 
 indifference it seems may be operated upon by exhortation, and may as well 
 be carried on by the same through the execution of its purpose. But what 
 are exhortations besides the suggestion of motives to do a thing ? which 
 were needless if we might do the same without any motive at all ; and use- 
 less if actions performed upon motives had no morality in them, nor any
 
 64 SATISFACTION. 
 
 action were valuable unless for so much of it as proceeded from our power 
 of indifference. 
 
 Most probably the notion of this power took rise from an inaccuracy of 
 thought occasioned by an inaccuracy of language. Desire, says Mr. Locke, 
 so constantly accompanies our actions that it is frequently taken for Will, 
 and confounded with it in our discourses. I have observed in a former 
 place, that Will and pleasure are reputed synonymous terms, nor would it 
 be thought a different question should one ask, Will you have such a 
 thing ? or Do you desire or please to have it ? The preference of one 
 thing above another, either in our judgment or inclination, is often styled 
 the choice of our Will : and when some authority or obligation compels us 
 to do the thing we dislike, we call it acting unwillingly, or against our 
 Will. It would be hard to produce an instance of any man going through 
 with an arduous undertaking, without having it strongly at heart, without 
 a desire of the work to be completed thereby, or without feeling a want of 
 it, upon being obstructed in his progress. I would ask the champions for 
 indifference, whether, when they have made a wrong use of their power, 
 (for possibly they may trip once in a while,) they do not feel a shame, a 
 vexation, a disappointment, in reflecting thereupon ; which could not well 
 happen, if they had no desire of improving their opportunities. But this 
 desire, which often has an efficacy to overpower the strongest motives, 
 they confound with the Will, and finding nothing previous in the thought 
 that should give birth to it, they suppose it self-begotten, and thence wisely 
 conclude the Will has a power of determining itself, and of infusing satis- 
 faction into that, which nature had mingled up with uneasiness. There is 
 a desire, having no other object than the restraint of desire : for men vir- 
 tuously inclined find their passions and appetites perpetually drawing them 
 aside out of their road : this gives them a jealousy of such intruders, and 
 when desires solicit strongly, although not urging to any thing mischievous 
 or improper, yet they will not comply merely because they will not let their 
 passions get the mastery over them, nor acquire a strength too great to be 
 resisted at other times. Now this desire of restraining desire, our profound 
 speculatists mistake again for the Will, to which, therefore, they attribute 
 a power of controlling desire, without aid of any counter- weight whatsoever, 
 and of making an election, like the King by a conge d'elire, in virtue of its 
 royal prerogative. 
 
 24. Let us next turn to the abusers of their privilege. A man is urged 
 to some useful attainment : you make him sensible of the good fruits de- 
 pendant upon it, so as to raise in him some desire of gathering them : you 
 convince him there is nothing difficult in the pursuit, nothing irksome, 
 nothing thwarting his other inclinations, yet you cannot get him to stir. 
 But is there not some secret passion, some habit, some humour, some 
 averseness to trouble, that lies in the way ? If you cannot presently dis- 
 cover the rub, it does not follow there is none ; for the heart of man is 
 deceitful above all things, containing many springs unknown, even to the 
 owner. But if you have any knowledge of human nature and intimacy 
 with the person, it is ten to one but you may discern the obstacle, which 
 you find to be something that acts as a powerful motive upon him, though 
 it might weigh nothing with yourself. Since then, upon closer exami- 
 nation, you can generally distinguish a motive where there appeared none 
 before, it may be presumed there is one when it escapes your search : 
 therefore those instances of wrong management are too uncertain a foun- 
 dation to build the doctrine of indifferency upon.
 
 SATISFACTION. 65 
 
 But now and then you shall meet with persons, who being recommended 
 to do something advantageous to themselves, which they would have liked 
 well enough, and been fond of, had it first occurred to their own thoughts, 
 yet reject it out of mere crossness : the more you urge them with motives, 
 the stronger they set themselves against it. But consider whether the 
 bare having of their Will is not an engaging motive with most men. 
 Liberty of itself is sweet, and to have the command of our motions without 
 control, what we all in some measure desire. This desire, when excessive, 
 is thought owing to a perverseness of Will, which can run contrary to all 
 motives, either of expediency or inclination ; but it may generally be traced 
 to another source : for obstinate people are either such as have been con- 
 stantly humoured by those about them, or else persons of shallow under- 
 standing. Fools are credulous at first, till having been frequently deceived, 
 they contract a jealousy of all mankind, and see no chance of obtaining 
 anything they like, unless by rejecting whatever shall be proposed by 
 another. Besides, there is a kind of honour in doing as we will : and 
 honour operates as a mighty incentive to action. But you will ask, do I 
 conceive there is any honour in persisting obstinately to do just as we will, 
 without regard to motives dissuading us from it ? Truly I cannot answer 
 the question so generally proposed, but must give my opinion disjunctively. 
 When done in opposition to passion, danger, fatigue, or pain, which we 
 will not suffer to drive us from anything we have a mind to, I applaud it 
 highly : when in contradiction to good advice or the suggestions of reason, 
 I censure it as highly. For tenaciousness, even of a resolution taken for 
 opposition sake, serves either to good or bad purposes : when to the 
 former, it is called steadiness and bravery ; when to the latter, perverseness 
 and obstinacy. But whether you, or I, or the world, allow it to be honour, 
 or no, there are those who certainly esteem it such ; like the miser in 
 Horace, who, being hissed by the populace, applauded himself at home in 
 counting over his bags ; as appears manifestly by the shame and vexation 
 they feel upon failing of their Will, and the triumph and exultation they 
 express upon prevailing. 
 
 Were the Will indifferent to all motives, and could give itself the turn 
 without any previous cause influencing it thereto, all our actions, those of 
 them at least that are moral, must remain absolutely contingent. How then 
 can we depend upon any man that he will keep this or that tenor of con- 
 duct ? Yet we daily repose a full confidence in one man, because we know 
 he will deal honestly by us, and refuse it to another who we know would 
 betray us. Oh ! say they, the one has acquired a rectitude, and the 
 other a perverseness of will. What do they mean by this rectitude and 
 perverseness of will ? A perverseness of mind I can understand, when 
 satisfaction or desire fixes upon pernicious or deceitful views, and continu- 
 ally moves the Will to pursue them. If they will allow this to be a per- 
 verseness of will, I have no objection : but then this depends upon a 
 quality in the Will to follow desire starting up perpetually to the thought, 
 and he who has this desire stronger than any other, cannot remain indif- 
 ferent whether he shall gratify it, or no. Other perverseness, I know none, 
 but were there any other it must equally destroy indifference, for we see 
 this perverseness once contracted determines the Will afterwards to act per- 
 versely as often as opportunity shall offer : so the will remains no longer at 
 liberty to follow or reject the instigations of perverseness, nor is it the less 
 bound for having brought the thraldom upon itself; as a man who sells
 
 66 SATISFACTION. 
 
 himself to the plantations is no less a servant, than the felon transported 
 
 hy judgment of law. 
 
 25. Thus the doctrine of indifferency, canvassed narrowly, contradicts 
 and overthrows itself; for if indifferency be a privilege inherent in human 
 nature, it can never depart from us, for we cannot lose our nature while 
 we continue to be men. Then, although the Will should have given itself 
 a perverseness, it might as well give itself a rectitude again, and vice versa, 
 as often as it pleased without any previous cause or motive : and the beha- 
 viour of men would be totally uncertain and unsteady, for we should act 
 right or wrong, prudently or foolishly, just as indifference happened to take 
 the turn. But if indifferency, by I know not what magic, can control 
 itself and persevere in the turn it has once taken, then we have our inde- 
 pendency upon prior causes only upon some few occasions, that is, when 
 we are to enter upon a new course of action, which having once determined, 
 we proceed therein mechanically, like a ball put in motion, by virtue of the 
 impulse first imparted. If this be the case, and merit or demerit extend 
 no further than while the Will can act independently, why do your indiffer- 
 encists ever punish for acts done in consequence of a perverseness already 
 contracted ? As soon as the perverseness appears, they ought to examine 
 the degree of it, and appoint a punishment adequate thereto, which the 
 party having suffered, has paid his penalty, and remains no longer obnox- 
 ious to the law : his independency is now gone, and nothing happening 
 during its absence, can upon their principles be imputed to his account. 
 Nevertheless, we find them forward enough to punish again for subsequent 
 offences, proceeding from a perverse turn of will, visible many years before. 
 Will they plead that the power of indifferency is a limited power, and that 
 the Will may give itself so strong a determination, as it cannot afterwards 
 resist by its own strength, therefore they throw in the terrors of punish- 
 ment in counterbalance, to bring the weights so nearly equal, that the power 
 of indifferency may suffice to turn the scale ? Let them have a care how 
 they allege this, because it will tear up the main foundation whereon they 
 build their doctrine of indifference, namely, that without it there could be 
 no demerit, and consequently no room for punishment : for here we see 
 there is room for punishment, which may be lawfully inflicted, not solely with 
 reference to past offences, but also as a necessary remedy to prevent the 
 commission of them for the future. If they give us this inch, perhaps we 
 may take an ell, and show by parity of reason, that the justice of rewards 
 and punishments may remain in full extent, although there should be no 
 such power as that of indifference. 
 
 What do they mean by a determination of the Will carrying us through 
 a long course of behaviour ? Do they conceive volition a permanent act, 
 extending to a long series of performances ? Surely they never reflected 
 with themselves upon the operation of their own Wills, nor the manner of 
 their own motions. We have it upon Mr. Locke' s authority that the mind 
 is capable of but one determination to one action at once : and his judgment 
 stands confirmed by daily experience. Successive volitions keep us inces- 
 santly in play ; each performs its several act, and has the sole direction of 
 our powers for the present moment, both themselves and their effects being 
 instantaneous and transitory, nor does one operate by any force received 
 from a former. Whatever we may will to-day to do to-morrow, we shall 
 perform or omit, according as we shall then be in the mind : for the actions 
 of to-morrow depend upon the morrow's volitions, which are determined 
 either by some motive occurring at the time, or else by the power of indif-
 
 SATISFACTION. 67 
 
 ferency then exerted. Therefore, to talk of the Will by a single act giving 
 birth to many successive motions, and casting a perverseness upon itself 
 that shall continue for days, months, and years, is talking unintelligibly ; 
 the continuance of a thing in its own nature momentary, being a contra- 
 diction in terms. 
 
 Were indifferency a privilege appendant to human nature, one would 
 think all men should possess it in equal degree : but we see the same temp- 
 tations overcome some men which others can resist, although both strive 
 equally against them. Must we not then ascribe their different success 
 either to the variety of colours wherein the same objects appear to different 
 minds, or to the various strength of other motives they have to oppose 
 against them ? I know an old gentleman, who, being pressed by his phy- 
 sicians to go out in his chariot every day, as the only thing capable of reliev- 
 ing him in his infirmities, acknowledged the expedience of their advice, and 
 wished to follow it, yet could never muster up resolution enough to do as 
 he desired. What now was become of his power of indifferency, which 
 was supposed able to control any motives, but could not here act in concur- 
 rence with the weightiest ? Yet he could choose for himself upon other 
 occasions, and act rightly when tempted to the contrary : and could even 
 go out when he fancied something of moment called him. May we not 
 then look out for some secret motive to account for this difference of beha- 
 viour ? He had been a man of business, unused to stir, unless upon some 
 affair of importance, and had contracted an aversion to your idle jaunts, 
 taken for amusement only, as fit for none but women and triflers ; therefore 
 could not brook his mind to descend to them, although they were become 
 matters of moment, by being necessary to his health. 
 
 26. Hitherto we have considered important actions, such as are under- 
 taken with deliberation and design, or upon some distant purpose in pros- 
 pect. We will now take a view of sudden and trifling motions, which 
 scarce seem to have any motive inducing us to them, and therefore may be 
 thought to proceed from the sole power of the Will. But there needs no 
 great sagacity to observe, that the very want of employment creates an 
 uneasiness, and almost every exertion of our activity affords a small degree 
 of satisfaction, which, whatever first starts up to the fancy, prompts us to 
 pursue. Whoever will take the trouble to watch men in their idle hours, 
 will find a certain regularity in things done without regard to any rule.: 
 some habit acting uniformly sets them for the most part at work. For 
 though different persons amuse themselves differently in an infinite variety 
 of ways, each adheres steadily to his own kind of amusement, and acts 
 most in character when he thinks of it least. Therefore, one man whistles, 
 another sings, another dances, another plays with his fingers, when he has 
 nothing else to do. Which shows that the Will has not an indifference, 
 even with regard to trifles, but catches, from time to time, at such little 
 motives as custom has taught to rise most readily in the imagination. One 
 may discern the like causes in those bye motions which fill up the vacant 
 spaces of time during our engagement in some earnest pursuit ; when we set 
 ourselves to think intensely, few of us leave our limbs entirely at rest, but 
 give them various employment for every little interval while thought stops, 
 and until it can find an issue ; some play with then* buttons, some twist 
 their knee-strings, or rub the table, or kick their leg to and fro, or prac- 
 tise some innocent trick they have fallen into by accident, or catched by 
 imitation from somebody else. Now in times of study or business, the 
 
 F 2
 
 68 SATISFACTION. 
 
 determination of the Will tends solely towards the principal end we labour 
 to attain ; the power of indifferency is all exerted that way : yet we see 
 any idle habit can give a motion of its own to the Will, which, like a 
 cord drawn to the stretch by a mighty force, may notwithstanding be bent 
 to this side, or that, by the slightest lateral pressure. 
 
 Even in cases where the objects proposed to our option appear indifferent, 
 as well to judgment as inclination, and the Will seems to determine by 
 arbitrary power, because there is nothing else to give the preference ; yet a 
 prying eye may discover some latent motive that escaped the general notice. 
 Suppose you call upon a friend just after dinner, before the bottles and 
 glasses are removed. He asks, Will you take a glass of wine with us ? 
 Thank you, Sir, I do not care if I do. Shall I help you to red or white ? 
 Any that you have upon the table. Here are both. That that stands next 
 your hand. See both bottles stand equally near. Why, then, white if you 
 please. This little dialogue, happening frequently between friends, exhibits 
 as much indifference as the mind of man can well be in ; for we suppose 
 neither wine disagreeing with your sromach, or displeasing to your palate, 
 you had drank as much as you cared for before you came out, but a glass 
 extraordinary will do you no harm, yet you are willing to be sociable, and 
 therefore accept his offer, but civility makes you refer the choice of your 
 wine to him, and the same civility prompts you afterwards to choose that 
 which will give him the least trouble : but finding this will not do, and per- 
 ceiving that further compliments would be troublesome, you take the first 
 that occurs ; for you cannot pronounce the words White and Red together, 
 and as you want to end the dispute, whichever comes quickest to the tongue's 
 end, is therefore fittest to relieve you from this want. 
 
 Why should choice be deemed an act of the will, when the understanding 
 many times presents a choice ready made, without staying for the will to 
 assist in the production ? An ambassador, making his public entry, throws 
 out money among the populace : a porter, scrambling among the crowd, 
 spies a half-crown and a sixpence lying upon the ground : he can get either, 
 but has not time for both, so he takes up the half-crown, not for any pre- 
 ference thrown upon it by his will, but from his knowledge that this piece 
 will go five times as far at market as the other. Many times the will acts 
 without any choice at all : a man hears a sudden cry of fire ; he starts up 
 instantly from his seat, and runs to see what is the matter. The alarm 
 banishes all other ideas ; he has not a thought of anything else he would 
 not choose to do, nor even of forbearance from all kind of action. The 
 wanton sallies of fancy proceed more from thoughtlessness than wrong elec- 
 tion : ideas come in one by one without a competitor, and the mind follows 
 the present whimsey, for want of seeing the inexpedience or impropriety 
 attending it. Can this be called a choice ? which in the very nature of it 
 implies a judgment between several things, and a preference of one above 
 another : but when one object only lies in view, there can be no preference, 
 nor can one choose, but take that which alone is presented. 
 
 27. But I find there are persons of all characters in the interests of 
 indifference. Those of a humourous turn, not being good at argument, 
 endeavour to ridicule our doctrine of motives, by putting the case of an 
 ass placed between two bundles of excellent hay, both equally alluring to 
 his sense, who, they say, must starve in the midst of plenty, for want of 
 being able to prefer either. It is no uncommon thing for wit to outrun 
 discretion ; therefore I would caution these jokers to beware how they 
 anger their solemn friends of their own persuasion. For if the beasts
 
 SATISFACTION. 69 
 
 cannot live without a power of indifferency, what becomes of the noble 
 privilege peculiar to human nature ? It is rather a benefit we share in 
 common with our brethren asses, who, by the right use of it, may merit as 
 glorious rewards as ourselves. But we contemplative folks are not to be 
 jested out of our notions ; nor shall I scruple to own that their supposition 
 is true in theory : and so it would have been, had they put the case of a 
 sharpened pole, ten feet long, set upright upon a marble pavement, with 
 the centre of gravity directly over the point, which would remain for ever 
 in that posture, if nothing meddled with it. But I question whether such 
 experiments be practicable : let them try, if they can, to place the ass, the 
 pole, or their own mind, in such a situation. Should the beast shake his 
 head ever so little, this may bring it nearer to one bundle, which will make 
 the scent of that become the stronger : the least breath of air, or brush of 
 a fly's wing is enough to throw down the pole : and imagination con- 
 tinually supplies us with motives, either great or small, either of judgment 
 or fancy, sufficient to put the mental balance in motion. 
 
 Of the two, I believe instances of such an inability to act for want of 
 motives, more likely to be met with in men than asses : I myself have met 
 with them in my time. I remember once calling upon a friend in the 
 Temple, to take a walk : we came down stairs presently, and then began, to 
 talk of the course we should steer. I found him irresolute, but would not 
 interpose, having a curiosity to see the event : the business was whether 
 we should go to the Park, or to Islington : we had no particular call to 
 either, and both appeared equally agreeable. I believe we stood a full 
 quarter of an hour in the court, before he could determine ; for he was a 
 man of gravity, used to weigh his motives carefully, and had rejected the 
 impulses of fancy, until they had entirely lost their force : so he had 
 nothing to sway with him, for you may suppose there could be no weighty 
 reasons for preferring one tour before the other. Where now was his 
 power of indifferency, which had he possessed in the lowest degree, might 
 have helped him out at this dead lift ? 
 
 Such hesitancies as these are weeds of the richest soils, being most fre- 
 quently found in serious, considerate, and industrious sempers : but they 
 will grow in more barren grounds. I have been pestered with them upon 
 my own estate in former days, till I found out the secret of nourishing a, 
 crop of fancies, in those spots which judgment would not cover. I en- 
 deavour first to take direction from my reason ; but if that has no com- 
 mands, I give up the reins to fancy ; if fancy presents me with double 
 objects, I toss up, cross, or pile, rather than lose time in hesitating : for 
 employment upon any motive, the best to be had, is better than no employ- 
 ment at all. I never could reap any service in those cases from indiffer- 
 ence, for, so long as that lasts, I can do nothing at all : nor could I ever 
 remove it unless by suggesting something expedient, or amusing to my 
 imagination, which might urge me to bestir myself. 
 
 28. Thus have we examined every species of action, trifling and momen- 
 tous, sudden and deliberate, fantastic and judicious,*in search of an indiffer- 
 ence to the preponderancy of motives, but in vain : nor is indifference 
 anywhere to be found, unless in a suspension of action, while the motives 
 hang doubtful, and the mind waits until some of them shall preponderate. 
 I think now we may fairly conclude the mind enjoys no such privilege as 
 this boasted power of indifferency. Nor would it be a valuable privilege if 
 we had it : for as the turns it takes must be absolutely contingent, depend- 
 ing upon no prior cause, there is an even chance it mi^ht turn as well to
 
 70 SATISFACTION. 
 
 our detriment as our advantage : nor could we ever pursue a plan, or lay 
 our measures surely, or complete any long work, for want of a sufficient 
 dependence upon our own behaviour, or that of other persons; for the hazard 
 of wrong elections disconcerting our schemes, would discourage us from 
 attempting anything. Should you send for a surgeon to bleed you to- 
 morrow, you could never depend upon his attendance ; profit, credit, duty, 
 his adherence to his profession, may urge him to come, but these operate 
 only as motives, and neither you nor he can tell but his will to-morrow, by 
 virtue of its arbitrary power, may annex the idea of best to the refusal 01 
 his assistance. Nobody can pretend here that the motives are so strong as 
 to exceed the power of his will to control them : for certainly he may stay 
 at home if he will, nor will his legs or his chariot bring him without some 
 act of his will to order their motion. 
 
 29. But is it never in a man's power to change the pleasantness or un- 
 pleasantness, that is, the satisfaction or uneasiness accompanying any sort 
 of action ? Yes, says Mr. Locke, it is plain in many cases he can. One 
 may change the displeasingness or indifferency in actions into pleasure and 
 desire, by doing what lies in one's power towards effecting it. A due con- 
 sideration will do it in some cases, and practice, application, and custom in 
 most. But he nowhere says it may be done by mere dint of volition, or 
 otherwise than by the use of proper means, which means must lie within 
 our reach, or we cannot procure the change. Is your tea bitter ? You 
 may sweeten it by putting in a knob of sugar : but not if there be no sugar 
 in the dish. Does your meat taste insipid ? You may give it a relish by 
 sprinkling a little salt : but not if the salt have lost its savour. So, should 
 you feel an averseness to labour, you may conquer it by contemplating the 
 credit of industry, or shame of idleness ; or the good fruits expected from 
 your labours : but not if you have no value for reputation, nor desire of any 
 particular benefit, attainable by diligence greater than your love of indolence. 
 For I look upon it as an invariable rule, that you can never bring a man 
 into the liking of anything disagreeable, unless by means of something he 
 already likes appearing connected therewith, or attainable solely thereby. 
 Bread or tobacco, says Mr. Locke, may be neglected, when shown useful to 
 health, because of an indifference or disrelish to them : reason and consider- 
 ation at first recommends and begins their trial, and use finds, or custom 
 makes them pleasant. That this is so in virtue too, is very certain. Thus, 
 in his opinion, our very virtues derive from other sources than the power of 
 indifferency. But if bread appears insipid, tobacco nauseous, or virtue 
 disagreeable to the present taste, no man can render them otherwise or 
 suddenly alter his palate, solely by willing it. 
 
 With respect to ourselves, indeed, we have another expedient for chang- 
 ing the state of our motives, by that command we have in some measure 
 over our organs both of sensation and reflection. For as we can turn our 
 eyes upon any object of the scene before us, and shut them against the 
 light, or wink when it strikes too strongly upon them ; so we can close the 
 organs of reflection, bringing particular ideas to our notice, and thereby 
 throw the course of thought into another channel : or, where we cannot 
 entirely dam up the passage, we may sometimes obstruct it, thereby re- 
 ducing the current to a smaller stream. This way we can, and very fre- 
 quently do, alter the colour of our motives, by throwing a stronger 
 attention upon them, or by removing, or obscuring their competitors. But 
 when we take the latter method, it is no impeachment of the efficacy of 
 motives that they do not strike when you shut your eyes upon them, or
 
 SATISFACTION. 71 
 
 discern them faintly; nor mark of absolute power iix the Will that is forced 
 to thrust out of sight, a motive which it could not resist : and when the 
 former, it is the reflection, not the Will, that adds colour to the motive. 
 For, as when you put sugar into your mouth, it is the sugar, not yourself, 
 that affects your palate with sweetness, notwithstanding you put it in 
 yourself : so when you throw a strong attention upon some particular idea, 
 it is the state of your organs, not your Will, that heightens its colours, 
 although you put them into that state by an act of your Will. Certain it 
 is, we do sometimes pluck up a resolution to surmount a pain, a labour, a 
 danger, without suggesting fresh reasons to encourage us ; and this I take 
 to be done by some such method as that above spoken of; for earnest, 
 eager resolution is a kind of temporary passion, brought upon us by our 
 own procurement, and it is well known we may work ourselves up by de- 
 grees into almost any passion, by dwelling upon ideas, fomenting it with- 
 out admission of others. Upon these occasions, I conceive the mind raises 
 an extraordinary motion in some parts of the animal circulation, which then. 
 runs more rapidly than while under command in the service of our ordinary 
 purposes. For it seems apparent from the quick violent starts of motion, 
 the ferment of spirits, the solicitous turn of countenance, usual in times of 
 vigorous resolution, that the body bears no inconsiderable share in the 
 business. 
 
 30. This power over the organs I take to be indeed the grand privilege 
 of human nature, for I can discern nothing of it in the brute crea- 
 tion. It is true our notions concerning them amount, at most only to con- 
 jecture, for we know not certainly what passes within them, nor in what 
 manner they proceed to action. Remembrance, fancy, and some degree of 
 knowledge, cannot well be denied them ; unless you suppose them mere 
 machines, which, though perhaps it cannot be demonstratively disproved, 
 there is not the least shadow of positive evidence to prove that they are : 
 but their ideas come up uncalled, being occasioned, for the most part, 
 either by sensible objects, or the motions of their animal juices, or parti- 
 cular state of their bodies : nor can I discern any such thing as voluntary 
 reflection, or any control of fancy belonging to them ; which therefore 
 remains the peculiar property of man. From hence spring all our virtues, 
 all our rules of prudence, all our measures of conduct ; and upon this prin- 
 cipally, though not entirely, stands the justice of reward and punishment ; 
 for we reward and punish the beasts, to bring them thereby to do some- 
 thing we like, or deter them from something we dislike. If our opponents 
 will accept of this power in lieu of their indifferency, as equally serviceable 
 to all useful purposes, they are heartily welcome, but I cannot allow them 
 that both are the same thing. For indifferency implies a power in the will, 
 or furnishing the idea of Best out of its own store and by its own sole 
 authority, without recourse to any contrivance or artifice to obtain it. And 
 because a man may give the preference between two objects proposed to 
 his option, either by suggesting considerations, recommending the one and 
 dissuading the other, or by throwing a stronger attention upon one and 
 withholding it from the other, it no more shows an indifferency of the Will, 
 or a power of annexing Best to what appears Worst in the judgment, than 
 because one may make a pebble outshine a diamond, either by covering 
 them with different kinds of paint ; or, by diminishing the light falling upon 
 the latter, and increasing that upon the former, it shows an indifferency 
 in the eye, or a power of annexing lustre to objects naturally obscure. 
 
 3 1 . Besides, whoever will diligently examine the state of his mind, when
 
 72 SATISFACTION. 
 
 he gives this supposed arbitrary preference, will always find opposite de- 
 sires accosting him at those times, to one of which he harbours a secret 
 prepossession or favour, therefore practises every art to make that prevail 
 in his imagination : and this alike in the right or the wrong exercises of 
 his power. If pleasure, profit, or resentment, solicit to act, and the still 
 voice of conscience whispers to forbear : one man has a love of virtue 
 which he cannot easily forego, therefore he suppresses all instigations of 
 passion that might draw him aside, for he will not suffer his beloved and 
 valued object to be wrested from him ; or fortifies himself in his desire, by 
 considerations proper for that purpose, or the earnest contemplation of 
 what he used always to behold with delight ; another man has a favourite 
 inclination which he longs to gratify, but reason puts in her negative : 
 therefore he stifles the cries of reason, or turns a deaf ear against them, lest 
 they should importune him too much ; or hunts for any excuses or pallia- 
 tions he can muster up ; or casts a wistful look upon his darling, whom he 
 is unwilling to leave, and contemplates so long until all other ideas are 
 banished out of his thought. Thus, in reality, the preference is already 
 given, before we enter upon the act, whereby we fancy ourselves conferring 
 it ; nor was the mind indifferent whether such act should be performed or 
 no : and the subsequent determination or idea of Best thrown into the 
 doubtful scale, comes from the means used to effect it, not from the Will. 
 But if you ascribe it to the Will because that applies the means, you might 
 with better reason ascribe it to the predominant inclination, because that puts 
 the Will upon making such application. For whatever the Will does towards 
 annexing the idea of Best, even supposing it to do the business without em- 
 ploying any other means than its own inherent power ; nevertheless, it acts 
 herein ministerially, not authoritatively, but in service of the favourite de- 
 sire, to which therefore the credit and merit of the performance belongs. 
 
 32. What has been said concerning the methods and organs employed in 
 bringing about a determination of the mind, accounts for the limitation of 
 that power, and the difficulty attending the exercise of it ; for our organs 
 can perform their office for a certain time, but no longer. A man may walk 
 a mile with pleasure, but when he has walked five, he may find it fatiguing; 
 nor perhaps can he walk twenty at all, because his legs tire long before. 
 So he may hold up a weight at arm's length for some time ; but cannot 
 keep in that posture for ever, for the muscles of his arm will grow weary. 
 The same may be said of satiety, which proceeds from an alteration in our 
 organs, as weariness does from an alteration in the state of our muscles. 
 We may like venison prodigiously for a day or two, but should be terribly 
 cloyed had we nothing else to feed upon during the whole season : for the 
 palate being over-clogged, no longer receives the flavour in the same man- 
 ner as before. This of course limits our power to that proportion of labour 
 the instruments we have to serve us are capable of bearing, and confines 
 our activity to that compass of time whereto the relish of things may 
 extend. But I know of no labour, no difficulty, no satiety, in pure acts of 
 the mind : we are never tired of commanding so long as our limbs and 
 organs are not tired of executing : we will from morning to night without 
 intermission, and without trouble ; and though our employments often 
 fatigue and nauseate, let but some new desire give play to a quite different 
 set of organs, and the mind runs after it with as much freshness and eager- 
 ness as if it had never done anything. Upon coming home quite wearied 
 down with a long journey, a man may give orders for his conveniences and 
 refreshments to be brought him, perhaps with more ease and relish than he
 
 SATISFACTION. 73 
 
 had in first mounting his horse. After a long morning spent in hard study, 
 we could easily find volition enough to continue the work, but that our head 
 aches, our spirits fail, and nature can no longer bear the fatigue ; wherefore 
 1 ibour of mind is as often called labour of brain, and more truly belongs to 
 the latter than the former. Even at night, when all kind of action becomes 
 irksome, it is not the Will but the eye that draws straws, for the mind does 
 not desire to sleep so long as the body can hold awake. What then should 
 limit our power with respect to anything we can do by barely willing it ? 
 Why do we ever strive to exert such power and fail in the attempt ? or why 
 do we succeed at one time and fail at another ? A man may as easily will 
 to walk a hundred miles as one, or to lift up the house as to take up his 
 slipper, if he can believe himself able ; every one sees why he cannot do 
 either, namely, from the deficiency of his strength : but what the Will has 
 once performed, it then had strength to perform ; what then is become of 
 this strength, that it cannot perform the same again ? Does the Will grow 
 feeble and vigorous by turns, like the muscles, upon labour or rest ? If we 
 assign for cause, that the Will used some medium before which now is 
 wanting, the difference may be accounted for much better than by any 
 variation of strength in the Will itself. 
 
 History informs us that Mutius Scevola held his hand in the fire till it was 
 burnt to the bone ; therefore burning was susceptible of the idea of Best : 
 why then could not you and I pluck up the like resolution ? But perhaps 
 we can annex the idea to some objects he could not. One man can restrain 
 his appetite of meats and drinks, but cannot refuse the offers of ambition : 
 another can reject all temptations of unlawful gain, but cannot resist the 
 impulses of anger. Is there then a strong and a weak side in the Will ? or 
 are the Wills of men cast in different moulds ? One may readily conceive 
 how the various degrees of resolution may arise from the strength of spirits, 
 texture of brain, habit, education, or turn of imagination, but from the con- 
 stitution or mould of the Will it seems inexplicable. When we take up a 
 strong resolution, we find pains and difficulty in keeping it, and often faint 
 in the midway after having made a very good beginning. A pain or trouble 
 that a man has borne patiently for a while, shall sometimes fairly overcome 
 him without growing stronger, merely by tiring him out. This, not to re- 
 peat what I have said before ot the effects visible upon the body, shows that 
 there are organs or nerves employed upon those occasions which require 
 labour to keep them upon the stretch, and can serve us no longer than to a 
 certain period, but may acquire strength, like our limbs, by constant use 
 and practice. 
 
 33. After all, the very expression of a power belonging to the Will, when 
 used in philosophical discourses, will not bear a strict examination. Will, 
 in the vulgar sense, stands for a pressing inclination, or strong conviction 
 of judgment, to which we may properly enough ascribe the power of 
 making labour pleasant and difficulties easy. But if we go into the land of 
 abstraction and study the language current there, what must we understand 
 by Will but the turn of the mind's activity ? The mind has power to move 
 our limbs and organs of reflection, but none of them will move by the bare 
 possession of this power unless it be directed some particular way, and this 
 direction we call our Will : therefore our actions all depend upon the Will : 
 such as our volitions are, such will they be. So the wind has power to 
 drive the clouds or ships along, but there being such a force in winds avails 
 nothing unless it be turned to some particular point of the compass : there- 
 fore the courses of the vessel depend upon the turn of the wind., for it can-
 
 74 SATISFACTION. 
 
 not get into port while the wind sets a contrary way. Now to talk of a 
 power of the turn of the power of the wind would be accounted mere jargon: 
 and how much better is it to contend for a power of the turn of the power 
 of the mind ? Yet have we been talking and arguing all along in that 
 style, nor could do otherwise : for one must speak like other folks if one 
 would speak to be understood, and this may plead our excuse. For custom 
 has a despotic authority in matters of language, so far as to render even 
 nonsense and absurdity reputable by turning them into propriety of speech. 
 
 34. Is there then no liberty at all in human action ? no freedom of Will ? 
 Are we under a constant necessity, and our motions all brought upon us by 
 the cogency of causes, without our intervention or power to control ? By 
 no means : neither Mr. Locke nor I ever dreamt of such a notion. As for 
 necessity, I cannot be suspected of inclining to that, since the little confer- 
 ence I had with Doctor Hartley upon the road. For freedom of action, Mr. 
 Locke strongly asserts it ; but we both apprehend it to consist in our being 
 so circumstanced as that action will follow or not upon our willing to 
 do it or forbear : nor will our present opposers, I believe, controvert this 
 point with us. When upon using our endeavours towards something lying 
 within the compass of our natural powers, some obstacle would prevent 
 their taking effect, then is our liberty gone : when no such hindrance inter- 
 venes but that we shall effect our purpose, or not, according as we try for 
 it or forbear, then are we free ; and nevertheless so for being influenced 
 thereto by consideration of judgment or instigation of fancy. He that relieves 
 a family in distress gives his money freely, although he does it upon motives 
 of charity or compassion or particular kindness, and would have kept his 
 money in his pocket had he not had those or any other inducements what- 
 ever to part with it. He that goes to stir his fire is not at liberty while any- 
 body holds back his hand, but the moment they let him alone, his liberty 
 returns, and he acts freely, though he falls a poking for the sake of warm- 
 ing himself : and even though he should resolve to bear the cold in his toes 
 till he can bear it no longer, still when he puts forth his hand to relieve 
 himself it is his own free act, for the poker would not have stirred of itself 
 had not he meddled with it, neither would the muscles of his arm have 
 operated to extend it without some act of the mind to begin their motion. 
 
 35. As to freedom of Will, how much soever Mr. Locke may seem to 
 reject it in words, where he declares liberty as little applicable to Will as 
 swiftness to sleep or squareness to virtue, yet I do not apprehend him deny- 
 ing it in substance, nor that he would count me heterodox for holding what 
 I take to be generally understood by freewill. For I conceive the exercise 
 of this to be only a particular species of action performed in raising up ideas 
 or fixing them in the mind, which shall determine us to such volitions as 
 we want. And this we may and do practise every day of our lives : we 
 determine upon things beforehand and execute them punctually, we form 
 resolutions for difficult undertakings, we collect reasons to support us in 
 them, we fortify ourselves with motives, we inculcate them deep in our 
 imagination, and afterwards find they produce the effect we expected. Thus 
 we have a power over our future volitions, and in respect of that power, are 
 capable either of liberty or restraint. For if any obligation or compulsion 
 prevents us from exerting this power, or any prevailing dread or inclination 
 obstructs so that it cannot take effect, though we still remain at liberty to 
 act, we are not at liberty to will as we desire : if no such obstruction or 
 hindrance lies in the way, we are perfectly free both to will and to do. And 
 after the determination made, our liberty still remains to change it by the
 
 SATISFACTION. . 75 
 
 like methods whereby we established it at first, though we shall never 
 employ them unless we happen to view the matter in a different light from 
 that we saw it in before. Nor is liberty the less for our being prompted to 
 use it this way or that by reasons or motives inducing us thereto. But here 
 we must distinguish between want of liberty and want of power : for our 
 title to freedom accruing to us only in respect of our power, we can be 
 capable either of liberty or restraint no further than our power extends. 
 He that goes to push down a stone wall fails in his attempt through a de- 
 fect of strength, not of liberty, provided you do not restrain him from 
 thrusting and shoving against it as long as he pleases. So we may attempt 
 in vain to overcome the terror of any great pain or danger, without an im- 
 peachment of our free will. None of us but may, if he will, thrust his hand 
 into burning coals like Scevola, for the hand will undoubtedly obey the 
 orders of the mind, should she so direct ; but we cannot bring our mind to 
 such a pitch of resolution, because we have not command enough over our 
 imagination, nor motives in store sufficient to overbalance the smart of the 
 fire. Yet nothing hinders us from tn;ing, therefore we are at liberty to 
 exert such power over our will as we have ; and if any strong desire incite 
 us, we shall employ our organs of imagination however inadequate to the 
 task, so long as we can retain any hope of prevailing, there being no en- 
 couragement to try where we are sure to fail of success. For there is a 
 manifest difference between the two cases ; where some secret reluctance 
 prevents us from using our best endeavours to bring the mind into a right 
 temper, and where we set about it heartily and in good earnest, but want 
 strength to compass our design. 
 
 Therefore I am not for expunging the term freewill out of our vocabu- 
 lary, nor against exhorting men to raise their wills to a proper pitch, whea 
 some laborious enterprise is to be gone upon. But there is no occasion to 
 trouble them with niceties concerning their manner of going to work, for 
 though they have not the power of indifferency to determine their Will 
 without the use of means, yet if you can once stir up in them an unreserved 
 desire of exerting themselves, they will hit upon the proper means, without 
 knowing what they be : just as we move our limbs by touching the nerve 
 leading to each particular muscle, without knowing what nerves we have, or 
 where they lie. The common notions of liberty serve well enough for the 
 common uses of life ; and were it possible totally to eradicate them, there 
 must ensue a total stagnation of business and cessation of all activity what- 
 ever : for nobody would stir a finger, nor resolve upon any future measures 
 of conduct, if he conceived himself not at liberty either to act or will other- 
 wise than necessity should'urge him. They may contain some inconsisten- 
 cies which men of plain sense do not see, and so never perplex themselves 
 therewith, nor yet suffer any inconveniences from this their want of discern- 
 ment. The young lady spoken of some time ago, who stayed away from the 
 ball because her aunt disapproved of it, could say she had a good "Will to 
 go, and forbore much against her Will, yet declare in the next breat h that 
 she might have gone if she would, but chose to stay at home, becau se she 
 would not disoblige the old gentlewoman. She saw no contradiction in 
 these expressions, nevertheless appears to have beeu a sensible girl by this 
 instance of self-denial, and I doubt not had discretion enough to gratify her 
 inclinations, or restrain them, whenever either were most proper : and this 
 perhaps without having ever heard of the terms Velleity and Voliti on ; nor 
 had anybody done her a kindness that had taught her them, for she could 
 not have conducted herself better, had she known them ever so well.
 
 76 SATISFACTION. 
 
 36. But when we would penetrate into the depths of philosophy, we 
 cannot proceed to any good purpose, without a philosophical microscope ; 
 therefore before we begin the attempt, we ought to examine whether nature 
 has furnished us with a good one, and whether we have brought it into 
 due order by care and application. How much soever people may make 
 themselves merry with me for talking of my microscope, I shall not be 
 laughed out of it while I find it so necessary for discovering the secrets of 
 human nature. And I can comfort myself the easier, because I observe 
 our reprovers themselves very fond of using something like it : but they 
 have only a common magnifying glass, such as we give children to play 
 with, which just enables them to discern objects not obvious to the naked 
 eye, but does not exhibit a perfect view of their shape and colour ; there- 
 fore they see distinctions without a difference, and perplex instead of in- 
 structing mankind. But the possessors of a good microscope see the 
 difference too, which they either find immaterial or turn to some useful 
 service : it is observable they never unsettle the minds of men, nor combat 
 with received opinions, and though they may seem to oppose them for a 
 while, it is only in order to establish them upon a more solid foundation, 
 to render them more clearly intelligible, or purify them from error and ex- 
 travagance. They have many things to discourse of, not cognizable by 
 the vulgar, for which they must find names and phrases not current in 
 ordinary traffic : hence it comes that philosophy has a language peculiar to 
 herself, a little different from that of common conversation, from which 
 nevertheless it ought to vary as little as possible. But your half-reasoners, 
 getting a smattering of the language, without a thorough knowledge, lose 
 their mother tongue, and acquire no other in lieu, so they are fit to con- 
 verse neither with the vulgar nor the learned : for they puzzle the former 
 with their shrewd observations, and stand in the way of the latter with 
 their cavils and blunders. They add nothing to the public stock of know- 
 ledge, but deal altogether in objections, without knowing how to solve 
 them, or being able to understand a solution when given : and if they take 
 up an opinion at hap-hazard, they fortify themselves in it by throwing a 
 cloud of dust over whatever shall be offered to undeceive them, and thus if 
 they can escape conviction by confounding themselves, they look upon it as 
 a complete victory. 
 
 Enough has been said, and perhaps more than enough, upon indiffer- 
 ence ; but I have still a long chapter in reserve for human liberty toge- 
 ther with those three concomitants which never fail to enter the thoughts 
 when contemplating freedom of Will, Necessity, Certainty, and Fatality. 
 But this I must postpone until I have gathered sufficient materials, which I 
 hope to pick up here and there in the progress of my search : and when I 
 have gotten matters together preparatory for the task, I have such confidence, 
 in the microscope, having already found it serviceable upon many occasions, 
 that I doubt not to follow, without losing or breaking the threads, all the 
 twistings and crossings, and entanglements in those intricate subjects that 
 have hitherto perplexed the learned world : for men of plain understandings 
 would never trouble their heads about them were they let alone by the 
 others. All my concern is where to get a good pencil to delineate exactly 
 what I see, so as to make it apparent to another. I wish it were invariably 
 true what I find laid down by many, That clear conception produces clear 
 expression ; but I have often experienced the contrary myself, and Tully, 
 that great master of language, maintains there is a particular art of con- 
 veying one's thoughts without dropping by the way anything of that pre-
 
 SATISFACTION. 77 
 
 cision and colour belonging to them in our own minds. When the time 
 comes, I shall try to do my best, than which nobody can desire more ; and 
 in the mean while shall return back to the course wherein I was pro- 
 ceeding. 
 
 37. The ninth and last remark I have to make upon satisfaction and 
 uneasiness is this, That they are perceptions of a kind peculiar to themselves, 
 analogous to none others we have, yet capable of joining company with 
 any others. We neither hear, nor see, nor taste, nor imagine them, yet 
 find some degree or other of them in almost everything we hear, or see, or 
 taste, or reflect upon. But though they often change their companions, 
 they never change their nature : the same thing may become uneasy that 
 before was satisfactory, but satisfaction never cloys, and uneasiness never 
 loses its sting. Sometimes nature assigns them their places on her original 
 constitution of the subjects, and sometimes custom, practice or accident 
 introduce them. To some sensations and reflections they adhere strongly, 
 not to be removed at all or not without much labour, time, and difficulty ; 
 and upon others they sit so lightly that the least breath of air can blow 
 them away. They have their seasons of absence and residence, lasting longer 
 or shorter as it happens, and often trip nimbly from object to object with- 
 out tarrying a moment upon any : and when separated make no other differ- 
 ence in the idea they leave, than that of their being gone. For in a picture 
 that you looked upon at first with delight and afterwards with indifference, 
 you shall perceive no alteration of form or colour or other circumstance 
 than that it once gave you pleasure, but now affords you none. Sometimes 
 they propagate their own likeness upon different subjects ; at others they 
 come into one another's places successively in the same. One while they 
 come and go unaccountably ; at another, one may discern the causes of 
 their migration : for an idea, whereto satisfaction was annexed, entering 
 into a compound which is afterwards divided again, the satisfaction shall 
 rest upon a different part from that whereto it was at first united ; and a 
 satisfactory end shall often render the means conducive thereto satisfactory, 
 after the end is removed out of view. Some things please by their novelty, 
 and others displease from their strangeness : custom brings the latter to be 
 pleasant, but repetition makes the former nauseous. 
 
 All which seems to indicate that there is some particular spring or nerve 
 appropriated to affect us with satisfaction or uneasiness, which never moves 
 unless touched by some of the nerves bringing us our other ideas : and that 
 the body, being a very complicated machine, as well in the grosser as the 
 finer of its organs, they delight or disturb us in various degrees according 
 as in the variety of their play they approach nearer or remove further from 
 the springs of satisfaction or uneasiness. For as the difference of our ideas 
 depends probably upon the form, or magnitude, or motion, or force of the 
 organs exhibiting them, one cannot suppose the same organ by the varia- 
 tions of its play affecting us either with pleasure or pain without producing 
 an alteration in our ideas. Now what those springs are, where they lie, or 
 by what kind of motion they operate upon us either way, I shall not attempt 
 to describe : nor is it necessary we should know so much ; for if we can 
 learn what will give us pleasure or pain, and how to procure the one and 
 avoid the other, we ought to rest fully contented, without knowing the 
 manner in which they produce their effect. And in order to attain so much 
 knowledge as we want, I shall endeavour to examine how our ideas form 
 into compounds, and how satisfaction becomes united to them, or is trans- 
 ferred from one to another.
 
 78 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 SENSATION. 
 
 SENSATION, as we learn from Mr. Locke, and may find by our own ob- 
 servation, is the first inlet and grand source of knowledge, supplying us 
 with all our ideas of sensible qualities ; which, together with other ideas 
 arising from them, after their entrance into the mind, complete our stores 
 of knowledge and materials of reason. 
 
 Sensations come to us from external objects striking upon our senses. 
 When I say external, I mean with respect to the mind ; for many of them 
 lie within the body, and for the most part reach us by our sense of feeling. 
 Hunger and thirst, weariness, drowsiness, the pain of diseases, repletion 
 after a good meal, the pleasure of exercise and of a good flow of spirits, are 
 all of this kind. But sometimes we receive sensations by our other senses 
 too, coming from no object without us : as in the visions and noises frequent 
 in high fevers ; the nauseous tastes accompanying other distempers, and 
 the noisome smell remaining many days with some persons after catching an 
 infection of the small-pox. For whatever in our composition affects our 
 senses in the same manner as external objects used to do, excites a sensa- 
 tion of the same kind in the mind. 
 
 I shall not go about to describe what are to be understood by external 
 objects, for any man may know them better by his own common sense 
 than by any explanation of mine : but I think it worth while to observe 
 that they are not always either the original or immediate causes giving 
 birth to our sensations. When we look upon a picture, the sun or candle 
 shining upon it primarily, and the rays reflected from it and image penciled 
 upon our retina subsequently, produce the idea in our mind ; yet we never 
 talk of seeing them, but the picture, which we account the sole object of 
 our vision. So when Miss Courteous entertains you with a lesson upon 
 her harpsichord, both she and the instrument are causes operating to your 
 delight, for you thank her for the favour, and may speak indifferently of 
 hearing the one or the other : but when you consider what is the object of 
 your hearing, you will not call it either the lady or the harpsichord, but the 
 music. 
 
 2. It is remarkable that although both visible and sonorous bodies act 
 equally by mediums, one of light and the other of air, vibrating upon our 
 organs, yet in the former case we reckon the body the object, but in the 
 latter the sound of the air : I suppose because we can more readily and 
 frequently distinguish the place, figure, and other qualities, of bodies we 
 see than of those affecting our other senses. We have smells in our noses, 
 but cannot tell what occasioned them ; tastes remain in our mouths after 
 spitting out the nauseous thing that offended us : we may feel warmth 
 without knowing from whence it proceeds ; and the blow of a stick, after 
 the stick itself has been thrown into the fire and consumed. And that this 
 distinction of bodies denominates them objects of vision, appears further, 
 because some, having in a course of experiments been shown a calf's eye 
 whereon they see the miniature of a landscape lying before it delineated, 
 very learnedly insist that the image penciled on the backside of our eye, 
 and not the body therein represented, is the object we behold. But unless
 
 SENSATION. 79 
 
 like Aristotle they hold the mind to be existing in every part of our frame, 
 they must allow that neither is this image the immediate object of our dis- 
 cernment, but some motion or configuration of the optic nerves, propagated 
 from thence to the sensory. Therefore it is the safest way to take that for 
 the object which men generally esteem to be such : for should we run into 
 a nice investigation of the causes successively operating to vision, we shall 
 never be able to settle whether the object of our lucubrations be the candle, 
 or the light flowing thence, or the letters of our book, or the light reflected 
 from thence, or the print of them upon our eye, or the motion of our 
 nerves. If we once depart from the common construction of language, and 
 will not agree with others, that we see the lines we read, we may as well 
 insist that we see the candle, or the optic nerves, as the image in our 
 retina. 
 
 But with regard to the sense of hearing there is no such difficulty 
 started, because you cannot, by dissecting a calf's ear, exhibit anything 
 therein to your scholars similar to the lowings of a cow which the calf 
 heard when alive. Wherefore learned and simple agree in calling sound 
 the object of hearing : nevertheless, every one knows that it must proceed 
 from the cry of some animal, play of some instrument, collision, or other 
 action of some body making the sound. When imagination works without 
 anything external to strike upon the senses, we call our ideas the objects of 
 our thought, because we cannot discern anything else from whose action 
 they should arise : yet this does not hinder but that such of them at least, 
 as come upon us involuntarily, may proceed from something in our 
 humours, or animal circulation, conveying them to the mind ; and were 
 we as familiarly acquainted with these as we are with visible bodies, we 
 should call them the objects. 
 
 3. Our manner of talking, that the senses convey ideas from objects 
 without us, implies as if ideas were something brought from thence to the 
 mind : but whether they really be so, is more than we know, or whether 
 there be any resemblance between them and the bodies exhibiting them. 
 The sense of hearing bids the fairest for such conveyance ; for when you 
 strike upon a bell, you put it thereby into a tremulous motion, which 
 agitates the air with the like tremors ; and those again generate similar 
 vibrations in the auditory nerves, and perhaps propagate the same onward 
 to that fibre, or last substance, whose modification is the idea affecting us, 
 with sound. 
 
 Colours seem agreed on all hands to be not existing in bodies after the 
 same manner as they appear to our apprehension. The learned tell you 
 they are nothing but a certain configuration in the surfaces of objects, 
 adapted to reflect some particular rays of light and absorb the rest : and 
 though the unlearned speak of colours as being in the bodies exhibiting 
 them, I take this to proceed only from the equivocal sense of the word 
 colour, which stands indifferently either for the sensation, or the quality of 
 exciting it. For if you question the most illiterate person breathing, you 
 will always find him ascribing the sensation to the mind alone, and the 
 quality of raising it to the object alone, though perhaps he might call both 
 by the name of colour : but he will never fancy the rose has any sensation 
 of its own redness, nor, could your mind and sensory be laid open to his 
 view when you look upon a rose, would he ever expect to find any redness 
 there. The like may be said of heat and cold, which signify as well our 
 sensations as the modifications of bodies occasioning them : therefore, 
 though we say the fire is hot, and makes us hot, we do not mean the same
 
 80 SENSATION. 
 
 thing by the same word in "both places. When nurse sets her child's pan- 
 nikin upon the fire to warm, she does not imagine the fire will infuse a 
 sensation of heat into the pap, but only will communicate a like quantity of 
 raising warmth in her, should she thrust her finger or the tip of her tongue 
 into it ; and when she feels herself warmed by the fire, she never dreams 
 that this feeling will impart its likeness to the child, without application of 
 her warm hands, or a double clout having received the like quality of 
 warming from the fire. When we talk of fire melting metals, or burning 
 combustibles by the intenseness of its heat, we mean the quality it has of 
 producing the alterations we see made in those bodies ; and this we deno- 
 minate heat, from that best known effect we find it have upon ourselves, in 
 raising a burning smart in our flesh, whenever we approach near enough. 
 Therefore, those, who would find fault with us for attributing colour, heat, 
 and cold, to inanimate bodies, take us up before we were down ; for by 
 such expressions we do not understand the sensations, but the qualities 
 giving rise to them, which qualities really belong to the bodies : so that I 
 shall stand by my plain neighbours in maintaining snow to be white, fire 
 hot, ice cold, lilies sweet, poppies stinking, pork savory, wormwood bitter, 
 and the like, which they may justly do, without offence either to propriety 
 of speech, or to sound philosophy. 
 
 4. We are not troubled with the like shrewd objections against pleasure 
 and pain, satisfaction and uneasiness, because those are commonly appro- 
 priated to the perceptions of the mind, and not spoken of as residing in 
 bodies without us. Yet we lay ourselves open to criticism here too, as 
 often as we talk of a pain in our toes, or a tickling in the palms of our 
 hands, for it might be alleged the limbs are incapable of feeling either, and 
 can only raise sensations of them in the mind. And we might as justly be 
 charged with incorrectness, in complaining of our mind being uneasy ; and 
 our bed being uneasy ; but our defence shall be, that the term carries a dif- 
 ferent force in the two parts of this sentence ; for every child knows that if 
 the bed becomes uneasy by the feathers clotting together into hard knobs, 
 it is not because the lumps give uneasiness to the bed itself, but because 
 they will make any one uneasy that shall lie upon them. But though plea- 
 sure and pain be perceptions, yet we may have an idea of them in their 
 absence, or even in the presence of their contraries : for we often remember 
 past pleasures, when gone from us, with regret, and think of an evil we have 
 escaped with joy at the deliverance ; and this regret, or joy increases in 
 proportion to the strength and clearness we have of the enjoyment or suffer- 
 ing, we now expect to feel no more. 
 
 Magnitude, figure, and motion, are reputed both by learned and vulgar to 
 reside in the bodies wherein we observe them : yet it cannot be denied, that 
 they suffer alterations in their conveyance to the mind, whether that be 
 made through the sight, or the touch ; they being all motion in the rays of 
 light, the organs or other channels wherealong they pass, and that a different 
 kind of motion from any in the bodies themselves. Nor, on arriving at the 
 seat of the mind, can we say they reassume the same form they had at first 
 setting out : magnitude assuredly does not, for when we look upon the 
 cupola of St. Paul's, we cannot suppose any thing within us of equal size 
 with the object it represents ; nor do we know whether there be anything of 
 similar figure : and when we see a chariot drive swiftly before us, it is hardly 
 probable, that the ends of our fibres imitate that whirling motion we dis- 
 cern in the wheels. But since it is the received opinion that magnitude, 
 figure, and motion, are in the bodies such as we apprehend them to be, I
 
 SENSATION. 8t 
 
 shall take it for granted, nor shall I urge the changes they may receive in 
 their passage to the mind as an argument to the contrary, because I know 
 that in other cases, ideas may be conveyed by mediums very dissimilar to 
 themselves : when we read, or hear read, the description of a palace, or a 
 garden, a battle, or a procession, there is nothing in the letters we look 
 upon, or the sounds we hear uttered, at all resembling the scenes they de- 
 scribe ; nevertheless, we have a full and clear conception of all the circum- 
 stances relating to them, conveyed either way to our understanding. As for 
 solidity, when distinguished from hardness, I apprehend we have no direct 
 sensation of that, but gather it from our observation of the resistance of 
 bodies against one another, and of their constantly thrusting them away 
 before they can enter into their places. 
 
 5. Sensations from external objects come to us ordinarily through certain 
 mediums, either of light, air, or effluvia, feeling only excepted, which, for 
 the most part, requires that the substance exciting it should lie in contact 
 with some part of our body ; yet, things intensely hot, or cold, we can feel 
 at a distance. But, when the causes of sensation have reached the surface 
 of our body, we must not think they have done their business there, for 
 perception lies not at the eyes, or the ears, or the nose, or the tongue, or 
 the finger ends ; therefore, the influences of objects, after entering the body, 
 have several stages to pass through in their progress towards the seat of 
 perception. How many of these stages there may be, I shall not pretend 
 to reckon up, but I suspect them to be very numerous, and that the parts 
 of our machine, like the wheels of a clock, transmit their influence to one 
 another successively, through a long series of motions. But it seems con- 
 venient to divide them into two classes, which I shall call the bodily, and 
 the mental organs, as this division tallies well enough with our usual man- 
 ner of expressing ourselves, concerning what passes within us. For we have 
 many ideas arising involuntarily to our imagination, besides others we call 
 up to our remembrance by our own activity ; and upon all these occasions, 
 the whole transaction is esteemed to be carried on by the mind alone, with- 
 out intervention of the body, without impulse of external objects, and by 
 the sole working of our thoughts. But we have shown in a former place, 
 that the idea perceived, must be something numerically distinct from the 
 thing perceiving it, and that there are certain mediums employed in exhibit- 
 ing it to our view, as well when it comes of its own accord, as upon call ; 
 for which reason, we find particular ideas more or less easily introduced, 
 according as our mind stands disposed to entertain them. Whence it fol- 
 lows that there is an organization in the mind itself, which throws up ob- 
 jects to our thought, or which we use to bring them there, when nothing 
 external interferes, and the senses remain inactive : and this is what I 
 understand by the mental organs. 
 
 6. But since I have spoken of mental organs, and extended the machinery 
 of our frame quite into the mind itself, it is necessary, for avoiding the 
 scandal that might be taken thereat, to observe that the word Mind, as used 
 in our ordinary discourses, is an equivocal term : for we suppose our know- 
 ledge of all kinds to be contained in the mind, and yet speak of incidents 
 bringing particular things to our mind which we knew before : but if Mind 
 were the same in both places, it were absurd to talk of bringing a thing to 
 mind which was there already. Therefore, Mind sometimes stands, in the 
 philosophical sense, for that part of us which acts and perceives, or, as Tully 
 expresses it, which wills, which lives, which has vigour ; and to this Mind 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 SENSATION. 
 
 I ascribe no organization : for I conceive perception to be what it is at once, 
 unchangeable and momentary, having no progress from one place to another, 
 like the influence of objects transmitted from channel to channel, along our 
 organs. In like manner I apprehend action, while exerted by the mind, to 
 be instantaneous and invariable, until reaching the first subject whereon the 
 mind acts, where it becomes impulse, and continues such during its passage 
 to the extremities of our limbs, in the same manner as motion propagated 
 from body to body impelling one another. Now whether this philosophical 
 mind be still a compound, or a pure and simple substance, whether material 
 or immaterial, I have hitherto forborne to examine : I may, one time or 
 other, do my best towards discussing this very point fully, when, whatever 
 I may prove to others, my own opinion thereon will appear sufficiently mani- 
 fested ; though at present I choose to leave the question undecided, as 
 being too early to take in hand. 
 
 But we frequently use Mind, in the vulgar sense, for the repository of 
 our ideas, as when we talk of storing up knowledge in the mind, of enrich- 
 ing her with learning, or adorning her with accomplishments : for those 
 stores and treasures are certainly not in the mind spoken of in the former 
 paragraph, because then we must actually perceive them all, so long as they 
 remain in our possession ; but I defy any man, with his utmost efforts, to 
 call to mind the thousandth part of all the knowledge he has in store. 
 Where then is that stock of knowledge which lies dormant and unperceived? 
 If you understand something of mathematics and something of agriculture ; 
 while busy in giving orders to your bailiff for the management of your 
 grounds, your mind continues wholly intent upon the latter, nor do you 
 perceive any one mathematical truth. What then is become of your ma- 
 thematical knowledge in the interim ? You have not lost it, you still retain 
 it in possession, but where shall we seek for its residence ? It is not in your 
 closet, it is not in your hand, yet it lies somewhere within your custody : 
 and where else can we place it, with any propriety of speech, unless in your 
 mind, which you have improved with the acquisition of that science ? But 
 this mind, which discerns not what it possesses, must be something different 
 from that whereby you perceive whatever you have under immediate con- 
 templation. Now concerning the vulgar mind, I shall not scruple to pro- 
 nounce, because I may do it without offence to anybody, that it is a com- 
 pound consisting of parts ; one vigorous and percipient, which is strictly the 
 mind, the other inert and insensible, furnishing objects for the former to 
 perceive : which latter I would call the repository of ideas, containing under 
 parts in all probability of a corporeal nature, distributed into channels, fila- 
 ments, or organs ; and that our knowledge, that is, our ideas, or the causes 
 of them, lie here ready for use, and proceed mechanically from organ to 
 organ, until their last operation, whereby they raise in us perceptions. In 
 short, I take the ambiguity of the word Mind to arise from the grossness of 
 our conceptions : for though the mind alone be properly ourselves, and all 
 else of the man an adjunct or instrument employed thereby, yet in our 
 ordinary conversation we consider the body, the limbs, the flesh, and the 
 skin, as parts of ourselves ; nay, sometimes even our clothes, it being usual 
 to say, You have dirted me, or have wetted me, when somebody has hap- 
 pened to splash either upon one's coat. And when we go to distinguish 
 between the body and the mind, we do not separate them carefully enough 
 in our thoughts, but take some of the finer parts of the former into our idea 
 of the latter. 
 
 7. This imperfect division of man into his two constituent parts, has in-
 
 REFLECTION. 83 
 
 troduced an inaccuracy and contrariety into our expressions, which whoever 
 shall try to escape in discoursing upon human nature, will perhaps find it 
 impracticable : for though we may model our thoughts for ourselves, we 
 must take our language from other people. I had intended at first setting 
 out to appropriate Mind to the percipient part, but have found myself insen- 
 sibly drawn in to employ it in another signification upon several occasions : 
 nor could I avoid doing so without coining new terms and new phrases, which 
 might have looked uncouth, abstruse, and obscure, and formed a language 
 not current in any country upon earth. But to deliver oneself intelligibly, 
 one must adopt the conception and idioms common among mankind : and 
 we find talents, qualifications, and accomplishments, generally ascribed to the 
 mind, which I conceive depends upon the difference of our organization. 
 This led me into the notion of mental organs which I beg leave still to 
 pursue, and to speak indifferently of mind in the philosophical or vulgar 
 sense, as either shall best suit my purpose. If anybody shall think me 
 worth a little careful attention, he may quickly perceive, by the context or 
 occasion, in which signification I employ the term at any particular time : 
 but it was necessary to warn him of the double meaning, because without 
 such caution I might have been grossly misunderstood, and thought to ad- 
 vance doctrines the farthest in the world from my sentiments. 
 
 Sensations from bodies we are conversant with come to us mostly through 
 external mediums first, then through our bodily, and lastly through our 
 mental organs ; and the workings of our thoughts require no other convey- 
 ance than the latter : therefore, these, in all cases, are the immediate causes 
 exhibiting ideas to our perception. For the mind sits retired in kingly 
 state, nothing external, nothing bodily being admitted to her presence: and 
 though in sensation, the notice be received from things without us, they 
 only deliver their message to the mental organs, which by them is carried 
 into the royal cabinet. Thus, whether we see and hear, or whether we 
 remember what we have formerly seen and heard, the mind receives her 
 perception directly by the same hand : and how much soever sensible ob- 
 jects may give us information i^emotely, the pictures of them in our ima- 
 gination, are what we immediately discern, as well as when they arise there 
 without any apparent external cause : nor do we ordinarily distinguish 
 them any otherwise, than by finding the former more lively and vigorous 
 than the latter : for which reason, in dreams and strong impressions of 
 fancy, we sometimes mistake them for real sensations. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 REFLECTION. 
 
 As we have all been children before we were men, we have, I doubt not, 
 amused ourselves at that season with many childish diversions ; one of 
 which, we may remember, was that of burning a small stick at the end to 
 a live coal, and whisking it round to make gold lace, as we called it. We 
 little thought then of making experiments in philosophy, but we may turn 
 this innocent amusement to that use in our riper years, by gathering from 
 thence, that our organs can continue sensation after the impulse of objects 
 exciting it is over. For the coal is in one point only at one instant of time,
 
 84 REFLECTION. 
 
 and can be seen nowhere else than where it is ; yet there appears an entire 
 circle of fire, which could not happen, unless the light, coming from it at 
 every point, put the optic nerves into a motion, that lasted until the object 
 returned unto the same point again, nor unless this motion raised the same 
 perception in the mind, as it did upon the first striking of the light. For 
 if the stick be not twirled swiftly enough, so as that it cannot make a 
 second impression from the same point, before the motion excited in the 
 optics by the first is over, you will not see a whole fiery ring, but a lucid 
 spot passing successively through every part of the circle. He that has 
 been in a great mob, and dinned with incessant noise, clamour, and shout- 
 ing, if he can get suddenly into a close place, and shut himself up from 
 their hearing, will still have the sound ring for a while in his ears. So 
 likewise upon receiving the blow of a stick, we feel the stroke when the 
 stick touches us no more. From all which instances it is manifest that our 
 organs, being once put in motion by external objects, can excite sensations 
 of the same kind, for some little time after the objects have ceased to act. 
 
 2. But beyond this little time, and after all sensation is quite over, there 
 will often remain an idea of what we have seen, or heard, or felt, and this I 
 call an idea of reflection. From hence it appears, that our mental organs 
 have a like quality with the bodily, of conveying perception to the mind, 
 when the causes setting them at work no longer operate. For what the 
 impulse of objects is to the optic or auditory nerves, that the impulse of 
 these latter is to the mental organs : yet we see the idea of an object may 
 be retained after both those impulses are over. How long these mental 
 organs may continue their play by themselves I shall not pretend to ascer- 
 tain, but certainly much longer than the bodily, and probably until thrown 
 into a new course by fresh impulses, or until quieted by sleep. But we 
 know from experience that objects sometimes make so strong an impression 
 upon our senses, that the idea of them will remain a considerable while 
 bevond the power of all other ideas to efface, or of our utmost endeavours 
 to exclude it. Which to me seems a sufficient evidence to prove the exist- 
 ence of these mental organs, and to show that whatever throws our ideas 
 of reflection upon us, has a force and motion of its own, independent of the 
 mind. 
 
 Let any man look steadfastly against the window when there is a bright 
 sky behind it, and then, shutting his eyes, clap his hand close over them : 
 1 would not have him repeat the experiment often, it being hurtful to the 
 eves, but he may try for once without any great damage ; and he will still 
 see an image of the window distinguished into frame and panes. This 
 image will grow languid by degrees, and then vivid again at intervals, the 
 glass will change into various colours, red, yellow, blue, and green, succeed- 
 ing one another ; the bars of the sash will encroach upon the panes, throw- 
 ing them out of their square, into an irregular form : sometimes the frame 
 will appear luminous, and the glass dark, and after the whole image has 
 vanished, it will return again several times before it takes its final leave. 
 
 In like manner, any scene we have beheld earnestly for a while, will hang 
 afterwards upon the fancy, and while we contemplate it there, we shall find 
 the objects varying their forms, their colours fading and glowing by turns ; 
 from whence proceeds that fluctuation of ideas I have often spoken of before : 
 and after having been quite gone out of our thoughts, they will frequently 
 return again with the same vigour as at first. But there is this difference 
 between the play of our sensitive and our reflective organs, that in a few 
 minutes, the image above mentioned will totally fly off, never to appear
 
 REFLECTION. 85 
 
 more, unless you renew it, by taking another look at the window : but an 
 object we have once seen, may recur again to our reflection after days, 
 months, and years, without any fresh application to the senses ; and that 
 the ideas of things we are frequently conversant with, thereby grow 
 gradually more fixed and steady. Were one to mark out the space of a 
 yard, from the edge of a long table, he would touch some particular spot 
 with his pencil, then he would shift it to another farther off, or nearer, and 
 then perhaps to one between both ; nor would he be able to satisfy himself 
 presently, because his idea of a yard would lengthen, shorten, and dance to 
 and fro ; and when at last he had make his mark, it is ten to one but upon 
 applying his rule he would find himself mistaken. Or were he to match a 
 silk for a lady, without carrying a pattern to the shop, when he had several 
 pieces of different hues spread before him upon the counter, he would be a 
 good while before he could fix upon the right : for his idea of the colour 
 would fluctuate in his imagination, corresponding sometimes with those of 
 a darker shade, and sometimes with those of a lighter, or appearing by 
 turns to have more of the green mixture, or of the red ; and after all his 
 care, he would run a great hazard of being chid when he came home, for 
 bringing a colour that would not suit. But the mercer, who does nothing 
 all day long but measure and tumble about his silks, upon seeing the lady's 
 gown, can run home and fetch a piece that shall match it exactly, and can 
 cut off her quantity by guess, without the trouble of taking his ell to- 
 measure it. 
 
 3. Reflection then, as hitherto considered, is only a continuation or re^ 
 petition of sensations ; and thus it is that our senses furnish us with the 
 first stock of materials we have to work upon, in the absence of external 
 objects. For we conceive ourselves as having these ideas in store, de- 
 posited somewhere in what is vulgarly called the mind, even when we 
 do not actually perceive them. We commonly say a blind man has no 
 knowledge of colours, but a man with his eye-sight perfect has, although 
 perhaps at the time of speaking, he has no colour under contemplation ; 
 and we esteem it a part of the stock of knowledge he possesses : but this 
 knowledge, while lying dormant and unperceived, I take to be nothing 
 else besides the disposition of his internal organs to receive such forms 
 and motions from other causes, as they have been first put into by visible 
 objects striking upon the optics. 
 
 I have before declared that by the term ideas, I do not understand the 
 very perceptions of the mind, but the figure, motion, or other modification, 
 of some interior fibres, animal spirits, or other substances, immediately 
 causing perception ; which substances I have since called the mental or- 
 gans. Now, I do not apprehend that from our seeing any strange crea- 
 ture, as an elephant, or rhinoceros, to our reflecting on it again a year 
 afterwards the same modification remains within us during the whole 
 interval : for then our internal organs must be as numerous as the ideas 
 we possess, which, considering the prodigious multitude of them we have 
 in store, seems inconceivable. But one substance may be susceptible of 
 various modifications, at different times, and as the same optic nerves 
 serve to convey red, yellow, or green, according to the rays striking upon 
 them, so the same internal organs may exhibit various ideas, according to 
 the impulse they receive from elsewhere. Therefore it was, that I ascribed 
 our whole stock of dormant knowledge to the disposition of the latter. 
 For the ideas composing that stock, strictly speaking, exist nowhere, but 
 our possession of them is none other than our having a disposition in the
 
 86 REFLECTION. 
 
 mental organs to fall readily into them ; which disposition they first ac- 
 quired from the action of the senses : for Mr. Locke has sufficiently proved 
 that no colour or other simple sensible idea ever occurs to the thought, 
 until it has been once introduced by sensation. 
 
 4. But those ideas before mentioned having gained admittance through 
 the avenues of sensation, do, by their mutual action upon one another, and 
 by their operation upon the mind, or of the mind upon them, generate new 
 ideas, which the senses were not capable of conveying : such as willing, 
 discerning, remembering, comparison, relation, power, and innumerable 
 others. And this proves a second fund for supplying us with materials for 
 our knowledge, which materials so stored up in the understanding, as well 
 as those of the former sort, I conceive to be, when appearing to view, none 
 other than modifications of our internal organs, and when dormant, dispo- 
 sitions of the same organs. Not that I look upon actual volition or per- 
 ception as nothing else besides the motion, figure, or other modification of 
 some organ, but the ideas of those acts are different from the acts them- 
 selves, as remaining with us often in their absence. One may have the 
 idea of comparing without actually making comparisons, of remembering 
 what one has now forgot, and of willing- or discerning things one does not 
 at present will or discern. And one may have the idea of the operations 
 of another person's mind, the original whereof we certainly cannot imme- 
 diately perceive, but apprehend them by representations of them formed in 
 our own imagination. So, on the other hand, we sometimes act and dis- 
 cern without reflecting or perceiving that we do so ; and it often costs 
 great pains to carry with us an idea of our operations, even at the time of 
 performing them. 
 
 5. If any one shall desire me to explain how the play of an organ can 
 affect us with the perception of remembrance, volition, discernment, and 
 the like, let him first explain how external objects, which he must acknow- 
 ledge to act by their figure, motion, and impulse, excite perceptions of 
 colour, sound, taste, and other sensations ; and when he has given a 
 thorough and clear account of this matter, I shall not despair from the 
 lights he shall therein suggest, as clearly to explain the other : but while 
 such lights are wanting, I must own them both inexplicable. Nevertheless, 
 the fact is too notorious to be denied, how little soever we may be able to 
 account for it : continual experience testifying that nature has established 
 such a connection between the motions of matter and perceptions of mind, 
 that one frequently begets the other. We reason and discourse, every day, 
 of the past and future operations of our own mind, and those of other 
 people, and when we do so, we must undoubtedly perceive the terms con- 
 cerning which we affirm or deny anything : but there can be no perceiving 
 without an object to be perceived numerically and substantially distinct 
 from that which perceives, and what is more likely to be this object than 
 some modification of our internal organs ? But when sound sleep, or a 
 fainting fit, has cut off the communications between our animal motions 
 and the mind, we can no more raise ideas of our own acts than we can of 
 sensations. Both sorts start up involuntarily, as well in dreams as in our 
 waking hours; both occur more or less readily, according to the health, 
 fulness or emptiness, or other disposition of the body ; and both sometimes 
 force themselves upon us against our strongest endeavours to remove them. 
 From whence it seems undeniably to follow, that whatever throws up ideas 
 of all kinds to our reflection, has a force of its own, independent of the 
 mind, and belonging to something else : and therefore their repository is
 
 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 87 
 
 not in the mind, unless understood m that vulgar sense wherein it com- 
 prehends a mixture and organization of corporeal parts. At least this 
 approaches nearer towards an explication than what men generally satisfy 
 themselves with, to wit, That by reason of our vital union, there is so close 
 a connection between the mind and the body, that according as the latter 
 stands disposed, she can more or less easily perform those acts which they 
 esteem her to perform by herself alone, without aid or instrumentality of 
 the body. 
 
 6. This second class of ideas alone is what Mr. Locke understands by 
 ideas of reflection, but I have extended the term to the other class too, 
 which we receive originally by the senses, as judging it most convenient 
 for my purpose so to do. For I may have frequent occasion to speak of 
 ideas of all kinds, not coming immediately from sensation, by one general 
 name, and could not find a properer for them than that <of reflection. If I 
 use the term a little differently from what has been done before me, it is 
 no more than common among persons who treat on these subjects : for 
 every man has a way of modelling his thoughts peculiar to himself, and 
 must necessarily accommodate his language to his manner of thinking. 
 Nor can any uncertainty or perplexity ensue from such liberty, provided it 
 be taken sparingly, and proper warning given whenever it is taken. And 
 I have the better excuse in the present instance, because Mr. Locke him- 
 self has a little departed from the common language. For Reflection in 
 ordinary discourse denotes a voluntary act, whereby we turn back our 
 thoughts upon some past occurrence, or hold something under contempla- 
 tion in the mind, or draw consequences from what has been so contem- 
 plated ; whereas ideas of reflection many times start up of themselves and 
 vanish, without our reflecting on them at all, or doing anything to intro- 
 duce or procure them. 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 FROM the ideas thus received by sensation and reflection, there grows a 
 new stock, framed up of these as of so many materials, by their uniting 
 together in various assemblages and connexions. This their junction I 
 choose to call by the name of Combination, as being more comprehensive 
 than Composition, the term usually employed. For our ideas combine toge- 
 ther in two several manners : one by composition, when they so mix, and 
 as I may say melt together as to form one single complex idea, generally 
 denoted by one name, as a man, a table, a dozen ; the other by association, 
 when they appear in couples strongly adhering to each other, but not 
 blended into the same mass, as darkness and apparitions, the burst of a 
 cannon or push of a drawn sword, and the dread of mischief accompanying 
 them. For when we think of a man we conceive him to be one thing, and 
 his body, limbs, rationality, with other ingredients of his essence, as parts 
 of the same whole: but when we reflect on a naked sword, we do not consider 
 that and the terror occasioned thereby as parts of any compound, although 
 the one constantly attends the other, beyond all possibility of separating 
 them in the mind of a fearful person. 
 
 2. To begin with composition, wherein I shall not attempt to reckon up 
 how many sorts of complex ideas we have, that having been done already
 
 88 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 by Mr. Locke much better than I can pretend to, but shall examine how 
 composition itself is effected, which it did not fall in his way directly to con- 
 sider : though if it had, I am apt to think he would have ascribed more to 
 the ministry and organization of our corporeal parts than has usually been 
 done, as one may gather from the hint he gives in his chapter of association 
 ( 6), where he says, "That habits of thinking in the understanding, as jvell 
 as of determining in the Will, seem to be but trains of motion in the animal 
 spirits, which once set a going, continue in the same steps they have been 
 used to, which by often treading are worn into a smooth path, and the 
 motion in it becomes easy, and as it were natural. As far as we can com- 
 prehend thinking, thus ideas seem to be produced in our minds." 
 
 3. Composition, I apprehend, is preceded by a selection of some ideas 
 from the rest, exhibited at the same time to our view, as a necessary prepa- 
 rative thereto. For as a lady, who would make a curious piece of shell- 
 work, must first pick out the proper shells from the drawers wherein they 
 lie, before she can dispose them into figures, so there can be no compound 
 formed in the imagination until the particular ideas whereof it is to consist 
 be disengaged from all others presented in company with them. This se- 
 paration is partly made by the objects themselves striking more strongly 
 upon the senses, and appearing eminently above their fellows ; but I con- 
 ceive the mind has a principal share in the business, by turning her notice 
 upon some particular objects, preferably to others standing together before her. 
 
 Nature at first presents her objects in a chaos, or confused multitude, 
 wherein there is uothing distinct, nothing connected. When the new-born 
 babe comes into the world, the sight of things in the chamber, the gabblings 
 and handlings of the gossips, and perhaps some smells and tastes, rush in 
 at all the five avenues of sensation, and accost the mind in one act of per- 
 ception. The nurse's arms appear no more belonging to her body, than the 
 wainscot seen on each side of them : and the midwife's voice has no more 
 relation to her person, than to the bed-post. But as objects do not strike 
 with equal force, the more glaring and striking give a stronger impulse to 
 the organs, which pontinue the motion imparted therefrom, after that of the 
 feebler impulses have entirely ceased ; and thus the former become selected 
 in the reflection out of the rest entering in company with them. And as 
 our organs acquire a disposition of falling more readily into modifications 
 they have been thrown into before, hence frequency of appearance produces 
 the same effect with vigour of impression, and sensations continually repeated 
 become distinguished from others received more rarely. 
 
 4. Both those causes, strength of impression and frequency of appearance, 
 are greatly assisted by the operation of the mind : for some objects affecting 
 us agreeably, and others appearing indifferent, she fixes her notice upon the 
 former, for sake of the satisfaction received therefrom which gives them an 
 advantage above their fellows. Every one remarks how constantly the eyes 
 of a young child follow the candle about the room whithersoever you carry 
 it : and when we come to man's estate, we often pursue particular objects 
 through all the motions and turnings they make before us. We have not 
 indeed quite the same command over our ears, and other senses, yet among 
 variety of sounds, smells, tastes, or touches, accosting us at the same time, 
 we can pick out some in disregard to the rest ; and we can do the like with 
 respect to different senses. A man who reads in a room where there is 
 company talking, may mind his book without taking notice of anything they 
 say, or may listen to their discourse, without minding a word of what he 
 reads.
 
 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. G9 
 
 This culling of particular objects from the whole number exhibited to 
 view, I call turning the mental eye or directing the notice, by which I 
 would not be understood as exactly describing the operation of the mind 
 herein, (for I do not ascribe to her a blind side and a light, nor suppose 
 her actually turning to the right or the left by a loco-motion,) but as using 
 a figurative expression borrowed from the motion of the bodily eye, pro- 
 ducing the same effect. For how wide soever the circle of our vision may 
 extend, whatever lies in the centre against which the. eye is levelled directly, 
 affects the sense more strongly than other things equally lucid lying nearer 
 the circumference. Wherefore the notice we take of particular objects not 
 only occasions their leaving a stronger impression, but their agreeablene 
 makes this application of the notice to be more frequently repeated upon 
 them than upon others less engaging. But when I speak of the notice 
 which conduces so much to the first selection of our ideas, I do not mean 
 that thought and reflection we apply in our riper years to things we con- 
 template, for such a careful exercise of the faculties little children can 
 scarce be supposed capable of; but that transient and cursory observation 
 the mind makes upon certain conspicuous or pleasing objects passing in 
 review before her, without designing it a moment beforehand, or reflecting 
 on it a moment afterwards. 
 
 5. But objects that shine eminently above their fellows, or on which the 
 notice fixes, are not always single objects ; for two or more may appear 
 equally conspicuous, or may give a pleasure jointly which each of them 
 separately could not have afforded: this happening often, cements th:m 
 together and makes them coalesce into one assemblage. Another cause of 
 coalescence arises from objects constantly presenting themselves together : 
 most of the bodies we are conversant amongst being compound bodies, the 
 parts of them preserve their contiguity to one another -while they move 
 from place to place, although they change their situation with respect to 
 other bodies surrounding them ; hence the ideas of those parts uniting to- 
 gether form an assemblage. When nurse walks about the room, she carries 
 her arms along with her, but not the wainscot seen on each side of them : 
 when she goes out, every part of her disappears, and when she returns, the 
 whole of her figure presents again to the eye, and by frequent use becomes 
 apprehended by the child in one complex idea. Nor can it be doubted 
 what efficacy the consorting of objects has towards compounding them, 
 when we reflect that we scarce know our own acquaintance in an unusual 
 dress, and how surprising an alteration a different coloured wig makes in a 
 man's person : so that the clothes we have been accustomed to see worn 
 seem to enter into our complex idea of the wearer. So likewise ideas that 
 use or conveniency has led us to consider frequently together become a 
 compound, as a yoke of oxen, a flock of sheep, a city, a country. 
 
 We have seen how sensations, after their disappearance, leave ideas of 
 themselves behind in the reflection, and if other sensations follow imme- 
 diately and constantly while those ideas are fresh, they unite into an assem- 
 blage. Thus the taste of sugar in our mouths joins with the colour we saw 
 before putting it in, and the hardness we felt while we held it in our hands, 
 and the ideas of a certain colour, consistency, and sweetness, make the 
 complex of sugar. By degrees we add more ingredients to the compound, 
 further experience informing us of other qualities constantly attending 
 what we have already comprehended under the idea of sugar whenever they 
 have an opportunity of showing themselves ; and hence we learn that sugar 
 is brittle, dissolvable, clammy, and a -tringent. For the complex or essence
 
 90 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 of bodies is made up of the qualities we find them have of affecting us in 
 several manners, or of working changes in other bodies, or of undergoing 
 changes from them. 
 
 6. Composition maks us esteem the things united therein as one ; for 
 how many soever present themselves to our thought in one assemblage we 
 look upon as one thing, and that although they may be actually disunited. 
 Thus if a bed be taken to pieces for conveniency of carriage, upon being 
 asked where it is, we say in the great chest, and if the chest contain nothing 
 else, we conclude it was filled with that one piece of furniture. But having 
 frequent occasion to consider things so compounded separately, we then 
 see them different and distinct from one another, as the curtains, the tester, 
 the headboard, and so forth : at other times, we view them under both con- 
 siderations at once, and thence get the idea of whole and parts, for we call 
 the several things forming an assemblage parts of the same compound ; 
 thus by a kind of contradiction conceiving them at the same time as one and 
 many. 
 
 With regard to the species of things, we are greatly determined in our 
 notions by the names affixed to them : for ice, although nothing but water 
 congealed, is esteemed a different kind of thing from water ; but lead, 
 whether cold or melted, still retains its name, and is reckoned the same 
 metal. Were we to define lead or water, I suppose we should call one a 
 solid and the other a fluid substance, esteeming these their natural states, 
 although we may have seen them put into the contrary by violence : but 
 when we reflect that cold is no more than a privation of heat, I do not 
 know why we should look upon fluidity as the natural state of water, 
 which, unless acted upon by a certain degree of warmth, will of itself form 
 into a consistency. But we call that the natural state which falls most 
 commonly under our observation ; therefore, if we had lived in Saturn, we 
 should doubtless have given but one name to ice and water, and defined it 
 a solid body, although we might now and then have seen it liquefied in a 
 furnace : as on the other hand, had we been born in Mercury, we should 
 have deemed lead a fluid body, although by keeping it a long while at the 
 bottom of a deep well, we might have found it sometimes coagulate. 
 
 7. We get a stock of ideas of the second class pretty early, those I mean 
 strictly called ideas of reflection : and they run into assemblages in the same 
 manner, and from the same causes already spoken of ; sometimes with one 
 another only, but more commonly in conjunction with those of the other 
 class derived originally from sensation : being often either thrown upon the 
 notice by the workings of imagination, or the mind being invited to turn 
 her notice upon them by use and convenience, which always carries some 
 degree of satisfaction. 
 
 Few of our assemblages are without some reflective ideas of the one sort or 
 the other, not excepting those which are reckoned to come immediately by 
 sensation. We talk of seeing cubes and globes, but in reality our sense 
 exhibits no such objects to the mind : we can at most see only three sides 
 of the former, and one hemisphere of the latter, but imagination supplies 
 what is wanting to complete their figures. It has been said that all things 
 strike upon the eyes in a flat surface, and that our former acquaintance with 
 the objects makes them appear standing out one before another : thus much 
 is certain, that the figures lie level in a picture, wherefore the roundness 
 and protuberance we observe in them cannot come from the sense, but must 
 be drawn from our internal fund. Whenever we hear a noise there enters 
 instantly with it an idea of some instrument, or string, or animal, or clash-
 
 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 91 
 
 ing bodies, we apprehend making the sound. We can scarce look a stranger 
 in the face without entertaining some notion of his character and temper of 
 mind, which we conceive conveyed by sensation ; for we think he looks 
 morose or heavy, or courteous or sensible : it is true, we are often out in our 
 guess, and change it upon further observation, but some conjecture con- 
 stantly occurs at first sight, and together with his outward figure forms our 
 complex idea of his person. And though the characters of our familiar 
 acquaintance are too well known to depend upon a single view, yet their 
 present disposition may appear visible upon their countenance ; and we 
 may see them dejected or joyful, serious or frolicsome, in the same glance 
 wherewith we behold their features. 
 
 8. In process of time, when we become capable of care and attention, 
 we join many ideas that would not have consorted of themselves, nor oc- 
 curred to that common notice we are led to take of things by their pre- 
 sent agreeableness. And our conversation and intercourse with other 
 people daily furnish us with new assemblages ; for by perpetually communi- 
 cating our ideas to one another, we become possessed of multitudes that 
 our own experience would never have exhibited, nor our own sagacity 
 worked out. In short, whatever cause occupies the mind strongly or fre- 
 quently with any set of ideas, thereby joins them into one compound. 
 
 Here we see the benefit of industry and society, as they tend greatly to 
 enlarge our stock of complex ideas, which are the principal basis of know- 
 ledge : for were it confined to simple ideas alone, it would be very scanty, 
 and of little service to us in the conduct of life. We could not tell what to 
 apply for satisfying our appetites of hunger and thirst, were not the sight 
 of aliments connected with the idea of their palatableness : and in general, 
 our ideal causes of action perhaps are all of them compounds ; as are un- 
 doubtedly all our final causes, they containing an idea of satisfactory joined 
 to whatever we apprehend possessing that quality. 
 
 9. There being multitudes of the same things subservient to us all for 
 our uses and pleasures, causes a great similitude in the assemblages of all 
 men. The common complex ideas of a chair, a table, of fire, water, vic- 
 tuals, drink, of honesty, gratitude, obligation, and other things, we have 
 frequent occasion to take notice of in the daily course of our lives, are 
 much the same in every one. But as we divide into various professions, 
 and fall upon different ways of observation, there is likewise a great diversity 
 in men's ideas ; so that the same collection of materials, presented to 
 several imaginations, shall run surprisingly into various assortments, accord- 
 ing as they have been respectively accustomed. Carry a number of persons 
 equally clear sighted upon a hill, from whence they have an extensive 
 prospect with a variety of objects before them : the farmer sees turnip and 
 corn grounds, meadow, pasture, and copice ; the soldier observes eminences, 
 valleys, morasses, and defiles ; the mathematician descries parallelograms, 
 triangles, and scalenums, in the fields and hedges : the country attorney 
 distinguishes parishes, hamlets, manors, and boundaries of estates ; the poet 
 beholds shady groves, sportful flocks, and verdant lawns ; the painter dis- 
 cerns variety of colours, contrast of light and shades ; the religious man 
 discovers materials for building, provisions for eating, for drinking, for 
 clothing, for the necessities and conveniences of life, accompanied with a 
 thought of the Giver of those blessings, and all this instantly without any 
 endeavour of their own ; on the contrary, were they to try to form one 
 another's compositions they would find great trouble and difficulty in the 
 undertaking, and perhaps could not do it completely at last.
 
 92 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 10. As our acquaintance with objects increases, we add fresh ingredients 
 to the compounds formed of them in our imagination ; therefore those we 
 have occasion the most frequently and carefully to consider become the 
 most comprehensive assemblages. By this means, manufacturers, artisans, 
 scholars, and others following any particular occupation, have a fuller idea 
 of the things belonging to their respective trades or sciences than other 
 persons. The idea of the Iliad in the vulgar perhaps contains no more 
 than an old story of a siege wrote in Greek verse : but together with this, 
 there arises in the mind of the poet or critic ideas of the fable, the cha- 
 racters, the sentiments, the figures, the diction, any of which being altered, 
 they would not acknowledge it to be the work of Homer. Yellowness, 
 hardness, and valuableness, in commerce, seem to constitute the whole 
 complex of gold in common persons, to which the goldsmith, refiner, and 
 naturalist add malleability, ductility, specific gravity, dissolubility in aqua 
 regia, and indissolubility in all other menstruums, besides other qualities, 
 which never enter into the head of an ordinary tnan. 
 
 By thus adding daily to our compositions, they grow so bulky, that we 
 cannot take them in at one glance, but are forced to turn them about, as 
 we would some very complicated piece of workmanship, in order to view 
 them a side at a time. He that knows the properties of gold most 
 completely, cannot bring them all into his thought at once ; he may run 
 through them successively in a very short space of time, but can never 
 make them all appear together at the same instant : nay, should he go to 
 give a full and accurate definition, it is odds but another person may sug- 
 gest something that he has overlooked. But however this be admitted or 
 not, certain it is, we do not always think of every particular belonging to 
 the compounds under our consideration : nor can it be supposed, that every 
 time we tell over a few guineas we have a thought of ductility, and many 
 other qualities we know residing in them. Yet upon every idea being ex- 
 cited, some part at least of the assemblage whereto it belongs almost 
 constantly occurs : we cannot see the face of a man, hear the barking of a 
 dog, or smell the sweetness of a rose, without thought of something more 
 than the bare sight, or sound, or smell : and how many soever ideas thus 
 start up in company, we find them closely connected together, and appre- 
 hend them as component parts of one complex. 
 
 1 1 . This partial appearance of our compounds suits extremely well with 
 the narrowness of our conception. The ideas of things most familiar to 
 us, contain a multitude of particulars, and were the whole tribe to rush in 
 upon us at once, they would so fill the mind as to leave room for nothing 
 else, at least we should find them too unwieldy and unmanageable to do us 
 any service. For a single idea, how complicated soever, can at most afford 
 us only a present amusement ; it is necessary for use, that we should have 
 two or more together in view : without this we could neither compare nor 
 distinguish them, could discern neither their resemblance, nor difference, 
 nor relations, nor effects, neither could we affirm, deny, or reason, con- 
 cerning them ; wherein the whole benefit we may expect to reap from them 
 consists. 
 
 On the other hand, no small inconvenience arises from their not present- 
 ing before us entire : for by this means our ideas continually fluctuate, not 
 only by their colours fading and glowing alternately, but by varying their 
 shapes ; our assemblages turning about perpetually, and presenting different 
 faces, or their component parts slipping away, and others supplying their 
 places, so that we can scarce ever hold anything steady in our contempla-
 
 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 93 
 
 tion. Hence we are led to reason erroneously, or misunderstand one ano- 
 ther, to discern resemblances, and draw consequences upon one view, of 
 the same things which we do not find holding good upon another. 
 
 To remedy this mischief, logicians take the method of definition, hut 
 then if the definition descend too minutely into particulars, it will perplex 
 instead of helping : therefore, when we would settle the idea of an object, 
 we need bear in mind only so much of what belongs to it as may be suffi- 
 cient for the occasion. What good would it do the gold-beater to think of 
 the fusibility of his gold, or that it will not evaporate in the furnace, like 
 lead or mercury ? the colour, malleability, weight, and thickness, are all 
 that he has any concern with. Rhetoricians and poets employ figures and 
 copiousness of expression, to bring that side of objects forward, which they 
 would have to strike fullest upon our notice : they often use epithets con- 
 tamed in the things whereto they are applied, as just properties, verdant 
 lawns, living men ; not that such epithets add anything to the signification, 
 but because they strike thafe part of the assemblage more strongly upon the 
 mental eye, which might otherwise have been unobserved. 
 
 12. The circumstance, or situation things appear in, joins to make a 
 temporary assemblage together with the things, but does not coalesce so 
 as to remain always in their company. A man running exhibits one com- 
 plex idea, wherein his motion is contained ; the same man standing, or 
 sitting, presents another: yet if we were to describe him to a stranger, 
 we should hardly take his running, or sitting, into our description of his 
 person. Nevertheless, we cannot call those circumstances, whenever they 
 occur, distinct ideas from the man, but parts of the same compound, because 
 they present instantly in the same glance, and may be suggested where they 
 are not : as in statues and drawings of animals in a moving posture, which 
 strike us with ideas of motion in figures really quiescent. Much less can we 
 suppose them distinct, when joined by that main bond of composition, a 
 name, as in the terms wind, rain, a river, a torrent, a horse race, which 
 severally express one complex idea, whereof motion is a necessary ingre- 
 dient ; for, strike that out, and the remainder will be esteemed another 
 thing, and deserving another appellation. 
 
 13. I shall have the less to say upon Association, because of the near 
 affinity it bears to Composition, depending upon the same causes, and sub- 
 ject to the same variations : and perhaps composition is nothing more than 
 an association of the several ideas entering into a complex. What shall be 
 the one or the other, seems to depend generally upon the use of language : 
 for if things arising to the thought constantly in company, have a name given 
 them, we deem them compounded, if none, we can only call them associ- 
 ated. Names being a receptacle, in great measure necessary for gathering 
 our ideas, and holding them together in a complex : like those cushions your 
 gossips stick with pins in hearts, lozenges, and various forms, against a 
 lying-in ; the cushion is no part of the figure, yet if that should chance to 
 fall into the fire and be consumed, the pins must all tumble down in disor- 
 der, and the figures composed of them vanish. It is not always easy to 
 determine when ideas combined together belong to the class of compounds 
 or associates : perhaps the connection between the looks and sentiments of 
 persons, which I have mentioned under composition, others might call as- 
 sociation : nor is it very material to ascertain the limits between the two 
 classes exactly. But since there are combinations which cannot with any 
 propriety be styled complex ideas, I thought proper to take some notice of 
 them apart.
 
 94 COMBINATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 The principal of these, because the most universally prevailing, and hav- 
 ing the greatest influence upon our thoughts and transactions, is the asso- 
 ciations between words and their signification. Nobody will deny that 
 sounds and characters are mere arbitrary signs bearing no relation in nature 
 to the things they express, yet they become so strongly connected by cus- 
 tom with our ideas of the tilings, that they constantly start up in the mind 
 together, and mutually introduce one another. For words, heard or read, 
 instantly convey the meaning couched under them, and our thoughts, upon 
 common occasions, find a ready utterance when we would communicate 
 them either by speaking or writing. Nor does the junction between words 
 and their meaning depend upon the Will, whether it shall take place or no. 
 Were a man unluckily obliged to sit and hear himself abused, he would be 
 glad, I suppose, to dissociate the grating words from the scandal they 
 contain, and reduce them to their primitive state of empty sounds, but will 
 find it impracticable : whence it appears that the seat of association lies in 
 the organs, which seems to conspire in this case to throw a displeasure 
 upon the mind, that she would exert all her power, if she had any, to escape. 
 
 14. And as our most compounded ideas turn different sides of themselves 
 to view, so ideas, linked to a variety of others, usher in different associates, 
 according to the occasion introducing them. For, besides the combination, 
 there is likewise a kind of attraction between our ideas, so that those pre- 
 ceding generally determine what associates shall make their appearance ; 
 because our organs fall more easily into motions, nearly the same with those 
 they have been already put into, than they can strike out different ones. 
 Hence it comes to pass that many words, having various significations, 
 always suggest that sense which the context requires. The word man is 
 used for one of the human species, for a male, for a full grown person, 
 a corpse, a statue, a picture, or a piece of wood upon a chess-board, yet 
 we never mistake the meaning, being directed thereto by what gave occasion 
 for its being employed. Nor do single words only carry a different force, 
 according to the sentence wherein they stand, but whole expressions to cast 
 a lustre upon one another, and the very structure of the phrase gives a dif- 
 ferent aspect to the contents from what they would have had if placed in 
 another order : in the due management of all which consists a great part of 
 the arts of oratory and poetry. 
 
 I do not know how it is with other people, but I find that upon coming 
 home after an absence of some months, I have a fuller and clearer idea of 
 the scenes, persons, and places in the neighbourhood, immediately upon 
 coming into the house, and before I have seen any of them again, than I could 
 have raised in the morning while at a distance : as if the bare removal from 
 place to place gave a turn to the imagination, like the stop of an organ, 
 that brings another set of pipes into play. 
 
 15. Upon this quality of cohering in our ideas was founded that art of 
 memory mentioned by Cicero, and as he tells us generally ascribed to the 
 invention of Simonides, who hit upon it by an accident. For being at an 
 entertainment where there was a great number of guests, a message came 
 that somebody wanted earnestly to speak with him in the street : in the 
 interim, while he was gone out, the house fell down, and EO crushed the 
 company within, that when their relations came to bury them, they could 
 not possibly distinguish the bodies from one another, until Simonides 
 pointed them out by remembering exactly where every man had sat. From 
 hence, observing the connection between objects and their stations, he took 
 the hint of his artificial memory, wherein he taught his scholars to choose
 
 TRAINS. 95 
 
 some spacious place, as a town, a park or large garden, with which, and all 
 the turnings, corners, plan, buildings, and parts belonging to it they should 
 be perfectly familiar, and then to fancy certain images resembling the 
 things they would remember, disposed regularly in the several parts of that 
 place. Having done this carefully, when afterwards they cast their 
 thoughts upon the place, it would appear replete with the images, each in 
 its proper order and situation wherein it had been disposed. But the same 
 place was to be employed upon all occasions ; for the figures might be wiped 
 away at pleasure ; by substituting a new set in their room, which would 
 remain there so long as were wanting, or until displaced by having 
 successors assigned them. Thus the association between images and their 
 stations was only temporary, not perpetual like that of man and wife, but 
 occasional, like that of travellers in a stage coach, who look upon them- 
 selves as one society during their journey, but when that is ended, separate, 
 perhaps never to meet again : their places being supplied the next day by 
 another company, and the same coach serving successively as a cement for 
 different societies. Something like this artificial memory our ladies prac- 
 tise every day ; for when they are afraid of forgetting any thing they pur- 
 pose to do by and by, they put their ring upon the wrong finger, or pin a 
 scrap of ribbon upon their stomacher : when afterwards they chance to cast 
 their eye upon the ring or ribbon, they find the purpose for which they put 
 it there associated therewith, and occurring instantly to their memory. 
 
 16. There are many other sorts of association, which whoever desires to 
 know, may consult Mr. Locke's chapter upon that article, to which he may 
 add others from his own observation, if he thinks it worth while to take 
 the pains. But though our ideas are often made to cement by our bringing 
 them together, yet the association once formed, they continue joined with- 
 out any act of ours to preserve their coherence. Like the diamonds which 
 a jeweller sticks in wax, in order to show you the form he proposes to set 
 them in : they are held together by the tenacity of wax, that is by the pro- 
 perties of matter, though it were the act of a man that pressed them down 
 so as to make them fasten. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 TRAINS. 
 
 OUR combinations being most of them too large to be taken in at one 
 glance, turn up their different sides, or introduce their several associates 
 successively to the thought, exhibiting so much at a time as can easily find 
 entrance. Thus, when we think of man, there occurs first perhaps the 
 whole outward human figure ; then the inward composition of bowels, 
 muscles, bones, and veins ; then the faculties of digestion, locomotion, 
 sense, and reason. Or if we read a passage in Virgil, the plain meaning 
 of the words starts up foremost to view ; afterwards the turn of phrase, the 
 grammar, the elegance of diction, sentiment, figures, and harmony. And 
 as some of the same materials obtain a place in several combinations, one 
 complex idea gives rise to another, by means of some particular ingredient 
 possessed in common by them both. Thus it often happens that two 
 things, very different in themselves, introduce one another by the inter- 
 vention of some medium bearing an affinity to both, though in different re-
 
 96 TRAINS. 
 
 spects, which serves as a link by which the former draws in the latter. On 
 hearing the report of a gun, one's thoughts may run upon soldiers, upon their 
 exercises, upon battles, particularly that before Quebec : this may put one 
 in mind of Canada, of the fur trade, of surprising stories told of the beavers, 
 their ccntrivance in building themselves nouses, of the sagacity of animals, 
 of the difference between instinct and reason, and abundance of other specu- 
 lations widely remote from the sound of a gun. 
 
 2. Nobody but mu?t have observed an aptness in the fancy, and even the 
 tongue, in common chit-chat, to roam and ramble when left to itself without 
 control. Yet in our most incoherent sallies there is generally a coherence 
 between single ideas and the next immediately preceding and following, 
 although these two contain nothing similar to one another. Perhaps our 
 imagination would rove always in this desultory manner, were it to contain 
 only one combination at a time without a mixture of anything else : but an 
 idea, on being displaced by another, does not wholly vanish, but leaves a 
 spice and tincture of itself behind, by which L operates with a kind of 
 attraction upon the subsequent ideas, determining which of their associates 
 they shall introduce, namely, such as carry some conformity with itself. 
 Thus, if on going to market to buy oats for your horse, you meet a waggon 
 on the way, it might suggest the idea of other carriages, of turnpike roads, 
 of commerce ; or of the axis in peritrochio and five mechanical powers ; or 
 of the materials composing it, of the several sorts of timber, the principles 
 of vegetation : but that your horse's wants being already in your thoughts, 
 confine them to take a course relative thereto : so the waggon puts you in 
 mind of the owner being a considerable farmer, who may supply you more 
 conveniently and cheaper than the market, the idea of the man suggests not 
 that of his wife and children, nor of the country he came from, which have 
 nothing to do with your first thought, but that of his house, of the way 
 thither, what you shall say to him, whether he shall deliver the corn home, 
 or you shall fetch it. This regular succession of ideas, all bearing a refe- 
 rence to some one purpose retained in view, is what we call a train ; and 
 daily experience testifies how readily they follow one another in this manner 
 of themselves, without any pains or endeavour of ours to introduce them. 
 
 3. What first links ideas into trains, I take to be the succession of ob- 
 jects causing or leading to our satisfactions : for having observed that 
 things agreeable come to us through several steps, whenever the first of 
 them is made, it carries the thought on to all the rest, and having per- 
 ceived that our desires cannot be gratified without using some means to 
 obtain them, imagination runs back to all that is necessary to be done for 
 that purpose. The sight or smell of victuals, putting into the child's 
 mouth, constantly preceding the taste of them, excites an idea of that taste 
 before the palate can convey it ; in a little while the sight of the nurse 
 coming in to bring the pap becomes another link in the chain, to which is 
 afterwards added the sounds of her steps on entering the room, and the 
 creaking of the door when she opens it. In process of time, the child, 
 making various noises, perceives that some of them have an influence upon 
 the nurse's motions : hence it gets an imperfect notion of language, of 
 cause, and effect; and when hunger presses, the little imagination runs 
 backward to the ministry of the nurse, and the sounds using to procure it, 
 which the child accordingly makes in order to obtain a relief of its wants. 
 
 Desire, curiosity, amusement, voluntary attention, or whatever else car- 
 ries the notice frequently through a number of ideas always in the same 
 series, links them into a train. When we would learn anything by heart,
 
 TRAINS. 97 
 
 we read it over and over again, and find the words fixed thereby in our 
 memory, in the same order as they lay in the page : but if we had read 
 inattentively, so that the notice had rambled elsewhere, we should never 
 have got our lesson. Were the same scrap of a song to be chanted in our 
 ears for a month together, I suppose we could not fail of learning it ex- 
 actly without any desire or endeavour so to do : but if when the singer 
 came it always happened that we were so earnestly intent upon something 
 else as to take no notice of him, he would not work the like effect. 
 
 4. But though the mind by her notice begins the formation of a train, 
 there is something in our eternal mechanism that strengthens and com- 
 pletes the concatenation. It has been generally remarked by schoolboys, 
 that after having laboured the whole evening before a repetition day to get 
 their lesson by heart, but to very little purpose, when they rise in the 
 morning, they shall have it current at their tongue's end without any fur- 
 ther trouble, Nor is it unusual with persons of riper years, upon being 
 asked for a determination which they cannot form, without a number of 
 things to be previously considered, to desire time to sleep upon it : because 
 with all their care to digest their materials, they cannot do it completely, 
 but after a night's rest, or some recreation, or the mind being turned for a 
 while into a different course of thinking, upon her return to the former 
 ideas, she finds they have ranged themselves anew during her absence, and 
 in such manner, as exhibits almost at one view all their mutual relations, 
 dependencies, and consequences. Which shows that our organs do not 
 stand idle the moment we cease to employ them, but continue the motions 
 we put them into, after they have gone out of our sight, thereby working 
 themselves to a glibness and smoothness, and falling into a more regular 
 and orderly posture, than we could have placed them in with all our skill 
 and industry. 
 
 Our trains once well formed, whatever suggests the first link, the rest 
 follow readily of their own accord : but as practice joins them more firmly, 
 so you find them hanging closer or looser together, according to the degree 
 of strength they have acquired. There are some, who, having gotten a 
 thing by rote, can go through it currently, at any time, without mistake or 
 hesitation, but if you interrupt them, they cannot go on, without repeating 
 what they bad recited before from the beginning. Generally, when we are 
 out, a single word prompted will draw up the remainder of the chain, and 
 set us in our career again : but what we are extremely perfect in, we can 
 leave off and resume of ourselves, begin in the middle, or take up any part 
 at pleasure. There have been persons, who have acquired a surprising 
 perfectness of this kind : I remember formerly to have seen a poor fellow, 
 in Moorfields, who used to stand there all the day long, and get his living 
 by repeating the Bible : whoever gave him a halfpenny, might name a text 
 anywhere in the old or new Testament, which he would repeat directly, 
 and proceed to the next verse, the next chapter, the next book, and so on 
 without stopping, until another customer gave him another cue. 
 
 5. But trains of this enormous length are few, and wanted only upon 
 extraordinary occasions ; those which serve us for common use, are innu- 
 merable, and extremely short, nor should we find them commodious if they 
 were not so. For objects continually changing before us, and sensations 
 of various kinds accosting us incessantly, there is very little scope for re- 
 flection to range in, before the notice is engaged by something else : and 
 the purposes directing our observation from time to time being various, if 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 TRAINS. 
 
 our trains were not very numerous, we should not so readily as we do, find 
 enow of them suited for carrying on the course of thought we desire. By 
 continual use, our trains multiply and open into one another, which gives a 
 facility to our motions, and makes the imagination like a wilderness, cut 
 into a multitude of short alleys, communicating together by gentle and 
 almost imperceptible windings, where one may pursue an object seen at a 
 distance, without much deviating from the straight line, or take a compass 
 without losing our way. Besides, the smallness of our trains, and their 
 being mutually interwoven, furnishes more play for the fancy ; for a thread 
 stretched out lengthways, you can view only two ways, either backward or 
 forward, but the same being worked up into a curious cypher presents an 
 abundance of mazes, wherein the eye can wander with an endless variety. 
 
 How helpful these little involuntary trains are to us, upon all occasions, 
 may appear manifest, without much consideration. What is the difference 
 between a number of words as they lie in a dictionary, or in some well 
 wrote page ? for in both we know their several meaning, but in the former, 
 they represent a succession of loose incoherent assemblages, whereas in the 
 latter they appear linked in trains familiar to our imagination. Nor let it 
 be objected, that the author may lead us into a course of thinking we never 
 travelled in before ; for though the course may be new, the component 
 parts of it, that is, the phrases, the structure, and idiom of language, must 
 be of our old acquaintance, or we shall not understand him. 
 
 The learned languages are taught at school by rules, but we may 
 remember how tediously we proceeded, while forced to have recourse every 
 foot to our rules, either in constructing or composing : wherefore their use 
 is only to bring our ideas of words into trains corresponding with the con- 
 cords, and other rules of grammar : when this is done completely, by long 
 practice we may forget our rules, as I believe most of us do, and yet without 
 them we find the nominative or the adjective, at the beginning of a sen- 
 tence, lead naturally and of its own accord to the verb, or substantive at 
 the further end. And though we learn our mother tongue without rule, only 
 by hearing it continually chimed in our ears, yet until it be sufficiently formed 
 into trains, we find the child express itself imperfectly, and in broken 
 sentences. In a language we are masters of, while we read currently on, 
 the sense of what we read seems wholly to occupy the imagination, yet, 
 for all that, the mind can find room for something of her own : how quick 
 soever the eye may pass along, the thought flies still quicker, and will make 
 little excursions between one word and the next, or pursue reflections of its 
 own, at the same time it attends to the reading. Hence arises the dif- 
 ference, so necessary to be taken notice of, between the letter and the spirit, 
 for whoever stops at the former, will be very little the better for what he 
 reads : but this spirit must be drawn from our trains, which the author 
 excites, but does not infuse. It has been remarked as one quality of the 
 sublime and of fine humour, that they convey a great deal more than they 
 express, but this More must be something the mind has already in store, 
 and they only draw it up to view : therefore, sublimity of style and delicacy 
 of wit are lost upon the vulgar, who having no proper trains to be excited, 
 descry nothing beyond the obvious meaning of the words, and for that 
 reason, are more taken with plain language, and broad jokes, as leading 
 into trains of thought, to which they have been accustomed. Wit depends 
 chiefly upon allusion for its supplies, and metaphor and many other figures 
 of speech derive from the same source : but what is allusion, besides the 
 suggesting ideas already familiar to the imagination ? Transition is the
 
 TRAINS. 99 
 
 art of leading the mind with gentle and easy turnings, so that she finds 
 herself unawares in a new field, without perceiving when she quitted that 
 she was engaged in before. 
 
 6. What has been remarked just now concerning the manner of learning 
 languages, may as justly be applied to all the arts and sciences in general, 
 and to the common actions of life : for in our first attempts upon them, 
 while we are forced to dig up every thing by dint of application, how 
 slowly, and awkwardly, and imperfectly do we proceed ! but 'when we have 
 furnished ourselves with proper trains, that will spring up of their own 
 accord, upon touching a link of them, then we can go on expeditiously, 
 readily, and perfectly. For it has been shown in the chapter of Action, that 
 those commonly called so, consist of many single acts, each of which must 
 have its idea directing to perform it : but our thought and care reach no 
 further than the main action, the particular part of it must be thrown up 
 by imagination. Therefore the machinery of- our organs bears at least an 
 equal share with the mind, in all our transactions, for she only chooses 
 what shall be done next, but the several means, and minute steps necessary 
 for executing it, occur without our seeking. Nor yet would they so occur, 
 unless they had been inured by practice to follow one another successively : 
 from whence it appears, that the disposition of our organs to fall into little 
 series of motions spontaneously, is the thing that gives us all our dexterity 
 and expertness in every kind of action. 
 
 Trains are most commonly taken notice of in the memory, because there 
 are the longest, and consequently the most visible : and those little trains, 
 which serve us upon ordinary occasions, depend upon the same disposition 
 of our organs, though we do not usually call them Remembrance, unless they 
 occur with that additional circumstance of their having been in our thought 
 before. Yet we can often discern their reference to memory, as appears 
 from our usually justifying ourselves upon being criticised at any time for 
 speaking or acting improperly, by alleging that we remember others saying 
 or doing the same upon the like occasion. Wherefore the ancients made 
 Mnemosyne the mother of the Muses, supposing memory the ground-work 
 and foundation of all skill and learning : nor is it improbable that the 
 structure of a man's organs, which enables him to remember well, may 
 render him equally capable of any other accomplishment, with proper cul- 
 tivation. 
 
 7. As much a paradox as it may seem, I shall not scruple to assert, that 
 if it were not for our trains, we could not have that entertainment we 
 receive from novelty : for things so far out of the way of all former ex- 
 perience, as that we cannot tell what to think of them, appear strange and 
 uncouth ; but there is a difference between strangeness and novelty : the 
 latter belongs to objects that work new openings into old trains, and so give 
 them a play that was not common to them before : or else renew a former 
 course of thought, that has been long intermitted. For we may observe 
 that a new play, a new pattern of flowered silk, or a new anything, does 
 not please, if it does not in any respect resemble what we have seen of the 
 kind before, or does not suggest some little trains of reflection, besides the 
 bare sight : and after we have forgotten it for a time, it may give us the 
 pleasure of novelty again. If objects engage us in trains that will not 
 readily coincide, they raise our wonder : but the trains, by being often 
 brought together, open into another at last, whence comes the vulgar say- 
 ing, that a wonder lasts but nine days. I shall leave it to the critics to 
 
 n 2
 
 100 TRAINS. 
 
 settle the precise limits between wonder, admiration, amazement, and 
 astonishment : and only observe that in all of them there is a stoppage of 
 the thought, which' being unable to remain entirely motionless, makes little 
 excursions, but finds the trains abrupt, and crossing one another, being 
 perpetually checked and diverted from its usual courses by the object that 
 holds it engaged. 
 
 As letters united together compose words, words compose sentences, and 
 sentences discourses, so our ideas run into assemblages and associations ; 
 these link in trains, and a texture of trains makes larger trains or courses 
 of thinking ; and each species of junction opens a wider field for the mind to 
 expatiate in, for composition greatly increases variety : eight bells tolled 
 singly can give only eight sounds, but above forty thousand changes may 
 be rung upon them. But as the occasions of life and objects surrounding 
 us perpetually require us to alter our course of attention, our trains branch 
 out into several others, and we are easily diverted into a new track, pro- 
 vided it be done by gentle turnings, and through openings to which we have 
 been accustomed. 
 
 8. This disposal of ideas into trains, and their being interwoven toge- 
 ther in a manner suitable to our occasions, gives birth to Order ; which 
 consists not in any number or species of ideas, but in their introducing one 
 another in such successions as shall readily answer our purposes. There 
 are persons who have laid in vast heaps of knowledge, which lie confusedly, 
 and are of no service to them, for want of proper clues to guide into every 
 spot and corner of their imagination : but when a man has worked up his 
 ideas into trains, and taught them by custom to communicate easily with 
 one another, then arises order, and then he may reap all the benefit they 
 are capable of conveying ; for he may travel over any series of them without 
 losing his thread, and find anything he wants without difficulty. Nor is it 
 material for his own private use in what manner his trains lie, provided 
 they be wrought into some uniform plan : but with respect to his inter- 
 course amongst other people, it is very material that he should range his 
 ideas in a manner conformable to their ways of thinking, or they will find 
 nothing regular in them. Were the methodical schoolman and polite pretty 
 fellow to mix in the same company, the discourses of each would appear 
 easy, clear, and pertinent, to those of his own class, but perplexed, dry, 
 and unengaging, to those of the opposite ; for your close deductions of 
 reason seem a heap of rubbish to the man of the world ; and the conversa- 
 tions of the latter, while he keeps up the ball of discourse for a whole 
 evening with smart expressions that come in always pat upon the occasion, 
 are a mere volubility of words, with no more coherence than a rope of sand 
 to one that has immured himself in a college. The discourses of either 
 present the same succession of ideas to the hearer that was in the mind of 
 the speaker, but that succession exhibits nothing regular or coherent to the 
 former, because it does not run in trains familiar to his apprehension. For 
 what is regularity to one man may be all confusion to another : which 
 proves order to be relative, and to derive its existence from the cast of our 
 imagination. 
 
 Objects stand in order when their situation corresponds with that of our 
 ideas : and as the moulds of all imaginations are similar in some respects, 
 hence we term things regular or irregular as they tally or not with the 
 trains which the ideas of mankind most generally fall into. Straight lines 
 and easy curves the notice can readily run along, and by travelling fre- 
 quently in those tracts they become familiar : wherefore figures consisting
 
 TRAINS. 101 
 
 of them, such as squares, triangles, circles, spirals, serpentine lines, parallel 
 rows, and rays diverging at equal angles from one centre, are esteemed 
 regular, because objects placed in them link of their own accord into lines, 
 and the mind has but a few parts to put together, in order to form the 
 whole figure, and can range over them by paths to which it has been accus- 
 tomed : whereas the same objects being jumbled together promiscuously, 
 eacli of them becomes a separate part unconnected with the rest, and the 
 whole is too numerous for the mind to manage ; nor can she find any 
 passage leading to them successively one after another. For the same 
 reason, symmetry and proportion contribute greatly to order, because the 
 one gives dispatch to the eye, by enabling it to take in objects by pairs, and 
 the other smooths the passage over them by the mutual dependence of 
 parts. But the mind must have been inured to observe proportion, or it 
 will lose the benefit resulting therefrom ; therefore we see that common 
 persons do not discern half the regularity in a fine building, or other piece 
 of well-proportioned workmanship, that is obvious to connoisseurs ; and 
 that they do discern any, is owing to the degree of skill in proportion, 
 which few men are without. 
 
 9. Order may be produced without changing the position of things, only 
 by removing whatever would obstruct the eye in its passage along them. 
 When a young lady cuts a curious figure out of paper, she gives no new 
 position to the several parts of her figure, for they had the same situation 
 with respect to one another while they lay in the whole paper as after they 
 have passed through her hands. And indeed every sheet of paper contains 
 all the figures that any clean-fingered damsel can cut out of it : therefore 
 the operatrix is so far from creating the figure, that she spoils all others 
 that might have been formed out of the same sheet, so that for one she 
 seems to make she really destroys a thousand. Nevertheless, she produces 
 order and regularity where there was none before, only by snipping away 
 the superfluities of the paper from her figure, and thereby leading the eye 
 along all the mazes and windings comprehended therein. 
 
 As order consists in the correspondence of objects with our ideas, it is all 
 one whether the former be placed in figures familiar to our apprehension, 
 or whether the latter be worked into trains conformable to the position of 
 things we behold: order will ensue alike in both cases. New prospects 
 generally appear irregular, until by frequent contemplating they grow into 
 form without any real alteration in the scenes : nor is there anything so 
 irregular but by pains and long acquaintance may be brought to lie in order 
 in our imagination. What can be more a wilderness than the great town of 
 London to strangers ? they can scarce stir a hundred yards without losing 
 themselves. But the penny-postman finds no perplexity in his walks to any 
 part of it: he reads only the name of the street, or court, or alley in his 
 superscription, and instantly the way thither occurs to his thought. Were 
 some fairy while he sleeps to dispose the houses into straight lines, crossing 
 each other at right angles like the streets of Babylon, he might not perhaps, 
 at first, find his way about the town so readily as he does at present. 
 
 10. Whatever situation men have accustomed themselves to place things 
 in, is order to them, though perhaps nothing like it to anybody else. When 
 one steps into the shop of a country chandler, or haberdasher of small 
 wares, one is apt to wonder how they find everything so readily as they do : 
 but custom has brought their ideas into a conformity with the position of 
 their wares, so that upon any particular thing being asked for, their thought 
 runs in train to the proper drawer ; and were we to place their good*
 
 102 TRAINS. 
 
 otherwise, though in a manner we should think more regular, they might 
 justly complain we had put them out of order. We studious folks generally 
 have each of us a way of placing our implements peculiar to ourselves, the 
 ink-glass must stand just in this spot, the penknife in that, the pens in 
 another, and the books and papers have their several stations allotted them, 
 so that we may presently reach what we want without loss of time or inter- 
 ruption of our studies. As soon as our back is turned, in comes the maid 
 to clean the room : she cannot dust the table while it remains covered, so 
 she removes all our things, and never replaces them as they were before. 
 Not but that the wench is careful enough to set all to rights again, but her 
 idea of order being different from ours, she lays the folio underneath, then 
 the papers upon it, blank or written as they come to hand, and the smaller 
 things on top of all : so that on our return we find everything at the same 
 time in the neatest order and the utmost confusion, for we are forced to 
 tumble over the whole parcel to come at any individual we want. 
 
 Thus order often respects convenience : for we say things are in their 
 places when they lie handy for our purposes, so that we can execute 
 them without interrupting or deviating from the plan of action we had laid 
 down. Nor does use give occasion to order less frequently than convenience : 
 when things stand in such a situation as to produce some advantage that 
 would not have accrued from them in any other, we say they are in order, 
 and the want of that situation we call disorder. Thus, disorders of the body, 
 of the air, or the elements, are nothing but such commixtures of their parts 
 as destroy the soundness of health, disturb the animal functions, or stop the 
 progress of vegetation ; and without a reference to some such consequences 
 as these, we should not term them disorders. And this kind of order, 
 resulting from use and convenience, refers either to the disposition of things 
 we have usually beheld them in, or to the train of thought of some agent 
 placing them in that manner. For though chance might once in a while 
 dispose matters very cleverly for our purpose, we should not conceive them 
 the more orderly upon that account. If a traveller, upon perceiving himself 
 thirsty, should immediately espy a bough of ripe apples hanging over his 
 head, and wanting a stone to beat them down, should find one lying just 
 before him, and a little further a knife to pare them, dropped by some care- 
 less passenger ; all this would suggest nothing of order, unless he supposed 
 them laid there on purpose. 
 
 What we call the order of nature does not consist only in the position of 
 things considered in themselves, but either in their being so disposed as to 
 produce the uses derived from them, or their moving in rotation by constant 
 returns of the same changes. Under the former view, we see the bodies of 
 this vast fabric of the world, minute and large, the fibres of plants, the ves- 
 sels of animals, the luminaries of heaven, contributing in their several 
 stations to the support and conveniences of life, and other purposes, in a 
 manner we could not in any degree imitate in things under our own manage- 
 ment, without design and contrivance : which, therefore, leads our thoughts 
 into trains composing the plan exhibited thereby. Under the latter view, 
 we observe the stated successions of night and day, the vicissitudes of 
 seasons, the progress of vegetation from the seed to the blade, the bud, the 
 flower, and the seed again, the stages of growth in animals, the circumvo- 
 lutions of the firmament; and having joined our observations into a system, 
 there springs up order therefrom, which increases in proportion as we can 
 add new branches to our scheme. In ancient times, the fixed stars only 
 were esteemed regular, as rising and setting always at equal intervals, and
 
 TRAINS. 103 
 
 keeping their positions with respect to one another, while the other seven, 
 being thought reducible to no certain rule, were styled Planets or Wanderer : 
 but later discoveries having brought their motions too into a system, we 
 now admire the wonderful regularity of their courses. 
 
 Nor let it be said there was an order in all these particulars, before men 
 took notice of it ; for if we place order in the position of things taken abso- 
 lutely without reference to our ideas, there will be no such thing as disorder 
 in nature. Every number of things, not excepting the wildest productions 
 of chance, must lie in some position or other ; and were there an under- 
 standing pliable and comprehensive enough to strike out trains immediately 
 among any collection of objects, and discern their respective situations, as 
 clearly as we do in scenes the most familiar to our acquaintance, it would 
 not know what irregularity was. Therefore, if we make a distinction be- 
 tween orderly and disorderly, or the latter term has any meaning in lan- 
 guage, it must belong to such positions of things, as do not correspond in 
 their parts with any courses our ideas usually fall into, nor are reducible to 
 any system in our imagination. 
 
 1 1 . Did order exist in things, there could not be an order of time and of 
 causes : for there exists no more than one point of time, and one step of 
 causation in every moment : but this single object is not capable of order, 
 unless in conjunction with the series of events preceding, or to follow after, 
 which being never existent together, cannot be the residence of any quality. 
 Therefore it is the ideas of past and future occurrences brought together in 
 the mind, that renders them capable of order, which they then receive, when 
 she can discern their connexions and dependencies upon one another. If 
 we consider objects co-existing together in the same scene, we shall find 
 that though they can have no more than one position at once, they may con- 
 tain a variety of orders. The spots of a chess-board lie in eight equal rows, 
 with their flat sides turned towards each other : they lie likewise in fifteen 
 unequal rows of lozenges, touching at the angles, the middlemost having 
 eight spots in length, the next on each side seven a-piece, and so falling 
 off until you come to single ones at the corners : and they lie also in squares 
 inclosed within one another, the innermost consisting of four spots, the 
 next of twelve, or four on a side ; the third of twenty, or six on a side ; and 
 the outermost of twenty-eight, or eight on a side. These three forms of 
 order, besides others that might be traced out, are generated in the imagi- 
 nation, and may be changed, or cast into one another at pleasure, succes- 
 sively, without making any alteration in the chess-board, only by the eye 
 compounding its objects variously, and running along in different courses of 
 observation. 
 
 12. But those courses, or the component parts of them, must be such as 
 were familiar to us before, or we must render them familiar by practice and 
 
 application. And what is more remarkable, after we have brought our 
 thoughts to run currently along a train of ideas, they cannot always run 
 back again the contrary way, although in the same track. Take a sheet of 
 paper written on one side in a fair legible hand, an easy style, and familiar 
 language, turn it upside down, or hold it against a strong light, with the 
 back part towards you, and. though you have a full and clear view of the 
 writing, you see nothing but perplexity and confusion : you must pick out 
 letter by letter, and spell every word as you go along. If any particular 
 form of objects, or their situation, with respect to one another, constituted 
 the essence of order, this could not happen, for the form of things does not 
 depend upon their postures ; a man does not lose his human shape by being
 
 104 TRAINS. 
 
 set upon his head, nor does a horse undergo a metamorphosis every time 
 he rolls upon his back, neither do the words lose their places, nor the letters 
 their joinings, by a different manner of holding the paper : but the mind 
 has always been used to read them from left to right, and therefore cannot 
 follow in any other course. What, then, is there a right hand and a left 
 in the mind itself ? or have her perceptions a locomotion, which can proceed 
 only in one particular direction ? Let us rather attribute the cause to the 
 motion of our internal organs, running mechanically in the courses to which 
 they have been accustomed. For as the blood circulates from the heart to 
 the arteries, and returns back again through the veins, but cannot take a 
 contrary round, beginning first at the veins, and thence proceeding to the 
 arteries ; so the channels of our ideas give them a free passage in that course 
 they have been used to, but close against them upon their return. Our 
 mental organs, indeed, are of so soft and pliable temper, as that they may 
 be brought to admit trains passing through them either way, for there are 
 some figures we comprehend presently, whichever part of them first catches 
 the eye : but then this must be effected by long practice, by frequently 
 running them over, backwards and forwards in our thoughts, or by having 
 been used to see them in all aspects wherein they can be placed. 
 
 But though order subsists only in the conformity of our trains, with the 
 position of objects, yet is it not produced by a voluntary act of the mind : 
 for we cannot see order wherever we please, nor can we avoid seeing it in 
 some subjects, if we will contemplate them at all : which I suppose has 
 made it be imagined that things were essentially and absolutely regular or 
 irregular in themselves. The mind, as we have shown before, may, by 
 painful application, bring any set of objects, how confused soever, to lie in 
 trains, or the same may be brought to pass without industry, by long and 
 intimate acquaintance : but when the organs have once acquired a habit of 
 throwing up ideas in that manner, corresponding with the situation of ob- 
 jects, they will afterwards exhibit order upon sight of them without aid of 
 the mind, and solely by virtue of their own machinery. 
 
 13. I have but one or two observations more to make upon trains, which 
 are, that they grow quicker by continual use, and if short, unite at last into 
 combinations, or if long, the middle links frequently drop out, or pass so 
 swiftly as not to touch the notice. When children learn to read, they join 
 the letters and syllables in trains to form words, and the words to form sen- 
 tences. By degrees they do this faster, and in process of time the whole 
 ord or sentence arises to their view in one assemblage. When we would 
 recollect the members of a family, where we are tolerably well acquainted, 
 we find the ideas of them introduce one another in trains, but after having 
 lived, or conversed daily among them for some time, upon hearing the name 
 of the house, the whole association of persons belonging to it starts up in- 
 stantly to our fancy. And when the channels of our ideas are worn smooth 
 by constant use, the current runs too rapid for the notice to keep pace 
 with it. I have met with persons who could understand more of what they 
 read in Latin or French, than in English, because their mother tongue 
 affording too easy a passage to their thoughts, they skim lightly over the 
 surface, and never touch the greater part lying at the bottom.
 
 105 
 
 CHAP. XL 
 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 NARROW as we must acknowledge our capacities to be, they can never- 
 theless give harbour to several ideas, and several combinations at the same 
 time. External objects continually pour a variety of sensations upon us, 
 which do not so fill the imagination, but that reflection still finds room to 
 throw in other ideas from her own store. And when the notice touches upon 
 two or more ideas together, there generally arises another, not compounded or 
 extracted from them, but generated by them, to wit, an idea of comparison, 
 resemblance, identity, difference, relation, distance, number, situation, or 
 other circumstance belonging to them : all which, in metaphysical language, 
 are comprehended under the general term of Judgment, which, in common 
 speech, we distribute into several species, as knowledge, discernment, opi- 
 nion, and appearance, not indeed very accurately, as not always adhering 
 inviolably to that division, but often using them promiscuously for one 
 another. 
 
 2. Single ideas may be expressed by single words, as a man, a colour, 
 motion, gratitude ; for upon hearing the sound, the whole idea associated 
 therewith starts up instantly to the thought ; but to express a judgment, 
 you must employ a proposition, which always contains three parts at least, 
 namely, the terms, and the judgment, passed upon them ; as, man is an 
 animal, fire consumes wood, one egg resembles another. For though we 
 have sentences consisting only of two words, as, Peter lives, Thomas 
 sleeps, the earth moves, which therefore seem to contain no more than one 
 term, yet that there is another implied appears manifest, because we may 
 express that other, without adding any thing to the sense : for Peter is 
 alive, Thomas asleep, the earth in motion, convey not a whit more than was 
 conveyed by the shorter sentences above cited. And though many times 
 one of the terms be comprehended within the other, as being an ingredient 
 of the assemblage, expressed thereby, yet must it be taken out from the 
 assemblage, and stand apart, before we can judge any thing concerning it. 
 The idea of man includes that of life, activity, reason, and several other par- 
 ticulars ; but this idea, contemplated ever so long, will make no proposition, 
 nor produce any judgment, unless some of those particulars be considered 
 in the abstract, and beheld in the same view as it were by the side of the 
 concrete ; and then we can discern that man is a living, an active, or a 
 rational creature. But this abstract is as much a complete idea, when com- 
 pared with assemblages comprehending it within them, as when compared 
 with others that do not : the idea of sweetness being as distinct from that 
 of sugar whereof it is affirmed, as from that of gall whereof it is denied : 
 and he that thinks of the former, has no fewer ideas in his mind, than he 
 that thinks of the latter. 
 
 3. That judgment likewise, although the production of the terms, for we 
 cannot judge without something in our thoughts to judge upon, is neverthe- 
 less a distinct idea from the roots whereout it grows, cannot be doubted 
 when we reflect, that many things occur to our view, and affect our notice 
 in some degree, without our passing any judgment upon them. We may see 
 leaves falling from the trees, birds flying in the air, or cattle grazing upon
 
 106 JUDGMENT, 
 
 the ground, without affirming, or denying, or thinking anything concerning 
 them : and yet, perhaps, we had taken so much notice of them, that, upon 
 being asked a minute afterwards, we could remember what we had seen. 
 A man may have beheld a field from his window a hundred times, without 
 ever observing whether it was square, or pentangular, and yet the figure 
 was exhibited to his view every time he looked upon it : and we have ob- 
 servations suggested to us sometimes, upon things extremely familiar to our 
 acquaintance, which we acknowledge very obvious, when put in mind of 
 them, although we never hit upon them ourselves. It is notorious that men 
 judge variously of the same objects, and so do the several faculties of the 
 same man upon many occasions ; Appearance, which is the judgment of 
 sense, being opposite to Opinion, or the judgment of understanding. For 
 we believe the sun to be an immense globe, much larger than all the coun- 
 tries we ever travelled over, while it appears at the same time to our eyes 
 but as a little ball, that one might roll about in a bushel. And though the 
 apparent magnitude of objects is supposed to depend upon the angle they 
 subtend at our eye, nevertheless our familiarity with them changes our esti- 
 mation of their bulk. Why does the sun look smaller than the house, and 
 yet a man at twenty yards' distance does not look smaller than your hand, 
 although you might quite cover him from your sight by holding it up at 
 arms-length before you ? Unless because we continually see men close by 
 our side, whereas we never saw the sun so near as to subtend a greater 
 angle than the house. 
 
 4. Hence it follows incontestably that judgment is an act of reflection, 
 never thrown upon us by external objects, but something done upon the 
 ideas after their entrance. Therefore the schoolmen reckon it a second act 
 of the mind, distinct from the first, called simple apprehension, whereby we 
 receive the ideas conveyed by sensation, or turned up by the workings of 
 imagination. But if it be an act of the mind, it is, as well as apprehension, 
 an act of her perceptive faculty, wherein the mind remains purely passive, 
 and only receives what some other agent strikes upon her. For judgment is 
 not a voluntary act, any further than that in many cases we may choose whe- 
 ther we will consider things attentively enough to discern their relations or 
 resemblances : but this we have not always in our option,, for sometimes 
 they force upon us, whether we will or no ; and when we fix our attention 
 voluntarily, the judgment formed thereupon is not the work of the mind, 
 for she cannot discern snow to be green, nor twenty to be less than fifteen, 
 but must take such estimation as results of its own accord, from the sub- 
 ject she contemplates. It is true we sometimes judge amiss through the 
 fault of our Will, when we had materials before us for doing better, but the 
 we do by the power we have over our ideas to overlook, or as it were, squint 
 upon some, and hold others in a steadier view ; but what is done by the in- 
 strumentality of ideas, although remotely our own act, and therefore justly 
 chargeable at our door, is nevertheless the immediate operation of the in- 
 strument ; just as an impression is made by the seal, although we press it 
 down upon the wax ourselves. 
 
 5. Since then the mind is purely passive in the act of judging, as well as 
 of apprehending, we must seek for some agent to produce that effect upon 
 her : and what can this be besides the mental organs ? I shall not pretend 
 to explain by what particular figure or motion they do their work : for we 
 cannot pry into a man's sensory while he thinks, to discern what disposi- 
 tion of the fibres in any case either of sensation or reflection affects him 
 with this or that perception ; but it seems undeniable that they must have a
 
 JUDGMENT. 107 
 
 different modification, when they enable us to pass a judgment, from that 
 whereby they exhibit the ideas whereon we judge. For else why do not all 
 objects, when clearly discerned, suggest all the relations they stand in to 
 one another, or all the comparisons that may be drawn between them, or 
 why do men judge so variously upon the same subject ? The papist thinks 
 persecution a duty, the protestant thinks it none ; they both have the same 
 terms in their thought, and therefore so far their organs are modified alike, 
 but they judge of them differently, and that judgment is not of their own 
 making, but something they discern in their view of the objects they con- 
 template ; consequently the modification exhibiting this part of their view, 
 being different in one from what it was in the other, cannot be the same 
 with that which was alike in both. One may read the words, Persecution, 
 Duty, without any connecting verb between them, and in that state they 
 convey the ideas of the things expressed by them complete ; if we proceed 
 to affirm or deny the one or the other, we may perceive our prospect en- 
 larged beyond the bare sense of those two disjointed terms ; but there can 
 be no increase of prospect, without the accession of another object to behold, 
 which must be some new modification superadded to the former, or gene- 
 rated thereby. 
 
 6. As judgment seems an act subsequent to the apprehension of the sub- 
 ject whereon it is pronounced, one would expect there should be some time 
 intervening between the one and the other, and so in fact we often find there 
 is, for we sometimes hold objects a considerable while in contemplation 
 before we con decide concerning them : but in things familiar to our know- 
 ledge, the judgment rises instantaneously, and in the same view with the 
 objects, by that quality we have observed belonging to ideas following in 
 train, of quickening their pace by degrees, .until at last they coincide into 
 one combination. A man knows his own horse, his own house, his bosom 
 friend, immediately upon sight, without waiting for any further operation to 
 be made upon the ideas presented by his optics. And this is what we call 
 the evidence of sense, which we abuse, without reason, for perpetually de- 
 ceiving us ; whereas the senses cannot well deceive, because, strictly 
 speaking, they never inform us of anything, they throw in their ideas, but 
 the opinion entertained thereupon is generated by the reflection. At least, 
 we make them depose things of which they cannot give us sufficient infor- 
 mation. Is it not thought vouching the testimony of the senses, when, upon 
 being asked how you know that Alderman Punctual sits in Guildhall, you 
 answer, Because I see him there ? That John is in the kitchen, Because I 
 hear him tailing ? That there is such a passage in Virgil, Because I read 
 it there ? An utter stranger to John and the Alderman, or one who had 
 not learned to read, would know this never the more for any thing he should 
 see or hear, but if his senses are as acute as yours, they throw in the very 
 same sensations upon him as they do upon you : therefore if they furnish you 
 with an evidence he has not, they must fetch that evidence from some other 
 quarter than the eyes or the ears. When we talk of seeing tables, chairs, 
 and such like common objects, we ascribe more to the senses than properly 
 belongs to them ; for we see only colours, it is our former knowledge of things 
 that informs us what they are. Nor let it be said, that though we may at- 
 tribute too much to the senses, yet something remains justly their due, be- 
 cause upon being shown a thing we never saw before, though we cannot 
 tell particularly what it is, nor what name to call it by, we may never- 
 theless see that it is made of wood or steel, that it is soft or hard, stiff or 
 limber : for this partial knowledge arises from the former acquaintance we
 
 108 JUDGMENT. 
 
 have had with wood or steel, or the usual look of things, upon their hard- 
 ening or softening, or the posture they fall into by their flexibility. There- 
 fore if a statue of exquisite workmanship has the same look in the limbs and 
 drapery that we have never used to see in stone, but see continually in flesh 
 and garments, we say it looks soft and pliant. 
 
 7. Even distance and figure, which seem to bid the fairest for being judg- 
 ments of sense, do not come solely from thence ; for we find people judga 
 very differently of distances anything remote, according as they have used 
 themselves to observe them : and though we judge a little better of things 
 near us, because we have perpetual occasion to take notice of their situation, 
 yet there are few persons who can always tell whether two shelves of a book- 
 case, standing just before them, lie further apart than any other two, until 
 they measure them; I have read a printed account of a boy, who being 
 born blind, was brought to his sight by couching, at the age of fourteen : 
 after being permitted to go abroad some time, one evening he was lost, and 
 upon searching, they found him upon the leads of the house. It seems he 
 had been in the street, and upon seeing the moon peep a little over the roof, 
 he was going to climb up the tiles in order to catch her : which shows he 
 had no idea of the remoteness either of the moon, or of the pavement from 
 the gutter where he stood, or else he would have been afraid, as much as 
 any of us, of venturing for fear of breaking his neck. I will not vouch for 
 the truth of this story, but it seems very probable, if we may believe what 
 has been held by many learned men, that a person on coming to the use of 
 his sight, would imagine every thing lying close to his eye ; and that our 
 knowledge of distance is an art we acquire by degrees, as we grow more 
 and more familiar with objects surrounding us ; and therefore cannot be 
 infused by our optics, which transmit no fewer nor other rays of light from 
 objects the first time we behold them, than the thousandth. 
 
 8. Neither does the idea of figure come entirely from the senses. Three of 
 them have no pretence to make the conveyance, and one of the two claiming 
 that privilege, I mean the touch, cannot be applied at once to bodies of any 
 magnitude ; but we must run our finger over the surface and judge of them 
 by piece-meal, not only upon what we feel, but upon what we have felt the 
 moment before ; so that our evidence results from the joint testimony of 
 sense and memory. And for things that we may grasp within our hands, 
 we turn them round and round before we determine, nor then can do it ex- 
 actly if they be a little irregular. Clap a flat iron sensibly hot or cold upon 
 a man's naked back, and let him describe, if he can, the exact shape of the 
 piece, or whether the angles be obtuse or acute : perhaps he might guess 
 nearer if laid upon his hand, because the hand has been more exercised 
 in judgments of this kind, not that it has a quicker sense of feeling than 
 many other parts of our flesh. Nobody can tell the shape of the gout or cholic 
 he feels, which yet he might be expected to do, if the figure were included 
 in the sensation of feeling : neither can one determine the shape of a bruise 
 by the smart, though one may by pressing the parts of it successively with 
 a finger. And that we gather the form of things from sight as well as 
 touch, seems to indicate that they are not ideas of sensation, for the senses 
 all have their distinct provinces allotted them, sensations entering at one 
 avenue cannot find a passage through the others. But waving this argu- 
 ment, if the two senses gave evidence of figure, they ought always to agree 
 in their testimony immediately upon examination, which, whether they do 
 or no, let the works of painting and sculpture determine. In the letters be- 
 tween Locke and Molyneux we find both those gentlemen, and they tell us,
 
 JUDGMENT. 109 
 
 all others upon maturely considering the question, agreed that a blind man 
 perfectly well acquainted with globes and cubes would not, upon being 
 suddenly endued with sight, be able to distinguish thereby, which was the 
 globe, and which the cube. And I may propose another question, whether 
 a man having often seen globes and cubes, but never touched any thing of 
 either form, would not be as much puzzled to know them apart, upon being 
 put into his hands in the dark. Whoever resolves these questions in the 
 negative; must acknowledge that neither sense, without some previous ac- 
 quaintance, can give evidence of figures very well known to us by the 
 other : and they cannot be said to agree in their testimony, when the old 
 sense, prompted by experience, deposes positively, while the new, although 
 conveying all that mere sensation can convey, professes to know nothing of 
 the matter. 
 
 9. Did the eyes transmit the idea of figure by immediate sensation, they 
 would exhibit one and the same in all prospects, to wit, the circle or ellipsis 
 bounding the scene before us, for all objects lying within that compass 
 strike upon the optics promiscuously, the chairs together with the wains- 
 cot around them, and the floor seen between their frames, the books 
 close to one another, and touching the shelves whereon they stand : where- 
 fore it is the notice, not the eye, that runs the lines of separation between 
 one thing and another, without which their figures could not be ascertained. 
 We have shown in speaking of order, how fancy may cast objects into 
 various forms, while the sensations excited by them remain exactly the 
 same : the marshalling the spots of a chessboard into parallel rows, or 
 lozenges, or enveloping squares, still holding the board in one position, 
 was not the work of our optics, but of some more internal cause. Even 
 colours, although conveyed directly by vision, are not distinguished from one 
 another by the sight alone, for we may see cattle in the fields without regard- 
 ing their difference of colour ; and when we do regard it afterwards, it is 
 by an act of reflection, no new sensation being obtained upon the second 
 view which we had not in the former. From whence we may conclude, 
 that sensation operates no further than to throw materials into the imagi- 
 nation to be worked up there : and that the business of selection, compo- 
 sition, association, comparison, distinction, and judgment, belongs to other 
 powers operating after the senses have done their office. 
 
 10. Nevertheless, the evidence of sense being an expression current 
 among mankind, I am very far from desiring to discard it; on the contrary, 
 I shall employ, and may lay great stress upon it myself, as occasion shall 
 offer : all I meant by the foregoing observations was to explain my senti- 
 ments of what is to be understood by the expression, which I conceive to 
 denote, not any thing thrown in upon us from external objects, but that 
 judgment occurring to the thought instantly and involuntarily, without de- 
 duction of reason, or chain of consequences, upon ideas being exhibited by 
 our senses. And I so little undervalue this evidence, that in my present 
 opinion, I think it never ought to be, and perhaps never is, rejected, unless 
 when overpowered by other evidence of the same kind, or by reasonings 
 grounded thereupon. Why do we believe a stick to be straight, although 
 appearing crooked in water, but because upon drawing it out we see the 
 crookedness vanish, or running our finger along, we feel no bend where 
 there seemed to be one ? Why do we believe the sun an immense body, 
 notwithstading its apparent smallness, but for reasons drawn from the 
 phenomena of that and other objects we have seen at various distances, 
 and from various situations ?
 
 110 JUDGMENT. 
 
 1 1 . Our internal sense or reflection furnishes us -with an evidence of the 
 like kind ; for we judge as commonly, as instantaneously, and as neces- 
 sarily, upon subjects we remember, as upon those we have before our eyes. 
 These judgments are often weaker and less steady than those of immediate 
 sensation, our ideas continually fluctuating, and varying both in colour and 
 shape : but if we can fix them by contemplation or habitude, the judgments 
 resulting from them strike as vigorously as those of the senses. And 
 even in their unsettled state, although we cannot judge critically and fully, 
 yet we may discern something clearly concerning them, because their 
 fluctuation keeps within certain limits sufficient to answer our purpose. 
 The idea of an elephant never contracts so small as to come within the com- 
 pass of that of a mouse, therefore we can always tell which has the greater 
 bulk : yet perhaps our ideas of both are so variable, that we could not 
 determine between two elephants or two mice upon the pictures of them in 
 our memory, without seeing the creatures stand together side by side. 
 Nor are confused ideas utterly incapable of suggesting any clear concep- 
 tion concerning them. Mr. Locke says we have a very confused idea of 
 substance ; yet who does 'not know the difference between substance and 
 shadow ? which latter too seems to lie a little confused in the minds of 
 many learned men, for they think they have done notably when they 
 define shadow the absence of light : but the words of this definition con- 
 tain an idea of light, for you must have the thing in your thought whereof 
 you predicate the absence ; and I appeal to every man, whether he finds 
 the idea either of light or absence occur whenever he looks upon a shadow : 
 nevertheless we can think currently and talk intelligibly of shadows, their 
 figures, magnitudes, and motions, and so we can of substances, their quali- 
 ties, and modifications, without perhaps having a quite clear and adequate 
 idea of either. 
 
 12. Ideas of reflection, strictly so called, generate judgments no less 
 than those derived originally from sensation : justice, mercy, approbation, 
 virtue, duty, and other abstracted ideas, being as frequently made the terms 
 of a proposition, both in our thoughts and discourses, as colours, sounds, 
 or touches, and their relations, similitudes, and differences, as obviously 
 discerned when we are gotten as well acquainted with them. For let us 
 observe, that the internal sense, as well as the external, only exhibits ob- 
 jects to our apprehension, and they generate the judgments : now though 
 the child be born some time after the first entrance of the father, yet when 
 grown to strength and maturity, it may accompany him hand in hand, and 
 come together into our presence. Wherefore the faculty of judging, both 
 in the mental sense and the bodily, is an art acquired by time and practice, 
 not an essential quality of the objects to make an impression of conformity 
 or disagreement upon us as soon as apprehended. 
 
 13. The schoolmen make a third act of the mind, which they call Rati- 
 ocination, and we may style the generation of a judgment from others 
 actually in our understanding : for what is reasoning but discerning the 
 agreement of two ideas between themselves by their agreement with some 
 third ? and what is the fruit of reasoning but to beget an assent to some 
 proposition we were ignorant of before ? While assent depends upon our 
 view of the premises, the new judgment is yet in embryo ; but when per- 
 fectly formed, when it can stand alone, and still adhere to the conclusion 
 after the premises drop out of sight, then it becomes of the same nature 
 and has the same force upon us with the evidence of sense. For we hold 
 many things assuredly for truth, and that perhaps upon very good foun-
 
 JUDGMENT. Ill 
 
 dation, although we have absolutely forgotten the reasons first inducing 
 us to believe them. And this assurance, we gain sometimes very quickly ; 
 if we did not, we could make but little dispatch in business, it being im- 
 possible to retain the whole chain of reasoning in our thoughts when it 
 runs to any considerable length ; therefore, if we could not rest satisfied 
 in the conviction left by the premises upon a short view of them, we 
 should never arrive at the conclusion desired. 
 
 14. There are various degrees of strength in judgments, from the lowest 
 surmise to notion, opinion, persuasion, and the highest assurance, which 
 we call certainty : for we do not believe what weather it will be to-morrow, 
 or what we read in a newspaper, with the same force of conviction as 
 what objects we see before our eyes, or what we have done ourselves a 
 quarter of an hour ago. If our premises are uncertain, they can throw no 
 stronger light upon the conclusion than they had themselves, or rather 
 than belonged to the weaker, if they happen to differ in lustre : neverthe- 
 less, where there are many conspiring to illustrate one point, they may 
 supply by number what they want in vigour ; as one may make a prodi- 
 gious glare with rush candles provided one lights up enow of them. This 
 we commonly find the case in public rumours, which, though perhaps little 
 heeded the first time we hear them, yet when current in everybody's mouth, 
 seldom fail of gaining our assent. So likewise experiments made for disco- 
 vering the properties of bodies do not always satisfy immediately, until by 
 repeated trials we find them constantly producing the same effect. Repetition 
 likewise of the same evidence sometimes will answer the purpose equally 
 with multitude of witnesses : many people taking up an opinion, slender at 
 first, and upon slight grounds, have by mere habitude of assenting, worked 
 it up at last into a firm persuasion, without any additional proof. Nay, a 
 bare assertion, frequently reiterated, may supply the place of evidence : 
 scarce anybody but has found occasion to remark how the tenets of a sect 
 or party, continually chimed in men's ears without any argument to sup- 
 port them, have been at length received as articles of faith, sometimes even 
 in spite of the most opposite sentiments entertained before. And Arch- 
 bishop Tillotson assures us, there have been persons who have told a lie so 
 often till they have actually believed it themselves. 
 
 1 5 . And as opinions generate, so they die away again by degrees ; not 
 only by the force of opposite evidence overpowering them, but by a kind 
 of natural decay. Facts we have read in history, problems we have seen 
 demonstrated in Euclid, having been long out of our thoughts, sink into 
 slight opinions ; we think they are so as we conceive, but we are not sure ; 
 and upon farther disuse the evidence of them may be actually forgot, so 
 that though the terms be suggested, or we remember such matters have 
 been treated of, we can give no assent to them at all. Besides, any one 
 who will take pains may observe that his judgment upon the same point is 
 not always steady, but varies according to the humour or disposition of his 
 spirits : nay, if he holds the same proposition under contemplation a con- 
 siderable time, he will find the judgment fluctuate while the terms remain 
 unaltered ; it will strike sometimes fuller, and sometimes fainter, by inter- 
 vals, without any apparent cause or argument occurring to occasion the 
 change. A man in liquor judges diversely from what he does in his sober 
 senses : passion notoriously perverts the judgment, warping it this way or 
 that, according as best suits its purposes, and giving a stronger or a weaker 
 bias, in proportion to the violence whereto it rises : when we wish a thing 
 to be true, we therefore believe it so, desire performing the office of evi-
 
 112 JUDGMENT. 
 
 dence. I grant this most frequently happens through a partial considera- 
 tion, the notice fixing upon such ideas as make for the favourite opinion, 
 and turning away from all others that might overthrow it ; but one may 
 perceive that inclination sometimes operates upon the judgment alone, 
 without making any alteration either in the number or colour of the terms 
 whereon it is passed. The very same arguments, attended to carefully and 
 impartially, do not always make an equal impression in times of joy or 
 melancholy, in vigorous health, or upon a death bed, when relating to 
 things near or remote, in laying a plan of future operations, or entering 
 upon the execution : and this not only by new thoughts occurring, which 
 we had overlooked before, but by a new estimation of the same objects 
 casting a different light upon one another. 
 
 16. Let us now look back upon the several changes a judgment may 
 pass through, according as time or other causes increase or abate, or sus- 
 pend its vigour. A man's own thoughts may suggest, or he may have 
 suggested by another person, a matter of fact, a theorem of mathematics, 
 an axiom of natural philosophy, or a maxim of morality, whereof he may 
 clearly apprehend the terms without giving any assent to it : he may then 
 be brought to a full conviction of it by setting proper proofs before him, 
 which conviction may remain after the proofs are quite slipped out of his 
 memory : if he thinks no more of it for a considerable while, his persua- 
 sion may dwindle into a vague opinion, and in further time wholly vanish 
 away, so that he may now -view the same terms with no spark of assent 
 more than he did at the beginning. At all these times the mind does no 
 more than observe the ideas in her thoughts, and if she judges variously, 
 that diversity is not owing to any act of hers, but to the different state of 
 her imagination : she plays the spectator only, discerning the prospect be- 
 fore her, and whether she shall see a full or a faint evidence, or none at all, 
 depends upon what her organs of reflection shall exhibit. This we readily 
 acknowledge in memory, which is one species of judgment ; for what is 
 remembering, but having the idea of a thing we know we had seen before ? 
 everybody will allow that we remember past events according to the traces 
 of them remaining in our memory, and when those traces sometimes happen 
 to be altered, we remember wrong : nor has remembrance been unfrequently 
 compared to reading a written memorandum, which being obliterated gives 
 us imperfect information, or none at all ; or being erased or interlined in 
 our absence, leads us into mistakes. And one might as aptly apply the 
 comparison to all other kinds of knowledge, which being nothing but the 
 perception of what lies in our understanding, may be called reading the 
 characters exhibited by our mental organs, and whatever changes the in- 
 scription there must of course produce a like alteration in our perceptions. 
 
 17. From hence arises a curious question, Whether, if it were possible 
 for two men to transport their minds suddenly into one another's seats, 
 each would not instantly lose his own ideas and acquire those of the other. 
 I think it cannot be doubted the exchange would be complete with respect 
 to sensation, for the senses must convey all their notices to the present 
 inhabitant, not being able to reach the former occupier now removed to a 
 distance. It seems probable that each would be able to repeat whatever 
 the other had learned by heart, and remember occurrences happening to 
 him : and if arts and sciences have their foundation in memory, he would 
 slide at once into possession of all the other's accomplishments. Perhaps 
 it may be thought going too far to suppose they would adopt each other's 
 sentiments, opinions, and consciousness, but it would be hard to demonstrate
 
 JUDGMENT. 113 
 
 there would not be a thorough exchange in these respects too : so that the 
 Papist might laugh at all revealed religion as being a thing ridiculous in 
 itself, and the freethinker contend tooth and nail for the pope's infallibility: 
 the methodist might clearly discern at one glance the absolute impossibility 
 of miracles, and the rationalist hear revelations conveyed in a whisper, 
 with an evidence greater than that of sense : the philosopher might see 
 there is no enjoyment but in the hurry of company, or a round of fashion- 
 able diversions, and the giddy girl discern the vanity of all sensual gratifica- 
 tions, and find herself never less alone than when alone : the saint might 
 tremble at the dread of punishment, being conscious of villanies he never 
 committed, and the murderer look back with joy upon a life of innocence, 
 and feel the comforts of a conscience void of offence. 
 
 18. These and such like speculations have put some persons quite out of 
 conceit with their understandings, which they say are incapable of certainty, 
 having no mark to distinguish between that and full assurance, representing 
 the same things variously at different times, and therefore not to be de- 
 pended upon : for who would credit a witness that should contradict in one 
 breath what he had deposed in another ? And indeed if we will consider 
 the matter impartially, we must needs lay aside all claim to absolute cer- 
 tainty of external objects, of past occurrences, or the success of our most 
 common endeavours : for our knowledge of all these depends upon sense, 
 memory, or experience, which we have sometimes found fallacious, and this 
 fixes such a blemish upon their characters, that we can never be certain 
 they are not so. The utmost that we can know of them is, that in some 
 instances they have constantly agreed in the same story ; but for this we 
 must trust our memory : and yet even this amounts no higher than to a ne- 
 gative evidence that we have never been able to detect them, though what 
 we may do in time to come remains still unknown. Even mathematical 
 demonstration depends upon the faithfulness of our memory, to preserve 
 the evidence thrown from the principles in every step of our progress. 
 Therefore it is possible there may be no pictures in the room, though I see 
 them before mine eyes ; that I never was in my garden, though I remember 
 walking there this morning ; that sugar will not melt in warm water, 
 though I have seen it melted a thousand times ; that the angles of a tri- 
 angle are not equal to two right angles, though I have read it demonstrated 
 in Euclid. For who has seen through all the compass of nature, so as to 
 know without possibility of a mistake what powers there are, yet undis- 
 covered by any man, which may alter the properties of bodies, and vary 
 their operations upon one another, make impressions upon our senses in the 
 manner of external objects, work traces in our memory, draw pictures in 
 our imagination, or stamp judgments upon our understanding, without any 
 of those causes to which we currently ascribe them. 
 
 19. Our knowledge never surpasses the degree of assurance we have in 
 our minds, and constantly keeps even pace with it : for whatever other 
 folks may think of us, we always think ourselves that we know for certain 
 what we are firmly persuaded of. The highest pitch to which assurance 
 ever rises is, when we can form no conception how things can possibly be 
 otherwise than as we apprehend them : thus we rest assured the fruit grows 
 out of the earth through the tree, because we cannot conceive how it should 
 come there any other way : but do we certainly know there are no possi- 
 bilities of which we cannot form any conception ? Nor does assurance 
 mount to a less height when we do not than when we cannot conceive any- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 JUDGMENT. 
 
 thing to bring it lower : we often persuade ourselves things must be so 
 and so, because we cannot account for their phenomena otherwise, yet 
 perhaps another person may suggest an account that shall satisfy us of the 
 contrary. A man in his sleep entertains as full persuasion of the reality 
 of his dreams, as he does of anything else at other times : when he wakes, 
 he sees they are mere delusion, not by discovering any defect in the per- 
 suasion itself, but by other knowledge derived from former experience ; and 
 when this is withdrawn by the return of sleep, he falls into the like delusion 
 again. If you convince a man of an error he was strongly possessed of, 
 you do it, not by showing the insufficiency of his former appearances to 
 beget assent, but by suggesting new ones from arguments not occurring to 
 him before. Nobody will deny we have some assurances that are fallacious, 
 others that are true ; but we can see no difference in the countenance of 
 the one or the other while they remain our persuasion : when they have 
 been driven out by opposite evidence, like servants whose faults you seldom 
 hear of till they are turned away, then indeed we may discover their delusive- 
 ness, but then they are no longer our judgment ; every judgment, while it 
 is our present judgment, carries the same face of veracity. For let us re- 
 member that a judgment is a different modification of the organs from those 
 which represented the bare terms whereon it was passed to our apprehen- 
 sion ; therefore if I believed a thing yesterday, but am convinced of the 
 contrary to-day, though I may recall at pleasure the ideas of the terms, I 
 shall not find the same character of judgment with them that accompanied 
 them then : so I see my mistake by having a different representation of 
 the matter now in my mind, but whatever characters of a judgment we 
 read in the understanding, we have no test to try whether it be genuine or 
 counterfeit. Therefore for aught I can demonstrate to the contrary, 
 Bishop Berkeley may be in the right, and that infinite variety of objects 
 nature seems to present us, may be purely imaginary, and life one continued 
 scene of delusion from the cradle to the grave. 
 
 20. But then have we no certainty of the judgments we pass upon ideas 
 in our own minds, though we should have none of external objects ? What 
 though our senses, our memory, our experience, may deceive us, yet surely 
 we may know what their representations are, and judge of their similitude 
 or diversity, without any possibility of mistake ; for the ideas present before 
 us we see directly and intuitively, not through any medium which might 
 falsify their appearance, nor by footsteps of them left behind, which might 
 alter in shape. If I hold no real pen in my hand, nor see any real table 
 before me, have I not an absolute knowledge of the appearance of both 
 being in my imagination ? and may not I pass an unerring judgment upon 
 those appearances ? Cannot I discern certainly that my idea of the pen 
 differs from that of the table in colour, shape, position, contexture of parts, 
 flexibility, and other particulars ? If I never learned my mother tongue but 
 had it inspired into me just now by the organs of my reflection being made 
 to fall suddenly into their present modifications, do not I understand the 
 meaning of words now in my thought, and see clearly what sense is asso- 
 ciated respectively to each of them ? Though there should be neither lines 
 nor angles in nature, have we not distinct notions of either, and may we 
 not pronounce safely, that a line drawn between two others from their point 
 of contact, forms two angles, both together equal to the angle formed by the 
 two outermost lines ? Thus while the judgment keeps within the compass of 
 ideas immediately exhibited, it seems possessed of absolute certainty : but 
 when confined to these narrow limits, it can be of little use to us, more than
 
 JUDGMENT. 115 
 
 bare amusement, nor answer any of our purposes in life. How unerring 
 judgments soever we may pass upon our ideas of the pen and the ink-glass, 
 yet if those ideas happen not to correspond with the things themselves, we 
 may puddle about for ever without getting up a drop of ink to write with. 
 And if experience has deceived us in the properties of wood and fire, though 
 we reason ever so justly upon the ideas we have of them, we shall never be 
 able to warm ourselves by throwing a load of billets upon the hearth. 
 
 2 1 . But our present inquiry regards only the certainty, not the useful- 
 ness, of our knowledge : let us, therefore, examine whether we have that 
 absolute certainty we are in quest of, even in our judgments upon ideas 
 actually in our thoughts. In the first place, let us call to mind that the 
 judgment, even in this case as well as in all others, is something distinct 
 from the terms whereon it is passed ; therefore there is one step at least be- 
 tween our apprehension of the terms and the judgment resulting from them, 
 and who can ever tell what causes may possibly intervene to give that step 
 a wrong direction, or create a judgment which we suppose to be the 
 genuine offspring of the terms ? In the next place, if we had absolute cer- 
 tainty in our ideas, we must be so well acquainted with it as to know per- 
 fectly what it is, and should have a standard in our minds whereby to try 
 all other judgments, nor ever after repose an entire confidence in any where 
 the proper characteristic were wanting. In the third place, our knowledge 
 here too rises no higher than to the fullest assurance built upon this foun- 
 dation, that we cannot conceive any possibility how we should mistake con- 
 cerning ideas actually before us ; but we have shown before that inability 
 of conception is not an unexceptionable evidence. But lastly, the judgments 
 we make upon our ideas sometimes contradict and overthrow one another, 
 nor can we always satisfy ourselves whether we really have those ideas in 
 our minds upon which we reason very currently. After the discredit I have 
 brought upon our senses, I must not say that we have seen two billiard 
 balls lying close to one another, and upon pushing one of them with a stick 
 they have both moved along ; but be it a mere delusion, nobody will deny 
 we have had an idea of seeing such an event in our time. Let us consider 
 what judgments occur upon this little phenomenon, that the hindmost ball 
 moves the foremost, that it cannot give motion before it has any, that it 
 cannot have motion before the other ball has moved away to make room for 
 it. These are judgments made upon ideas actually in our understanding, 
 yet we see how inconsistent they are with each other : therefore there must 
 be some false brother among them, though we know not how to discover 
 him, for they all appear with an equal air of certainty. Let us now exa- 
 mine the terms of our mental propositions, and satisfy ourselves whether 
 we have an idea of mathematical points and mathematical lines, before we 
 presume to determine anything for certain concerning them : for if we can 
 form no conception of a line without thickness, nor a point without any di- 
 mensions, what certainty can we have of things whereof we can form no 
 conception ? An angle does not lie where we commonly measure it by ap- 
 plying a graduated circle, but at the very point of contact between the two 
 lines, and therefore is itself a point, and all points being destitute of dimen- 
 sions we cannot conceive one greater or less than another : yet when we 
 affirm a difference in size between two angles, the terms of our proposition 
 are a larger and a smaller point, which we confidently pass our judgment 
 upon without having an idea of them in our imagination. Thus upon the 
 whole I believe we had best not pretend to be wiser than Socrates and 
 
 i 2
 
 116 JUDGMENT. 
 
 quit claim to all certain knowledge except of one thing, which is, that we 
 know nothing. But then again when we reflect that these arguments 
 against our having an absolute knowledge of anything must necessarily 
 destroy themselves, we can lay no more stress upon them than they have 
 taught us to lay upon those they overthrow : for if our judgments upon 
 ideas present in our imagination may deceive us, the proofs of this very 
 liableness to deceive, being drawn from ideas in our imagination, may de- 
 ceive us too ; so there still remains a possibility that we may certainly know 
 some things, notwithstanding all the evidence that can be produced to the 
 contrary. Thus we find that single certain truth left us a little before, to 
 wit, that we know nothing, now wrested out of our hands, and ourselves 
 driven into arrant pyrrhonism, as being wholly uncertain whether we know 
 anything or not. 
 
 22. We now find ourselves reduced to a state of utter darkness and con- 
 fusion, the most uncomfortable and mortifying imaginable ; therefore it 
 is no wonder if we are willing to try all means for extricating ourselves out 
 of it : and for that purpose let us review the thesis proposed at first enter- 
 ing upon this question, which was, That our understandings are incapable 
 of absolute certainty, and therefore not to be depended upon. I fear we 
 must admit the assumption, but I think we may deny the consequence : for 
 though our knowledge never rise to certainty, it does not therefore follow 
 that we may never depend upon such knowledge as we have. Nor indeed 
 could we avoid it if we had a mind ; the active powers of man cannot stand 
 idle ; we must be doing something or other every moment of our waking 
 hours, at least, upon every action proposed we must resolve either to do or 
 forbear it : but all the determinations of the Will contain a judgment that the 
 action or forbearance will prove beneficial or satisfactory, and this upon less 
 information in cases requiring haste than we might have had if there had 
 been time to consider : which kind of judgments prevail upon us all, with- 
 out exception, the thoughtful and the giddy, the wise and the foolish. 
 Therefore I can by no means agree with those of the ancients who laid down 
 that the perfect wise men would never assent without absolute certainty ; 
 for I suppose they would not have him a lumpish indolent creature : one 
 should rather expect to find him more active and busy than other people ; 
 but without assent there can be no action ; and a certain knowledge in the 
 expedience of measures is not always to be had where nevertheless it is 
 necessary to pursue some measures or other. If the wise man upon a journey 
 inquires the road of a stranger, will he never assent to what is told him 
 until he can assuredly know the character of the informant ? or must he 
 not believe he shall get home in good time while there remains a possibility 
 that an earthquake, an inundation or an insurrection, may have barred up 
 all the passages ? Besides, there are some cases wherein the fulness of assent 
 conduces much to the success of an enterprise : we may remember what 
 Virgil said, They can, because they think they can : a soldier fights the bet- 
 ter for believing he shall conquer, and any man might walk on top of a wall 
 as safely as along a board in his chamber floor, if he could persuade him- 
 self he was in no danger of falling. Therefore in these cases the wise 
 man, who disposes all things, even the ideas in his own imagination, for 
 the best, would exert himself, or at least recommend to others as the wisest 
 thing they could do, to banish all thoughts that might abate the fulness of 
 their persuasion, though he might see at the same time there were very 
 good grounds for them,
 
 JUDGMENT. 117 
 
 23. If we examine into the nature of the mind, we shall find that all evidence 
 begets a proportionable assent where there is no contrary evidence to oppose 
 it : we may observe children extremely credulous, and trusting to the repre- 
 sentations of their senses : if they grow more diffident afterwards, it is be- 
 cause experience informs them of the fallaciousnes of men and deceitfulness 
 of the senses. And when we come to riper years, we proceed upon the same 
 rule, yielding to any evidence where we see no reason drawn from our for- 
 mer experience to the contrary ; nor do I imagine the wisest among us would 
 do otherwise. It is a stated maxim, both in law and common practice, that 
 we should esteem every man honest and sincere until something appears to 
 impeach his character, and our judgments are entitled to the same candid 
 presumption : if the first person we meet in the street tells us of something 
 happening in the next, we believe him without reserve, unless the thing ap- 
 pear unlikely, or contradict some other information, or that we discern an 
 archness in his look that raises a suspicion he meant to banter us. 
 
 24. It seems almost a self-evident proposition that there must be assur- 
 ance where there is no doubt ; but dubitation in the nature of it implies an 
 assent to something, if not to the thing doubted of, at least to the reasons 
 occurring for and against it : for if you see none on one side, what can you 
 doubt about ? Hence we find ourselves sometimes wavering in our doubts ; 
 for as ideas fluctuate in our imagination, if the evidence on one side drops 
 out of our thought or loses its brightness for a moment, we find a temporary 
 persuasion of the other, and vice versa ; which shows that even uncertain 
 evidence (for both cannot be true) naturally gains credit upon the mind 
 when appearing without a competitor. Doubts indeed may sometimes seem 
 to arise from the weakness of evidence without needing an antagonist to 
 overthrow it : as upon seeing a person at some distance in the dusk of 
 evening, you doubt whether it be your friend or somebody else, merely from 
 the imperfection of the appearance, without having any particular reason to 
 think it cannot be him. But let us examine whether there be not an oppo- 
 sition of evidence even in cases of this kind : if you were upon a desert 
 island, inhabited only by you two, and could just distinguish something 
 walking upright, I suppose you would make no doubt what it was : 
 therefore this imperfect appearance is sufficient alone to work assurance 
 when it has nothing to stand in competition with it. Perhaps you will say 
 that your reflection of there being no other inhabitant corroborates the tes- 
 timony of your sight, and both together do the business by their united 
 strength : but should you always stay for that reflection before you gave 
 your assent ? nay, do not you give it sometimes when you have no such re- 
 flection to make ? For let us now change the scene to the crowded streets 
 of London : when you see something in Cheapside that looks like a parti- 
 cular person, you take it to be him at first glance, nor do you begin to doubt 
 until a second thought suggests that hundreds of people pass along there, 
 many of whom may resemble as much as you can see of him by such an im- 
 perfect light. Sometimes indeed this suggestion occurs with the first 
 thought, and then the doubt will be as early as the appearance : but this 
 takes nothing from what I have been saying, for it is no proof that an ap- 
 pearance is not sufficient alone to work assurance, because it fails of work- 
 ing it when not alone, but confronted with something else. Nor is the 
 case different in our most careful deliberations from what we have found it 
 in sudden and temporary assents : for what avails consideration unless to 
 discover the evidences on. each side the question, and weigh the merits be- 
 tween them ? Let a man consider -ever so long, he will never reject the
 
 118 JUDGMENT. 
 
 first judgment of sense, until he finds it inconsistent with some other ap- 
 pearance, or with his former observations, or with some judgment of his 
 understanding : even when we suspend our assent only to think further of 
 the matter, though we may not have any particular reason occurring to 
 create a doubt, we have that general reason of having experienced the 
 danger of hasty determination ; so that we trust our understanding or our 
 experience in the very act of distrusting our senses. 
 
 25. Much the same may be said of probability that has been spoken 
 above concerning doubt, for we reckon a thing probable when we discern 
 reasons why it should be, and others why it should not be : but if we lose 
 our assent to the reasons on one side, the other will no longer remain a 
 probability, but will gain our fullest assurance. And even when we seem to 
 deem it probable only for want of better evidence, still it is because we 
 have had experience of things being otherwise under the like appearances. 
 Perhaps there is no other difference between doubt and probability than 
 that in the former our ideas fluctuate, whereas in the latter they continue 
 steady : therefore we cannot estimate the quantity of our doubts, at least 
 only in the gross, as when we talk of doubting much, or doubting a little 
 of a thing, but how much or how little we can never ascertain exactly ; 
 but we can often calculate probabilities, as in chances upon cards and dice, 
 with a mathematical nicety. And though we cannot do this with equal 
 precision in matters of morality, yet many times we can discern clearly on 
 which side the probability lies : when we have once gotten this discern- 
 ment, after having satisfied ourselves that we had examined all the lights 
 in our power relative to the matter in hand, we generally dismiss those 
 hanging on the weaker side out of our thoughts, as being of no further 
 service, but tending rather to disturb us in the vigorous pursuit of our 
 measures, and thereby turn the probability into an unreserved assurance ; 
 until some new light occurring, or some change of circumstances happening, 
 shall make us judge it expedient to resume the consultation afresh. Nor 
 can you ever unsettle a man in a determination he has fixed upon, without 
 at least suggesting some suspicion that he may have determined wrong, to 
 which suspicion he must assent, or he will never hearken to your remon- 
 strance. Thus we find the mind never totally without an assent to some 
 judgment, either of her senses or understanding, as well in times of doubt 
 and probability, as in those of firm persuasion, as well in contrariety as 
 uniformity of evidence, as well at the beginning and throughout the course 
 of an inquiry as upon the final determination. 
 
 26. How idle then is it to talk of the wise man's forbearing to do what 
 all men must do continually ? For though wisdom may perfect our nature 
 it cannot change it, nor transform us into other creatures : therefore the 
 wise man, as a man, must always assent to something, and if so, must 
 assent sometimes to uncertainties, unless you will suppose him to have a 
 full view of all the lights that can fall upon every subject the instant it 
 starts up in his thoughts. Does he never alter his judgment upon better 
 information ? Does he never profit by consideration, so as to discern 
 things otherwise than he apprehended them ? Do no arguments ever 
 raise a scruple in him upon matters he had no doubt of before ? If any 
 of these cases happen, then he once assented to an uncertainty, or which 
 is as bad, he afterwards doubts or dissents from a certainty. I suppose 
 he may be allowed to dream sometimes in his sleep, and to take his 
 dreams for realities, as much as the rest of us half-witted mortals : there- 
 fore that noted liar Fancy gains undoubted credit with him when the
 
 JUDGMENT. 119 
 
 judgments of his understanding are shut out of his sight. Thus we see 
 the giving or withholding assent does not depend upon the mind itself, but 
 upon the ideas she has to read in the organization : she cannot lose her 
 perceptive faculty, though she may lose the use of it for want of objects to 
 exercise it upon ; nor does her eye grow dim and strong alternately by 
 night and by day : it may be obscured, not impaired, by darkness, nor do 
 the vapours of sleep make any change in the sight, but only in the pros- 
 pect, and it is in the nature of the mind to assent to whatever appearances 
 that exhibit when all other evidence that might correct them is removed 
 out of her reach. Therefore the difference between a sleeping and a 
 waking man does not lie in the mind, unless understood in that vulgar 
 sense of the term comprehending a corporeal organization, that which pre- 
 sents ideas being differently disposed, not that which perceives them. 
 And the same causes make the difference between one man and another ; 
 the wise man having many judgments in his understanding which the 
 foolish wants, and being exempt from many appearances which mislead the 
 other : nor does this derogate at all from his merit, provided he have 
 brought his understanding into a better state by his own good management 
 and industry. 
 
 27. What then are we to understand when we hear it asserted that the 
 wise man never assents to things uncertain ? Is it that he will not assent 
 without absolute certainty ? This we have proved to be false in fact. Is 
 it that he will not assent where he discerns their uncertainty ? This is 
 saying nothing, for no man assents to a thing at the same time while it 
 appears doubtful to him. The expression then can mean nothing more 
 than that he will not assent rashly, like the common herd of mankind, 
 before he has examined the matter as fully as opportunity will permit, or 
 the lights of his understanding enable him. If he has canvassed the point 
 to his satisfaction formerly, he will still rest satisfied in the consciousness 
 of having done so, unless some fresh information or suggestion not thought 
 of before should require a re-hearing. By following this practice often, he 
 will become acquainted with the degrees of evidence, so as to measure them 
 almost upon inspection, and judge of the weight or frivolousness of objec- 
 tions, and will lay up a stock of principles in his understanding which he 
 may trust to, so as to be able to make his decisions quicker and surer, 
 though less hastily, than other people. 
 
 28. Look into Tully's Academics, and other sceptical treatises, and you 
 find arguments to invalidate the judgment of the senses and understanding, 
 drawn from examples wherein they have deceived us : but how shall we 
 know the truth of those instances, unless we give credit to our experience 
 informing us of them ? or what conclusion can we draw from the facts, if 
 we may not depend upon any judgment of our understanding ? If those 
 who produce the arguments, and cite the examples, do not assent to the 
 force of the one, or truth of the other, they trifle with us, and deserve no 
 regard ; if they do assent, they practise the very thing they labour to prove 
 unreasonable. What their real sentiments may be I shall not pretend 
 to guess, for they are an unfathomable sort of people, but I think it 
 impossible that one of these two should not be the case with them : either 
 they assent without reserve to the judgments they dispute against, only to 
 show their skill in disputation, or if they really doubt, they assent with as 
 little reserve to the grounds they have for their doubting. Therefore we 
 need not make a scruple of assenting, after having found that the wise man
 
 120 JUDGMENT. 
 
 assents who knows best what is proper, and the sceptic assents in spite of 
 all the pains he can take, or contrivances he can devise to avoid it. 
 
 29. Thus this disquisition upon the fallibility of our judgment, which at 
 the beginning perhaps might seem an attempt to unsettle the minds of 
 men, will, I hope, upon taking the whole together, appear to have a direct 
 contrary tendency, and in that prospect I entered upon it ; for I look upon 
 this as one of those sources of disputation which must not be dabbled 
 with : we must drink deep, or had better not taste at all, for we shall find 
 at bottom what may remedy any disorder brought upon us by the surface. 
 Men commonly please themselves with a notion of absolute certainty, and 
 may enjoy that pleasure so long as they remain unmolested in the notion : 
 but when a subtle enemy approaches, they will find it an untenable post, and 
 must inevitably be ruined unless they have another fortress to retire to be- 
 hind. Therefore I conceive nothing conduces more to insure a tranquillity 
 of mind against all attacks than establishing these two maxims, that know- 
 ledge, that is, absolute certainty, was not made for man, but that man is so 
 constituted as to do very well without it. The former may mortify or dis- 
 turb us a little at first, but the other will set all to rights again, and put 
 us upon a firmer footing than we stood on before : for while placing our 
 dependence solely upon certainty, we could never be secure that our own 
 imagination in some melancholy mood, or the arts of an adversary, might 
 not start objections to wrest our idea of certainty from us, and then we 
 should be left in a state of doubt and despondency, as having nothing to 
 trust to : but being possessed of these maxims, we may allow the objec- 
 tions their full weight, without abating of our confidence in the measures 
 we proceed upon. 
 
 30. Hence arises that so much-used distinction between absolute and 
 moral certainty : it is not in the nature of the latter to exclude all possibi- 
 lity of mistake, and therefore it is not destroyed by the suggestion of such 
 a possibility ; but it is in the nature of man to repose an entire acquies- 
 cence in it to the exclusion of all doubt. And for the attainableness of 
 such certainty I appeal to every man's experience, excepting those who set 
 all their wits at work to undervalue it ; nor should I except them, could 
 they be depended upon, to give an honest answer : but I refer it to all 
 others, whether they believe them entertaining the least doubt of the force 
 of those arguments they bring to persuade us out of our senses. I shall 
 not undertake to give an exact definition of moral certainty, which may 
 comprise everything belonging to the term, but I think a man may be said 
 to possess it when he is conscious of having had all opportunities of ex- 
 amining a thing, has considered it thoroughly and impartially, and upon 
 the issue finds a clear judgment remaining in his understanding of its being 
 true, with no probability of the contrary. This I believe all men confide 
 in, and I do not see what the wisest of us can have better to rest his 
 assurance upon. It is true, every man is liable to mistakes, notwithstand- 
 ing all his care to escape them ; but if the error be invincible, you will not 
 blame him for assenting to it as a truth, because nobody could have avoided 
 doing so under the like circumstances ; and if it were owing to prejudice 
 or hastiness, still the fault does not lie in his adhering to what appears to 
 him as a certainty, but in his negligence or partiality, while he had the 
 matter under examination. 
 
 31. Constant and uniform experience produces the like certainty, and 
 this gives us confidence in the evidence of sense, of memory, and in the
 
 JUDGMENT. 121 
 
 judgments of our understanding, upon having found them testify the same 
 thing upon repeated trials. Nor will any man distrust his senses, unless 
 in those instances wherein he has experienced their giving fallacious ap- 
 pearances, as in a stick seen crooked in water, or a square tower seen round 
 at a distance. Neither will he distrust his memory or his understanding, 
 when clear and positive, without some very strong reasons suggested to the 
 contrary, which his understanding must approve of, and his senses or his 
 memory bear witness to the facts whereon they are grounded. Therefore 
 we may, without imputation of folly, rest assured that the tables, chairs, 
 and other objects, really exist in such figures and places as we see them, 
 that stone is hard, and wood combustible, that occurrences have really 
 happened to us as we remember, that two and two make four, that a part 
 cannot contain the whole, that the principles of arts and sciences are true, 
 the conclusions appearing necessarily to flow from them just, and our 
 established rules of conduct and argumentation right, until we shall find 
 sufficient cause to doubt of them. 
 
 32. For everything, that may seem to contradict an opinion, is not a 
 sufficient cause for doubting : the mind, though compared to an exceeding 
 fine balance, in that it will turn with the slightest hair when nothing lies 
 in counterpoise, yet does not resemble it in all respects ; for where the 
 weights are greatly disproportionate, the heavy scale will press down with 
 as strong a force of assurance as if the opposite scale had been absolutely 
 empty. Were a man, whom you know little of, to relate a fact not im- 
 probable in itself, you would believe him ; therefore he has some weight 
 with you : but if twenty persons of undoubted veracity should assert the 
 contrary, you would not give a jot the less credit to them than if the first 
 man had said nothing. So upon hearing a thing reported that we judge 
 utterly improbable, we give no heed the first time, nor the second, but if 
 repeated in many companies, we begin to doubt whether it may not be 
 true : then each report must have some weight singly, for a multitude of 
 nothings can make nothing, yet these small weights have no effect at all 
 until they consolidate, and by their number grow into a great one. 
 
 33. The vulgar are commonly very positive, thinking themselves pos- 
 sessed of absolute certainty in almost everything they know : this happens 
 from their weighing their evidences singly, which will naturally produce 
 that effect ; for we can judge of weights only by their opposition, because 
 any one thrown in alone drives down the scale forcibly. But the contem- 
 plative use themselves to compare the judgments, as well of their senses, as 
 of their understanding, which they frequently find contradictory ; therefore 
 they abound in doubts that never enter the head of a common man, which 
 has occasioned doubting to be reckoned the avenue to philosophy : but if 
 it be the avenue, it is no more, nor can one arrive at the thing itself until 
 one has passed it, and he that sticks in the passage had better not have 
 attempted it. The use of doubting is to prevent hasty decisions, and lead 
 to something more sure and certain than we could have attained without 
 it : for the first notices of our understanding direct to many things for our 
 benefit, therefore we suffer damage by parting with them, unless we sup- 
 ply their places by something else more effectual for the purpose. 
 
 There is a moderation in all things : a man may as well doubt too much 
 as too little : nor let us run away with a notion that a propensity to 
 doubting shows a sagacity of parts, for it may as well proceed from the 
 contrary quality. We have shown already that in every doubt there is an 
 assent to the validity of opposite evidences, for if the evidence on either
 
 1-22 JUDGMENT. 
 
 eide appear invalid, the doubt vanishes ; and we have observed that our 
 assent is according to the character we read of the judgment engraven 
 upon the understanding : but the understanding is most perfect when it 
 represents the characters of judgments in the truest colours, neither stronger 
 nor weaker than they deserve. If it be faulty, it may show the thing 
 doubted of in too faint and the cause of doubting in too glaring a light, 
 in which case the doubt will be owing to the dulness not the quickness of 
 the organs. Perhaps a man of more sagacity may have discerned the ob- 
 jection as soon as the doubter, but discerned at the same time that there 
 was nothing in it. He whose views are confined to one narrow point of 
 evidence, will think himself certain because he sees nothing to oppose it ; 
 if he can widen them a little, he may discover something to stagger his 
 confidence ; but if he can open them still further, he may discern what will 
 bring him again to a fixed determination : and in the clearness and exten- 
 siveness of our views sagacity chiefly consists, which gives stronger marks 
 of itself in a quickness of resolving doubts than a readiness of starting 
 them. We can measure evidences no otherwise than by the weight we feel 
 them have upon us ; while the weights bear a near proportion to one ano- 
 ther, the doubtful beam still nods from side to side ; but the excellency of 
 a balance lies, not in having large scales that will hold a number of weights, 
 but in turning upon the smallest difference. Therefore there is a common 
 sense or discretion infinitely preferable to brightness of parts, which indeed 
 has no other value than to furnish weights for it to examine. Whoever is 
 possessed of this quality will steer equally clear of doubt and positiveness ; 
 though his scale may be small it will weigh things exactly, he will distin- 
 guish the glare of tinsel from the ponderancy of gold, he will reject what- 
 ever makes nothing to the purpose, and take into consideration everything 
 pertinent that he has room for, and will be steady in his opinions but not 
 tenacious. Whereas your men of large capacities, if wanting in this 
 quality, get rid of vulgar errors only in exchange for others peculiar to 
 themselves ; they are quick at seeing things, but not at comparing them ; 
 they argue strongly, but cannot determine justly, and amidst all their cau- 
 tion and reserve you may find them obstinate in some absurdity that every- 
 body else clearly discerns to be such with half an eye. 
 
 34. When we reflect on our utter incapacity of attaining to absolute 
 certainty, this is enough, though not to make us doubt of the clear judg- 
 ments of our understanding, yet to make us acknowledge a possibility or 
 their being erroneous : and this, if not overlooked, must prevent every man 
 from being so wedded to an opinion as to turn a deaf ear upon all evidence 
 that can be offered against it. Wherefore I must look upon those bigots in 
 religion or reason, for there are of both sorts, as very little skilled in human 
 nature, who lay so great a stress upon one kind of evidence as to think no 
 other worth regarding in competition with it. Some ascribe so much to 
 faith, built nevertheless upon human testimony and tradition, as to set it 
 above the strongest contradiction of the senses or the understanding ; 
 others, conceiving a thing impossible in itself according to their abstract 
 notions, reject all evidence that can be brought in support of it without 
 hearing. Whereas, if we consult experience, it will testify that all species 
 of evidence have their turns in prevailing upon us : generally we accommo- 
 date our theory to the success we find it have upon trial, but sometimes we 
 correct our senses by our theory, as in the seeming annihilation of water 
 over a fire, in the beginning of motion by matter upon attraction, repulsion, 
 explosion of gunpowder, fermentation, and the like. Sometimes we discover
 
 JUDGMENT. 123 
 
 the falsehood of a currently received opinion by reason, at others are con- 
 vinced of things we thought impossible in nature, by concurrence of testi- 
 mony. Why then should we reject any means of information put into our 
 power ? For no channel can pour it in so fully, but that another may 
 convey more of a kind we could not have expected. 
 
 A prudent man indeed will decline inquiry when he has room to think 
 there is design and ability to impose upon him by sophistry, or on the other 
 hand when the motives alleged for entering upon it appear trifling ; and it 
 must be left to his discretion to determine when either of these is or is 
 not the case : but he will never think himself so sure of any point as to 
 render all further examination needless upon whatever grounds or by 
 whatever persons recommended. For my part, as well persuaded as I am 
 that two and two make four, if I were to meet with a person of credit, 
 candour, and understanding, who should seriously call it in question, I 
 would give him the hearing ; for I am not more certain of that than of the 
 whole being greater than a part, and yet I could myself suggest some con- 
 siderations that might seem to controvert this point. The time that has 
 passed from all eternity before building the tower of Belus, was but a part 
 of that time which has passed to this day, and that still to come is a part 
 only of that which was to come in the days of Nimrod : and the time be- 
 fore and after any moment you can assign, are component parts of all 
 time : yet one cannot say whether either of these parts be less than their 
 wholes. Yet for all this, and notwithstanding my acknowledging the 
 fallibility of our clearest judgments, I cannot find the least shadow of doubt 
 in my mind whether two and two make four, nor whether the whole be 
 greater than a part, but build anything I can upon them as upon sure and 
 certain pnnciples. Nor am I singular in this respect, for I observe that 
 other people as well of great as small capacities do the same, and sometimes 
 give an unreserved assent to things, even in cases where they themselves 
 acknowledge a possibility of mistake. For we all acknowledge the uncer- 
 tainty of life, and that a man under the strongest appearances of health, 
 may be cut off in a moment by an apoplexy or other sudden disorder, yet 
 we depend without reserve upon our common actions of the day, and upon 
 other persons keeping their appointments : much more do we hold, without 
 scruple, such maxims as the two above mentioned, whereof we cannot 
 conceive any possibility how they can be otherwise than true, although 
 there may be possibilities which we cannot conceive. 
 
 35. This moral certainty then, which is the portion of man, we must be 
 understood to mean, when we speak of knowledge ; for whoever has all the 
 information the nature of the thing will admit of, with a clear judgment of 
 its being true, and no scruple of doubt to the contrary, may be said in pro- 
 priety of speech to know it. Therefore those who would prove that we 
 know nothing, because we have no absolute certainty, are guilty of a gross 
 abuse of language, ascribing another sense to the term, than the general 
 consent of mankind has allotted it. For no man who asks whether you 
 know that Mr. Such an one is in town, means to inquire whether he 
 may not be dropped down dead since you saw him, or sent for away upon 
 some pressing occasion, which you could not foresee : nor if he asks any 
 other point of knowledge, will he understand any more by your answer, 
 than that you have a reasonable assurance, without any mixture of doubt 
 of the truth of what you tell him. And he that should say he does not 
 know where he breakfasted this morning, what it is he holds in his hand, 
 what he shall do this afternoon, or when the moon will be at the full, when
 
 124 JUDGMENT. 
 
 he has this reasonable assurance, would speak an'untruth, because he would 
 convey other ideas to the hearer, than the expressions carry in his own 
 mind. 
 
 Therefore we may lawfully claim to know, or be certain of some things, 
 for the common use and propriety of language will justify us in so speak- 
 ing ; and may place a full reliance on those deductions which appear to 
 flow necessarily from them, after examining every corner that rright con- 
 tain a latent fallacy, for it is in our nature so to do. All sound rea- 
 soning must rest upon this basis, and what has this basis to rest upon will 
 never fail to satisfy : this entire acquiescence then is the utmost I aim at in 
 the course of my present inquiries, for I pretend not to absolute certainty. 
 I endeavour to collect such particular exercises of the faculties as I conceive 
 every man's experience will bear witness to the fact when put in mind of 
 them, and suggest such observations as appear naturally resulting there- 
 from. I make no new weights, nor expect to be helpful any otherwise than 
 by handing those into the scale that lay neglected, or sorting them to- 
 gether in a manner not done before ; but I leave it to every one who shall 
 vouchsafe me the hearing, to hold the balance himself : if I should be so 
 fortunate as to procure a moral certainty, it is all I desire, and all I need, 
 for I do not fear its having a proper effect. 
 
 One inconvenience happens from acquiescence being our only mark of 
 certainty, for it gives us an unlucky bias, and makes us partial in our judg- 
 ment, because when evidence offers in support of the thing we wish to be 
 true, the mind receives it with pleasure, and mistakes that complacence for 
 an acquiescence in the weight of the evidence. And perhaps we should al- 
 ways labour under this infirmity, if the mischiefs, frequently consequent 
 upon such mistakes, did not teach us better caution. Therefore we see 
 children and persons of little consideration very apt to judge according to 
 their desires, until experience and proper observation upon that experience 
 in some measure remedy the evil : but we can never get rid of it entirely, 
 wherefore the laws will not allow a man to be judge or witness in his own 
 cause, nor can the most judicious persons ever trust their judgments so se- 
 curely as in matters wherein their own interest or inclination have no con- 
 cern. 
 
 36. It has been currently held, that there were certain truths imprinted 
 upon the mind by nature, but since Mr. Locke has fully refuted the doc- 
 trine of innate ideas, another opinion has been taken up, of the mind having 
 a particular faculty to judge between her ideas, distinct from that whereby 
 she apprehends them : therefore we find three kinds of operation ascribed 
 to her, simple Apprehension, Judgment, and Ratiocination, and it is sup- 
 posed there are some truths and conclusions necessarily obvious to every 
 man, as soon as the ideas or the premises are clearly apprehended. But for 
 my part, I can see no foundation for such a triple capacity, the single faculty 
 of perception seeming to me sufficient for all those operations, according to 
 the prospect lying before us in the understanding. Nobody will deny that 
 we acquire the knowledge of some truths long after being made acquainted 
 with the terms whereof they are affirmed, and learn rules of argumentation 
 by which we can make a use of premises that we could not do before ; and 
 in process of time we retain those truths and practise that manner of reason- 
 ing, after having utterly forgotten the evidences and rules that taught us 
 them. Wherein then lies the difference between a man before and after he 
 has attained this knowledge ? Is it in his faculty which receives an addi- 
 tional strength ? or is it only in the objects he has to behold ? He could
 
 .JUDGMENT. - 125 
 
 look back upon his thoughts before and clearly discern whatever they re- 
 presented, but found there only the naked terms : and now he does no 
 more than look back in the same manner, but finds, besides the terras, a 
 judgment concerning them, which he does not create by any act of his, but 
 discerns by inspection upon the traces of his understanding. Even the most 
 obvious truths may be overlooked, while the ideas they belong to are in our 
 thoughts ; a man may see two pair of horses without ever considering that 
 they make four : but if the mind had several faculties which were severally 
 affected by the same ideas, since they must all be passive faculties, one would 
 expect that whatever is present, and operates upon the mind, should equally 
 affect them all. If it be said we overlook the judgment for want of reflect- 
 ing, I would ask what else is reflecting besides turning the mental eye in- 
 wards, which is the same act in looking for judgments as for naked ideas of 
 terras, and differs only in being directed to different objects. Therefore while 
 we speak of the mind, and not of the man, comprehending his body or finer 
 organization, I can see no more reason to suppose one faculty for appre- 
 hending, another for judging, and another for reasoning; than to suppose 
 one faculty for seeing blue, another for yellow, and another for scarlet. 
 
 37. When I make judgment a distinct idea from that of the terms, I do 
 not mean that it may be separated from them so as to be discerned apart 
 by itself, for one cannot judge without some ideas to judge upon, but this 
 does not hinder its adding to the prospect exhibited by the terms alone : for 
 there are ideas received by sensation, which cannot subsist without others, 
 and nevertheless are really distinct from those whereon their subsistence 
 depends. We cannot see motion without seeing somebody move, yet none 
 will pretend our idea of motion is contained in that of the body, which we 
 had complete while we saw him at rest ; but when put in motion it presents 
 a new idea it did.not before, and we discern this new circumstance of motion 
 by the same sense of vision wherewith we discern the body itself. So we 
 may reflect on a cow and a sheep, without thinking whether the one be 
 larger than the other, and when we make this second reflection, though it 
 cannot subsist without the former, it has something more for its object, nor 
 does there need any other faculty to apprehend this additional object of the 
 judgment, than that whereby we apprehend the subjects whereon it is 
 passed. 
 
 38. But improvements in knowledge, as well by reason, as experience, 
 arise from the transferable nature of judgment : for the premises transfer 
 their certainty to the conclusion, and particular facts transfer their degree 
 of evidence to the opinion they tend to establish, until they grow into a cer- 
 tain experience. I do not reckon the translation made while we cannot as- 
 sent to the conclusion, without contemplating the proofs : but when we can 
 use it as a principle, and whenever we reflect upon it find the characteristic 
 of truth associated with it in the same combination. This we very fre- 
 quently do, for we have many judgments to which we give an unreserved 
 assent ; we are sensible we learned them, though we cannot tell where, or 
 when, or how we learned them. Nay, sometimes, when we cannot recollect 
 who told us of a thing, we know we must have heard it somewhere, and 
 not dreamed it, by the strength of persuasion we find accompanying our 
 idea. 
 
 Yet our judgments cannot all come to us this way, because we must have 
 had some previously to our entering upon it ; experience must have a be- 
 ginning, and reason must have some principles to build upon, already known 
 and assented to, before she goes to work upon them. We begin to judge
 
 126 JUDGMENT. 
 
 very early, as early or rather a moment earlier than we begin to act, for we 
 never act without an apprehension of expedience in the action : therefore 
 the first judgment we ever made must precede the first action we ever per- 
 formed, and consequently must precede all experience we could have of our 
 own power or the effects of it. The child does not try to throw off its 
 swaddling-clothes without a judgment that the pressure it feels comes from 
 them, and that it may remove them by struggling. I do not propose this 
 as the very earliest act of human life, but whatever you will suppose the 
 earliest, was done for some end which the fancy represented as desirable 
 and attainable. This first judgment, then, arose without any manner of 
 proof, not even of prior experience, but was owing to the ideas springing up 
 spontaneously in the infant fancy. Thus we see that that state of our finer 
 organization, or whatever else one can assign for the mind to look upon in 
 the suggestions of fancy, has a natural efficacy to excite a perception of 
 judgments as well as of other ideas. One modification affects us with co- 
 lours, another with sounds, another with remembrance, another with assent : 
 and whatever, whether mechanical or other causes, bring the organs into 
 this disposition, they will have the like effect. Wherefore there is no 
 absurdity in conceiving it possible in theory, that a man, by an immediate 
 operation upon his organs disposing them into a proper state, may be 
 brought to understand what he never learned, to remember what he never 
 saw, to perceive truths instantaneously discoverable only by long investiga- 
 tions of reason, and to discern others clearly which no reason can inves- 
 tigate. 
 
 39. But how consistent soever this may appear in speculation, the pos- 
 sibility of a thing does not prove it actually true, and if we consult expe- 
 rience we shall find the contrary to be fact; all our knowledge being derived 
 from those sources to which we commonly ascribe it, our senses, our memory, 
 our reason, or the testimony and instruction of others. Therefore I am so 
 far from imagining our judgments to proceed from any sudden irregular 
 configuration of our organs, that perhaps I may be blamed for running into 
 an opposite extreme ; for I conceive that all our stores of knowledge, and 
 skill in discerning between one thing and another, was acquired, not born 
 with us, but learned by practice if we had judgments any other way than 
 those above mentioned in our infancy, we have lost them, and possess nothing 
 now which was not once a new acquisition. I have already declared my 
 opinion concerning the judgment of the senses, that a grown person, on first 
 coming to the use of any of them, would not receive the same information 
 therefrom that we do ; and that we attain our ideas of magnitude, figure, 
 distance, and many other particulars, by having frequent intercourse among 
 objects. And for judgments of the understanding, besides that they cannot 
 be had before we arrive at the use of understanding, they for the most part 
 consist in generals, which can be known only by experience of particulars 
 founded on the evidence of the senses. There are some truths esteemed 
 self-evident, because supposed to be assented to as soon as proposed : but I 
 question the fact, for I fancy one might meet with children who do not 
 know that two and two make four, or that the whole cannot be contained 
 in a part, after they clearly understand the meaning of the terms. We call 
 them self-evident, because we discern them upon inspection, but so we do 
 the figures and distances of bodies, which has been shown the effect of a skill 
 attained by use. There is as necessary a connexion between nine times four 
 and thirty-six, as between twice two and four ; and we find that butchers 
 or market-women, who have constantly used themselves to reckon by groats,
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. . 127 
 
 judge of their several amounts upon inspection without staying to compute : 
 therefore those ideas operate upon them in the manner of self-evident 
 truths, which speak for themselves as soon as admitted into the reflection. 
 They do not the like upon other persons who have not accustomed them- 
 selves to the like train of thinking ; but all men have had some experience, 
 and made some observation upon things daily occurring to their senses or 
 reflection, from whence they gather that knowledge we style self-evident, 
 because we know not its original, nor remember the time when we were 
 without it. 
 
 40. From what has been observed above, it maybe justly doubted whether, 
 strictly speaking, we have any such thing as first principles of reason, but 
 what we deem so are accessions of knowledge derived from some channel 
 whose source we cannot discover. I do not remark this with a view to 
 depreciate such knowledge or lessen our dependence upon it in all the uses 
 of life : for I think, where we find a thing command our assent as soon as 
 proposed, agreed to by mankind in general, and we can see nothing in all 
 our stores of experience suggesting a possibility of its being untrue, we may 
 build upon it as upon a sure foundation as well of our conduct as of our 
 reasonings. But my design tends to show that nothing is above being 
 made the subject of examination when an opening offers : for those com- 
 monly esteemed first principles may be often traced to some higher origin, 
 and several of them not unfrequently to one and the same. Therefore, the 
 more a man thinks, especially upon points of morality, he will find his prin- 
 ciples the fewer, but of more extensive influence ; for many of those he 
 looked upon as such at first, will resolve themselves into conclusions from 
 the few that remain. By this means his reasonings will grow more clear 
 and uniform, and his improvements greater, for by tracing points of know- 
 ledge, generally received, up their channels, he may discern how they came 
 to prevail with mankind, and thence learn to deduce others from the same 
 stream with equal effect and certainty. May I then be permitted, in the 
 sequel of these inquiries, to question whether several things be evident in 
 themselves, or good or right in themselves, which are commonly reputed 
 such ? Not with an intention to overthrow them, but with an endeavour to 
 discover why they are evident, and why they are good or right : nor shall 
 I do this wantonly, or unless I apprehend some advantage will accrue from 
 the attempt. But as I do not pretend always to penetrate quite to the foun- 
 tain head, shall content myself with stopping at postulata, which I appre- 
 hend nobody will deny me, whenever finding it impracticable or needless to 
 go further. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 WE have observed at our entrance upon these inquiries, that a compound 
 may have properties resulting from the composition which do not belong to 
 the parts singly whereof it consists. Therefore, though the mind, taken in 
 the strict and philosophical sense, possesses only two faculties, the active 
 and the perceptive, this does not hinder but that the mind, in the vulgar 
 and grosser acceptation, may possess a greater variety of faculties, such as 
 discerning, remembering, thinking, studying, contemplating, and a multi- 
 tude of others : which are but different modes or species of perception,
 
 -123 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 varying according to the state of the ideas there are to be perceived, and are 
 all reducible under two general classes, Imagination and Understanding ; 
 neither of them born with us, but acquired by use and practice, and the 
 latter growing out of the former. We come into the world a mere blank, 
 void of all inscription whatsoever. Sensation first begins the writing, and 
 our internal sense or reflection increases the stock, which runs into various 
 assortments, and produces other ideas different from the root whereout they 
 spring ; whence we quickly become provided with store of assemblages, 
 associations, trains, and judgments. 
 
 These stores, together with the repository containing them, we may style 
 the imagination, the very word implying so much ; for being derived from 
 image, which is the same as ideas, it imports the receptacle of idea. And 
 whatever number of them is excited by external objects, or presented by the 
 mechanical workings of our animal spirits, or other causes, I call an act of 
 imagination or scene exhibited thereby. I know that imagination is applied 
 in common discourse to ideas purely imaginary, having no existence in truth 
 and nature, such as a Cyclops, a Chimera, the enchanted island of Circe, 
 or whimsical Adventures of Pantagruel. But we find rhetoricians and 
 critics extending the term to pictures of real originals drawn in the mind by 
 descriptions of scenes actually existing, or occurrences actually happening. 
 Mr. Addison, in his essay on the pleasures of imagination, treats of those 
 conveyed by the works of art and nature. Therefore I shall not offend 
 against propriety, by taking the word in the largest sense, as comprehend- 
 ing every representation of the mind, whether of real things or fantastical, 
 either brought into view by some sensation, or starting up of their own 
 accord. 
 
 Among these ideas, some being more engaging than the rest, attract the 
 notice particularly to themselves : the mental eye singles them out from the 
 whole scene exhibited before it, sees them in a stronger light, holds them 
 longer in view, and thereby gives occasion to their introducing more of 
 their own associates than they could have done in the rapidity of their na- 
 tural course. This operation of the notice being frequently repeated, at 
 length becomes itself an object of our observation, and thus we discover 
 a power we have of heightening the colour of our ideas, of changing or 
 directing their course by the application of our notice : and the exercise 
 of this power I take to be what is commonly meant by an act of the Un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 2. Thus there are three ways in which ideas are made to affect us ; by 
 mechanical causes, when either sensible objects excite them, or the working 
 of our animal spirits throws them up ; by the notice being drawn to fix upon 
 some appearing eminently inviting above their fellows ; and by exerting this 
 power of the notice purposely, in order to discern them more fully, or bring 
 in others that do not occur of themselves. The two first belong to ima- 
 gination, and the last to understanding. 
 
 To render my notion of this division the clearer, I shall endeavour to 
 illustrate it by an example. Suppose a servant wench in London, after 
 being fatigued with several hours' hard labour, can get up-stairs to repose 
 herself a while in indolence. She squats down upon a chair, shuts her eyes, 
 and falls into a state between sleeping and waking ; but her fancy roves 
 upon the work she has been doing, the utensils employed therein, and the 
 chit-chat of her fellow-servants. If the cat mews at the door, this changes 
 the scene to puss's exploits in catching mice, or her fondling tricks while 
 she lay purring in somebody's lap ; until some other sensation or turn of
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 129 
 
 fancy leads on a new train of ideas. Hitherto all proceeds mechanically : 
 volition remains wholly inactive, there being nothing alluring enough to 
 raise a desire of retaining it in view ; but the images pass lightly and 
 nimbly along, according to the impulse received from the causes exciting 
 them, without leaving any trace of themselves behind. Presently there 
 arises a great noise and hubbub in the street. This rouses up the girl, and 
 carries her in all haste to the window. She sees a crowd of people, and 
 in the midst of them my Lord Mayor going by in procession. She minds 
 nothing of the houses before her, nor of the mob jostling one another be- 
 low, for the prancing horses with their gorgeous trappings engage her whole 
 attention, until drawn from them by the great coach all glorious with sculp- 
 ture, gold, and paintings, which she follows with her eye as far as it can be 
 discerned"distinctly. Then the sheriffs, and whatever else appear remark- 
 able in the train, have their share in her notice : which impresses the objects 
 whereon it fixes so strongly, that the traces of them remain in her reflection 
 after the objects themselves have been removed, and perhaps raise a curiosity 
 of knowing what could be the occasion of this parade. Thus far imagina- 
 tion only is employed : but curiosity puts her upon searching for the means 
 of gratifying it, which not occurring readily, she must use her understand- 
 ing to discover and pursue them. So she examines the sheet almanack 
 pasted up behind the door, to see what holiday it might be ; but finding 
 none, she casts about in her thoughts for some other way of accounting for 
 the coach of state being brought out ; when at last it may be she recollects 
 that somebody had told her there was to be an address presented to-day to 
 his majesty. 
 
 3. Although in the second article of the division above mentioned, our 
 active power be employed as well as in the third, yet it is manifest we pro- 
 ceed in a different manner. In the former we act inadvertently, heedlessly, 
 and without thinking, drawn only to pursue certain objects that happen to 
 strike upon our fancy ; in the other we act knowingly and designedly with 
 a view to introduce some other idea not already within our prospect, and 
 with a consciousness and reflection upon what we are doing. For there is 
 a reflex act whereby the mind turns inward upon herself to observe what 
 ideas arise in her view, or what effect her activity has upon them, or the 
 bodily members, distinct from that whereby she produces those effects. The 
 one is commonly called reflecting, the other acting, and both may be per- 
 formed at the same time, or the latter singly without the former. The be- 
 ginning of our lives I apprehend passes wholly without this reflection, which 
 we acquire in tune, and by degrees. When we have discovered our power 
 of directing the notice, and obtained some expertness in the management of 
 that power, we may be said to have arrived at the use of our understanding. 
 
 The degrees of exertion in both cases are very various, from the intensest 
 study down to that common reflection we make in the ordinary transactions 
 of life ; and from the steady attention given to very engaging scenes to that 
 transient notice we take of objects moderately alluring, when they pass 
 swiftly in succession before us. All strong efforts of the understanding are 
 laborious and fatiguing, visibly wasting the spirits, and affecting the head 
 and stomach if continued long ; nor have the most abstracted reasonings less 
 of that effect than others : which seems an undeniable evidence, that when 
 the mind is thought to be most retired, and to converse solely with herself, 
 she nevertheless uses some instrument or organ, and employs the bodily 
 forces in carrying on her work.
 
 130 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 It is common to style those actions mechanical that are performed with- 
 out thought or forecast, especially if we cannot discover any inducement 
 that led us into them ; for we ascribe them to the force of habit or im- 
 pulse, of passion or fancy : but how much soever habit or fancy may have 
 thrown up the ideas, the motions ensuing thereupon could not have been 
 produced without the agency of the mind. This was proper to be remarked, 
 because, if we take the microscope and examine the minute constituent 
 parts of action, we shall find that far the greater number of them, although 
 certainly performed by our active power, are yet directed by sudden tran- 
 sient ideas starting up from time to time spontaneously. But those ideas 
 skim so lightly as to leave no print of their foot in the memory ; therefore, 
 if we look for them the moment after, we cannot find them, and so persuade 
 ourselves there were none. When a man walks, he moves his legs himself, 
 yet they seem to move habitually and involuntarily, without any care of his 
 to make them step right and left, alternately, or to ascertain the length of 
 their paces : nor is it an easy matter for him, with his utmost attention, to 
 discern the ideas that occasion this regularity of their motions. 
 
 4. To this inadvertent action of the mind we owe that dexterity in the 
 use of our powers, which is supposed to be an immediate gift of nature : 
 for we are not born with the faculty of walking, or handling, or speaking, 
 When little children go to put their coral into their mouths, they do not 
 know how to get it thither, but hit it against their chin, or rub it about 
 their cheek : when you would set them to walk, they jump with both legs at 
 once, or lift up their foot as if they were to step over a stile : and the first 
 sounds they make are none other than those of grunting and crying. But 
 the ideas formed daily in their imagination lead them on, step by step, to 
 the management of their limbs, and first rudiments of speech, before they 
 are capable of anything that can be called learning or application. And 
 afterwards we catch many little habits by accident or imitation, or fall 
 into ways of acting by the force of example, or grow more perfect in our 
 manner of proceeding merely by dint of practice. Nor does imagination 
 stand idle even in those seasons wherein we most employ our understanding, 
 but makes many bye motions of her own, or acts an under part, assisting 
 to execute the plan laid by her partner. 
 
 For understanding endeavours to extend her prospect as far and wide as 
 she can stretch : she aims at distant ends, considers remote consequences, 
 joins the past and future with the present, and contemplates imperfect 
 ideas, in order to strike out from thence something that may be a surer 
 ground of our proceeding. Therefore she can direct only our larger actions, 
 drawing the outlines of them, or giving the main turns to our courses of 
 behaviour, but leaves the intermediate spaces to be filled up by habit, or 
 the transient ideas starting up in train to our notice. She moves too slowly 
 to give constant employment to our active power, which while she is deli- 
 berating must take its directions elsewhere. 
 
 5. Thus it appears that imagination actuates most of our motions, and 
 serves us perpetually in all the purposes of life, which understanding recom- 
 mends, but the habitual and spontaneous rising of ideas prompts and directs 
 us to complete. To this belongs all that expertness we have in any art or 
 business or accomplishment whatsoever : nor can even science proceed to 
 good effect without it, as containing something of art in the due manage- 
 ment of our thoughts, and proper application of our inquiries. We have 
 observed above, that many uselul attainments are made in our infancy, and 
 afterwards, without any thought or pains of ours : and even those we
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 131 
 
 acquire by care and industry will #tand in little stead until the trains we 
 have hammered out by long labour have gotten a facility of springing up 
 upon touch of a single link. Herein lies the difference between theory and 
 practice : for there are many things we cannot do long after we know well 
 enough how they are to be done, not because our active powers are insuf- 
 ficient for the work, but because the ideas, necessary for conducting them 
 along the minute parts of it, are not inured to rise currently and in their 
 proper order. 
 
 The beginner in music must learn his notes one by one ; then he must 
 associate them with the keys or stops of his instrument, and these again 
 with their correspondent sounds : next he must join the notes into bars, 
 and by a proper composition of these form a tune. All this he must work 
 out at first with painful application, and while such application is necessary, 
 he proceeds slowly and awkwardly, making frequent mistakes, and taking 
 up an hour to go through his tune, with much trouble to himself, and very 
 little entertainment to the hearer. But when by long practice he has 
 taught imagination to throw up her associations and trains spontaneously, 
 he has no other use for thought than just to choose the tune, and give some 
 slight directions now and then as they may be wanted : for his eye will 
 run along the lines, and his fingers along the keys, mechanically ; and it 
 would require more attention to put them out of their course than to suffer 
 them to proceed. 
 
 6. Hence we may judge of how great importance it is to have a well 
 regulated and well exercised imagination ; which, if we could possess com- 
 pletely, it would answer all our occasions better, with more ease and dis- 
 patch, than we could compass them in any other way. But as nature has 
 not given us this faculty in perfection, nor will it grow up to full stature 
 of its own accord, she has endued us with the privilege of understanding, 
 tn form and improve it. Therefore it is our business to range our ideas 
 into such assortments and trains as are best adapted to our purposes ; to 
 bring them under command, so that they may be ready for any services to 
 be required of them : and continually to keep a watchful eye over them 
 while at work, to prevent their deviating into wrong channels. 
 
 Nor would understanding herself find so constant employment as she 
 does, were it not for some principles and views laid up in store which start 
 up occasionally to set her at work. For who would consider, or study, or 
 contrive, unless to attain some purpose suggested to his reflection. Thus 
 understanding often begins and terminates in imagination, which neverthe- 
 less does not derogate from its excellency, because very few of our most 
 necessary and useful purposes could ever be attained without it. And 
 indeed understanding may justly claim the merit of those very exploits 
 performed by habit or expertness, when it was owing to her care and dili- 
 gence that they were acquired, or to her command and contrivance that 
 they had proper cues given, and proper tasks assigned them. 
 
 7. For the most part, both faculties go hand .in hand co-operating in the 
 same work, one sketching out the design, and the other executing the per- 
 formance : but sometimes we find them acting at once in different employ- 
 ments. When two persons engage earnestly together in discourse as they 
 walk, their thoughts are wholly intent upon the subject of their conversa- 
 tion : but the transient notices of their senses, and their habitual dexterity 
 in the management of their limbs, guide them in the mean while through 
 all the turnings of their path. And thus they may go currently on while 
 
 K 2
 
 132 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 the path lies smooth and open : but should anything unusual happen in the 
 way, and attention be so fully taken up as not to spare a glance away from 
 the object that holds it, they may chance to run against a post or stumble 
 over a stone. Your profound thinkers are sometimes absent in company, 
 and commit strange mistakes for want of attending to the objects around 
 them ; or perhaps set out for one place and strike into the way leading to 
 another. Which shows that the slightest and most common matters can- 
 not be carried on safely, without some degree of thought and observation : 
 not that habit and imagination cannot find employment for our active powers 
 of themselves, but it is a great chance they wander from the plan assigned 
 them, unless kept in order by frequent directions from understanding. 
 
 Thus the mind may be said to have two eyes, in their situation rather 
 resembling those of a hare or a bird than a human creature, as being 
 placed on opposite sides, and pointed towards different sets of objects. Or 
 may be more aptly compared to a man looking at a common field through 
 a telescope, with one eye, still holding the other open : with the naked eye 
 he sees the several lands, their length and shape, and the crops growing 
 on each ; with the glass he sees only one little spot, but in that he distin- 
 guishes the ears of corn, discerns butterflies fluttering about, and swallows 
 shooting athwart him. Sometimes both eyes turn upon the same prospect, 
 one tracing the larger, and the other the minuter parts : at other times 
 they take different courses, one pursuing a train of little objects that have 
 no relation to the scenes contemplated by the other. 
 
 8. Whatever knowledge we receive from sensation, or fall upon by expe- 
 rience, or grow into by habit or custom, may be counted the produce of 
 imagination : and to this we may refer the evidence of the senses, the no- 
 tices of appetite, our common notions and conceptions of things, and all 
 that rises up spontaneously in our memory. Whatever has been infused 
 into us by careful instruction or worked out by thought and industry, or 
 gained by attentive observation, may be styled the attainments of under- 
 standing : among which may be reckoned what skill we have in any art or 
 science, or in language, or in conducting the common affairs of life, or 
 what we bring to our remembrance by recollection. Our tastes, senti- 
 ments, opinions, and moral senses, I apprehend, belong partly to one class 
 and partly to the other : .their seat lies in the imagination, but they are in- 
 troduced there sometimes by an industrious use of the understanding, and 
 sometimes by the mechanical influence of example and custom. 
 
 Understanding commonly draws imagination after it, but not always, 
 nor immediately. Men seen from a great height look no bigger than pig- 
 mies, though we judge them to be of ordinary stature ; but seen at the 
 same distance upon a level, they appear as they should do, because we see 
 them continually in the latter situation, and but rarely in the former. Then 
 again, objects beheld over water, or other uniform surface, which deceives 
 us in the distance, seem smaller than their real dimensions, because the 
 scenes we are commonly conversant with contain a variety of distinguish- 
 able parts. For imagination gets her appearances by use, but use must 
 come by time and degrees. A discovery that we have worked out by a 
 consideration of various particulars, often loses its force as soon as the 
 proofs whereon it depended have slipped out of our sight : the next time 
 we employ our thoughts upon it we arrive at the conclusion sooner, and 
 upon every repeated trial, our process grows shorter and shorter, until in 
 time we learn to discern the thing so discovered to be true upon a very 
 little reflection, without the suggestion of any proof: upon further acquaint-
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 133 
 
 ance it takes the nature of a self-evident truth, the judgment arising in- 
 stantaneously in the same assemblage with the terms, and then becomes a 
 property of imagination. Thus these two faculties contribute to enlarge 
 one another's stores : imagination suggests principles and inducements to 
 set understanding in motion, or furnishes her with materials to work upon ; 
 and the judgments of the latter, either by the strong glare of their evi- 
 dence, or more commonly by long familiarity, grow into appearances of the 
 former. 
 
 9. From this last consideration it appears that understanding may transfer 
 over some part of her treasures to imagination, that is, by making us so 
 completely masters of them as that they shall always lie ready at hand, 
 without requiring any time or trouble to rummage for them : the other 
 part which she reserves to herself is such as will not occur without seeking, 
 but must be drawn up into view by thought and voluntary reflection. For 
 how perfect soever any person may be in architecture, sculpture, or paint- 
 ing, though upon the bare inspection of things belonging to those arts he 
 will discern more than the ignorant, yet by considering them attentively, 
 he will strike out further observations that had escaped him at the first 
 view. This then is the distinction I would make between the stores of 
 knowledge contained in our mind. Those that have an aptness to rise up 
 spontaneously, or be introduced instantly by sensation, whether originally 
 deposited by custom, experience, or our own industry, I would assign to 
 imagination ; and their rising in such manner I should deem a movement 
 of imagination. On the other hand, those which lie below the surface, 
 and require some thought and reflection, be it ever so little, to fetch them 
 up, I conceive belonging to the understanding ; and that operation whereby 
 they are so brought to light, I call an act of understanding. 
 
 Perhaps this allotment of the boundaries between the two faculties may 
 be thought arbitrary, and not warranted by any lawful authority, but I do 
 not apprehend authority has yet interfered in the case : for though we 
 often distinguish between understanding and imagination in our discourses, 
 yet we as often use them promiscuously, and assign the same territories 
 and operations to the one or the other, according to the humour we are in, 
 or according to the light in which we happen to take things. Therefore in 
 a matter so unsettled, every one is at liberty to do as he pleases, and I 
 have chosen that partition which I think will be most convenient for the 
 course I am following in bringing ourselves acquainted with the nature of 
 the human mind. 
 
 10. It is customary with most persons in handling this subject to throw 
 in some conjectures concerning the capacity of brute creatures ; and indeed 
 all we can say of them amounts to little more than conjecture, for we can- 
 not penetrate into their sensories, nor receive information of anything pass- 
 ing there from themselves, but can only guess at their ideas, by observing 
 their motions. It seems generally agreed among learned and simple, to 
 exclude them from all share of reason and understanding, which is esteemed 
 the peculiar privilege of man, and thought to constitute the essential differ- 
 ence between him and his fellow animals. But many judicious persons 
 look upon this as a vulgar error, and hold that several other creatures pos- 
 sess a degree of understanding of the same kind with our own. 
 
 Now the determination of this point seems to depend greatly upon what 
 notion we entertain of understanding : if the description I have endea- 
 voured to give of that faculty be admitted, I do not conceive the brutes 
 have any portion of it belonging to them. For I cannot discover in them
 
 134 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 
 
 anything of thinking, or observing, or meditating, or what is called labour 
 of brain. Ideas of reflection cannot well be denied them, nor assemblages, 
 associations, trains, and judgments, but such only as are impressed by ex- 
 ternal objects, or formed by accident, not by their own care and application. 
 They remember, but do not recollect, nor seem capable of that reflex act 
 whereby we turn inwards upon ourselves, to call up any thoughts we want, 
 but are continually employed by such ideas as their senses or their fancy 
 suggest. They fix a strong attention upon things, but it is of the mechani- 
 cal kind described before, where the notice is drawn by the glare of present 
 objects, and not directed for the discovery of something unknown. They 
 sometimes persevere a long while in pursuit of one design, as in hunting 
 for their prey, which they prosecute by motions of their limbs and applica- 
 tion of their senses, not their reflection, and retain no longer than while 
 appetite continues to solicit : for though the hound when at fault may take 
 as much pains to recover the scent as the huntsman to put him upon it, 
 yet when returned home after the chace is over he does not, like his mas- 
 ter, ruminate upon the transactions of the day, endeavouring to find out his 
 miscarriages, and draw rules from thence to conduct him better for the 
 future. Their views seem confined to the present, without reflection upon 
 yesterday, or regard for to-morrow ; and though some of them lay in pro- 
 vision for a distant time, it will appear upon examination that they are led 
 into what they do by a present impulse. For the knowledge of future 
 wants can arise only from experience of the past : but ants, bees, and 
 squirrels, hatched in the spring, who never knew the scarcities of winter, 
 do not fail to lay up their stores of corn, or honey, or nuts, the first summer 
 of their lives. Or, if without any evidence you will suppose them in- 
 structed herein by their elders, what will you say to canary birds, taken 
 young from their parents, and kept in a separate cage by themselves ? who 
 yet, if you supply them with suitable materials, will build a nest as dexte- 
 rously as the most experienced of their species. 
 
 1 1 . This sagacity, in many instances surpassing the contrivance of man, 
 and discerning things undiscoverable by human reason, is usually styled 
 instinct : of which the world seems to have a very confused idea, esteeming 
 it a kind of sixth sense, or a particular species of understanding different 
 from our own. But I do not see why it may not be ascribed to the five 
 senses, or to that internal feeling called appetite, which we find variously 
 affected by objects in different creatures, and which may prompt them to 
 take prudent measures unknowingly, and without foresight of the good 
 effects resulting therefrom. Nor shall we be so much at a loss to know 
 what instinct is, when we are shown some footsteps of it, or at least some- 
 thing very like it in ourselves. If cattle, ants, and other animals, prognos- 
 ticate the changes of weather, a shooting corn, or an old strain will enable 
 a man to do the like : the same cause producing the same effect operates 
 upon both, namely, the various degrees of moisture in the air exciting a 
 particular feel in their flesh. What shall we say to the nauseas preceding 
 fevers, or those longings one now and then hears of in sick persons, point- 
 ing out to them an effectual cure for their distempers, after having been 
 given over by their physicians ? I knew a person troubled with indiges- 
 tion, for which he had three several remedies, each of which would give 
 him relief at times, when the others would not ; and he used always to 
 know which of them to apply, only by the strong appetite and propensity 
 he found in himself towards that particular thing. Now why may not 
 this be called instinct, as well as that which every one has observed inclines
 
 IMAGINATION AND UNDERSTANDING. 133 
 
 a dog to gnaw the grass by way of medicine, when he finds himself out of 
 order ? Perhaps I should not aim much beside the mark if I were to 
 define instinct those notices of sensation, or appetite, and those untaught 
 arts of exercising the active powers which we do not usually experience in 
 ourselves. 
 
 12. According to the division made in this chapter, sense, appetite, and 
 instinct, fall under the class of imagination, as so many different species 
 contained within that general term. Nor need we wonder that imagina- 
 tion in brutes should have the advantage of ours in many respects, since 
 there may be several causes assigned why it should be so. In the first 
 place, nature makes greater haste in the perfecting their limbs, which are 
 the instruments employed by the mind in the exercise of her active powers. 
 The chicken breaks forth from the egg completely formed with beak, and 
 legs, and other members, fitted for immediate use : but man comes into the 
 world the most unfinished creature breathing, and arrives the latest to 
 maturity, therefore cannot acquire expertness in the use of his limbs, while 
 they continue imperfect and unsuited for action. In the next place, many 
 animals have acuter senses, and more distinguishing appetites to direct 
 them in their choice between things noxious and wholesome. Then as they 
 have nothing beside imagination to employ them, they attend constantly to 
 that ; which of course therefore must strike out longer trains, and connect 
 them stronger, and work them smoother, than it can be expected to do in 
 us, where it is perpetually disturbed and interrupted by being called off to 
 assist in the services of reason. For the fewer ways we have to practise in, 
 we shall grow the more perfect in them : thus persons deprived of any one 
 sense make a greater proficiency in improving the others, and he that 
 should be obliged to walk in the dark would do wisely to take a blind man 
 for his guide. Besides this, we corrupt imagination by the perverse use of 
 our understanding: for we contract depraved appetites, immoderate cravings, 
 vitiated tastes, and pernicious fancies, which stifle many salutary admoni- 
 tions we might have received from sense and instinct, if preserved in their 
 natural state. 
 
 But on the other hand, understanding, as we have already observed, 
 makes over a part of her purchases to imagination, who thereby becomes 
 seized of territories she could not have acquired herself. Among these I 
 think may be reckoned principally the faculty of speech, which by constant 
 practice we grow so current in, that we exercise it like Peter, when he pro- 
 posed making the three tabernacles, while we wist not what we say. But 
 the use of speech, although universal among mankind, is not to be found 
 elsewhere, notwithstanding that the apprehensions of some men seem duller, 
 and their stores of knowledge scantier upon the whole, than those of some 
 animals ; which one would think an evidence that the human faculties differ 
 from all others in kind as well as in degree. And I apprehend the differ- 
 ence lies in this, that other creatures have fewer mental organs, being par- 
 ticularly void of those whereby we turn our attention inwards, or call up 
 ideas to our reflection, so that we may be said to have two mental eyes, and 
 they only one : by which means their circle of vision must necessarily be 
 smaller than ours, although the objects within it may shine as clear or clearer 
 than they do to us. 
 
 Upon the whole, the dispute concerning this matter seems to turn upon 
 words more than upon thing?. For if anybody shall look upon every de- 
 duction of consequences, how spontaneously soever occurring to be reason ; 
 and every portion of knowledge, through what channel soever flowing in,
 
 136 CONVICTION AND PERSUASION. 
 
 that man could not attain without thought and application, to be under- 
 standing ; I shall not refuse either of them to many birds, and beasts, and 
 insects. And if he shall think them entitled still to further privileges, I 
 will not contend with him ; conceiving it enough just to offer my conjec- 
 ture and pass on ; for my business lies with the human mind, not the brutal. 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 CONVICTION AND PERSUASION. 
 
 THESE are commonly used as synominous terms ; or if any difference be 
 made between them, it lies in this, that conviction denotes the beginning, 
 and persuasion the continuance, of assent : for we are said to be convinced, 
 when brought by fresh evidence to the belief of a proposition we did not hold 
 for truth before, but remain persuaded of what we have formerly seen suf- 
 ficient grounds to gain our credit. I shall here take the liberty to employ 
 them in a sense not exactly the same with that wherein they are ordinarily 
 understood, using them as appellations of two things really distinct in them- 
 selves ; one for those decisions made by our reason, and the other for those 
 notions starting up in our fancy or reflection; wherein I shall not depart 
 much from the distinction above mentioned : for as understanding requires 
 some little consideration to bring up her judgments to the thought, this may 
 be regarded in the nature of a new conviction which we had not the mo- 
 ment before ; and imagination always follows the train that former custom 
 has led her into. 
 
 Nor let it be thought I am only resuming the subjects already treated of 
 in the two last chapters under the names of Judgment and Appearance : for 
 we do not always fully confide even in the judgments of our understanding, 
 but many times suspect some latent terror where we cannot discern any, or 
 opposite evidences occur which gain a momentary assent by turns, as each 
 can catch the mental eye : but I do not call it conviction until we can fix 
 upon some one determination of which we can rest satisfied with a full as- 
 surance. So likewise appearance sometimes varies from persuasion, for when 
 we see a stick thrust into water, we do not imagine it really bent because 
 it seems to be so : nor does a man, who looks at his friend through an in- 
 verted telescope, fancy him even for an instant to be of that diminutive size 
 to which he appeai-s contracted : nor does he persuade himself he has two 
 and twenty hands, when holding up one of his own behind a multiplying 
 glass he sees so many exhibited to his view. 
 
 There is sometimes a temporary persuasion we can lay aside at any time, 
 as in reading a poem or a novel, where imagination enters fully into all the 
 scenes of action described, and receives them as real facts recorded in some 
 authentic history. Therefore fictions must be probable to give entertain- 
 ment, for whatever carries a glaring absurdity, or is repugnant to our com- 
 mon notions of things, we cannot even fancy to be true. What are the 
 changes of scene upon the stage, but contrivances to transport the audience 
 in imagination into distant countries or companies ? What are lively de- 
 scriptions but representations to the mind, which make us ready to cry out 
 that we actually see the things described, or hear the discourses related ? 
 In all these cases there is no conviction worked, for a very little reflection 
 will make us sensible that all is pure invention : but understanding pur-
 
 CONVICTION AND PERSUASION. 137 
 
 posely nods, that she may not by her unseasonable reflections interrupt the 
 pleasure received from the soothing deception. Nay, she sometimes assists 
 in the delusion ; for a man by taking pains may work himself up into an 
 imagination of being in places where he is not, and beholding objects no- 
 where existent. Tully, the great master of rhetoric, teaches that an orator 
 cannot do justice effectually to his cause unless he makes the case his own, 
 enters thoroughly into the interests of his client, and places himself in his 
 situation. And Horace lays down the like rule : If, says he, you will draw 
 tears from me, you must first be grieved yourself : which one cannot well 
 be without imagining oneself interested in the misfortune. But these tem- 
 porary persuasions may become permanent ones where the organs happen to 
 be weak or disordered : and this I take to be the case of madness, which 
 being a distemper often removable by medicines, seems another proof that 
 the judgments of the mind depend upon the disposition of the bodily organs. 
 
 2. Conviction and persuasion influence one another reciprocally; the 
 latter often following the former instantaneously, but more commonly in time 
 and by degrees. Where we can have ocular or other sensible demonstration 
 of a mistake, we are generally cured of it once for all, but where such evi- 
 dence is not to be had it will not presently yield, and after being once driven 
 out, will many times steal upon us again at unawares. Therefore if we see 
 sufficient reasons to work a complete conviction, but still find a reluctance 
 in the mind to lay aside an inveterate error, we shall be more likely to suc- 
 ceed by frequently contemplating the proofs already suggested, than by 
 accumulating new ones : for importunity and assiduity prevail more upon 
 imagination than strength of argument, because our judgments as well as 
 other ideas run in train, and require repeated efforts to turn them out of the 
 course to which they have been habituated : like a distorted limb that must 
 be brought to rights by continual application, not by violence. On the other 
 hand, notions riveted in the fancy too often debauch the understanding, and 
 even overpower the direct evidence of sense ; and that among the greatest 
 scholars as well as among the vulgar. For having found the Latin words 
 LEVIS, light, and L^vis, smooth, VENIT, he comes, and VENIT, he came, 
 marked with different quantities in their gradus, they adjudge them one short 
 and the other long, and would be horribly shocked at the inharmoniousness 
 of a verse wherein they should be introduced in each other's places : but as 
 our modern Latinists pronounce those words, it would puzzle the nicest ear 
 to distinguish any difference in the sounds. On the contrary, they insist 
 upon the first syllables in TENEO, LEVIA, having the same quantity with 
 those in TENUI, LEVIBUS, though anybody except themselves may discern 
 they pronounce them quicker and shorter in the two latter than the former. 
 And the like cause operates upon their judgment in our own language, 
 where we place the particle A before a consonant, and AN before a vowel, 
 for the better sounding of our words, not for their better appearance upon 
 paper : but your very learned folks determine the sound by the spelling ; for 
 I suppose they would not for the world say, An youthful sally, or, A useful 
 accomplishment, though both words begin exactly with the same initial 
 sound. The same may be said with respect to the rule of H being no letter, 
 which seems a notion peculiar to the schools, and not admitted elsewhere ; 
 for one may converse seven years among the politest companies, provided 
 they be not deeply versed in Latin and Greek, without hearing anybody talk 
 of buying AN horse, or taking AN house. 
 
 3. Probably conviction would operate more effectually and constantly if 
 we were capable of absolute certainty, for the force of that, one would think,
 
 138 CONVICTION AND PERSUASION. 
 
 must bear down all opposition at a single stroke : but there being always a 
 possibility that our clearest reasonings may deceive us, this lessens the 
 authority of reason, and leaves room for a lurking suspicion of its fallibility 
 in particular instances. 
 
 But however this be, certain it is we cannot with our utmost endeavours 
 always bend imagination to that ply which judgment would direct. If you 
 desire your friend to take something out of your eye that troubles you, with 
 a feather, how much soever you may be convinced of his tenderness and 
 dexterity, yet when the feather approaches close to your eye, you cannot 
 help winking, because you cannot exclude the sudden apprehension that he 
 will hurt you. All the arguments in the world avail nothing in this case : 
 yet I doubt not but by repeated trials a man might bring himself to stand 
 such an operation without flinching. Why can bricklayers walk safely 
 along the gutters of a high building, but because they have gained a confi- 
 dence in their security ? Any of us who has the perfect command of his 
 limbs might do the same, if he could once totally throw aside the persuasion 
 of danger. Low ceilings, swagging beams appearing below the plaster, and 
 walls standing out of the perpendicular, threaten a downfall : set twenty the 
 most experienced workmen to examine the building, and though they una- 
 nimously assure you all is safe, this will not entirely remove your appre- 
 hensions, until, by constant habitation in the house, the persuasion dies 
 away of itself. Fear cannot subsist without an apprehension of mischief ; 
 but it is well known that the strongest demonstration will not always dissi- 
 pate our fears. Let a woman take a gun into her hand, examine the barrel 
 and pan as long as she pleases, until she is fully convinced there is neither 
 charge nor priming, yet if you present the muzzle against her head with 
 threatening gestures and expressions, you will raise in her a sudden per- 
 suasion of danger. Some apprehensions, as of seeing spirits or apparitions, 
 being grounded early in our childhood, can never be totally eradicated after- 
 wards, neither by reason, nor example, nor ridicule, nor time, that cureth 
 all things. Nor are the other passions void of their several persuasions, 
 which they frequently retain against evidence. Hope and expectation will 
 continue beyond all probability of success : and love sometimes flatters with 
 an opinion of reciprocal kindness, notwithstanding the grossest repeated ill 
 usage. The tenets of a sect or party, deeply inculcated betimes, keep their 
 hold in spite of the strongest conviction : whence the saying applied to per- 
 sons obstinately attached to their notions, You shall not persuade them even 
 though you do persuade them : or, as I would rather phrase the sentence, 
 You shall not persuade them even though you convince them. 
 
 4. We have observed before, that imagination actuates most of our 
 motions, and serves us perpetually in all the purposes of life : it often holds 
 the reins of action alone, or at least guides them in those intermediate spaces 
 while understanding looks forward towards the general plan. So that our 
 behaviour depends for the most part upon what persuasions we have, and 
 upon conviction little further than as that may draw the other after it. For 
 how well soever we may be convinced of the reasonableness of our mea- 
 sures, we shall never pursue them heartily and currently while there remains 
 a latent mistrust in their disfavour ; nor can we be sure of accomplishing 
 an enterprise so long as any cross apprehensions may rise to interrupt it. 
 Besides, we cannot constantly keep a watchful eye upon our thoughts, but 
 such notions as start up in the fancy will take direction of our active 
 powers, while reflection is attentive to something else : and upon sudden 
 emergencies, or in the hurry of business, we have not time to reflect, but
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION. 139 
 
 must follow such persuasions as occur instantaneously. Add to this, that in 
 our most careful deliberations understanding works upon materials supplied 
 her from the storehouse of imagination ; nor is it possible to examine the 
 credit of every evidence giving testimony in the course of a long argumen- 
 tation. 
 
 Hence appears the mighty import of habituating imagination to run in the 
 track marked out by reason ; for when we have made any useful discovery, 
 and fully satisfied our judgment of its truth and expedience, the business is 
 but half done ; it as yet remains only a matter of speculation, and will not 
 serve us as a principle either of our reasonings or behaviour : but when in- 
 culcated into a firm persuasion, so that it will arise upon every occasion in 
 full vigour without waiting to be called up by consideration, then it becomes 
 a practical rule, and will never fail to influence our conduct. 
 
 5. As much a paradox as it may seem, certain it is that people do not 
 always know their own real sentiments, for they are apt to mistake convic- 
 tion for persuasion. In time of deliberation they are mighty confident of 
 their resolves, and think they will continue in full force beyond all possi- 
 bility of change : but if imagination has not been brought under due sub- 
 jection to reason, they will find them fail, and give place to other notions 
 at the time of execution. Hence proceeds an inconsistency in men's 
 behaviour according as understanding or imagination gains the ascendant, 
 which could never happen if the latter were inured to follow the former. 
 Such deceits as these are taught us in our earliest youth : boys are made 
 to say they love their book, or love to go to church, when in reality they 
 cannot endure either ; and after we grow up, it is no unprecedented thing 
 for men to think they believe or disbelieve certain points in religion, philo- 
 sophy, or morality, when in good truth they do not, because they esteem 
 the contrary blameable or ridiculous. This deception may be sometimes 
 practised upon other persons with good effect : for one may chance to 
 bring a man into an useful persuasion, by persuading him he has it already, 
 but it is very dangerous to be practised upon ourselves : for perhaps what 
 we fancy blameable or ridiculous may be found otherwise upon a fair 
 examination ; or if we have any wrong turn in our mind, how shall we 
 ever apply a proper remedy, or even attempt to rectify it unless we know 
 what it is ? It is a false and mischievous shame that would prompt us to 
 'conceal ourselves from ourselves : nor does anything better show a true 
 freedom and courage of thought than to search out the closest recesses of 
 our heart impartially, and know all the persuasions, good or bad, that find 
 harbour there. 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION. 
 
 ALTHOUGH our knowledge all arises from our conception of things, and 
 generally is more full and complete according as that is clearer, yet we 
 know some things assuredly for true of which we cannot form any adequate 
 conception. Different persons conceive variously of the same things, of 
 which they all equally acknowledge the existence. Common people cannot 
 easily conceive of opinions, tastes, sentiments, or inclinations, opposite to 
 their own, though they see them exemplified in others : nor can they con- 
 ceive the masterly performances of art or science, nor tricks of juggler?,
 
 140 KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION. 
 
 nor anything out of the usual course of their exj-erience : but such as have 
 severally applied themselves to penetrate into those matters, find nothing 
 surprising in them. For it is the repugnancy of objects to what we have 
 ordinarily seen or known that renders them inconceivable, and therefore 
 familiarity may make them easy to our apprehension. The savage cannot 
 comprehend how men convey their thoughts to one another by writing, and 
 the communication of them by sounds would appear as wonderful, but that 
 mankind fall into that method before they know what wonder is, that is, 
 before they have gained any experience, to which new appearances may 
 seem repugnant. 
 
 The studious familiarize themselves to trains of observation peculiar to 
 themselves ; therefore, as they can clearly apprehend what remains a mys- 
 tery to others, so on the other hand they find difficulties that nobody else 
 can discern. The plain man makes no boggle at the ideas of creation, anni- 
 hilation, or vacuity : for he thinks he sees instances of them every day, in 
 the production of plants from the ground, the consumption of fuel in the 
 fire, and the emptiness of his pot every time he drinks out the liquor. But 
 the naturalist considers that the materials composing the tree were existing 
 either in the earth, the air, or the vapours, before it grew up, that the fire 
 only divides the billet into imperceptible particles, and that after the liquor 
 is all poured out of the pot it may yet remain full of light, or air, or ether : 
 therefore he conceives no powers in nature that can either give or destroy 
 existence, and disputes incessantly concerning the reality of a vacuum. 
 
 2. There are perhaps few more inexplicable ideas than that of force, 
 whereby bodies act upon one another, and which may be divided into two 
 sorts, impulse and resistance. The wheelwright, the millwright, and the 
 gunner, can reason about it accurately and effectually to serve the purposes 
 of their several arts ; but the philosopher knows not what to make of it. 
 It is neither substance, nor form, nor quality : as impulse, it is something 
 imparted by external agents ; as resistance, it is a property inherent in the 
 body itself; yet resistance cannot subsist without an impulse received from 
 some other body. It is the immediate cause of motion, nevertheless this 
 cause may operate without producing its effect : for if you lay a dozen 
 huge folios upon the table, they will press it strongly downwards with 
 their weight, but the floor by its resistance presses it as strongly upwards ; 
 so the table, though receiving continual supplies of force, remains im- 
 movable. 
 
 Some things generally admitted for realities exceed the comprehensions 
 of all men ; as the velocity of light, travelling fifteen thousand miles in the 
 swing of a clock pendulum, the greater velocity in the vibrations of ether, 
 which we learn from Sir Isaac Newton overtake the rays of light, the mi- 
 nuteness of vessels carrying on circulation, and performing secretion in the 
 bodies of scarce visible insects, the eternity of time, immensity of space, 
 and all infinities in general. 
 
 As imagination takes her first impression from sensation, therefore I 
 think we cannot form a clear conception of sensible objects whereof we 
 have not had an idea conveyed by the senses. We have not any direct 
 notion of very swift or very slow motions, because properly speaking we do 
 not see either, but only gather them from the change of position in the 
 objects moving, which in the former case seem at once to fill the whole 
 space taken up in their passage, and in the latter appear stationary ; nor 
 can we frame an idea of very small or very great magnitudes, otherwise 
 than by enlarging the one in our fancy to a discernible size, and supposing
 
 KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION. 141 
 
 the other removed to a distance that will lessen them within the compass 
 of our vision. Neither perhaps can we conceive ideas of reflection whereof 
 we have not experienced something similar passing in our own minds. 
 
 3. Things surpass our comprehension upon two accounts, either when 
 they are so unmanageable in themselves as that we cannot form any like- 
 ness of them in our imagination, which is the case of all infinitudes ; or 
 when we cannot conceive the manner in which they should be effected. I 
 can easily conceive Dedalus flying in the air, for I have seen a print of him 
 in Garth's Metamorphosis : but when I consider the weight of a man's 
 body, the unwieldiness of wings sufficiently large to buoy him up, and the 
 inability of his arms to flutter them fast enough, I cannot conceive the pos- 
 sibility of his ever practising that manner of travelling. Yet when we 
 consider the small degree of force in rays of light, together with the soli- 
 dity of glass, it seems as hard to conceive a possibility of their finding 
 their way through so compact a body, as of Dedalus's flying : nevertheless 
 constant experience convinces us of the fact. 
 
 When we have not an adequate conception of things themselves, never- 
 theless we may clearly affirm or deny something concerning them. Mr. 
 Locke says we have a very confused idea of substance, and perhaps not a 
 much better of form considered in the abstract ; yet we may rest assured " 
 that form is not substance, nor substance form, and pronounce many other 
 things concerning them without hesitation. And as imperfect notions as 
 we have of force and impulse, or the manner of propagating motion, still 
 we may easily apprehend a difference between the manner of imparting it 
 from body to body, and from mind to body : for bodies only transmit the 
 force they have received from elsewhere, nor can communicate more than 
 they have themselves, and their re-action is always equal and opposite to 
 action ; but the mind produces an impulse she has not herself, nor does she 
 ever feel the limbs re-act against her when she moves them : on the other 
 hand, she receives a perception from the organs of sensation which had it 
 not themselves, and returns not their impulse by a re-action, whenever they 
 act upon her. Both those productions, of perception by body, and of 
 motion by mind, appear alike incomprehensible, when we attempt to pene- 
 trate into the manner how they are effected. 
 
 4. But in order to understand ourselves the better, when we would go 
 about to explain the manner in which causes produce their effects, let us 
 consider what we generally mean by explanation. He that would explain 
 the contrivance of a clock being made to strike the hours, begins with 
 showing how the weights pull round the main wheel, how that by its teeth 
 catches hold of the next wheel, and so he points out all the movements 
 successively till he comes to the hammer and the bell. Or if he would 
 explain the manner of nutrition, he tells you of the digestion of the sto- 
 mach, the secretion of chyle, its passage into the heart, the circulation of 
 the blood, and thereby its dispersion throughout all parts of the flesh. 
 Here we see that explaining is no more than enumerating the several parts 
 of an operation, and tracing all the steps of its progress through inter- 
 mediate causes and effects : therefore the manner of a remote effect being 
 produced may be explained, but to call for an explanation of any cause 
 operating immediately is absurd, because it is calling for an account of in- 
 termediate steps where there are none. In this case, we can only satisfy 
 ourselves from experience, that such and such effects do constantly follow, 
 upon the application of particular causes : all we can do further, is by
 
 142 KNOWLEDGE AND CONCEPTION. 
 
 remarking some difference in operations seemingly similar, as was attempted 
 just now with respect to the action of mind and body, to prevent our mis- 
 taking one thing for another, not with an intent to give that as an explana- 
 tion of either. To endeavour extending our idea beyond the cause operating, 
 and the effect produced, would be to aim at apprehending more than the 
 object really contains. 
 
 The quality we find in subjects of producing immediate effects, we call a 
 primary property, but we cannot trace every phenomenon to this first 
 source : there are many properties observable in bodies, which we are well 
 satisfied result from the action of other bodies upon them, though we can- 
 not investigate their operations. Such as the four kinds of attraction, 
 namely, gravity, cohesion, magnetism, and electricity, the violence of fire, 
 the sudden hardening of water by intense cold, the fusion of metals by 
 intense heat, the vital circulation and secretion of humours in animals, and 
 a multitude of the like sort, which a little reflection will easily suggest. 
 
 5. Number itself, whereon we can reason with the greatest accuracy and 
 certainty of any subject, quickly exceeds our comprehension : it is a ques- 
 tion with me whether we have a direct idea of any more than four, because 
 beyond that little number we cannot tell how many objects lie before us 
 upon inspection, without counting. Higher numbers we cannot ascertain, 
 unless when by ranging them in order, which compounds the individuals 
 into parcels, and thereby reduces them to fewer ideas, we can bring them 
 within the compass of our apprehension : therefore we can presently reckon 
 nine disposed into three equal rows, because then we need only consider 
 them as three threes. The regular position of figures in numeration, and 
 the contrivance of expressing the largest numbers by various combinations 
 of a few numerals, enables us to run those lengths we do in arithmetic. 
 We talk currently of millions, and compute them with the utmost exactness, 
 but our knowledge of two millions being double one million, is no more 
 than the knowledge of two being the double of one : and we know the 
 value of figures only by the number of places they stand removed to the 
 left. When we cast up the largest accounts, we have only three or four 
 names or characters in our view at a time : and by this compendious arti- 
 fice of drawing multitudes into so narrow a compass, we find means easily 
 to manage objects that would be too cumbersome and extensive for us to 
 conceive of themselves. 
 
 Nature abounds in mysteries, of which we may have a certain knowledge, 
 but no clear conception : some are too large for imagination to grasp, 
 some too minute for it to discern, others too obscure to be seen distinctly, 
 and others, though plainly discernible in themselves, yet remain inexplica- 
 ble in the manner of production, or appear incompatible with one another. 
 Therefore, though conception be the groundwork of knowledge, and the 
 inconceivableness of a thing a good argument against its reality, yet is it 
 not an irrefragable one ; for it may be overpowered by other proofs drawn 
 from premises, whereof we have a clear conception and undoubted know- 
 ledge. I suppose it will be allowed that a man born blind can form no 
 conception of light, nor how people can have sensations of objects at a 
 vast distance, so as to determine thereby their magnitudes and situations : 
 yet by conversing daily among mankind, he may find abundant reason to 
 be satisfied of their possessing such a faculty. And as we proceed further 
 in our investigation of nature, we shall find effects that cannot proceed from 
 causes whereof we have had any experience, therefore must ascribe them to
 
 COMPOSITION OF MOTIVES. 143 
 
 powers of which, we can know nothing more than their being adequate to 
 those effects ; and what we know so imperfectly, we may justly pronounce 
 inconceivable. 
 
 C. It is one of the most useful points of knowledge to distinguish, when 
 the repugnancy of things to our common notions ought to make us reject 
 them, and when not : for men have fallen into gross mistakes both ways. 
 Some have been made to swallow the most palpable absurdities, under pre- 
 tence that sense and reason are not to be trusted ; others have denied facts 
 verified by daily experience, because they could not conceive the manner 
 wherein they were effected. There have been those who have disputed the 
 reality of motion, of distance, of space, of bodies, of human action, upon 
 account of some difficulties they could not reconcile to their ideas. I know 
 of no other rule to go by in this point than that the strongest evidence ought 
 always to prevail : wherefore nothing inconceivable in philosophy deserves 
 credit, unless it necessarily follows from some premises assuredly known 
 and clearly conceived. 
 
 But though in some instances we may and must admit things our imagi- 
 nation cannot comprehend, yet it is well worth our care and study to render 
 them as familiar to our comprehension as we can : for we shall find them 
 gain easier persuasion with us, and become more serviceable both in our 
 reasonings and practice. For there is a difficulty in the management of in- 
 conceivable ideas : wherefore we sometimes suffer conception to run con- 
 trary to knowledge, where it can be done without hazard. Everybody now 
 agrees that the Sun constantly keeps his station, and the earth circles round 
 him as an attendant planet : yet we commonly think and speak of his diur- 
 nal and annual courses through the heavens, as being more convenient for 
 our ordinary occasions. We may hereafter find it necessary to accommo- 
 date our language to the conceptions of mankind, though we should herein 
 a little depart from our real sentiments : this necessity gave rise to the dis- 
 tinction between the esoteric and exoteric doctrine of the philosophers, the 
 meat for men and milk for babes of St. Paul, and the parabolical and plain, 
 or direct and figurative styles. And we may meet with cases wherein it 
 would be pernicious to entertain conceptions of things ourselves, of whose 
 truth we have abundant reason to be satisfied ; the rules of decency require 
 this sometimes, and a regard to higher considerations at others. 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 COMPOSITION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 IF one were set to take an account of any of those vast woods in America, 
 scarce ever trodden by human foot, he could not be expected to proceed with 
 much regularity at first : he must follow wherever he should find an open- 
 ing, and his observations upon the first trial would direct him to take an- 
 other method of proceeding in making a second : when he had examined one 
 quarter, he must return back to where he set out in order to examine an- 
 other, and would often find occasion to take fresh notices of things that he 
 thought he had sufficiently observed before. So in this, my investigation 
 of that wilderness, the human mind, I am forced to work my passage where 
 I find it practicable ; for I have no preconcerted plan, nor any favourite 
 point, which I am determined to make good at all events : and though not
 
 144 COMPOSITION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 without some general idea of the end to which my inquiries will lead me, 
 yet have I not a full prospect of the track they will take. I am not to be 
 considered as a professor instructing others in the science he is completely 
 master of, but as a learner seeking after an improvement of my own know- 
 ledge : therefore strike into whatever turnings appear most likely to advance 
 me forward on my way, and after having pursued them awhile, sometimes 
 discover a necessity of returning back to take a fuller review of subjects I had 
 considered before. This is at present my case with respect to Motives, and. 
 that vivifying ingredient which gives them their vigour and activity, Satis- 
 faction, which I thought to have dismissed long ago, but now find my- 
 self unable to proceed further without taking them under examination afresh. 
 If I do not perform my work with the regularity I wish, yet as charity covers 
 a multitude of sins, so I hope an earnest desire of producing something that 
 carries the appearance of benefit will cover a multitude of defects in the 
 performance. But because I would not neglect method where I can attain 
 it, shall divide what I have next to offer under four general heads ; the 
 composition of motives, the several species of them, their production, and the 
 causes introducing them to operate. We have observed before that motives, 
 strictly such, are always something actually present in the thought, but they 
 usually retain the name while remaining in the repository of our ideas, and 
 not directly occurring to view ; and I have distinguished them by the figu- 
 rative expression of motives operating in the scale, or lying dormant in the 
 box. Under the first head I shall consider them in their active state, under 
 the two next in their quiescent, and the fourth will relate to their passage 
 from the box into the scale. 
 
 2. By the composition of motives, I mean the matter whereof they are 
 made, which consists of three principal parts : some action apprehended 
 possible, some consequence, perception, or end, to be attained, which we 
 have heretofore styled the Vehicle, and the satisfaction expected therein. 
 Hence it appears that motives always contain a judgment of the action being 
 possible, of its producing the effect, and of the satisfactoriness of that 
 effect. 
 
 Were you privately to unlock the doors of a prison unknown to those 
 within, they would never try to get out so long as they remained persuaded 
 their endeavours would prove ineffectual. Indeed a bare possibility of suc- 
 ceeding will often suffice to set us at work : you shall see men endeavour- 
 ing to open doors that they believe to be made fast, but then it is with an 
 apprehension of some chance that they may find means of opening them. 
 Sometimes impatience will raise a temporary persuasion, which the mind 
 eagerly admits against evidence, because it soothes her uneasiness for a mo- 
 ment ; while this lasts, it will make men strive to push through stone walls, 
 but the instant it subsides they give over their efforts. Nor can you in- 
 stance any one action of our lives wherein there is not a momentary appre- 
 hension, either well or ill grounded, either suggested by understanding or 
 fancy, of something we can do. This seems a strong argument against 
 Hartley's vibratiuncles, since in every exertion of our activity there must 
 be a perception in the mind of its efficacy. Or if his doctrine were true, it 
 would be of most pernicious consequence to prevail amongst mankind : for 
 were it possible once totally to banish all opinion of power, nobody would 
 ever stir a finger to help themselves. We see this now and then exempli- 
 fied in persons deeply affected with hypochondriac disorders, who, while 
 they fancy themselves under an utter inability of action, you can never bring 
 . them to move either hand or foot, until by some sudden alarm or pungent
 
 COMPOSITION OF MOTIVES. 143 
 
 smart you can dissipate their ideas, and turn imagination into her ordinary 
 channels. 
 
 3. But the practicability of an action alone will not incite us to undertake 
 it, for we have many ways wherein we might exert our power continually 
 occurring to our thoughts, which yet we. forbear to pursue : and when we 
 do act, it is not merely for the sake of acting, but for some end conceived 
 attainable thereby, which our judgment or our fancy recommends. And 
 this end I take to be always some perception the mind desires to have : if 
 we put sugar into our mouths, it is for the sweetness of the taste ; if we 
 aim at things useful, it is for the thought of having them in our possession : 
 if at things laudable, it is for the consciousness of having acted right. Even 
 when we go abroad merely upon being tired of sitting, or while away the 
 time in some trifling amusement, it is either to remove the uneasiness of 
 indolence, or for the sensation our exercise will give us, or for some engage- 
 ment we expect to find in what we do. Nor can one well conceive a man 
 to make any movement, without a notion at the instant of something to 
 be effected thereby. 
 
 4. Neither will the idea of action and its event suffice, without an ex- 
 pectance of satisfaction in the attainment : for we pursue and reject the 
 same things at times, according as we find ourselves in the humour. It is 
 not barely the taste, nor the sight, nor the reflection of objects, but the 
 satisfaction expected therein, that urges us to pursue them : those who have 
 not a palate for sweet things, will nevei be tempted by the sweetness of 
 sugar, nor will a man take pains to obtain things useful, if he have no con- 
 cern for the future, nor tilings laudable, if he have no relish in the conscious- 
 ness of having performed them. But as we cannot procure satisfaction 
 without the application of something satisfactory, therefore other percep- 
 tions are regarded only as the vehicle necessary for conveyance, but that 
 alone gives weight to the motive. If we search throughout all the actions 
 of men,. we shall find them always preferring that wherein they for the pre- 
 sent apprehend the greatest satisfaction : even when they forego pleasures, 
 or submit to pains, or undergo labours, they do it for the sake of something 
 they conceive to be more satisfactory ; and when they neglect the known 
 greater good for some paltry appetite, it is because they find more satisfac- 
 tion in present gratification than in the prospect of distant advantage. Nor 
 if we consider the matter rightly, is this denied by those who ascribe the 
 greatest power of self-moving to the mind : for though they contend for her 
 having the privilege of annexing the idea of Best to whatever object she 
 pleases, yet they admit that this idea so annexed influences the active 
 powers to pursue it. 
 
 5. For the most part we proceed upon some design more or less remote, 
 and then our motive contains several ends of action one within another ; 
 understanding retaining the principal purpose in view, and imagination sug- 
 gesting the means from time to time in their proper order. Thus a motive 
 appears to be a very complicated idea, containing a variety of judgments, 
 together with the subjects whereon they are passed. Besides this, we can- 
 not go on currently without ideal causes to conduct us on our way, nor in- 
 struments to assist us, of which we must have a competent idea or we shall 
 mistake in the use of them. . But by long custom and familiarity, our com- 
 pounds coalesce into one idea, and so, as I may say, take up no more room 
 in the mind than if they were single and uniform : and by habituating our- 
 selves to fix our notice upon a variety of objects in the scenes passing before
 
 14G SPECIES OF MOTIVES. 
 
 us, such of them as may serve to prompt or shape our actions, occur at one 
 glance, and as it were in one complex ; which gives us our readiness and 
 dexterity in all those exercises of our powers to which we have been fre- 
 quently accustomed. 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 SPECIES OF MOTIVES. 
 
 , SATISFACTION is always one and the same in kind, how much soever it 
 may vary in degree, for it is that state the mind is thrown into upon the 
 application of things agreeable ; and whatever possesses that quality in 
 equal degree, whether meats and drinks, or diversion, or gain, or acquisition 
 of power, or reflection on past performances, fills it with the same content 
 and complacence : wherefore the various species of motives must be distin- 
 guished by the variety of vehicles containing satisfaction. 
 
 Innumerable are the ways men find at different times to satisfy themselves ; 
 to enumerate them all would be endless and needless : therefore I shall en- 
 deavour, what is usually practised in such cases, to distinguish them into 
 classes, and I think them reducible to these four, Pleasure, Use, Honour, and 
 Necessity. For I cannot recollect anything we undertake unless it be either 
 for some amusement we hope to find in it, or for some service we expect it 
 will do us, or for the credit that will redound from it in the estimation of 
 others or ourselves, or because compelled thereto by the urgency of our 
 situation. Sometimes two or more of these join forces to move us, and 
 sometimes we have them all four in view at once : a man on bespeaking a 
 suit of clothes, may do it because his old ones are worn out, and he must 
 have something to put upon his back : he may choose his piece of cloth for 
 the closeness and strength that will render it most serviceable ; he directs 
 the cut and make so as to appear fashionable, and perhaps orders a dab of 
 gold or silver lace to please his own fancy. 
 
 2. There is another division running through all the classes above men- 
 tioned, which distinguishes them into motives of reason and motives of 
 fancy : the one giving birth to our considerate, and the other to our inad- 
 vertent actions ; and both of these for the most part find room to operate 
 without interrupting each other ; when two persons walk together to some 
 place on business, they may swing their arms, or whistle, or discourse, or 
 practise some other little amusement, which neither retards nor forwards 
 them on their way. Nor are we scarce ever so totally engaged in the pro- 
 secution of any design as not to make many motions that do not directly tend 
 to the furtherance of it. Or fancy^may alter the shape of our actions with- 
 out turning them aside from their purpose : a man may go on tiptoe for a 
 whim, and make as much speed that way for a while as he desires, but when 
 he finds it grow tiresome, he will return to his ordinary gait. 
 
 Our larger undertakings contain many ends, subordinate to one another, 
 and all conducive to the principal ; each of which in turn wholly occupies the 
 thought, but the principal all along lies dormant in the mind, ready to ope- 
 rate as occasion shall offer. Thus a traveller, going on a long journey, has the 
 next baiting place for the object of his pursuit during every particular stage ; 
 but if anything happens suggesting an alteration or addition to his plan., 
 then the main purpose of his journey presently occurs and weighs with him 
 in his deliberations. Most of us have a few leading aims that shape the
 
 SPECIES OF MOTIVES. 147 
 
 general course of our lives, such as the attainment of some art or science, 
 advancement of our fortune, engagement to a profession or favourite diver- 
 sion : and these branch out into divisions which again contain inferior views; 
 like the governors of provinces or generals of armies, who have their subal- 
 tern officers commanding the private men. In some persons there is one 
 predominant purpose, usually styled the ruling passion, as wealth, power, or 
 fame, that like Aaron's serpent swallows up all the rest, and will suffer 
 nothing to weigh that does not coincide with its interests. 
 
 3. We observed a little while ago how understanding and imagination 
 influence each other: there are few of our purposes to be attained at a 
 single stroke, but judgment recommends the thing to be done, and the trshis 
 of imagination, or that habitual expertness we have acquired in works of 
 the like nature, successively suggests the means of performing it ; which 
 must be looked upon as ideal causes, having no satisfaction of their own, 
 but taking a tincture of that belonging to the design they tend to 
 promote. 
 
 On the other hand imagination often sets understanding at work. How 
 many people employ all their sagacity and contrivance to compass some 
 sudden whim they take into their heads without ever considering whether it 
 be worth the while ! And indeed in our most prudent proceedings we ge- 
 nerally set out on some motive arising involuntarily to our view : for when 
 sense, appetite, or a train of reflection instigates to an undertaking, and 
 nothing occurs to render the expedience of it doubtful, what has under- 
 standing to do but concert proper measures for completing it ? 
 
 4. Wherefore as the motives deposited in our imagination bear so great 
 a sway in our proceedings, it is well worth the pains to examine what kinds 
 of them we are capable of, in order to store up such as may serve us best 
 and most effectually ; but this is no easy matter; as well by reason of their 
 smallness as of their obscurity. The satisfactions urging to our by-motions, 
 while attention fixes on something else, are of the evanescent kind, as 
 Hartly calls them, by an epithet taken from the mathematicians, who term 
 those angles evanescent that lie between a perpendicular and the foot of an 
 hyperbola : yet these little angles are sufficient to begin an opening between 
 the two lines, and so are the little satisfactions sufficient to produce sudden 
 and short actions, and afford us that complacence we feel in the common 
 transactions of life. But there are other satisfactions, which, though strong 
 enough of themselves to strike the eye, yet are covered from our sight when- 
 ever we endeavour to look upon them by other objects intervening. When 
 we attempt f.o recollect the inducements of our conduct, there commonly 
 occurs, instead of them, specious reasons serving to justify it to ourselves 
 or the world. How many people ascribe their actions to disinterestedness, 
 or benevolence, or virtue, when they were prompted by fear, or resentment, 
 or profit, or reputation ? They fancy themselves possessed of those motives, 
 but really have no such thing in their composition, or have them so feeble 
 as never to weigh against anything else lying in counterbalance. For it 
 must be noted, that when we reflect on our past behaviour, we have not in 
 view before us that state of mind we were actually in at the time of acting, 
 which is gone and over, but its representative idea ; and our ideas being 
 perpetually upon the float, leave room for another representation to slip in 
 such aims as bear an unfavourable aspect, hiding themselves, or taking 
 shelter under others more reputable, which renders it extremely difficult to 
 discover what real motives we have belonging to us, without continually 
 
 L 2
 
 148 PRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 keeping a watchful eye and fixing our attention upon them at the very in- 
 stant of their operating. 
 
 5. The want of knowing what motives lie in the storehouse of imagina- 
 tion has probably given rise to the notion of an arbitrary power which some 
 attribute to the Will : for being acquainted only with the motives of under- 
 standing, and those strong instigations of passion which can escape nobody's 
 observation, and yet finding that those incitements do not operate with equal 
 effect upon all occasions, but sometimes one prevails, and sometimes the 
 other, they can assign no cause of the difference besides an inherent au- 
 thority in the Will to determine its own motions. But if one could discern 
 all the various turns imagination is apt to take, it might not be difficult from 
 thence to account for the turns of volition : and whenever the dictates of 
 reason appear to act with more or less weight than was expected, one might 
 always discover some secret inclination, or wilfulness, or persuasion, or 
 moral sense at bottom that casts the balance. Therefore I shall endeavour, 
 as far as I am able, to trace out the minute and obscure motives, as well 
 as the more observable, when I come to consider each of my four classes 
 particularly. 
 
 CHAP. XVII. 
 
 PRODUCTION OF MOTIVES, 
 
 FOR reascns before given, it seems probable there is some particular 
 organ or fibre, which I have called the spring, that affects us with satis- 
 faction and uneasiness. Whether there be a several spring for either, or 
 that one affects us differently according to its different motions, I shall not 
 pretend to determine : but this spring never plays, unless touched by some 
 of those organs which excite our other perceptions. Hence proceeds the 
 necessity of a vehicle, because we cannot obtain satisfaction without the 
 ministry of some idea that shall prove satisfactory, nor fall under uneasi- 
 ness without the feeling or thought of something that shall render us 
 uneasy. 
 
 But in what manner soever our ideas operate either way, certain it is 
 that nature, in the formation of our bodies, first gives them their respec- 
 tive qualities ; for many sensations from our birth give us pain, and others 
 afford us pleasure, and those sensations are not of our own procuring, but 
 excited in us by external objects wherewith volition has no concern : there- 
 fore nature does not furnish us with motives, which must be worked out 
 by experience of what hurts or delights us ; for we can have no induce- 
 ment for action before we know what to choose or reject. Our senses 
 each of them respectively convey pleasure from certain objects, and pain 
 from others ; but those sensations do not discover the means of procuring 
 them, therefore they cannot generate a motive ; which must arise from the 
 remembrance of what exercises of our power have used to bring the ob- 
 jects to our organs, or to remove them. Even appetite, as given by na- 
 ture, is no more than a pleasing or irksome feel, according to the several 
 degrees of its intenseness ; nor does it grow into desire until we have 
 learned what will satisfy it. One may observe that little children, when 
 uneasy through hunger or sleepiness, do not know what is the matter 
 with them, and are so far from being moved by appetite towards the gra-
 
 PRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 149 
 
 tification of it, that they fight against their victuals and other methods of 
 relief when applied to them. 
 
 We have observed before, that every motive contains a judgment, and 
 that the first judgment we ever passed must precede the first act we ever 
 performed. How we attain this first judgment, whether by participation 
 of the mother's ideas, or by the mental organs being thrown mechanically 
 into a modification that shall excite a perception of judgment, I am not 
 able to explain : but thus much we may conclude for certain, that little 
 children come into the world with a general notion of action, though they 
 know very little how to apply their powers for particular purposes. When 
 anything affects them with pleasure or pain, they put themselves into vio- 
 lent agitations, throwing about their arms and legs, and working with 
 every muscle of their body : and at other times you see them very full of 
 motion continually while awake. By thus perpetually exerting their powers, 
 they light upon such motions as happen to relieve them in their wants or 
 please them with the sensation they feel in the exercise : the idea of those 
 motions and their effect in time sinking into their reflection, urges them 
 to repeat the like upon other occasions, and thus instructed by accident 
 they gradually rise to the more perfect management of their limbs and 
 organs. 
 
 2. As motives have their foundation in the knowledge of things satis- 
 factory, or the contrary, of course they will follow the quality found in 
 certain sensations of affecting us either way, and consequently will depend 
 upon that which gives them their respective qualities : therefore many of 
 our propensities and aversions, and our appetites, may be termed natural, 
 although not innate ; because unavoidably fallen into by experience of 
 those properties of affecting us, which nature has given to several sensa- 
 tions. But the matter of our composition, whereon our sensations depend, 
 being extremely soft and pliable, is susceptible of change from alterations 
 in the grosser parts of our frame : therefore nature does not entirely pre- 
 serve the texture she had given us originally, but in the growth of our 
 bodies brings other wheels of the machine to catch the spring of satisfac- 
 tion. Children, boys, young men and old, have their different sources of 
 enjoyment ; and it has been observed of our tastes, that they vary every 
 seven years. Custom likewise, commonly styled a second nature, varies 
 the position of our mechanism, so as to produce an affection from the 
 same touches, different from that they produced originally. What parts 
 of our flesh are tenderer at first than the soles of our feet ? yet continual 
 use brings them to be callous, and enables them to bear our weight with- 
 out trouble. Bitters or tobacco offend the taste or smell of those who 
 never tried them before ; but use reconciles men to them, then renders 
 them pleasant, and afterwards indifferent again. Nor have particular ac- 
 cidents or the dispositions of our body less effect to change the quality of 
 objects : a surfeit will give an antipathy to things we were fond of before ; 
 a fever makes us nauseate our ordinary food ; fulness, emptiness, or drow- 
 siness, renders those motions of our limbs irksome that used to delight us. 
 Nature has so constructed our muscles, that they remove from one spring 
 to the other in the course of their play : after long sitting we find our 
 legs stiff, a few steps make their movement pleasant, a long walk renders 
 it laborious, and a longer fatigues us. The same is notorious with respect 
 to the other senses, wherein weariness takes the name of satiety : uncouth 
 motions or sensations we find troublesome, familiar ones generally agree- 
 able, but continued too long they become tiresome ; whence comes the
 
 150 TRANSLATION. 
 
 observation, that variety makes the pleasure of life. As the sources of 
 our enjoyment vary we quickly perceive it, and our motives vary accord- 
 ingly ; for those objects we conceive in our present circumstances agree- 
 able move us to pursue them. 
 
 3. It may be presumed, that nature gives our mental organs an aptness 
 to affect us agreeably with their motion, though this quality cannot operate 
 till there have been a competent number of trains worked in the imagina- 
 tion to give them play : for I think we may perceive an amusement in every 
 easy motion of our thoughts, though upon matters indifferent, when they 
 are not strained by intense application, nor stopped by difficulties, nor run 
 upon melancholy subjects ; and so we may in every motion of our limbs 
 and exercise of our senses, unless prevented by some such hindrances as 
 those above mentioned, or by the notice being drawn off upon something 
 else. 
 
 But imagination derives most of her affecting quality from sensation ; for 
 the first ideas of reflection being only sensations repeated though in a 
 fainter degree, they return with some portion of the satisfaction accompa- 
 nying them at their first entrance. For the remembrance of past enjoy- 
 ments generally fills us with delight, if it be not destroyed by another re- 
 flection of their being to be had no more ; and this delight increases upon 
 the prospect of their being repeated, for whatever we apprehend will please 
 us when attained, gives actual pleasure in the approach towards it. Which 
 adds strength to our motives, or rather gives them their whole vigour, for 
 present satisfaction being our constant pursuit, nothing remote could ever 
 move us if it did not afford an immediate enjoyment in the expectation, or 
 there were no uneasiness in the thought of missing it. 
 
 4. Thus far our motives may be styled natural, for though nature does 
 not directly infuse them, she supplies us with sensations that cannot fail to 
 attract our notice, and thereby informs us what to choose, and what to 
 refuse. But we receive a considerable accession to our stock of motives 
 from other sources. Our situation and circumstances in life, and variety of 
 accidents falling out, furnish us with many : our intercourse among mankind 
 with many more, some of them thrown upon us designedly by education 
 and instruction, and others formed insensibly by custom and example ; some 
 we fall into by habit without intending it, and others we work out for our- 
 selves by our own care and industry. But the principal supply of our stores 
 comes from Translation : upon which, though perhaps I may not have a 
 great deal to say, yet because we shall find frequent occasion to mention it 
 hereafter, therefore I shall make a chapter of it by itself. 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 WE have taken notice in the chapter on judgment ( 38.) of the transfe- 
 rable nature of assent, and how it passes from the premises to the conclu- 
 sion ; I do not mean while we retain the whole process of argumentation in 
 view, for then assent does not adhere directly to the point concluded on, 
 but only connects with it remotely, by the intervening evidence. But daily 
 experience testifies that conviction will often remain after the grounds of it 
 have slipped out of our thought : whenever we reflect on the thing proved,
 
 TRANSLATION. 151 
 
 there occurs a judgment of its being true, united in the same assemblage 
 without aid of any proof to support it ; and this many times after the 
 proofs are so far gone out of our memory that we cannot possibly recall 
 them. By this channel we are supplied with many truths, commonly re- 
 puted self-evident, because though we know them assuredly for truths, we 
 cannot discover how we came by that knowledge. In like manner we have 
 store of propensities, generally esteemed natural, because we cannot readily 
 trace them to any other origin than that quality of affecting us, assigned by 
 nature to certain ideas. But having shown how translation prevails in sa- 
 tisfaction, as well as assent, there will appear reason to conclude, that we 
 derive our inclinations and moral senses through the same channel as our 
 knowledge, without having them interwoven originally into our constitution. 
 As every motive contains an opinion of the object moving us being satis- 
 factory, whatever appears conducive to procure it we must necessarily judge 
 expedient : but this does not complete the translation, for there requires 
 something more to transfer satisfaction than assent. If a man wishes to 
 see some fine house and gardens, but the way lies along very dirty roads, 
 the circumstance of slouching through mire does not immediately become a 
 motive of action with him : but if he had frequent occasion to ride along 
 bad roads upon very desirable errands, though he might never come to like 
 the exercise, they would grow much more tolerable to him than he found 
 them at first. For the perpetual tendency of measures to what will please 
 us greatly, alters their quality of affecting us, and in many cases renders 
 them pleasant of themselves : and when this happens they become motives, 
 the translation being perfectly made. 
 
 2. Imagination is not so scanty but that it can exhibit several objects to 
 our notice at once, and this I may say in longitude as well as latitude, pre- 
 senting a chain of causes and effects lying beyond one another. As few of 
 our desires can be accomplished by a single effort, there occurs together with 
 the -object of our wishes several means tending successively to compass it ; 
 which means have no satisfaction of their own, but take a tincture from 
 that whereto they conduce : under this prospect, the object lying at the end 
 of the line only is our motive ; but as whatever we apprehend will please 
 gives actual pleasure in the approach, therefore we pursue the intermediate 
 steps for the satisfaction of that approach. 
 
 But the line of our pursuit frequently runs to a greater length than ima- 
 gination has room to contain, and some of the means necessary to attain our 
 end require our whole attention to compass them ; in this case, so much of 
 the line as lies beyond those means drops out of our thought for a time, but 
 leaves that tincture of satisfaction it had given them behind : the means then 
 become motives for the present, for our motive upon every occasion is al- 
 ways that furthest point we have in view at the instant of acting ; whatever 
 inducements we might have had to fix upon that point, are not motives 
 while absent from our thought. Thus, if a man, being to ride a long 
 journey, wants to buy a horse, which he does not know readily where to 
 procure, the inquiries necessary to be made, and steps to be taken for that 
 purpose, occupy him entirely, until he has gotten one to his liking ; all 
 this while the acquisition of a horse actuates his motions, and he will assign 
 that for his motive to anybody who shall ask why he bestirs himself, unless 
 they recall another idea into his head, by asking further what he wants the 
 horse for. But these are only temporaiy motives, which borrow satisfaction 
 for a time from another hand, and have it not of their own property, there
 
 152 TRANSLATION. 
 
 fore are not to be reckoned among our stock of motives reposited In the 
 storehouse. 
 
 But many times it happens that we find the same means conducive to 
 our enjoyments of various kinds, and upon repeated occasions, -which gives 
 them the tincture so often, that at last it becomes their natural colour . 
 they then move us of themselves, without needing any further inducement to 
 recommend them ; and then the translation is perfectly completed. Some- 
 times they receive their quality by one strong impression : a burnt child 
 dreads the fire, and some persons having received hurt by a sword can 
 never endure the sight of one afterwards. But oftener the quality comes 
 gradually by use : boys are driven by fear to their lessons until they take 
 a liking to them ; and many find amusement in professions they first 
 entered into much against the grain. Nor is it uncommon for this quality 
 to adhere so strongly, that no change of circumstances can disengage it : 
 old people retain a' fondness for their youthful sports after they have lost 
 all sensation of pleasure in the exercise ; and your hard students continue 
 to plod on without prospect of any good to come of it, and after it appears 
 manifestly prejudicial to their health. 
 
 3. Translation takes place solely in the mental organs, yet seems to bear 
 some resemblance in the manner of it with those changes made in our 
 bodies by custom. Sailors bring their hands to a hardness by continually 
 handling the ropes, so that they lose a great deal of the sensibility belong- 
 ing to them. Nature perhaps at first designed us for quadrupeds, but the 
 continual cares of our nurses inure us to an erect posture, so that we 
 should now find it extremely troublesome to go upon all four. In these 
 cases there is an alteration made in the texture of our flesh, or disposition 
 of our muscles, whereby the same motions and objects give us different 
 sensations from what they formerly did. In like manner when inclina- 
 tion passes from the end to the means, though there be no change in 
 the grosser parts, nor difference of sensation effected, yet we may suppose 
 some variation in the posture of our internal organs, those which did not 
 affect us at all before being brought to fasten on the spring of satisfaction 
 by frequent application thereto. 
 
 But in what manner soever translation be effected, nobody can deny that 
 we often acquire a liking to things from their having frequently promoted 
 our other desires, where no alteration in our muscles or animal economy 
 can be suspected. I need instance only in one very common propensity, 
 whose derivation from prior inclinations will not be controverted. Every- 
 body will acknowledge that the value of money arises solely from the use 
 of it : if we had not found it commanding the pleasures and conveniences 
 of life, we should never have thought it worth our regard. Nature gave 
 us no such desire, but we are forced to take pains in teaching children to 
 be careful, and those with whom such pains have proved unsuccessful cannot 
 rest till they get rid of their money, or, as we say, it burns in their pockets. 
 Nevertheless, the continual experience we find of money supplying our 
 wants and fancies gives it a general estimation among mankind, so that 
 the desire of gain becomes a powerful motive of action. Few of us being 
 suggested an acquisition of fortune by some honest, creditable, and easy 
 method, but would feel an immediate pleasure in the pursuit, without look- 
 ing forward to the many pretty things he could purchase : nor would he 
 be thought a prudent man who should hesitate to receive a sum until he 
 could find out some particular uses whereto he might apply it. And in
 
 SYMPATHY. 153 
 
 some persons the love of riches rises to such an exorbitant pitch, as to over- 
 whelm all those desires which first made them valuable : a covetous man 
 will deny himself the pleasures, the conveniences, even the necessaries of 
 life, for the sake of hoarding up his pelf, and seems to retain no other 
 motive in his storehouse than that of dying worth a plumb. What shall 
 we say then ? is there a different structure of parts between the miser, the 
 generous economist, and the spendthrift ? Their organs of sensation con- 
 tinue the same, there is no hardness of flesh, no stiffness or flexibility of 
 muscles, in the one more than the other : but their imagination has re- 
 ceived a different cast, and the mental organs, exhibiting their ideas of 
 reflection, been made to communicate differently with the spring of satis- 
 faction. For though the niggard may possibly be prevailed on to do a 
 generous deed once in his life, yet even then he feels a secret reluctance in 
 parting with his cash : which reluctance is involuntary, therefore forced 
 upon him by the act of some other agent distinct from himself, for we may 
 suppose he would give cheerfully if he could ; but this agent can be none 
 other than the internal and finer parts of his mechanism, which, being 
 differently connected, affect him in a different manner from what they 
 would another person. 
 
 One might produce many other instances to show that our motives 
 generate one another ; that the children survive after their parents are 
 dead and forgotten ; and sometimes, like the viper's brood, destroy those 
 that gave them birth. Many of these descendant motives gain the credit 
 of being coeval with ourselves, and that even among the considerate and 
 studious : they are currently reputed to have been, like Melchizedech, 
 without father or mother, because we find no mention in our records of any 
 they had. But upon a strict and impartial scrutiny it may not be impos- 
 sible to trace out their origin, and perhaps make it appear that all the 
 motives actuating us in our riper years, except sensations of pleasure and 
 pain, or our natural and acquired appetites, are of the translated kind. 
 Through this channel we derive most of our tastes, inclinations, sentiments, 
 moral senses, checks of conscience, obligations, impulses of fancy, attach- 
 ments to professions, fondness for diversions, regard to reputation, views 
 of prudence, virtues and vices, and in general all those pursuits, whether 
 of distant or present aims, that render the occupations of men different 
 from the amusements of children. 
 
 CHAP. XIX. 
 
 SYMPATHY. 
 
 THIS title may perhaps give occasion to expect a dissertation upon those 
 sympathetic cures spoken of by Sir Kenelm Digby, who tells you that 
 wounds have been healed by applying salves and plasters to the instrument 
 that made them. Or of that similitude supposed to be in the constitution 
 of two persons, so that any good or evil befalling one of them shall in- 
 stantly affect the other at a great distance, by means of certain cognate 
 effluvia passing to and fro between them. But I deal in no such wonders; 
 common experience is my guide, and that must have informed everybody 
 how much we continually sympathise with the sentiments and affections of 
 the company among whom we converse. As this quality contributes
 
 154 SYMPATHY. 
 
 greatly to introduce our motives into act, and by frequently introducing 
 them to produce new ones, it seems properly to claim a place between those 
 two subjects. 
 
 2. We are not long in the world from our first entrance before we per- 
 ceive that our pleasures and pains depend much upon the actions of those 
 about us : on a little further progress, we discover that their actions follow 
 their dispositions of mind, and afterwards learn to distinguish those disposi- 
 tions by certain marks of them in their looks and gestures. This makes 
 children perpetually attentive to the motions and countenance of persons into 
 whose hands they fall : nor does there want another cause to render them 
 more so, for having but few stores in their own imagination, they catch the 
 ideas of other people to supply themselves with employment. And in our 
 advanced years we cannot well carry on any business or argument, or enjoy 
 the pleasures of conversation, without entering into the thoughts and no- 
 tions of one another. When we arrive at the use of understanding, the 
 judgment of others weighs with us as a just and natural evidence, inducing 
 us to judge accordingly; but we have seen how the judgment of expedience, 
 frequently reiterated, transfers satisfactions upon the measures so conceived 
 expedient : and we purposely imitate the ways and manners of our teachers, 
 or other persons whom we esteem more expert and knowing in any matter 
 than ourselves. Thus we acquire much of our sympathy by inadvertent 
 notice, and add more by design and industry; until custom in both ways 
 has worked out trains wherein imagination learns to run involuntarily and 
 mechanically. This appears most evident in compassion, for we cannot 
 help sympathizing with distress, though we feel it painful to ourselves, and 
 know it can afford no relief to the party suffering. 
 
 3. But we catch our other affections, too, from the prospect of them 
 exhibited before us : a sprightly countenance makes us cheerful, and a face 
 of melancholy damps our spirits ; we pursue other people's hopes, and take 
 alarm at their terrors ; we grow to love things we perceive them fond of, 
 and contract aversions from their dislike. Nor is immediate sensation the 
 only thing that can work this effect upon us ; for we find the same produced 
 bv stories of accidents befalling persons at a distance ; we receive impres- 
 sion from facts recorded in history, and feel ourselves affected with the 
 affections of those who have been dead a thousand years ago. Nay, we 
 find ourselves interested in imaginary scenes, partaking the pleasures and 
 pains of fictitious characters in a play or a novel : and as we take a tinc- 
 ture of the affections, so we imbibe the opinions, and insensibly adopt the 
 views of those with whom we have continual intercourse, which gives 
 example the prevalence over precept, and enables evil communications to 
 cornipt good manners. Even sensations may undergo a change by the 
 effect we see them have upon others : we may get a relish to a dish upon 
 observing the company eat eagerly of it, and nauseate a joint of meat be- 
 cause somebody at table fancies it to have an unsavoury smell. How many 
 people take their taste of music from the applauses of connoisseurs ? How 
 hideous does a once admired pattern of silk become in the ladies' eyes upon 
 being grown out of fashion ? What change do imbibed notions make in 
 the ears of great scholars, as we have remarked in Chap. XIII. 2, so 
 that they cannot distinguish between a long sound and a short, a vowel 
 and a consonant ? None can have avoided observing how apt we are to 
 uiimic the gestures, fall into the habits, and copy the imperfections we see 
 continually before us : and it has been observed a thousand times, that 
 laughing and yawning generally go round the company. We participate in
 
 INTRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 155 
 
 some measure the ideas of all men, but more with those of whom we have 
 a good opinion or frequent converse than with strangers ; for the judgment 
 of -the former carries greater weight upon us for our estimation of their 
 persons, and that of the latter makes up by repetition for what it wanted 
 in strength. 
 
 4. But were we to give a full latitude to sympathy, we should whiffle 
 about with every wind, nor could ever keep steady to one tenor of conduct, 
 because we should perpetually meet with somebody or other leading us by 
 their example to swerve from it. This teaches us a reserve and caution 
 against taking impressions too hastily, and confines our propensity to imita- 
 tion within due bounds. Yet where there are not urgent reasons to the 
 contrary, I do not see why we may not let sympathy take its course, as it 
 gives an easier flow to our thoughts, renders us more sociable, and assists 
 us in making many improvements. 
 
 There are some who carry this reserve to extremities, so far as to throw 
 their mind into a disposition contrary to that they see exhibited : this 
 temper whoever pleases may call Antipathy, as being the opposite to sym- 
 pathy. It generally takes its rise or terminates in ill nature, rendering the 
 posses'sors morose, contemptuous, and intractable : they repine at others' 
 successes, and rejoice at the sight of disappointment ; if you talk seriously 
 to them, they fall to joking ; and if you make them merry, they put on a 
 more than ordinary solemnity of countenance. There are those who affect 
 this contrariety of humour towards mankind in general, but it is more 
 usually practised with respect only to such against whom we have conceived 
 some great prejudice. And, indeed, if ever allowable, it is so when we 
 fall under a necessity of consorting with persons of whose errors or evil 
 principles we have just cause for suspicion, to prevent our taking contagion 
 from them. Yet some situations render us all so unapt for imitation, that 
 we rather take disgust at the expression of affections not tallying with our 
 own : in our seasons of jollity we cannot endure a melancholy aspect, and 
 when under affliction, any levity disturbs us : but this proceeds rather from 
 the force of sympathy than otherwise ; for that perpetually urges the mind 
 to assimilate her trains to patterns she cannot follow under her present 
 circumstances. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 INTRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 SENSATION first moves us to action, in order to continue it if pleasant, or 
 remove it if painful : thus the taste of victuals urges children to take more 
 of them into their mouths, and the smart of a pin to catch away their hands 
 from it. When they have gotten competent stores of reflection, these too 
 affect them in like manner with sensation, and sometimes overpower it ; for 
 you may draw off a child's notice from any little pain or craving of appetite, 
 by diverting it with play-things. As imagination becomes worked into 
 trains, the notice, being put into one by some particular object, will run on 
 to other ideas very different from those the object exhibited. Nor does ima- 
 gination fail to suggest fancies of her own motion, without any object to 
 introduce them : of what kind they shall be, depends greatly upon constitu- 
 tion, the present state of our animal spirits, or disposition of mind, inclin- 
 ing us either to seriousness or gaiety, business or diversion. Habits, too,
 
 156 INTRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 attract the notice to follow them inadvertently by that ease there is in giving 
 way to the little transient desires they present rather than restraining them . 
 And when experience has brought us acquainted with the properties of 
 things external, and the command we have over the ideas of our mind, 
 which knowledge gives us the use of our understanding, we can then procure 
 motives for ourselves ; either by application of such objects as will raise any 
 particular desire, or by putting reflection upon the hunt for something that 
 will please us, or suggesting inducements to strengthen us in our purpose, 
 or by resolution to banish some intruding ideas, and fix our whole attention 
 upon others. 
 
 2. Thus there are three causes contributing to introduce motives into the 
 scale : the action of the mind, impulse of external objects, and mechanical 
 play of our organs ; and these three mutually influence one another. The 
 mind opei ates two ways, either by design or inadvertently ; for when she 
 turns her notice upon an idea, though with no other view than for the pre- 
 sent amusement it affords, this occasions it to lead in a train of its associates, 
 and often awakens a desire that would have lain dormant without such atten- 
 tion. Therefore, if we have any hurtful inclination belonging to us, it is 
 very dangerous to let our thoughts run upon objects relative thereto ; for we 
 may raise a disturber we did not expect, nor can quiet again whenever we 
 please : and perhaps desire scarce ever rises to any high pitch, unless as- 
 sisted by some action of the mind tending to foment it. But when the mind 
 acts with design, nevertheless she has that design suggested by something 
 happening to her from without, or by the spontaneous working of imagina- 
 tion ; to which sources she must have recourse in search for motives of her 
 conduct, or gathering encouragements to support her in an undertaking. 
 Even in the most arbitrary exercises of her power, as when she endeavours 
 to attain her purpose by dint of resolution, she uses some instrument to do 
 her work. A man that holds his hand near a roasting fire, must have some 
 reason for so doing, either to cure a burn, under the notion of fire driving 
 out fire, or to try how long he can hold it there, or for some other purpose 
 which appears satisfactory at the time, or else it would never have put him 
 upon the attempt : this satisfactory purpose, then, he strives to retain in full 
 vigour, without suffering it to fluctuate or fade, and withdraws his notice 
 from that uneasiness the smart of the fire would throw upon him. Herein 
 he acts upon the mental eye much in the same manner as we do upon the 
 bodily, when we wink against a glaring light, or stretch our nerves to ob- 
 serve some obscure object that cannot be discerned without straining ; or as 
 we do upon the organs of hearing, when of two persons talking to us at 
 once, we disregard the one, and attend wholly to the other. And in all 
 cases of resolution, we may perceive the like method practised : we do not 
 annex the idea of Best to what had it not before, but among opposite sub- 
 jects, whereto that idea is already annexed, we hold one under contempla- 
 tion, and exclude the rest, or strengthen it with other considerations, from 
 whence that idea may be transferred. 
 
 Things external are made to operate upon us either by natural causes, or 
 the situation we stand in, or the company we consort with : but what effect 
 they shall produce in us depends greatly upon the cast of our imagination. 
 For we have observed before, that the same objects affect people variously, 
 exciting different judgments, and suggesting different motives in one from 
 what they do in another : nor does the mind want a power many times of 
 applying or removing objects, and of increasing or diminishing in some mea- 
 sure the impression of those before her by an operation upon her organs.
 
 INTRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 157 
 
 In like manner the spontaneous courses of our ideas, although depending 
 chiefly upon habit, and running into those trains of thought to which we 
 have been accustomed, yet may be diverted by objects occurring, or drawn 
 aside by the force of sympathy, or controlled by the power of the mind, so 
 as to take another track than they would have followed of their own accord. 
 
 3. If we examine our proceedings carefully, we shall find in all of them 
 a mixture of volition and machinery, and perhaps the latter bearing a greater 
 share than the former. We never enter upon an undertaking without 
 some purpose starting up in our thoughts, or recommended by the present 
 occasion as expedient or agreeable : we choose the measures for accomplish- 
 ing it from among the stores presented by our understanding ; and though we 
 perform the work by our own activity, yet our manner of proceeding is such 
 as former practice has made ready to us, and the minute steps necessary 
 for completing it rise mechanically in our imagination. Our latent motives, 
 which bear so great a sway in the behaviour of most men, cannot owe their 
 appearance to the mind, because they escape her observation when she 
 would discover them : and our minute motives prompting us to inadvertent 
 actions, which are far more numerous than commonly supposed, must take 
 rise from some other spring, because the mind perceives them not the mo- 
 ment before they operate, nor remembers them the moment after. Nor are 
 the grosser parts of our machine without their influence upon our actions ; 
 the natural temperament of our constitution, the accidental condition of our 
 humours, the brisk or slow circulation of our animal spirits, the circum- 
 stances of health or sickness, freshness or weariness, fulness or emptiness, 
 render the mind alert or unapt for exercise, turn imagination into different 
 trains, excite desires of various kinds, and in great measure model the shape 
 of our behaviour. 
 
 4 . What is the particular structure of our machine, how the several parts 
 of it communicate, or in what manner they operate upon one another, we 
 cannot pretend to describe, and therefore must express ourselves by figures. 
 Sometimes we talk of characters imprinted, or traces engraven in the me- 
 mory, sometimes of roads and tracks worn in the imagination, of weights 
 hanging in the balance, springs impelling to action, wheels resembling those 
 of clock-work, images striking upon the mental eye, or streams and currents 
 running in various channels. Those expressions, if intended for a physical 
 account of our interior frame, could not all be admitted, as being inconsis- 
 tent with one another : but when we speak figuratively of a matter we can- 
 not describe directly, we may vary our images without inconsistency, for the 
 same will not answer in every case, therefore it is allowable to take any 
 that shall afford the greatest resemblance according to the present occasion 
 for which we want to apply it. 
 
 But if we may guess at the internal texture of our machine by the grosser 
 parts of it discoverable upon dissection, they will lead us to imagine that 
 our ideas are conveyed by a multitude of little tubes affecting us variously 
 according to the motions excited in them, or according to the courses of 
 some subtle fluid they contain : or should we, with Doctor Hartley, suppose 
 the nerves to be solid capilaments, and the business performed by another 
 surrounding them on the outside, this will amount to the same thing ; be- 
 cause a number of these small strings placed close together will form tubes 
 of the interstices between them, which may serve as channels for the fore- 
 said ether to pass along. Therefore, if I were to compare the human 
 machine to any of our contrivances of art, I should choose for my founda- 
 tion a large Organ ; wherein the bellows answer to the animal circulation.
 
 158 INTRODUCTION OF MOTIVES. 
 
 the pipes to the organs of sensation and reflection, and the organist to the 
 mind. But the organist here does not make all the music : for the pipes 
 are so contrived as to sound with the striking of things external upon 
 them, or by the mere working of the bellows, which plays as it were by 
 clock-work without a blower. Yet is this but an imperfect representation 
 of the natural machine : to make our comparison more complete, we myst 
 suppose other sets of pipes for conveying objects of the other senses ; be- 
 sides innumerable smaller ones returning an echo to the larger, and new 
 modulating the sounds or lights received from them, which supplies us with 
 our ideas of reflection. These little vessels are so soft and flexible, that 
 they will change their form and run into various contextures with one 
 another, whereon depend our inclinations and stores of knowledge : for as 
 a pipe will give a different sound according to the length or other dimen- 
 sions it consists of, so objects affect us differently according to the dispo- 
 sition of the channels through which they pass. Nor must we omit the 
 rtjany conveyances necessary for distributing the alimentary juices, which 
 serve like oil to moisten and supple the works or to repair the waste made 
 by continual use. Add to this a multitude of other pipes which dilate and 
 shorten upon inflation, and thereby draw certain strings fastened to their 
 extremities : from whence proceeds muscular motion, and the power of 
 acting upon the several parts of our machine, as well the grosser as the 
 finer. And all this infinite variety of works, so complicated with one 
 another, and yet so exactly disposed as not to interfere with each other in 
 their play, Nature has stowed within the narrow compass of a human body ; 
 which if an artist were to endeavour to imitate by constructing an engine 
 that should perform those few of the human movements that art can imitate, 
 it would require an immense fabric to contain everything necessary for 
 executing his purpose. But the most wonderful circumstance of all is, that 
 our organist sits in utter darkness with respect to the nearest parts of his 
 instrument, which are to be the immediate subjects of his action, having no 
 notice of anything but what comes to him through his pipes : he knows not 
 the situation of his keys, on which hand lies the base or the treble ; never- 
 theless, after a competent practice in his trade, he acquires such an unac- 
 countable expertness, that he never touche's the wrong key, but takes his 
 measures exactly, without perceiving what they are, and upon an idea only 
 of some remote consequence they will produce. 
 
 5. Since there is so close a connection between the parts of our machine 
 acted upon by the mind and those moved by the animal circulation, it fol- 
 lows that each must have an influence upon the other. Our vital spirits, 
 according as they stand disposed, force a particular kind of ideas upon the 
 mind, and the latter in every exertion of her power causes an alteration in 
 the courses of the former : sometimes designedly, but oftener as a natural 
 consequence of something else she intends. He that runs means only to 
 arrive the sooner at the place whither he would go ; but besides this he 
 quickens his pulse, heats his flesh, and puts himself out of breath, effects 
 which he did not think of, nor perhaps should have ensued had it been 
 at his option to have helped them. The like happens on other exercises 
 of our activity, which propagate a motion to the several parts of our body 
 corresponding respectively with the organs employed in those exercises ; 
 and these parts, by frequently receiving such motions, become disposed to 
 fall into them again mechanically, or upon the slightest touch, and thereby 
 excite the same ideas that generated them. From hence arise our habits, 
 which though learned at first by single, but perhaps inadvertent acts of the
 
 PASSIONS. 159 
 
 mind, yet recur upon us aftewards involuntarily. Hence likewise spring 
 the passions, which I take to be only a stronger sort of habits acquired 
 early in our childhood, when the matter of our composition being tender 
 and pliable, may be worked easily into new channels wherein the animal 
 spirits may flow more copiously. For I do not imagine that nature gave 
 us passions : she may indeed have made each man more susceptible of one 
 sort than another, but they are brought into form by the actiou of the 
 mind bending her notice continually to particular sets of objects. Just as 
 nature may have prepared one man for a dancer by giving him strength 
 and suppleness in his joints, or another for a singer by giving a clear and 
 sonorous voice : but it is art and practice that invest them with the re- 
 spective faculties of dancing or singing. 
 
 CHAP. XXI. 
 
 PASSIONS. 
 
 WE have taken notice that children, on their first entrance into the 
 world, have a general notion of action, though they know not in what 
 manner to apply it : therefore when anything affects them strongly, they 
 strain every nerve, and exert all their little powers of motion. But as 
 they grow acquainted with the uses of those powers, they confine their 
 efforts to some particular quarter : yet their knowledge for a long while 
 being , r ery imperfect, they still employ more exertion than necessary, striv- 
 ing to attain that by vehemence which they want skill to accomplish by 
 management. These efforts made upon the organs of reflection, as well as 
 those of motion, being frequently repeated upon the same parts, widen the 
 passages communicating with the vital circulation, which thereby more 
 readily admit the animal spirits, and take in a larger flow than they were 
 capable of in their natural state. Whence proceeds the violence and ob- 
 stinacy of passion, which will scarce allow any ideas to enter the mind 
 besides those of its own cast, nor can be put out of its course until the 
 ferment subsides of itself : wherein there is no room to doubt of the animal 
 spirits being concerned, when we consider the effects generally visible upon 
 the pulse, tne nerves, and the countenance. Thus it appears we work out 
 the passions by our own activity, not indeed with a deliberate design which 
 the infant mind is scarce capable of at the time when she lays the founda- 
 tion of them, but by that inadvertent notice she is led to fix upon striking 
 objects. 
 
 The passions seem to have their particular provinces in the several parts 
 of our machine : what alterations they produce in the body, it belongs to 
 the painter, the sculptor, and the anatomist to ascertain ; and what play 
 they give the mental organs belongs to no professor whatever, as lying 
 beyond the reach of any science yet attained by human sagacity. So there 
 remains only for me to examine what ideas give rise to each of them, and 
 hang upon the mind during their influence : nor shall I attempt a complete 
 dissertation upon them all, but offer such few observations as may occur 
 concerning the principal. 
 
 2. Immediate satisfaction being the point that constantly attracts our 
 notice, and gives influence to all our other ideas, we must look there as the 
 most likely place to find the source of our passions. Whatever present
 
 160 PASSIONS. 
 
 action in our power promises satisfaction, prompts the mind to pursue it, 
 and this state of mind we call desire ; for I take desire to be nothing else 
 but the prospect of some agreeable perception, together with some present 
 act apprehended productive thereof : this therefore is the spring that begins 
 to set us in motion, and actuates us incessantly in every exercise of our 
 powers, for we never stir a fibre but for the sake of something we desire to 
 have produced thereby ; and Mr. Locke declares himself of the same opi- 
 nion, where he says desire is always the thing that determines the Will. 
 But this common desire is not a passion, being too gentle to deserve that 
 name : otherwise we could never possess our minds in tranquillity, because 
 there is scarce a moment in our waking hours wherein we are not urged to 
 something either momentous or trifling. But when the purpose we aim at 
 does not ensue upon our first endeavours, the mind redoubles her efforts 
 under an apprehension that a stronger exertion may succeed where a weaker 
 did not ; for it has been commonly remarked that difficulties lying in the 
 way of desire, like water thrown upon coals, if not enough to extinguish 
 it, make it burn with a fiercer flame. After having frequently practised 
 exertions of this sort, the spirits get a habit of rising in a ferment, which 
 will let no other idea intrude besides that of the engaging object ; and then 
 desire takes the form of a passion. I know that strong sensations, and 
 cravings of appetite, will raise violent commotions in the earliest times of 
 life, before any habit can be acquired : but sense and appetite have always 
 been distinguished from passion, wherein the organs of reflection bear a 
 principal share, and ideas hang longer, and make deeper impression upon 
 the mind than sensation could have enabled them to do, which additional 
 force they must have derived from habit. 
 
 But an objection may be started against my making the prospect of 
 means tending towards an attainable satisfaction to constitute desire, be- 
 cause it is very well known, that men too often set their hearts upon things 
 they see no possibility of obtaining. This I acknowledge to be fact, 
 nevertheless even in these cases there is something the mind apprehends 
 to be feasible ; for when the object of desire lies anything remote, every 
 step leading to it, nay, the very thought of an approach towards it, soothes 
 the mind with a momentary satisfaction, which thought may be in our 
 power, though the object itself confessedly is not ; for we have seen that 
 persuasion does not always follow conviction, and as by reading a poem or 
 a novel, so by an operation upon our mental organs, we may sometimes 
 raise a temporary persuasion of things we know to be false. Besides, the 
 holding an object in our thoughts is one means towards attaining it, 
 because that may suggest expedients which did not presently occur, and 
 because the strength of an idea, heightened by our attention to it, urges us 
 to a stronger exertion of our powers. These causes I conceive make 
 people dwell upon whatever appears with an engaging aspect, and keeps 
 them still hankering after things they have found unattainable. For pre- 
 sent satisfaction being the point continually in view, they flatter themselves 
 with a fond imagination of making advances towards the obtaining of their 
 wishes, where understanding can give them no such prospect, overlooking 
 that disappointment which must necessarily ensue. The mind has a 
 strange knack of deceiving herself with respect to the success of her mea- 
 sures, when the taking them promises some little amusement for the next 
 succeeding moment. If the idea of something attainable were not part of 
 the essence of desire, there would be no difference between desire and the 
 contemplation of anything agreeable, which is contrary to experience. I
 
 PASSIONS. 161 
 
 suppose most of us would think it very agreeable to fly about in the air 
 like a stork or an eagle ; methinks it would be mighty pretty to glide along 
 with such an easy motion, to transport ourselves suddenly from place to 
 place, to soar in the upper regions, having an extensive prospect of lands 
 and seas below, and varying our scenes at pleasure ; yet we never fix our 
 desires upon such amusement, but what hinders us, unless that we cannot 
 raise even a delusive imagination of anything practicable towards the 
 attainment of it ? But should some Dedalus invent a plausible scheme for 
 making wings, we should probably find ourselves very desirous of having 
 a pair, though we sold our coaches for the purchase : and if after many 
 fruitless attempts we were convinced the thing was impracticable, we might 
 still continue to ruminate upon it for a time, and please ourselves with 
 hunting after better expedients upon a bare possibility, though without any 
 hope of finding them. 
 
 3. All that has been said above concerning satisfaction, may be applied 
 with a little alteration to uneasiness, which urges us to fly from it in the 
 same manner as the other attracts us towards it. Wherefore the school- 
 men reckon another passion opposite to desire, which they call Flight, or 
 Avoidance, and has some impending evil for its object : but since whatever 
 appears hurtful we always desire to avoid, since the very escape from 
 mischief affords a sensible satisfaction, and since nature has so befriended 
 us that we never want for amusement, whenever we can keep clear of all 
 disagreeable perceptions, there seems little need of distinguishing between 
 the avoidance of evil and desire of good, the latter being always implied in 
 the former ; and the less, because it would require some nicety and labour 
 of thought to make such distinction. 
 
 But there is another distinction which, though somewhat nice, we have 
 found occasion to take notice of before, and may find the like again here- 
 after ; I mean the making want a separate species of desire. For when 
 the mind is moved by some object, and exerts herself strenuously in search- 
 ing for some means of advancing towards it, but none offer, or such only 
 as appear ineffectual upon their presenting themselves, this state of mind I 
 call Want ; and may be compared to the gnawings of an empty stomach, 
 whose sides grind against one another, as having nothing to work upon. 
 Therefore genuine desire finding continual issue for its efforts, proves the 
 source of all our enjoyments, but want always torments us with uneasiness. 
 Whenever incompatible desires assail us together, one of them at least 
 must degenerate into want, if it still continue to solicit, and be not quite 
 overwhelmed by its antagonist wholly engrossing our attention. But 
 though want throws the mind into such a disagreeable situation, yet it may 
 be expedient to endure it sometimes for the sake of a greater future ad- 
 vantage : for many very useful desires not vigorous enough at first to 
 , surmount all opposition, and therefore meeting with continual disappoint- 
 ment, yet by being still kept alive, and put often to struggle with a superior 
 adversary, may in time acquire strength to overthrow him. Content I 
 take to be nothing else but the privation of want, which though indifferent 
 in itself, yet a contented state is always a happy state in consequence, be- 
 cause as observed just now, we never fail of finding matter of amusement 
 whenever we can keep clear of all disagreeable perceptions. 
 
 4. Desire, as we learn from Mr. Locke, obtains a place in all the other 
 passions, and we may say they are only desire under so many different 
 forms. As this derives its original from the expectance of satisfaction to 
 VOL. i. M
 
 162 PASSIONS. 
 
 come, so the actual possession of satisfaction throws the mind into a state 
 of enjoyment. But possession does not always put an end to desire, but 
 many times excites it, putting the mind upon stretching her mental optics 
 to obtain a stronger view of the object that pleases her, and upon opening 
 the passages of the animal spirits, to admit a larger current that may 
 heighten and prolong the delightful sensation ; when this is done with 
 any considerable degree of exertion, it produces the passion of joy. I 
 think we may pronounce the province of this passion extends over the 
 whole system of vessels concerned in exhibiting ideas, or performing volun- 
 tary motion, and that it quickens the circulation of spirits throughout all 
 their passages in general, whereas some other passions pour them more 
 copiously upon particular quarters : for we find people very brisk and active 
 in seasons of joy, breaking out continually into wanton and extravagant 
 sallies, unless restrained by decency and reflection. Sometimes joy has 
 been known to rise so high as to produce great disorders in the body, and 
 even extinguish life, too great a redundancy of spirits causing suffocation, 
 like a strong wind blowing against one's mouth and nostrils, which hinders 
 the play of our lungs : but these transports rarely happen, nor perhaps ever 
 unless when the channels have been emptied before by some opposite stag- 
 nating passion, as grief, or fear, or want. The sight of an only child given 
 over for lost, a pardon brought to a malefactor under the gallows, or a sum 
 of money poured into the lap of a man in utmost distress, may have proved 
 fatal : but then the pleasure comes accompanied with an idea of deliver- 
 ance from something very irksome before, which gives it a double force. 
 As joy introduces a pleasurable situation of mind, it would deserve encou- 
 raging whenever we could, if it were not for some pernicious consequences 
 attending it : for it confines our views within the present to the neglect of 
 our future interests, it disturbs the operation of reason, shutting our eyes 
 against the lights she would offer, and turning a deaf ear against her 
 remonstrances ; for the mind, perfectly satisfied with her present condition, 
 cares for nothing else, but rejects every other idea that might interrupt or 
 abate her enjoyment. 
 
 5. As the expectance of satisfaction, dependent upon our endeavours to 
 procure it, causes desire, so the like expectance from external causes, when 
 no endeavours of our own appear necessary, gives birth to Hope. It is true, 
 we often find it incumbent upon us to do something ourselves for accom- 
 plishing our hopes ; but then so far as our own activity extends belongs to 
 desire, hope relates only to that success of our measures which is not in our 
 power : for no man is said to hope that his hunger will be appeased by 
 eating when he has victuals set before him, and there is nothing requisite 
 besides his own act to assuage his cravings. It is commonly reckoned that 
 hope must contain a mixture of fear ; and perhaps this is generally the 
 case, considering the uncertainty of events for the most part ; but some- 
 times we have the prospect of a distant good to befall us without any doubt 
 of its arrival, and 1 know not what better name than hope can be given to 
 this situation of mind ; therefore see no impropriety in the expression of a 
 sure and certain hope. I am not quite satisfied that hope ought to be 
 ranked among the passions, as being gentle in its own nature, and never 
 raising emotions unless by means of other passions generated from it. For 
 us a man reckons the reversion of an estate among his valuable effects, and 
 esteems the gaining a title to such reversion an accession of fortune, so 
 the assurance of future good affords a present pleasure : and if the mind 
 exults in the contemplation of that oleasure, or feels an extraordinary flow
 
 PASSIONS. 1 63 
 
 of spirits arise upon it, this we may call a species' of joy. On the other 
 hand, if the promise of distant enjoyment does not instantly satisfy, but 
 begets an eager impatience of possessing it before the time, then hope 
 assumes the form of want. 
 
 6. The old philosophers, as we may gather from Cicero, could not settle 
 among themselves, whether to define anger a fervour of mind, or a desire of 
 revenge ; which seems to me just as wise a dispute as if they had contended 
 whether Chrysippus were an animal or a man, the one being implied within 
 the other, and differing no otherwise than as genus and species ; for custom 
 has appropriated the name of Anger to that particular fervour arising in the 
 mind upon thought of a supposed injury. But there are fervours occasioned 
 by other causes : any pressing pain or uneasiness sets the mind a struggling 
 to throw it off; and difficulties not apprehended unsunnountable stir up an 
 earnestness of resolution to master them : therefore it is common when we 
 see people go about any thing in a great hurry and flutter, to admonish them 
 not to put themselves in a passion. And I conceive it is this view of diffi- 
 culty that gives rise to the violence of anger ; for as the party upon whom 
 we would wreak vengeance will naturally oppose it with all his might, a 
 more than ordinary exertion becomes necessary in order to surmount that 
 opposition ; and the mind, having found this to be constantly the case, gets 
 a habit of eagerness and vehemence in everything she does, either tending 
 or preparatory to revenge. Whatever may be thought of other passions, 
 this cannot be borne with us, for there are several things to be learned be- 
 fore we come to the idea of anger : nature makes us concerned originally 
 only with our own pleasures or pains ; we feel not, and consequently regard 
 not. what happens to other people, until having received hurt from them, 
 and found that our retaliating the like prevails upon them to desist from of- 
 fending us, we thence learn the expedience of exerting ourselves upon such 
 occasions. Thus the desire of revenge is not a natural but a translated de- 
 sire : we first look upon it as a means of procuring ease to ourselves, and 
 security from injury; but having often beheld it in this light, the end at 
 length drops out of sight, and desire, according to the usual process of trans- 
 lation, rests upon the means, which thenceforward become an end whereon 
 our views will terminate. We may reckon at least four stages in our pro- 
 gress to the passion of anger : our experience of damage brought upon us 
 by others, of our power to give them displeasure, of the effects of such 
 displeasure to make them alter their measures, and of the opposition we 
 must expect against the exercise of that power. But having by these grada- 
 tions once brought satisfaction to connect immediately with revenge, it be- 
 comes a motive of action which we pursue many times by ways not at all 
 conducive to the end that first rendered it recommendable. For men some- 
 times vent their wrath upon inanimate beings, although incapable of punish- 
 ment, or of mending their manners thereupon : and in violent transports of 
 rage beat their heads against a wall, or otherwise punish themselves, 
 thereby bringing on that hurt which it was originally the purpose of anger 
 to remove. Though anger raises a mighty flood of spirits, it does not, like 
 joy, diffuse them equally throughout the whole system, but forces them in 
 torrents upon the vessels concerned in action, producing sudden violent 
 starts of motion, spreading a heat to the outward parts, and showing more 
 apparent signs of disorder than any other passion : for which reason I sup- 
 pose it has generally engrossed the name from the rest, for when we call a 
 man passionate we mean that he is prone to take offence and quick to resen* , 
 
 M 2
 
 164 PASSIONS. 
 
 not that is he apt to fear, or hope, or grieve, or fall into any other emotion. 
 We may safely rank this among the uneasy passions, as partaking more of 
 that species we have called want than of genuine desire : for, however it 
 may have heen said that revenge is sweet, the sweetness does not come 
 until the desire ends by having been glutted ; but while the desire subsists, 
 how strong assurance soever it may have of succeeding, there always re- 
 mains a restless impatience, which, like immoderate hunger, never ceases to 
 torment until it be removed. 
 
 7. When danger threatens and appears inevitable, or the means of avoid- 
 ng it do not yet discover themselves, this fills the mind with fear, which 
 proceeds upon two views ; one of collecting a fund of spirits to be ready 
 for use when any method of deliverance shall offer, the other of benumb- 
 ing or deadening the notice so that when the mischief comes it may affect 
 us the less sensibly : both which are effected by the same means, to wit, 
 withdrawing the animal spirits from the organs of reflection and motion : 
 because the strength of our perceptions and vigour of our actions depend- 
 ing upon the quantity of spirits employed therein, if we can withhold them 
 from flowing upon the mental organs, we scarce feel the pungency of evil 
 befalling us ; and if we forbear to spend them in fruitless endeavours, we 
 shall have the greater supply ready to serve us when they may prove effec- 
 tual. Therefore, fear overwhelms with confusion ; and though people will 
 stare wistfully at a frightful object, they discern little of what they stare at, 
 their ideas being duller than usual : and if the terror rise to a very high 
 degree, it totally stupifies the senses, and causes a fainting. Fear is ob- 
 served to chill the limbs, crowding the whole mass of blood upon the heart ; 
 and as the vital spirits have their circulation too, we may presume it gathers 
 them all to some vessel, which performs the same office with respect to 
 them as the heart does to the blood. But that there is a mighty fund of 
 spirits collected somewhere, appears manifest from the uncommon force 
 they operate with when breaking forth into action. Fear adds wings to our 
 speed ; none fight so furiously as cowards driven to despair ; and people in 
 a fright have been known to exert double the strength they could muster up 
 at other times with their utmost resolution. I have been credibly informed 
 of a man so lame with the gout, that he could stir neither hand nor foot, 
 who on hearing a sudden outcry of fire in the next house, started up out of 
 bed and ran to the window, but upon finding the danger over, his strength 
 immediately left him, and he was forced to be carried back again. Chil- 
 dren and other animals show no signs of fear at their first coming into life ; 
 nor can they be supposed capable of any before they have an apprehension 
 of danger, which must come by experience of things hurtful : indeed, they 
 learn very soon to take fright at hideous objects ; but then it is not till they 
 can discern the difference between them and others whereto they have been 
 some time familiarized. 
 
 8. Shame seems to be a species of fear, having for its object the evil of 
 disgrace : like other fears, it fills with confusion and darkens the ideas ; it 
 operates rather by deadening the notice than collecting spirits for future 
 exertion, therefore seems to be occupied chiefly in driving them from the 
 organs of reflection, whose seat probably lies in the head, and discharging 
 them upon the next adjacent parts, which may account for the blushings 
 wherewith it overspreads the countenance. Shame, indeed, often proves a 
 powerful incentive to action ; but at such times it takes the form of desire, 
 urging us to do something either for reinstating ourselves in credit again, 
 which we look upon as an attainable good, or for preventing the censure
 
 PASSIONS. 165 
 
 that might otherwise happen, which we consider as an avoidable evil ; 
 there is not properly shame until the consciousness of disgrace actually 
 comes, or the'mischief is apprehended irremediable, which throws the mind 
 into a state of want wherein she exerts herself in endeavours to stifle the 
 uneasy reflection, and withdraw her notice from it as much as possible. 
 This is one of the latest formed among our passions ; for little children 
 appear to have no notion of it a considerable time : it is so far from being 
 infused by nature that it derives wholly from our intercourse with mankind, 
 nor would ever come to a person who from his birth should be secluded 
 from all society : before we become susceptible of it, we must have gotten 
 some use of language, without which we cannot well be made sensible of 
 the estimation set by others upon anything we do : and though after having 
 arrived at maturer reflection, we take shame to ourselves for follies that can 
 be known to nobody else, yet are we taught this practice by censures we 
 have found others pass upon us, or we have passed upon them. For as 
 anger, although beginning on hurts received from other persons, will at 
 length sometimes turn upon ourselves, so having got a habit of blaming 
 what we have seen blameable elsewhere, we fall into the like train of think- 
 ing with respect'to our own miscarriages. There is another emotion o 
 mind, the opposite to shame, that deserves to be ranked among the passions 
 with better reason than Avoidance, the opposite to desire : for commenda- 
 tion agitates the spirits and stimulates to action no less than disgrace. Nor 
 let it be said that the one allures only as implying a removal from the other, 
 for though we sometimes stand so circumstanced as that we must either 
 attain the one or incur the other, according as we exert ourselves in some- 
 thing, or let it alone, yet this is not always the case ; for persons already in 
 good credit will bestir themselves strongly to increase it, where there is no 
 danger of censure falling upon them if they were to forbear their endeavours. 
 But I shall have occasion to consider this principle more particularly, when 
 I come to my four classes of motives, of which I have made Honour to be 
 one. 
 
 9. But of all the passions, there is none more difficult to be accounted 
 for than grief, which keeps the mind intent upon a troublesome idea, that 
 one would think she should endeavour most strenuously to throw off. It 
 seems to contradict the constant experience of satisfaction being the point 
 the mind every moment pursues, when we find her strangely courting un- 
 easiness, and dwelling upon an object that affords her nothing but torment. 
 I conceive the mind led originally into this absurd procedure by the same 
 view that draws her into that situation we have termed want : for as we 
 have observed under that article, the holding an evil in our thoughts is one 
 step towards removing it, because they may suggest expedients which 
 did not presently occur, and because the strength of an idea, heightened by 
 our attention to it, urges us to a stronger exertion of our powers. There- 
 fore you find it commonly used as an argument to dissuade men from sor- 
 row. That it can do no good, and that the mischief is irremediable : which 
 shows the general opinion, that when men afflict themselves, they do it 
 under a delusive persuasion of receiving benefit thereby, and that if we can 
 get them out of this notion, they will rest contented. On the other hand, 
 we endeavour to increase their vexation at evils brought upon them by their 
 own misconduct, because there it may do service by withholding them from 
 committing the like for the future. And our aptness to vex ourselves 
 increases Hot a little by our intercourse with mankind : for complaint pro- 
 curing us the comfort and assistance of others, and our complaints rising in
 
 166 PASSIONS. 
 
 proportion to the pressure we feel, we get a habit of adding to that pressure, 
 in order to obtain the surer and readier relief. For which reason children 
 grow more fretful for being humoured, their fretfulness having proved a 
 means of getting their desires gratified. Thus the mind having found the 
 contemplation of evil, and the increasing her sensibility of its pressure ex- 
 pedient, desire, as is usual in the like cases, becomes translated to the means, 
 and her view terminates upon afflicting herself as much as possible, without 
 prospect of any further end to be attained thereby. When she has often 
 turned the spirits into this train, they will take it afterwards mechanically : 
 for 1 can admit the doctrine of Hartley's German friend, Stahl, with respect 
 to the mental organs, that motions in them which were voluntary at first 
 may grow to be automatic ; and when this is the case, they will pour in one 
 set of ideas forcibly, to the exclusion of all others. Therefore you see 
 people under great affliction tasteless of enjoyments they were fond of be- 
 fore, incapable of business, and unable to think of anything but the subject 
 of their grievance : nor can you extricate them from their distress, until by 
 some amusement, or engagement, or danger, or pain, you can turn their 
 spirits into another channel. Nor can it be doubted that there is an earnest- 
 ness of want in all heavy sorrow, a want to get rid of the uneasiness, how 
 improper means soever may be employed for that purpose, a want to undo 
 what has been done, and to alter past events, which being palpably impos- 
 sible, the mind works without any subject to work upon, and worries herself 
 with empty strugglings : but if anything flatters with the promise of a mo- 
 mentary relief, we see how strongly she exerts herself, as in cryings, excla- 
 mations, stampings, tearing the hair, and beating the breast, which draw 
 off her attention elsewhere for awhile, and'thereby suspend her uneasiness. 
 
 10. Though we always find Love and Hatred upon the list, I take them 
 to be not so much passions in themselves, as the aptness of certain objects 
 to excite passions in us : for a man may be said to love what he has not in 
 his thoughts, if we conceive him generally looking upon it with compla- 
 cence ; but he cannot be said to hope, or fear, or rejoice in a thing, whereof 
 there is no idea present before him. Besides, the beloved object may give 
 occasion to opposite and incompatible passions, without making an altemtion 
 in our love : which shows it to be something distinct from them, since it 
 can subsist entire under all their various forms without losing its essence. 
 Therefore I apprehend love to be a disposition of mind to receive pleasure 
 from certain things, which disposition nature never gave us, but we acquire 
 it by experience of what has been used to please us ; and the idea of this 
 effect being associated with that of the things themselves, the bare contem- 
 plation of them affords us delight. But as our pleasures are of very various 
 i kinds, so are the affections they generate : for the love of eating, of hunting, of 
 money, of power, of reputation, of virtue, of a mistress, a friend, a child, or 
 a wife, though all called by one common name of love, yet operate dif- 
 ferently, and form dispositions spreading into very different branches, how 
 much soever the roots may be similar. I shall not stay to examine all the 
 several kinds of love the human breast is capable of, but confine myself to 
 those which fasten upon our own species. 
 
 Under the helpless condition wherein we are born, we stand indebted to 
 the care of others for the continual supply of our wants, and the satisfac- 
 tion received in such supply communicates a portion of itself to our idea 
 of the person administering it ; therefore a child's first love is its nurse. 
 But this love is of an imperfect nature, being the same in kind with that we 
 entertain for things inanimate, which we consider only as instruments of
 
 PASSIONS. 1G7 
 
 our pleasure : for though the child will cry if you turn nurse out of the room, 
 it feels the same emotion if you take away its rattle. But after having a little 
 enlarged our acquaintance, and found that everybody will not, like nurse, 
 give us the same assiduous tendance upon all occasions, but are more or 
 less willing to oblige us, according as they are at ease in themselves, or as 
 we can oblige them, then are we ready to do and wish them pleasure, that 
 they may be the more ready to humour us. Yet this is not perfect love, 
 which will suffer no advantage of our own to stand immediately in view. 
 In further process of time, if we find our enjoyments arising chiefly from 
 the conversation or intercourse of one or a few persons, we practise the 
 like method of engaging them to serve us so frequently, until this end slips 
 out of view, and satisfaction, as we have before remarked in cases of trans- 
 lation, adheres immediately to the thought of doing them kindness. Then 
 it is that love becomes personal, and then arrives at its highest state of 
 refinement, wherein it may be defined the pleasure of pleasing : for I cannot 
 conceive a purer love than that which makes us feel a sensible delight in 
 gratifying another, and in every thing that happens conducive to his grati- 
 fication, without thought of any other benefit redounding therefrom to 
 ourselves, except that very delight. And this delight is of two sorts, 
 which may be distinguished into Love and Fondness ; the latter tends 
 barely to gratify, the other to gratify without doing a disservice, and even 
 to forbear a present compliance for the sake of a real advantage. 
 
 Thus the most resplendent love springs originally from our concern for 
 ourselses, and our own desires, like a rose growing from a dunghill : 
 wherefore Cupid, that is, Desire, was supposed the god of love, and 
 nothing nourishes it so much as reciprocal kindness, and a return of good 
 offices, or rather a ready compliance with our humours ; for we are more 
 inclined to love those who humour us, than those who do us good. But as 
 flowers retain no scent of the dirty ground from whence they sprung, so 
 genuine love, although increased by acts of kindness, carries always a 
 retrospect to those that are past, and does not look forward in expectance 
 of having them continued. But though the natural progress of love be 
 through expedience, yet our converse in society generally shortens the way, 
 for seeing other people love upon receiving good offices, we catch the like 
 disposition by sympathy from them, without needing to travel the usual 
 road. For sympathy takes a nearer compass to arrive at its end than 
 translation, and we sometimes contract a liking to things or persons merely 
 upon finding others fond of them, with no other inducement than the force 
 of example. For the same reason romances tend greatly to infuse that 
 whining love wherewith they abound, by keeping the mind continually 
 conversant in imagination among persons who talk and act with an amorous 
 extravagance. 
 
 1 1 . The strongest connexions of love are reckoned to be those of friend- 
 ship, of the sexes, and of parents towards their children. Friendship we 
 know proceeds from long intimacy, mutual interests, and similitude of 
 temper, which leads friends into the same courses of action, and methods 
 of diversion, whereby they continually assist in promoting their common 
 schemes, and enhancing their common pleasures, until each other's com- 
 pany becomes almost necessary. Nor is it hard to guess at the source of 
 that propensity between the sexes, which has been always assigned as the 
 peculiar province for Cupid to reign in, for he does not pretend to interfere 
 in the affairs of friendship, or parental fondness. The love lighted by 
 this desire too commonly burns with the grossest flame, and is rather of
 
 168 PASSIONS. 
 
 the instrumental kind than the personal; men looking upon the beloved 
 object as a means of gratifying their pleasures, rather than as amiable in 
 itself. Such love, when desire happens to abate, changes instantly into 
 aversion, as was the case of Amnon with respect to Tamar : and these 
 accidents happening oftener than were to be wished, gave occasion to that 
 severe remark of the poet, Two things in marriage happy are allowed, A 
 wife in wedding sheets and in a shroud. And though there may be for 
 the present a desire of pleasing, this is only a borrowed, not a translated 
 satisfaction, which we have observed in a former chapter rests for a while 
 upon means apprehended necessary for a further end we have in view. 
 Nor perhaps is there the true pleasure of pleasing until by cohabitation, by 
 communication of interests, and partnership in amusements of all kinds, by 
 those graceful acts, as Milton calls them, those thousand decencies that 
 daily flow from all her words and actions, mixt with love and sweet 
 compliance, which declare unfeigned union of mind, we have joined a 
 thorough friendship to love : or at least, unless the prospect of such inter- 
 course occupy the imagination as much as any other idea. If any one 
 would know whether he possesses the genuine pleasure of pleasing, let him 
 consider whether he could at any time forego his dearest pleasures, when 
 he perceives them hurtful, or unseasonable, or disgustful to the party 
 beloved : for if he could not, his passion is to please himself and not 
 another. Love has been usually esteemed productive of our greatest plea- 
 sures, and our greatest pains, and which sort of fruits it shall bring forth 
 depends greatly upon the object of our choice : if the disposition and qua- 
 lities of that be such as may add friendship to love, we shall reap a 
 plentiful crop of enjoyment ; if the contrary, it will yield continual vexation 
 and disappointment ; if neither, our life will become insipid and tedious. 
 
 Parental affection has been currently ascribed to instinct, and is the 
 only species of it that I remember ever supposed belonging to mankind : 
 but if there were a sense of instinct infused by nature, nobody need remain 
 in doubt concerning the genuineness of their offspring. Husbands would 
 have a sure and ready test to try the fidelity of their wives, for they need 
 only set their children in a circle before them, and by looking round upon 
 each, considering how powerfully instinct operates, they would feel an 
 emotion by which they might easily distinguish their own from those of 
 the gallant : but I never heard of a discovery made this way, therefore we 
 must seek for some other origin of this supposed instinct. I shall not 
 trouble myself to examine how it might arise in a state of nature, though 
 I think it might be accounted for there, without having recourse to a 
 secret impulse : but as we live in society, we see the care of parents so 
 universal, that we derive the like quality by sympathy from others ; the 
 notion of children being our own flesh and blood throws a part of our self- 
 love upon them ; we have in view, upon our entering into wedlock, the 
 prospect of amusements and comforts expected from them; and receive 
 congratulations from every quarter upon their birth. All these causes 
 make us look upon them as a valuable possession, and begin our concern 
 for them : therefore fathers who bring children into the world clandes- 
 tinely and unlawfully, wanting these sources, feel less tenderness for 
 them, and many times none at all. The regard we thus entertain at first 
 for our children, urges us continually to provide for their welfare and gra- 
 tification, and every exercise of our cares increases our affection : there- 
 fore we see people more afflicted for the loss of a child when grown up, 
 than of a new-born babe. For continual tendance alone, from whatever
 
 PASSIONS. 169 
 
 inducement first undertaken, suffices to create a habit of loving. How often 
 do nurses, though hired to the task, show as evident signs of instinct 
 towards their charge as the parents themselves ? and how many women 
 feel a kind of parental fondness for the birds, the puppies, and the kittens, 
 they have bred up. 
 
 12. It has been noted before, that anger sometimes vents itself upon inani- 
 mate beings, and imagination on other occasions personifies them, prompting 
 us to behave towards them as though they were capable of receiving 
 benefit or damage, pleasure or pain. We retain a kind of personal love for 
 the towns, the countries, the places which have been the scenes of our en- 
 joyment, after having been long removed from them, and never likely to 
 see them again : we still wish them well, rejoice to hear of their flourishing, 
 and if any calamity befalls them, express our sorrow by tender exclamations, 
 in the manner we should do upon losing a friend. 
 
 Love, peculiarly so called, must always centre in a single object, because 
 that thorough coincidence of interests, and participation of pleasures, neces- 
 sary to render it perfect, cannot obtain between more than two persons. 
 Friendship may take in a little larger compass, but can extend only to a few 
 chosen objects ; the friendships recorded in history have always run in 
 pairs, as between Theseus and Perithous, Orestes and Pylades, Scipio and 
 Lelius, Cicero and Atticus. Yet I do not see why there may not be a sin- 
 cere and hearty love, ardent enough to be reckoned a passion, between more 
 than one friend, as well as a parental fondness for several children, which 
 we know is often the case, and I can confirm upon my own experience : for 
 I have more than one, and had I twenty, if I know my own heart, I could 
 never see any signal good or evil befall any of them without feeling a strong 
 emotion of soul. But love in a gentler degree may diffuse itself to multitudes, 
 to the whole human species, to everything capable of being the better for 
 it. A good-natured man can relish the pleasure of pleasing ; whatever 
 subject shall afford him an opportunity of enjoying it, he will be ready to 
 oblige upon every occasion ; he rejoices in the enjoyments of others, and 
 makes their successes become his own : but this pleasure does not rise to a 
 passion, so as to render him uneasy whenever the means of gratifying it 
 are wanting. 
 
 13. Hatred derives in like manner from the contrary sources to those of 
 love, being produced by some hurt or displeasure received, or the appre- 
 hension of an aptness in certain objects to bring them upon us. It may 
 be catched by sympathy, as well as infused by translation, for we are often 
 drawn to detest merely by the strong expressions of abhorrence we see in 
 those we converse with. I can-not subscribe to the notion that men are 
 born enemies to one another, or that nature has given us any constitutional 
 aversions ; for I apprehend we are born with a total indifference to all things, 
 until experience teaches us to make a difference between one thing and an- 
 other, upon seeing the manner in which they affect us. Sometimes hatred 
 becomes personal, and then may be styled the pleasure of displeasing : un- 
 der this disposition men desire and wish hurt to their enemy as an ultimate 
 end, without any prospect of benefit, or effecting a security from danger 
 to themselves. Generally, when people have taken a violent distaste to one 
 or two persons, they behave with more than ordinary civility to the rest of 
 the world : but there are those in whom the pleasure of displeasing extends 
 to all mankind ; they take delight in crossing and vexing, and rejoice at 
 the sight of mischief or disappointment, on what quarter soever it shall ap- 
 pear. On the contrary, there are other tempers to whom nothing is so
 
 170 PASSIONS. 
 
 hateful as hatred itself, therefore they never give it admittance, or at least 
 do not suffer it to become personal : and though the sight of detestable 
 qualities has an aptitude to transfer an odium upon the possessor, yet they 
 find means to separate the offender from the offence, and can do him all 
 kind of good offices consistent with the general good, or a necessary regard 
 to their own lawful interests. We have shown before in the proper place 
 how translation arises from the narrowness of our imagination, which when 
 any purpose requires a number of steps to complete it, cannot retain the 
 whole line in view, and as it loses sight of the further parts, desire rests 
 upon those remaining ; therefore the proneness to animosities argues a nar- 
 row mind, which having found the doing hurt to others sometimes expe- 
 dient, forgets that expedience, and confines its views to the means which 
 that had rendered desirable. But whoever possesses a large and open under- 
 standing, if the giving displeasure appears at any time necessary, will hold 
 that necessity in view, which draws his aversion aside from the person, 
 and carries it forward to those mischiefs which cannot be prevented, with- 
 out giving such displeasure. 
 
 14. Despair, envy, jealousy, contempt, vexation, peevishness, astonish- 
 ment, and the like, are not distinct passions, but branches or mixtures of 
 those already described, and therefore need no further notice. But there 
 is one situation of mind, causing great emotions both in her and the body, 
 that deserves particular consideration, as having been of late much recom- 
 mended for uses whereto it seems not properly applicable : which is, that 
 species of joy called Mirth, expressing itself frequently in laughter. This 
 has been commonly held by our moderns to arise from contempt, upon a 
 comparison of ourselves with something apprehended greatly our inferior. 
 I shall not urge that we make ourselves merry with compositions of mere 
 matter, which cannot come into competition with any supposed excellencies 
 of our own : because I know very well, and have observed just now, that 
 imagination often personifies things inanimate, conceiving them at first 
 glance as possessing the qualities and sentiments of men, or as representa- 
 tions of the human affections, or as evidences of blunders in the contrivers 
 of them. But if we consult experience for instances of contempt and 
 laughter, we shall find either of them often appearing without the other. 
 If a man, going to take up something shining upon the ground, discovers it 
 to be a pin, if upon being offered a bribe he rejects it with scorn, if he sees 
 a child endeavour to stop his passage, will he burst into laughter upon the 
 occas-ion ? Contempt and scorn are gloomy situations of mind, and the 
 proud who deal most largely in them are the most solemn and stateliest of 
 mortals : besides that a despicable object contemplated ever so long will 
 appear equally so, but a diverting one cannot keep up your merriment for 
 ever. On the other hand, your merry giggling people love best to consort 
 among their equals, to put themselves upon a par with the company, and are 
 less supercilious or disposed to draw comparisons between themselves and 
 others. The sudden appearance of an intimate friend spreads a smile over 
 the countenance : the sight of an exquisite dainty, the unexpected offer of 
 an advantageous scheme, sets the voluptuous, the covetous, and the ambi- 
 tious a chuckling, and would produce a downright laughter, if men had not 
 been habituated to restrain themselves by the rules of decorum : but the si- 
 tuation of mind they then stand in seems the farthest imaginable from a 
 state of contempt. Success of all kinds, if it does not immediately shake 
 the sides, yet renders us more susceptible of mirth upon any little trifling 
 occasion happening to excite it. Who are so easily set a laughing as young
 
 PASSIONS. 171 
 
 children ? but what idea of superiority can they be supposed to have ? 
 They laugh before they are capable of casting back a reflection upon their 
 own qualifications, much less of comparing them with those of other people. 
 They laugh upon the sight of nurse or mamma : begin, little child, says 
 Virgil, to show you know your mamma by your smiles : but if they make 
 any comparisons, they must consider nurse and mamma as their superiors 
 and governors. That exultation the mind feels upon an opinion of superio- 
 rity is a very translated satisfaction derived through many stages : she must 
 have learned the tendency of things to gratify her desires, the propensity of 
 other people to get them away for ministering to their own, the contest en- 
 suing upon such occasions, the advantage of greater powers towards 
 obtaining victory, and the reflection of possessing such advantages as of an 
 immediate good ; by all which gradations satisfaction must have been trans- 
 ferred to the thought of superiority ; a process too long to be gone through 
 in the first stages of life, wherein the proneness to laughter appears evident. 
 15. Mirth I conceive occasioned by a sudden influx of spirits generally, 
 if not always, turned from some other channel, to which they have been 
 drawn by an earnest attention : and therefore perhaps it is that to make 
 merry is called to divert, as being a diversion of the spirits out of the 
 course they have been strongly thrown into before. For that attention 
 gathers a considerable fund of them appears manifest from the fatigue and 
 wasting it brings on if continued long, and when some pleasurable idea 
 opens the sluices at once, it lets in so large a flood that reflection cannot 
 employ them at all, having no other business for them than to contemplate 
 that idea, and the superfluity overflows upon the muscles causing the con- 
 vulsions of laughter. Thus there seems to be three causes concurring to 
 excite laughter when not produced mechanically, as by tickling, by fits of 
 hysterics, or the like : viz. a stretch of attention loosened at once, the 
 suddenness of such relaxation, and want of employment for the spirits so 
 discharged upon the mind. Wit consists in allusion, and is commonly said 
 to carry two faces ; that on the grave side engages your attention, which 
 upon turning the other instantly lets go its hold : the most diverting 
 humour is that which raises your expectation of something very serious, 
 and then upon breaking the jest cuts it short with an issue very different 
 from what you expected. Nor yet is it always necessary there should be a 
 long preparation to introduce a joke, imagination being extremely agile and 
 quick in her motions can fix a strong attention upon one object, and turn 
 it olf upon another in a moment : therefore a short expression, a single 
 gesture, an arch look, a comical figure, will suffice to create mirth. We 
 learn from Mr. Locke that wit lies in putting ideas together, wherein can 
 be found any resemblance or congruity ; to which I may add by way of 
 comment, that the resemblance must be pointed out between things usually 
 esteemed the most discordant, and which contemplated separately would 
 lead the mind into the most opposite trains of thinking : for the quick 
 transition of thought or fluctuation between such distant ideas is what 
 causes your merriment. And the like changeable situation of mind occa- 
 sions our laughter at the follies and blunders we see committed : for every 
 blunder implies a deliberate endeavour to attain some purpose by means not 
 conducive thereto, and the sight or thought of earnestness and expectation, 
 in the persons so labouring, fills our own imagination by sympathy with 
 the like ideas, which are immediately dissipated upon the reflection of their 
 being ineffectual and nugatory. But I have said the relaxation must be 
 sudden, and the employment wanting for the spirits let loose thereby :
 
 172 PASSIONS. 
 
 therefore if the reiator of a merry story manages so ill that you see before- 
 hand how it will end, you lose half your pleasure. For the same reason, 
 a story often repeated becomes insipid, and a jest may be worn threadbare : 
 because when you know what is coming, attention cannot run into another 
 channel from whence it might be suddenly diverted. Nor will all kinds of 
 joyful ideas, how unexpected soever, provoke us to laughter : the news of 
 an estate or some extraordinary success befalling us, leads in a train of 
 advantages and pleasures attendant thereupon, which fill imagination with 
 a variety of ideas, and find abundant employment for thought, so there is 
 no redundancy of spirits to run over upon the risible nerves : but a jest 
 presents one pleasurable idea without further consequences, which occupies 
 the mind alone, and requires no pains to retain it, or keep out other ideas, 
 but leaves the spirits at liberty to rush into whatever quarter their own 
 impulse shall carry them. 
 
 16. If laughter sometimes accompanies a thought of superiority, it is 
 owing to that vanity which too often teaches men a habit of exulting at the 
 sight of folly or infirmity ; for the vain having an immoderate fondness for 
 pre-eminence, without either abilities or application to raise themselves 
 above the common level, feel a sudden joy on beholding anything below it. 
 And this aptness to mirth upon such occasions, whatever they may think of 
 it, redounds very little to their honour, as implying a secret consciousness 
 of wanting merit in themselves ; for it shows that instances of their supe- 
 riority come seldom and unexpected, carrying something of novelty and 
 surprise, without which they could not instigate to laughter. A good- 
 natured man can smile at indiscretions, without casting back reflections 
 upon himself ; and whenever such reflection does occur, I believe it is most 
 commonly an after thought, not so often the cause of mirth as the conse- 
 quence : vanity running on to a comparison of our own supposed perfections, 
 which must rather abate the emotion than increase it, by finding other 
 employ for the spirits : and we find, in fact, that it does make such abate- 
 ment ; every one sees the difference between a hearty laugh of real joy, and 
 a scornful sneer, or a grin, expressing a claim to superiority ; the laugh of 
 contempt is a forced laugh, showing signs of gladness in the countenance, 
 but not making the heart merry, and encouraged not so much to please 
 ourselves as to vex another. 
 
 Contempt being so apt to show itself in derision, hence the making a 
 thing appear despicable and silly, has been called rendering it ridiculous. 
 But ridiculous, although derived from the Latin word standing for laughter, 
 does not always imply a quality of exciting even that affected laugh which 
 is the expression of contempt : you shall see men with a very grave counte- 
 nance go about to demonstrate the ridiculousness of a thing without ever 
 raising mirth in themselves, or expecting to raise it in others : therefore 
 ridiculous is not synonymous with comical or diverting, but rather coincides 
 with absurd or foolish, and tends more to provoke vour spleen than your 
 laughter. 
 
 17. Upon this view of the nature and essence of wit and ridicule, it 
 seems surprising to hear them recommended as methods proper for the 
 discovery of truth, and offered as the surest test and touchstone to try the 
 soundness of an opinion : for they tend to alarm the passions, they fill the 
 mind with one single idea, barring her attention against all others, and 
 produce their effects by their manner of placing objects, one setting them 
 in a diverting, and the other in an offensive light. Whereas reason requires 
 a calm and dispassionate situation of mind to form her judgments aright :
 
 PASSIONS. 173 
 
 she wants the whole attention to look round upon every circumstance, and 
 places her objects in all the lights wherein they are capable of standing. 
 But the most surprising thing is to find the greatest stress laid upon jest 
 and derision by those who make the loudest pretences to freedom of 
 thought : for liberty consists in a thorough exemption from all influence 
 and constraint whatsoever, which may as well be thrown upon us by the 
 allurements of wit and stings of ridicule, as by any other impulse : for 
 they cast a prejudice upon the mind, that cramps and confines it within the 
 narrow point of view they hold their objects in ; and he that lies liable to 
 be laughed out of his sentiments, is no more master of his thoughts than 
 if he were driven by the force of authority or example. 
 
 It has been alleged, in support of these methods of arguing, that dis- 
 putants of all kinds are observed to employ them, if they have talents that 
 way, and fit opportunities offer for exerting them. But I desire it may be 
 remembered, there are two sorts of argumentation, one by way of rhetoric, 
 and the other by that of logic : the former addresses the imagination, aims 
 at working a persuasion there, and endeavours to interest the passions : 
 the latter appeals directly to the understanding, proposes only conviction, 
 rejects all kind of artifice. Therefore, when we have fully satisfied our- 
 selves of any matter upon a full and fair examination, and are only to per- 
 suade others who will not hear reason, being hindered by some prejudice 
 or passion, it is allowable to use any contrivances likely to remove those 
 obstacles : but when the business is to inquire into some doubtful point, 
 and such are all to be esteemed during a debate with any sincere and judi- 
 cious antagonist, none of the arts of persuasion ought to find admittance. 
 I can allow jest and taunt to be useful engines of oratory, but can by no 
 means think them proper instruments for reason to work with : nor do we 
 ever find them employed in the sciences, where understanding alone is 
 concerned. Where is there purer, closer, or clearer reasoning than in the 
 mathematics? but what room do they afford for merriment? Whoever 
 demonstrated a problem in Euclid by ridicule ? or where will you find a 
 joke in Sir Isaac Newton's Principia ? The five mechanical powers, the 
 properties of fluids, the courses of the planets, were not discovered nor 
 explained by sallies of humour and raillery : and though the cycles and 
 epicycles of the ancients are now become ridiculous by being grown out of 
 fashion, they were first overthrown by serious argumentation from the 
 phenomena of nature. Divination, astrology, magic, and the philosopher's 
 stone, afford an ample field for humour and raillery ; yet I believe no man 
 who held them upon principle was ever beat out of his notions by those 
 weapons, without some solid argument convincing to his understanding. 
 
 1 8. Violence and turbulence constitute the essence of passion : the same 
 emotions of soul, when too gentle to deserve that name, are styled Affec- 
 tions. It is not easy to ascertain the precise limits between passion and 
 affection, the difference lying only in degree, nor indeed are they always 
 accurately distinguished, either in discourse or writing ; but, strictly speak- 
 ing, passion is that which causes perturbation and disorder of spirits, 
 throwing its own set of ideas forcibly upon the mind, and not leaving hei 
 master of her own motions ; a situation very dangerous, as laying us Opep 
 to every mischief, while the exercise of understanding, by which alone we 
 might help ourselves, remains suspended. Therefore, passion may be styled 
 the fever of the mind, which disturbs and weakens, and cannot continue 
 long, or return often, without pernicious consequences : but affection, like 
 the steady beating of the pulse, actuates and invigorates, and keeps the
 
 174 PASSIONS. 
 
 mind continually alive. For we are every moment, while awake, pursuing 
 or avoiding something or other ; and indeed it is necessary we should be 
 so, for were it possible to remain totally unaffected and unconcerned with 
 anything, there would be no business for volition to do, but we must lie like 
 logs, to receive whatever chance should throw upon us. It is our affec- 
 tions that lay the foundation of prudence, by prompting us to look forward 
 to the future, that multiply our enjoyments beyond those of sensation or 
 appetite, and find work for understanding by suggesting objects to contrive 
 and provide for. Nor are any of them unserviceable, if properly directed, 
 and kept within due moderation : cheerfulness preserves health, and renders 
 the common scenes of life pleasurable : hope was esteemed of old, as we 
 learn from the fable of Pandora's box, a salve to assuage the smart of all 
 evils, and supplies the place of enjoyments when we have none actually in 
 our power : caution helps to preserve the good things we have, and secure 
 us against dangers : sensibility of the difference between good and bad 
 usage urges us to apply the proper means for preventing injuries : decency . 
 keeps the world in order, nor could society or good manners subsist with- 
 out it : reflection on cross accidents teaches us to provide against the like 
 for the future : good nature and obligingness double our pleasures by mak- 
 ing those of other people our own, and are the channels through which the 
 benefits of society are chiefly conveyed : dislike to things or persons ob- 
 noxious secures us against catching contagion, or receiving mischief from 
 them : desire, if not boisterous, furnishes us with constant employment, 
 and gives a glee to everything we undertake : and want, not rising to im- 
 patience, spurs us up to industry and vigilance, and holds us steady in 
 pursuit of useful aims not presently attainable. 
 
 19. I said at the end of the last chapter, that the passions were only a 
 stronger sort of habits acquired early in our childhood : from whence of 
 course it follows, that habits must be feebler passions learned later, when 
 the organs being grown tough, become less susceptible of new forms, but 
 having once taken them, are less easy to be thrown out of them again. 
 The force of passion seems to proceed from the wideness of the channels, 
 and that vigorous pulsation wherewith they drive on the spirits contained 
 in them : that of habit from the stiffness of their coats, which will not rea- 
 dily close, so as to turn the spirits from their accustomed track. Therefore 
 passion does -its work by vehemence and impetuosity, bearing down all 
 opposition ; it can only be mastered by a strong resolution, and that not 
 without difficulty ; but if you can stop the torrent it leaves you quiet. But 
 habit prevails by perseverance and importunity ; it does not bear you down 
 by force, but steals upon you imperceptibly, or teazes and tires you into a 
 compliance ; it is easily restrained at any time wit-h a little attention, but 
 the moment you take off your eye it recoils again, and when grown inve- 
 terate, is extremely difficult to be totally eradicated. Our little motives 
 are mostly introduced and the manner of our proceeding shaped by habit : 
 it is that gives us dexterity and readiness in everything we do, and ren- 
 ders our thoughts and motions easy. We see how awkward and trouble- 
 some it is to consort with company, or pursue a metbod of conduct, or 
 perform any work very different from what we have been used to. The 
 tenor of our lives, and success of our endeavours, depends more upon habit 
 than judgment : for what avails the knowing what is proper to be done, 
 without an expertness and readiness to compass it ? wherefore we cannot 
 employ our understanding better than by inuring ourselves to such ways and 
 practices as may prove beneficial, and carefully guarding against any others
 
 PLEASURE. 175 
 
 encroaching upon us : for it understanding can gain over habit to her ser- 
 vice, it will do her work more completely, and effectually, and pleasantly 
 than she could herself. Passion grows feeble with age, but habit gathers 
 strength : old people can relinquish any fancy that comes into their heads, 
 without much trouble, but none are harder to be put out of their ways ; 
 and in those few desires they have remaining, they show less of the eagerness 
 of passion than the stubbornness of habit. But we take notice of their at- 
 tachments to money, to command, and some other objects, and style them 
 passions because they are few, and engross their whole attention for want 
 of a competitor, not because of any violence, or impetuosity we discern in 
 them. But as passion, affection, and habit, must have some matter to 
 work upon, and the subjects giving rise to them or recommended by them 
 to our pursuit are infinitely various, it would be endless and perplexing to 
 particularize them all : therefore I shall attempt to reduce them under a 
 few general heads, and can think of none more proper than those four 
 classes into which I had before proposed to distinguish our motives of action. 
 
 CHAP. XXII. 
 
 PLEASURE. 
 
 To Pleasure I might have joined Pain or Trouble, in the title of this chap- 
 ter, but they being each of them respectively a species of satisfaction or 
 uneasiness, may be treated of in the same manner, that is, both under the 
 former. For as the one by repelling actuates us to almost the same mo- 
 tions as the other by attracting, what I shall observe concerning pleasure 
 will serve equally for its reverse, unless where some particular occasion may 
 require them to be considered distinctly. 
 
 Pleasure, like other satisfactions, when taken as a motive, must not be 
 understood of the actual possession, but the prospect or idea of it : for mo- 
 tives do not prompt us to what we have already, which were needless, but 
 to attain something we have not, or to preserve the continuance of some- 
 thing that would otherwise slip away from us. Yet as that idea rises from 
 experience of the manner wherein things have affected us, we can only 
 get acquainted with this species of motives by examining from what sources 
 we derive our pleasures. 
 
 Nature gives us at first none other pleasures besides those of sensation 
 and appetite, among which may be reckoned that soothing feel accompa- 
 nying the free circulation of our blood and humours when in health and 
 vigour, or the easy flow of spirits along the mental organs, when in con- 
 templation or pursuit of anything engaging our attention : and in these in- 
 ternal sensations perhaps may consist all the pleasures of imagination and 
 reflection which we feel in seasons of joy, or hope, or desire, or other agree- 
 able situations of mind. But however this be, certain it is that in process 
 of time, when reflection has learnt its play, it supplies us with a consider- 
 able fund of entertainment ; the pleasures of reading, of meditation, of con- 
 versation, of diversions, of advancement in knowledge, honour, or fortune, 
 belong to the reflection rather than the senses, therefore are styled mental, 
 as- the others are bodily pleasures. And the former furnish much the greater 
 share of our enjoyments in our riper years : for if any man will reflect on a 
 day agreeably spent, he will find much less of it taken up in mere sensa-
 
 176 PLEASURE. 
 
 tion than in some pursuit or variety of amusement that engaged his atten- 
 tion. Thus our pleasures, how much soever afterwards multiplied, take 
 their rise from sensation alone, all others being derivative or translated 
 from that original. To instance only in acquisitions of knowledge, which 
 is commonly held sweet to the mind by the very frame of her constitution : 
 but if it were so, every accession of knowledge would engage everybody 
 alike, whereas in fact we find the contrary. What would the mathemati- 
 cian give to know the newest fashions as they start into vogue, or be let 
 into all the scandal and tittle tattle of the town ? Or what cares the beau 
 for discoveries in astronomy, or explanations of attraction, repulsion, or other 
 secrets of nature ? Though we all have our curiosity to a considerable de- 
 gree, yet it leads us by various tracks to objects that we have found contri- 
 buting most to our entertainment : not that we have always anything further 
 in view than to gratify our present curiosity ; but it is the usual course of 
 translation to confer a quality of pleasing upon whatever has often admi- 
 nistered to our other gratifications. The most refined pleasures are those 
 that have passed through the greatest number of translations, and therefore 
 stand furthest removed from sense : but before we depend upon them for 
 our enjoyments, we ought to be well assured of our having a real relish for 
 them ; for men often deceive themselves in this point, affecting a fondness 
 for refinements they have not ; from a secret motive of vanity which in- 
 duces them to believe themselves possessed of anything they think will 
 give them credit and reputation. 
 
 2. Our pleasures, as well those of the gross as the refined kind, depend 
 upon the constitution and disposition of our machine ; some can bear hot 
 weather best, others cold; health and sickness, vigour and weariness, ren- 
 der the same sensations and exercises delightful or irksome. In like man- 
 ner, the gust of mental amusements varies according to the cast our 
 imagination has been thrown into by education, or custom, or habit, accord- 
 ing to the humour we happen to be in, to various accidents or circumstances 
 befalling us, or to the satiety or novelty we find in them. 
 
 This variety of disposition in mankind to receive pleasure from different 
 objects is called Taste, because like the palate it enables us to distinguish the 
 relish of things, and to discern which of them are savory, insipid, or dis- 
 gustful. Taste is usually confounded with judgment, of which it is rather the 
 basis than the thing itself : for taste properly denotes a sensibility of delight in 
 certain objects, and therefore having experienced what has pleased us, we 
 learn to judge what will please others or ourselves another time. Nature 
 may have laid the foundation of taste, but the superstructure is raised by 
 instruction, or conversation, or observation ; for we never find it in chil- 
 dren, and very rarely among persons confined to the common laborious oc- 
 cupations of life. Not but that all men have their sources of amusement, 
 and therefore in this sense your mechanics and ploughmen may be said to 
 have a taste for bull-baiting, foot-ball, the finery of a Lord Mayor's show, 
 or diversions of a country fair : but taste is most usually applied to those 
 relishes given by the perfection of art, or good company, or an uncommon 
 sensibility of imagination. Yet we sometimes take it in a larger sense, as 
 when we distinguish between a gross and a refined, a vulgar and an elegant, 
 a false and a true taste : the latter being such as enables us to receive more 
 exquisite or more durable pleasures from things, or in greater variety, or as 
 Horace calls it, more sincere, that is, unalloyed with any disagreeable mix- 
 ture. But there be an over squeamishness and nicety of taste, which renders 
 the imagination too delicate, and liable to disgust from the common objects
 
 PLEASURE. 177 
 
 continually surrounding it, like a very tender skin, that cannot bear the 
 least drop of rain, or breath of air, without suffering, and is rather to be 
 esteemed a weakness than a perfection. Therefore goodness of taste seems 
 to be relative, that which is suitable to one man being not so to another : 
 what good would a fine taste for opera music do him who could not afford 
 to go to it ? or of what service would a taste for poetry, rhetoric, or ele- 
 gance, be to a missionary, who must spend his time among savages ? I con- 
 ceive the best, if not the truest taste, is that which gives a man the 
 strongest and fullest relish of objects and employments lying within his 
 power and suited to his situation and circumstances in life. But if one could 
 cast imagination into any mould one pleases with a wish, I would make the 
 same distinction here as I have done before between desire and want, 
 and would wish to have a taste for the finest productions of art, without 
 any distaste of those that fall greatly inferior : for by this means I should 
 have a chance of being sometimes exquisitely pleased, but run no hazard 
 of being ever disgusted. 
 
 3. What is called genius I imagine proceeds chiefly from the turn imagi- 
 nation has taken early in our youth : we do not discern when it begins, and 
 therefore ascribe it to nature ; but though nature may have given each of 
 us quicker and stronger, or duller and weaker parts, or made some of our 
 organs more lithesome and sensible than others, yet their aptness to run into 
 this or that particular course of exercise depends upon some accident or 
 lucky hit, or the company we converse with. Mr. Waller supposes, that 
 Great Julius, in the mountains bred, Perhaps some flock or herd had led : 
 The world's sole ruler then had been But the best wrestler on the green. 
 'Tis art and knowledge which draw forth the hidden seeds of native worth. 
 A book falling into a boy's hands, an adventure related, or performance he 
 sees, that happens to strike his fancy, the conversation of a servant or a 
 companion, may lead his imagination into particular trains of thinking, 
 which thenceforward become easy to him, and he cannot strike into others 
 of a different kind without trouble and uneasiness. If example had not at 
 least as great a share as nature in the formation of genius, why should we 
 see different ages and countries produce their several sorts of it peculiar to 
 themselves ? and why should men ingenious in any particular way generally 
 arise together in clusters ? for we cannot suppose the time when, or place 
 where they are born, should make such a difference in their constitutions. 
 
 4. Beauty is a species of taste : it may be defined an aptness of things 
 to please immediately upon sight ; for if they please from a view of some- 
 thing else introduced by them, they are not beautiful, but useful or valuable. 
 But this aptness to please is a relative term, not solely a quality residing in 
 objects, but depending equally upon the cast of our imagination : as the 
 aptness of a shoe depends no less upon the shape of your foot than upon its 
 own make , for that which sets perfectly easy upon one man may pinch 
 another, or may become uneasy by your foot being swoln. We find the 
 taste of beauty infinitely various and variable, the same thing appearing 
 charming to one person, indifferent to another, and disgustful to a third ; 
 admired or neglected in the several stages of our lives ; courted or nauseated 
 at different seasons, according to the disposition of body, or humour of mind, 
 we happen to be in. Therefore nothing is beautiful in itself ; those things 
 bid fairest for the title that are adapted to please the generality of mankind : 
 for as the features of all men have a resemblance in some respects, how 
 much soever they may vary in others, so it is with the trains of our imagi- 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 PLEASURE. 
 
 nation. Our frame, our constitution, as well internal as external, our em- 
 ployments in life, our wants, our enjoyments, are in a great measure the 
 same, and our daily intercourse with one another increases the similitude : 
 therefore it is no wonder that some objects are generally beheld in the same 
 light, and appear agreeable to every one. Hence it is we can pass a judg- 
 ment on beauty, even when not affected by it : for having observed what 
 usually pleases, we get a standard wherewith to compare any object we be- 
 hold, and if it agrees with that, we pronounce it beautiful, though through 
 some particularity of our own it does not hit our fancy. 
 
 One cannot easily discover that little children have any notion of beauty 
 at all : they will turn away from the sight of a celebrated toast, with all her 
 tackle trim and bravely on, to hide their faces in the flabby bosom of an old 
 wrinkled nurse : nor do they feel anything of those charms which, as Horace 
 expresses it, inspire desires, and steal a man away from himself. We find 
 the first notions they get of prettiness very different from those of their 
 maturer years. Gewgaws, tinsel, high colouring coarsely laid on, ill-shapen 
 playthings, and figures carrying scarce a half resemblance of their originals, 
 delight them. And though their fancy improves as they grow up, yet they 
 scarce ever gain a relish for the finest performances of art, or works of 
 nature, until taught by care, or led into it by example. 
 
 5. Thus our sense of beauty was not born with us, but grows by time, 
 and may be moulded into almost any shape by custom, conversation, or ac- 
 cident. There seem to be four principal sources from whence the efficacy 
 of beauty derives ; composition, succession, translation, and expression. 
 The materials of a fine building do not entertain the eye until disposed in 
 their proper places : and a parcel of colours unstriking of themselves may 
 hit the fancy upon being curiously assorted and interspersed together. 
 Symmetry, proportion, and order, contribute greatly to the good look of 
 things : but we have already shown, in CHAP. X., that they consist in the 
 correspondence of objects with the trains of our imagination, and the mind 
 must have learned to run the proper lines of separation before she can dis- 
 cern anything of order or proportion. Order enables us to take in a larger 
 view of the scene before us, presenting a more complex idea, consisting not 
 only of the objects themselves, but of their situations, connections, and rela- 
 tions, with respect to one another. In deformed things there is commonly 
 one or two remarkable parts at which the eye sticks. A lump of lead is 
 neither handsome nor ugly, because as there is no composition, so neither 
 is there a want of any, but may become either, according to the mould 
 wherein it is formed ; when cast into an ill shape, the continuity of parts 
 leads the eye to expect a composition of which it is frustrated. 
 
 6. Succession is another spring of beauty ; for as some motions, as in 
 riding, walking, bowling, and the like, which are pleasing at first, become 
 indifferent, and then irksome by long exercise, so it is with our ideas of 
 sensation and reflection, and in a much quicker transition ; many that 
 were striking at first soon grow insipid, and afterwards troublesome ; 
 wherefore to prevent cloying, there must be a variety of objects succeeding 
 each other to keep up the play. Order, symmetry, and proportion, furnish 
 great store of variety without multiplying the subjects whereon it is thrown : 
 in the materials of a fine building, you see there is stone, there is mortar, 
 there is timber, with a few other particulars, and that not without atten- 
 tion and labour ; but when skilfully put together, they present a multitude 
 of assemblages readily occurring to the reflection. In the scenes before us, 
 the notice, as has been formerly observed, changes continually to different
 
 PLEASURE. 179 
 
 sets of objects, or contemplates them in various lights, the reflections 
 shifting while the sensations remain the same. Hence in a masterly per- 
 formance, whether you consider the whole, or the principal members, or parts 
 of those members, or move the eye from one to another, there is always 
 something of composition or comparison presented, which perpetually 
 supplies a fund of fresh entertainment. But mere novelty does not delight 
 of itself, unless there be an aptness in the imagination to take impressions 
 of what it exhibits : for as a man would find it extremely uneasy to walk 
 backwards, being an unusual motion, so the mind feels an awkwardness and 
 irksomeness in receiving assemblages entirely different from any she has 
 been accustomed to. A rustic, bred up among wilds and forests, being 
 brought into a fine garden, would see more confusion than ornament there, 
 and though you were to point out the disposition of the whole, and corres- 
 pondence of the parts, you would not make him so sensible of them as to 
 be affected therewith. Our pleasures are generally the greater for being 
 preceded by pains, or set in comparison with them, and so are our lesser 
 amusements of sight and imagination : therefore an agreeable object is 
 rendered more so by having a foil, and a proper contrast of lights and 
 shades embellishes a picture ; for the notice passes to and fro successively, 
 between the opposite branches of the comparison. 
 
 7. A third source of beauty is translation : whatever has been the occa- 
 sion of much or frequent delights becomes agreeable in our eye, satisfaction 
 being transferred from the effects to the cause. A person that has delivered 
 us out of some great distress, or helped us in a matter we had strongly at 
 heart, or gratified our desires in many instances, appears the handsomer for 
 it ever afterwards : while the sight of him only introduces a reflection of 
 the good he has done us, there is no alteration in his features, but by de- 
 grees the intermediate links of the chain drop off, the pleasure at the end 
 becomes immediately connected with the person, and then it is that his 
 beauty begins : which is often so closely united with his appearance, that 
 we shall like another person the better for resembling him. Thus though 
 Cupid be usually styled the son of Venus, we may say there is another of 
 the name, who is the son of Pleasure, and many times begets a little 
 Venus ; for the love we entertain for things upon account of the grati- 
 fications received from, them, gives them charms in our eyes they had 
 not before. Wherefore lovers think their mistresses, and parents their 
 children, handsomer than others do, because having found continual enter- 
 tainment in their company, they are accustomed to behold them with 
 delight. So likewise women conceive an advantageous opinion of the 
 favourite animals under their care, because the satisfaction and amusement 
 they have found in a constant tendency upon them becomes transferred to 
 the creatures themselves. And we see charms that other folks cannot 
 discern, in a place where we have spent our time very agreeably, or found 
 conveniences wanting elsewhere ; whence the saying, that home is home 
 be it never so homely. 
 
 8. The fourth and most plentiful source of beauty is expression. The 
 knowledge of this discloses the secret of that commanding majesty, that 
 winning softness, and other graces of the countenance : for the face being 
 a picture of the mind, whatever amiable qualites are discerned there give a 
 lustre to the features denoting them. Good nature, health, sprightliness, 
 and sense, enable and dispose men to give pleasure to others, therefore the 
 marks of them are pleasant to behold. The force of sympathy has a great 
 
 N 2
 
 1 80 PLEASURE. 
 
 influence here, for whatever bespeaks ease, satisfaction, and enjoyment in 
 the mind of the possessor, throws that of the beholder into the like agree- 
 able situation : therefore in our description of beauty we commonly employ 
 epithets belonging to the sentiments, as a cheerful, an innocent, a smart, 
 an honest, or a sensible countenance. But the language of the eyes and 
 face requires time to be perfectly understood : some turns of feature seem 
 expressive at first, but are afterwards discovered to have no meaning ; in 
 others we find a significancy, upon better acquaintance, that did not show 
 itself before. Therefore some beauties striking immediately upon sight, 
 quickly fade away, and cloy ; others make no strong impression, but steal 
 upon the heart insensibly by imperceptible degrees. Beauty has the 
 strongest influence upon those of the opposite sex : women are imperfect 
 judges of one another's persons, because they are not affected by them ; 
 they judge by rules, not by what they feel. Though there be one original 
 cause of desire between the two sexes, many subordinate desires of con- 
 versation, or other intercourse, branch out from thence, which have not a 
 visible connection with the principal root, and therefore may consist with 
 the purest modesty : now an object expressing all the requisites for grati- 
 fication, even of those lesser desires, without any obstruction, abatement, 
 or disappointment, is alluring to the sight. And a long intercourse of en- 
 dearments, and good offices of all kinds, may increase the expression so 
 far as to render the party exhibiting it the most agreeable object one can 
 behold, styled in the language of mankind above two thousand years ago, 
 by way of eminence, the desire of the eyes. Many works of art are 
 esteemed pretty, merely from their expressing a likeness with the works of 
 nature : in artificial figures of men, birds, beasts, insects, trees, or flowers, 
 the eye expects no more than an exact resemblance of the things they repre- 
 sent : wherefore there may be a beautiful copy of an ugly original. The 
 famous statue of Laocoon is admired, though Laocoon himself would be 
 shocking to the beholder : we admit pictures of satyrs, witches, old men 
 with hard rugged features and grisly beards, to hang as ornaments in our 
 chambers, where the real originals would be deemed an eyesore. 
 
 9. Beauty of action and sentiment seem to derive wholly from translation, 
 for the good nature, complacence, innocence, cheerfulness, patience, and 
 considerateness of others, so continually promote our advantage, ease, and 
 enjoyment, in the commerce of life, that the pleasure felt in these effects is 
 transferred to the qualities producing them, which thenceforward become 
 engaging in themselves, so that we cannot help admiring them in persons 
 at the greatest distance of place or time, from whom we can reap no possi- 
 ble benefit. But that we cannot help being thus moved no more proves 
 us born with such affection, than that you cannot help understanding a 
 reproach cast upon you proves you were born with a knowledge of language. 
 But it has been usual to style acquisitions natural that we were led into by 
 custom and experience, without any care or instruction to convey them, for 
 we are said to speak our mother tongue naturally ; and in this construction 
 only we may admit our sense of the amiableness of good qualities to be 
 natural. 
 
 From all that has been said above, it appears how little foundation there 
 is for Plato's notion of an essential beauty existing independently of any 
 subject whereto it might belong, and as that was superadded to particular 
 substances it rendered them beautiful. For not to insist upon the incon- 
 ceivableness of a quality existing without any subject to possess it, or of 
 there being beauty before there was anything beautiful, we have found that
 
 PLEASURE. 181 
 
 objects, however qualified, please us or not, according to the disposition of 
 our organs, translation, or resemblance casting a lustre upon what had it 
 not before ; and that the same thing appears agreeable, or indifferent, or 
 loathsome in the eyes of different beholders : which, if it depended solely 
 upon the qualities of the object, then the opposite qualities of beauty and 
 deformity must reside at once in the same subject. 
 
 10. Among our distastes, there is none so visibly dependent upon ima- 
 gination as that of nastiness : a filthy word, a nauseous comparison, a mere 
 fancy of having touched something loathsome, shall set our stomachs a 
 kecking against the most innocent food. Nothing is nasty of itself, but 
 things become so by being assorted together in unsuitable mixtures : he that 
 should gnaw his glove, and paw the meat with his hands, would be cried 
 against as a nasty fellow, but if he apply both to their proper places, you 
 have nothing to complain of him. Dirt in the fields, gravel upon the roads, 
 and the carpets upon our floors are not nasty, but whoever should lie down 
 upon either, would be blamed for daubing his clothes. Nastiness seems to 
 have no opposite, for cleanness is rather a negation of that than a contrary 
 quality, and to make clean implies no more than to remove away filth, 
 without substituting anything else in its room. We often use Neatness to ex- 
 press the middle point between beauty and deformity in objects, and De- 
 cency to denote the like in actions or sentiments : a neat little house, and a 
 decent behaviour, is that wherein there is nothing either to engage or offend 
 the eye. Yet these middle points incline a little to the favourable side, for 
 there is a degree of complacence in seeing things clean and neat, and per- 
 sons behave decently about us : but this complacence perhaps is of none 
 other kind than that which frequently arises upon contemplating the ab- 
 sence of anything that would disturb us. 
 
 11. Our tastes varying as much as our faces, make us very bad judges 
 of one another's enjoyments, for we take for granted that every body must 
 be pleased with what we like ourselves, and according to the vulgar saving, 
 measure other people's corn by our own bushel. Nor are there instances 
 wanting wherein we measure our own corn by their bushel ; when we see 
 a crowd of people running to look at any sight, it raises our own curiosity 
 to make one among them, and a dish, or diversion, we find others eagerly 
 fond of, stirs up a longing to partake of the like : but upon trial, we often 
 find our expectation disappointed, and that what may give another great 
 delight affords us no entertainment. 
 
 Nor do we judge much better of our own pleasures, for want of being 
 well aware of their aptness to cloy upon repetition, and to change their 
 relish perpetually according to our disposition of body or mind, or the cir- 
 cumstances we happen to stand in : neither can we trust even experience 
 itself in this case, for because a thing has pleased us once we cannot always 
 be sure it will do so again. The boy who wished to be a king that he 
 might have an officer appointed to swing him all day long upon a gate, 
 took his resolution upon the remembrance of what had given him pleasure ; 
 for we may suppose he had often found a supreme delight in that innocent 
 amusement, but little thought that the same continued for hours together 
 would prove extremely tedious and irksome. The like mistake prevails 
 with many after their ceasing to be boys ; they find a vast delight in diver- 
 sions and fancies of several kinds, and therefore eagerly pursue them as 
 inexhaustible sources of enjoyment ; not considering that those things 
 please only in the acquisition, or by their novelty, and lose all their 
 poignancy upon growing familiar. Therefore it is one of the principal arts
 
 182 PLEASURE. 
 
 of life to find out such pleasures as are most durable, and least liable to 
 change by an alteration of temper, or circumstances. 
 
 12. But if we make mistakes in estimating pleasures singly, we commit 
 more in computing the value of a series of them taken collectively : for we 
 cannot reckon them with the same exactness practicable in our money af- 
 fairs, nor can we tell how many little amusements are equivalent to a great 
 one, as we can how many shillings go to a pound. He that keeps a regular 
 account of his cash may know to a shilling what were his receipts, and what 
 his disbursements, in any month of the last year, and how much they exceeded 
 or fell short of those in any other month ; but 1 defy any man to make the 
 like entry of his enjoyments and disquietudes : il he can tell that such a day 
 was spent more agreeably than such another, it is more than he can always 
 do with certainty, but he can never cast up the exact amount on the debtor 
 and the creditor side in any day, nor tell precisely the proportion one bears 
 to the other. 
 
 Therefore we are forced to take our pleasures in the lump, and estimate 
 them upon view ; as a man who guesses at a flock of sheep by the ground 
 they cover, without being able to count them, and who will do it very im- 
 perfectly, until he has got an expertness by long and careful practice. For 
 absent enjoyments, whether past or future, being not actually existent, we 
 cannot hold them as it were in our hand to weigh them, but must judge by 
 the representative idea we have of them in our imagination ; and we ordi- 
 narily determine their value by the degree of desire we feel in ourselves to- 
 wards them. Besides, the mind being constantly attentive to the bettering 
 her condition in the next succeeding moment, it is not, strictly speaking, 
 distant enjoyment that ever moves her, any otherwise than by the desire it 
 raises of advancing towards it, the gratification of which desire yields a 
 present satisfaction. 
 
 13. For this reason, intense pleasures engage more with the generality 
 of mankind, than a continuance of gentler amusements : for the latter 
 weighing only by their number, cannot so easily be brought within the 
 compass of a single idea, and when we endeavour to do so, we commonly 
 fix upon one or two of them as a sample of the whole ; as a man who would 
 recommend a poem, a play, or any other entertainment, pitches upon a few 
 striking parts for a specimen of the rest : whereas high delights, carrying 
 their whole force in a single point, make a deep impression upon the mind, 
 which excites a desire proportionable to the representative idea left behind. 
 But frequently desire increases, though the relish dies away upon repetition, 
 hence your men of pleasure retain the former, after having utterly lost the 
 latter, and perhaps receive none other satisfaction from their pleasures than 
 what arises from the gratification of their eagerness in the pursuit of them. 
 This probably induced Sir John Suckling, who was a man of pleasure, to 
 say, It is expectation makes a blessing dear : and if he added, Heaven 
 were not heaven if we knew what it were, we may presume it was because 
 he had no idea of any other than the Mahometan heaven, which was not 
 likely to prove one upon experience, how alluring soever it might appear in 
 speculation. 
 
 But if we sit down to such careful computation as we are able to make of 
 our enjoyments, we shall find ourselves much more beholden, upon the 
 whole, to those of the gentler kind ; for high delights, like high sauces, if 
 they draw no mischiefs after them, at least pall the appetite for every thing 
 else, or create a hankering after themselves at seasons wherein they are not 
 to be had : thus making us pay dear enough for the transient gratification
 
 PLEASURE. 183 
 
 they afford. Yet pleasures of the tempting kind, if properly chosen, have 
 their value, not so much for their intrinsic worth, as for the fruits they pro- 
 duce : for pleasing sensations or reflections rarely come upon us of their 
 own accord, much the greater part of our enjoyment lies in the exercise of 
 our activity, when engaged in some pursuit or employment ; but there can 
 be no engagement without an end, which we conceive it would give us 
 a more than ordinary degree of complacence to attain. The pleasures com- 
 manded by riches, or those expected from eminence of station or accomplish- 
 ment, spur men on to industry in their several callings and professions. The 
 joy of seeing a piece of workmanship completed carries an artist through 
 the toils and difficulties of his work. I find myself not a little encouraged 
 in this my pursuit of the light of nature, by casting back a look now and 
 then upon those rays of it already collected. Even virtue herself receives 
 no small accession of vigour from the contemplation of such few of her 
 beauties as we may have in our possession. Nor need I mention that 
 seasonable recreation enlivens the spirits, gives briskness to the circulation, 
 and renders the mind alert for any exercise : it often prolongs enjoy- 
 ment beyond the present moment, by furnishing materials to think and 
 talk of afterwards : so that a few days' diversion in summer may supply a 
 fund of entertainment for the succeeding winter. Let us not think then 
 pleasures unworthy the attention of a philosopher, since in good hands they 
 may be turned to excellent services. 
 
 14. As expectation makes a blessing dear, so by making dear it makes it 
 valuable : the main of our enjoyment depends upon our desires, which take 
 rise from experience of what has pleased us, whence we conceive an expec- 
 tation of its doing the like again. But desire generally produces a more 
 plentiful crop than the parent plant from which it sprung, especially in our 
 common diversions, which lie almost wholly in the pursuit, and very little 
 in the attainment. He that at whist should have four honours, six trumps, 
 always dealt him, would lose his whole diversion, because he would have 
 nothing to do but throw down his cards and set up his score. So in bowling, 
 the player minds to deliver his bowl aright, he runs after it, chides it, en- 
 courages it, writhes his body into all manner of contortions, as if to influ- 
 ence the bias, and herein consists his entertainment; for the joy of winning 
 the game passes over in a moment, he takes his stake, pockets it, and thinks 
 no more than where to throw the jack for beginning another cast. Many 
 a man has found greater pleasure in planting a tree, and tending, and 
 pruning it, and observing its growth, than he ever did in tasting the fruit : 
 yet the former arises wholly from the latter, for else why might not he plant 
 a bramble as well as a nectarine ? 
 
 But every pleasure does not keep desire alive alike, nor will every desire 
 return an equal produce of entertainment, which makes the science of pleasure 
 so little understood. Men run eagerly after the most intense, thinking the 
 more of them they can obtain so much the better, being deceived herein by 
 their method of computation ; for they reckon, like the boy, that if a quarter 
 of an hour's swing upon the gate gave immense delight, five hours' swinging 
 must give twenty times as much : whereas the arithmetic to be employed 
 in this science differs widely from common arithmetic, two and two do not 
 always make four, the second number often operating as a negative 
 quantity, which being added to the former, diminishes instead of increasing 
 the sum. Besides, when we have settled the intrinsic value of our pleasures, 
 all is not done, we must consider other things dependent upon them, and 
 proceed in a kind of algebraical method : such a degree of delight, more by
 
 184 USE. 
 
 the amusement it will afford us in the pursuit, the pleasing expectation it 
 will raise beforehand, and the soothing reflections it will leave behind ; less 
 by the labour we must undergo, the difficulties and hazards we must run to 
 obtain it, the wants and cravings it may create, the disappointments we may 
 meet with, and the mischiefs and inconveniences it may introduce. Thus 
 we find the art of book-keeping in the commerce of pleasure very hard to 
 attain, for besides the difficulty of reducing every species of coin to some 
 current standard, we must make all fair allowances for interest and produce, 
 and take all reasonable charges and deductions into the account : but any 
 tolerable skill we can acquire in this business is well worth the pains of 
 learning. 
 
 I have remarked in another place, that our idea of pleasures, like our 
 prospect of visible objects, appears duller when they stand at a distance, and 
 grows more vivid upon their nearer approach ; and that habit and sympathy 
 take effect by suggesting trains of thought, and methods of action, without 
 the trouble of hunting for them. For there being a degree of complacence 
 in every common motion of the mind, and exercise of our activity, ease and 
 readiness become a species of pleasure, and whatever gives play to our 
 powers engages us in each succeeding moment, until something more im- 
 portant carries us into another track. From this source, I apprehend, are 
 Derived most of our little motives, influencing our by actions, and under 
 motions, which steal upon us without our perceiving, and shape the manner 
 of proceeding in all our performances. 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 USE. 
 
 As the greater number by far of our pleasures spring from one another 
 by translation, so our other satisfactions come to us through the same 
 channel, being derived from pleasure ; for nature affects us originally only 
 with sensations excited by the play of our external or internal organs, and 
 objects engage us according as in the various alterations and contextures 
 of our frame produced by education, custom, or accident, they are made to 
 give that play to the organs. But that use bears a derivative value is im- 
 plied in the very term, for whatever may have been said concerning things 
 beautiful or laudable in themselves, we never hear them styled useful in 
 themselves, but for something else ; that is, so far as they tend to improve 
 our condition, or contribute to our enjoyment, either immediately or re- 
 motely in some respect or other. 
 
 Though nature has poured enjoyments around us with an unsparing 
 hand, yet she has not hung them so near within our reach, as that we can 
 pluck them whenever we please : we must do many things beforehand pre- 
 paratory to the obtaining them, we must provide instruments and lay in 
 materials to serve us upon occasion, furnish ourselves with the necessary 
 means for administering to our wants, and take pains in planting and culti- 
 vating the tree long before we can gather the fruit. This tendency to 
 supply the means of gratification transfers our desire to things indifferent in 
 themselves : so that having observed them frequently serviceable, we can 
 willingly store them up, without view to any particular service they will do 
 us, but upon the general prospect that we shall find occasion for them one
 
 USE. 185 
 
 time or other. And as the materials of enjoyment many times are no more 
 to be had with a wish than the enjoyments themselves, but require other 
 materials to procure them, hence use grows from out of use : for whatever 
 conduces to the acquisition of useful things becomes useful itself upon that 
 account. Thus, if the accommodations of life are useful for the comfort and 
 delights they continually afford, money is useful too, because it will purchase 
 those accommodations ; an estate because it yields an annual income of 
 money, a profession because it tends to raise a competency of estate, appli- 
 cation and industry because they help to make men thrive in their profes- 
 sions, skill and sagacity because they render industry successful, expe- 
 rience and learning because they improve our skill and sharpen our sagacity. 
 All that men esteem valuable or think worth their while to pursue, derives 
 its value either directly from enjoyment or from something else first recom- 
 mended thereby. Riches, power, fame, health, strength, existence, talents, 
 knowledge, accomplishment, luck, liberty, justice, steadiness, become this 
 way objects of our desire. 
 
 2. But desire, as has been shown in the last chapter, although the child 
 of pleasure, begets an offspring of the same features, make, and complexion 
 with its grandmother ; for the gratification of any desire, by how distant ob- 
 ject soever excited, affords a present pleasure proportionable to the eagerness 
 of the desire. Therefore, we see men express great joy according to the 
 ardency of their wishes upon any accession of wealth, or power, or know- 
 ledge, or enlargement of their liberty, or discovery of their strength of re- 
 solution : and these secondary pleasures take up much the larger share on 
 the credit side of our account after we arrive at manhood ; yet even these 
 objects affect the balance more by the engagement of their pursuit or con- 
 sequences of their possession than by the joy of their acquisition. Where- 
 fore the wisest of men have been ever observed attentive to things useful 
 in preference to things pleasant, because the former contain the seeds of 
 many future enjoyments, whereas the latter can only improve our condition 
 for the present moment : and we have seen a little while ago that pleasure 
 itself does not deserve regard so much for its own poignancy as when it 
 becomes useful by raising an expectation that engages us in a pursuit giving 
 scope to agreeable reflections, or instigates to something more beneficial 
 than itself. 
 
 That species of use called convenience visibly bears a reference to pleasure; 
 for though our instruments be inconvenient, nevertheless we may make 
 shift to work with them, but when we have all our implements convenient 
 about us we can complete our work with more ease and dispatch. The 
 conveniences, as distinguished from all the necessaries of life, serve only to 
 make it run more smooth and agreeable, and to render that an amusement 
 which would otherwise have been a task. He that has all necessaries 
 fully supplied him has every thing requisite for his being, but conveniences 
 superadded enable him not only to support but to enjoy his being. 
 
 Desire having passed through many translations we often lose all remem- 
 brance of the progress it has made, nor can trace it back to the original 
 fountain, which induces us to believe many desires natural and interwoven 
 into our constitution, that derived then- influence from certain things con- 
 ducive to our enjoyments and conveniences. A very little reflection will 
 convince us this is the case with respect to money, which, however some- 
 times looked upon as desirable in itself, and how much soever the covetous 
 man may prefer it beyond all things else, yet nobody can suppose he would 
 ever have had the least attachment for it, if he had never found it service-
 
 186 USE. 
 
 able to procure the enjoyments and accommodations of life. But there are 
 other desires, whose derivation is not so apparent, and therefore are ima- 
 gined born with us, or to be propensities infused into the mind, and which 
 break forth into act immediately upon the proper objects to excite them 
 being presented. Of this sort are the desire of knowledge, of liberty, of 
 power of self-preservation, and many others. I shall examine only two, 
 which may serve as samples for the rest : the love of justice, and that 
 fondness for having our own wills discernible more or less in all men. 
 
 3. We find justice commonly divided into two branches, called Commu- 
 tative, directing us to render to every man his due, and Distributive, guid- 
 ing us in the application of reward and punishment. The first of these 
 you see no appearance of in children, who greedily catch at everything they 
 can get without regard to the claims of their playfellows : and when they 
 grow up, all the laws, the penalties, the punishments in the world, are little 
 enough to prevent the invasion of property ; but the generality of mankind 
 still remain disposed to overreach one another in a bargain, and take all 
 undue advantages whenever they can do it safely. So that since the golden 
 age Astrea resides no more upon earth : even the honestest of men, if they 
 will speak ingenuously, must acknowledge it extremely difficult to preserve 
 a strict impartiality of judgment, in matters affecting their own private in- 
 terest. Besides, it seems to be agreed among the learned, that nature gave 
 the earth and all its produce among mankind in common, and that property 
 would have had no existence, but for the necessity of it to preserve order 
 and encourage industry with all the improvements consequent thereupon. 
 The view of these advantages inspires us all with a liking to justice, but it 
 is when discerned in other people, and certainly there can be nothing more 
 convenient than that everybody should behave justly to us : therefore no 
 man but would be glad to see justice prevail universally, with an exemption 
 only for himself. And though I doubt not there are many who would 
 act uprightly although there were no laws nor even hazard of a discovery 
 to restrain them from the contrary, yet these are persons who have learned 
 to regard the interests of others as well as themselves : so that their prin- 
 ciple of integrity still results from convenience, though not their own, but 
 that of other people. 
 
 As for distributive justice, we have already seen, under the article of 
 anger, how the desire of revenge springs from expedience; and though 
 men of consideration and judgment will often punish but not in anger, 
 they do it from the necessity of punishment to keep the world in order ; 
 wherefore, they regard the intention more than the deed, knowing that the 
 use of punishment is not to repair the damage sustained, to which it will 
 by no means contribute, but to mend the manners and direct the intention 
 of mankind to the forbearance of injury. Even the vulgar, though ordi- 
 narily prompted by impulse of passion, yet if you would dissuade them from 
 the prosecution or retaliation of wrongs, reply readily, Why otherwise we 
 cannot sleep safe in our beds, or we shall be liable to perpetual insults : 
 which however insincere they may be or ignorant of their real motive, 
 shows that common sense dictates expedience as the only plea to justify 
 resentment. If there were a natural and necessary connection between 
 offence and punishment, how could there be any room for mercy ? which a 
 person of humanity will always show whenever it can be extended to the 
 offender, without inconvenience to the public, or detriment to private per- 
 sons. Nor does our inclination to reward grow from any other root than 
 that of expedience, as encouraging men to repeat the good offices that have
 
 USE. 187 
 
 deserved it. When we promise a poor man a reward for doing us some 
 particular service, or offer one for the recovery of goods lost, or apprehen- 
 sion of a thief, we have visibly our own ends in view. And the observa- 
 tion that the return of good offices engages men to continue them, is so 
 obvious as to escape nobody's notice ; but the convenience found in such 
 returns occur so continually in the commerce of life, that satisfaction, as 
 customary in translations, becomes connected with the practice, and we get 
 an habitual aptness to retaliate favours as well as injuries, without looking 
 forward to the benefits attending upon so doing. Thus the heartiest grati- 
 tude, as I have shown in the proper place concerning the purest love, 
 though bearing the fragrantest flowers, sprouts originally from the earthJy 
 principle of self-interest. 
 
 4. And that adherence to what we have once set our hearts upon, so 
 common in the world, issues from the same bed : for our larger actions, by 
 which alone we can help ourselves in our needs, consist of many single 
 acts, which must all tend towards the same point, or they will never form 
 an entire body to complete the purpose we intended. We cannot walk 
 across the room with a single step, nor help ourselves to a glass of wine by 
 one motion of our arm, nor compass anything whatever, until our volitions 
 have been accustomed to follow one another in the same direction. This 
 discovers to us the expedience of a steadiness and consistency of conduct, 
 and renders the having willed a thing a motive with us to will it still, 
 until some cogent reason shall occur to the contrary. Experience indeed 
 might convince us, in time, that it is often expedient to change our mea- 
 sures, and comply with the necessity of our situation : but all do not profit 
 by experience ; and those are observed to be the most wilful, who have 
 found the least need of compliance, being either such whose strength of 
 body, and hardiness of constitution, have enabled them to resist compul- 
 sion, or such as being constantly humoured by persons about them, have 
 used to gain their ends by persisting. But this sturdiness of temper ought 
 by no means to be absolutely rejected, being eminently serviceable or per- 
 nicious, according to the objects whereto it is directed : when turned the 
 wrong way, it is called obstinacy, stubbornness, and perverseness ; when 
 the right, we entitle it steadiness, resolution, and bravery, without which 
 there is no enduring pains, hardships, and difficulties, nor going through 
 with an arduous undertaking, nor indeed completing any work that requires 
 labour and time. For considering the fluctuating nature of our ideas, it is 
 impossible to keep up the desire first urging to the task in its full colours, 
 but we should faint in midway upon any fatigue or obstacle intervening, if 
 it were not for the habit of perseverance in what we had once begun. The 
 forming a resolution requires a very different situation of mind from that of 
 executing : in the former we gather as many considerations as we can to 
 fortify our resolves ; in the latter we are too busy with the measures to be 
 taken to admit any further idea relating to our purpose than the strength 
 of resolution, wherewith we had determined upon it. Especially when pain 
 assaults us, it so fills the mind, that we have no room for more than the 
 remembrance of our having judged the thing to be attained by supporting 
 it expedient, without any of the foundations for that judgment : all we can 
 do further is by an operation upon our organs, to withdraw our notice from 
 the smart and heighten our desire or want of perseverance in our design 
 as much as possible. 
 
 Since then adherence to our purpose proves so signally serviceable upon
 
 188 HONOUR. 
 
 great occasions, and so continually useful upon common ones, no wonder it 
 becomes the object of desire in some degree with all men, and gives them 
 vexation upon being crossed, and pleasure upon being gratified. They may 
 not always be able to trace out its reference to use : they know they love 
 to have their Wills, but forget by what steps they fell in love with them ; 
 for understanding cannot penetrate into all the private recesses of imagina- 
 tion. In other cases, men are frequently deceived with respect to the 
 influence that use has upon them, self-interest giving a wonderful bias to 
 the judgment, and producing those motives we have called the obscure, 
 because sheltering themselves under cover of more specious reasons, while 
 they too often give the real turn to our behaviour. 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 HONOUR. 
 
 As use sprouts from pleasure, so honour branches out from use, and 
 stands one remove further from the parent root, for which reason it is more 
 readily supposed innate, its derivation being not so easily traced ; for it 
 never grows to maturity while adhering to the mother plant, nor until 
 separated from it as an offset, and standing upon its own stem. We are 
 not thought actuated by honour, so long as we have any further advantage 
 or gratification in view, nor until it becomes a motive of itself sufficient to 
 operate upon us, without needing recommendation from anything else to 
 give it weight. But this does not prove it to be the gift of nature, for we 
 may remember many instances already pointed out of translation, wherein 
 satisfaction has been made to fix so strongly upon things originally indif- 
 ferent, as to render them powerful motives of action. 
 
 Our principle of honour is so far from being born with us, that we should 
 never have acquired it, if we had always been debarred from society. Little 
 children, as they show no signs of shame, so neither do they discover any 
 notion of applause, until being perpetually told that Mamma will not love 
 them, nor Papa give them pretty things, nor Nurse take care of them, un- 
 less they be good, they learn to look upon the approbation of persons about 
 them as desirable. And when we grow up, we find it so extremely and 
 continually useful to have the good opinion and esteem of others, which 
 make them friendly and obsequious to our desires, that this is enough to 
 give us a liking to esteem, and consequently to those actions or qualities 
 tending to promote it. For affection and experience leading us by gradation 
 from one thing to another, our desire of approbation throws a complacence 
 upon actions procuring it, and this again makes us value the possession of 
 qualities productive of such actions, although we have no present opportu- 
 nity of exercising it. 
 
 2. Besides, there lies a nearer way for good qualities to arrive at their 
 valuableness ; for we find the very sight of them raising an esteem in the 
 beholder, without staying for the benefits to be received from them. Nay, 
 that sight contributes more to give a good opinion of the possessor than 
 the reception of the benefits, and the latter only as an evidence of the former. 
 Whatever enables a man to do much good or hurt, sets him higher in the 
 estimation of the vulgar, than a disposition to use his powers well : there-
 
 HONOUR. 189 
 
 fore we see great talents, sagacity, strength of body, nobility of birth, and 
 even opulence and good fortune, introduced for topics of panegyric as well 
 as beneficence, public spirit, and industry. 
 
 But what is more useful carries away our attention from what is less ; 
 therefore we judge of things by comparison, placing our esteem upon those 
 which are excellent and supereminent in their kind ; and what we once 
 greatly admired, may be eclipsed by something darting a superior lustre. 
 And our admiration of superiority renders the marks of it subjects of our ad- 
 miration too : hence proceeds our fondness for titles of honour, splendour 
 of equipage, and badges of distinction : hence likewise majesty of counte- 
 nance, dignity of gesture, and solemnity of deportment, command our 
 respect, as expressing something extraordinary and excellent within ; for 
 where we know the subject exhibiting them possesses nothing more than 
 common, they excite our laughter instead of our admiration. Nor are we 
 unaffected with excellence appearing in beasts, or things inanimate, or the 
 performances of art : we admire the noble mien of a lion, the magnificence 
 of a building, the immense expanse of heaven, the regular courses of the 
 stars, the master strokes of poetry, and sublimity of style, because these ob- 
 jects afford immediate entertainment, by filling the imagination with large 
 ideas, or express something extraordinary in the authors and causes of them. 
 And honour, resting chiefly in comparison, teaches us to see an expedience 
 in excelling ; for it is not so much matter what we are in ourselves, as what 
 degree we stand in amongst others, which sows the seeds of envy, emula- 
 tion, and contention for superiority. But as excellence will not produce its 
 effects until made visible, this opens the door to ostentation, vanity, and af- 
 fectation, which may be observed abounding most in those who have been 
 flattered into an opinion of their having something extraordinary to exhibit, 
 or some agreeable peculiarity in their manner. 
 
 3. But the thought of possessing whatever we esteem useful or advan- 
 tageous, soothes and gives immediate pleasure to the mind : for which rea- 
 son there is a near affinity between beauty and honour, both delighting the 
 eye instantly upon sight, without reference to those further advantages which 
 first made it recommendable, and love and esteem commonly generating one 
 another, or at least nourishing each other's growth. In visible objects one 
 can more easily discern the distinction than describe it, only we may say 
 that beauty seems to affect the sense alone, whereas admiration more appa- 
 rently requires the concurrence of imagination. But when applied to actions 
 and sentiments, it is harder to know them apart : wherefore the Greeks used 
 the same term to express them both, and though the Latins had a different 
 name for each, yet they applied their epithets promiscuously, distinguishing 
 things indifferently either into beautiful and deformed, or laudable and 
 blameable. But the mind, having a natural propensity to pleasure, loves to 
 solace herself in the contemplation of whatever belonging to her she con- 
 ceives will do her honour : this engenders pride ; which may be called a habit 
 of dwelling upon the thought of any supposed excellences or advantages 
 men believe themselves possessed of, as well power, birth, wealth, strength 
 of body, or beauty of person, as endowments of the mind. 
 
 But our propensity to this, as well as other pleasures, produces mischie- 
 vous effects, too "often misleading the understanding, damping industry, and 
 destroying its own purpose by overcharging the appetite. It casts a won- 
 derful bias upon the judgment, inclining men to fancy themselves possessed 
 of advantages they have not, to overvalue those they really have, and to 
 depreciate those of other people. It keeps them so attentive to their own
 
 ISO HONOUR. 
 
 self-sufficiency, as to think it needless to look for anything further : whereas 
 industry bespeaks a humble mind, more solicitous to make new acqui- 
 sitions, than to count over those already gained, as not judging them enough 
 to rest satisfied with. And it destroys the relish men find in the possession 
 of good things, by satiating them with the contemplation : for as our bodily 
 members tire upon continual exercise, so our mental organs cloy upon repe- 
 tition, soon exhausting the sweets of an object, and entertaining no longer 
 than while receiving fresh supplies of novelty and variety. Accordingly the 
 proud reap no delight from their pride : we rather see them more gloomy 
 and discontented than other people ; and if they still retain a fondness for 
 reflecting on their superexcellence, it is like the unnatural thirst of a drunk- 
 ard, which does not draw him by pleasure, but drives him by the uneasiness 
 of his unextinguishable cravings. 
 
 4. Is it then never allowable to cast back a look upon anything wherein 
 we have succeeded well, or upon any advantages we possess ? This I do 
 not assert ; for the complacence we feel upon such occasions improves our 
 condition, so long as we can enjoy it pure, and whatever pleases deserves 
 our regard, if none other consideration interfere. I see nothing should 
 hinder the boy from swinging, provided he took care to do his lesson first, 
 not to break down the farmer's gate, and to leave off his diversion before 
 it grew tiresome : so neither need we scruple to ride upon any little excel- 
 lency we may possess, taking only such transient views of it as may afford 
 us a real gust, if we have nothing else to do, and neither injure nor offend 
 anybody, nor harbour a thought injurious or offensive to anybody. Besides, 
 there is a further use beyond the present amusement, in making proper 
 comparisons of things and persons : for the retrospect upon what we have 
 done well, encourages us to persevere in the like conduct ; the knowledge 
 of any good things we possess whets our industry to preserve and procure 
 more of them ; and a due sense of our estimation among mankind with- 
 holds us from consorting with persons, or giving into behaviour unbecoming 
 our character. But what comparisons of this kind are proper or not 
 depends upon a fair computation of the service they will do, or the net 
 income of real pleasures they will yield upon the balance. 
 
 5. As honour branches from use, so it takes divers tinctures, according 
 to the stock whereon it is grafted. The professions and situations of men 
 in life rendering different things serviceable to them, creates proportionable 
 variety in their sentiments of honour : the merchant places it in punctuality 
 of payment, the soldier in bravery, the artificer in the completeness of his 
 works, the scholar in acquisitions of learning, the fine gentleman in polite- 
 ness and elegancy of taste, the lady in her beauty, or neatness of dress, or 
 skill in family economy. There is no man utterly destitute of honour, 
 because no man but finds the expedience of it in some degree or other : nor 
 is there a possibility of living in any comfort or tranquillity under universal 
 contempt. But men's notions of it are widely different and discordant : 
 what one esteems an honour, another looks upon as a folly or disgrace ; 
 one values himself upon his sincerity and plain dealing, another upon his 
 art of dissimulation : one upon his patience in enduring wrongs, another 
 upon his quickness in resenting them : though Falstaff ridiculed the grinning 
 honours of the field, yet he scorned to give a reason upon compulsion : 
 every one esteems that highest which he has found turning most to account 
 in the way of life wherein he is engaged, or best promoting his designs, or 
 adding to his enjoyment in the company among whom his lot has fallen. 
 Which shows that our sense of honour is not natural like that of seeing,
 
 HONOUR. 191 
 
 for this exhibits the same distinction of colours to all alike, nor ever makes 
 a lily appear blue to one man, green to another, and scarlet to a third, 
 according to the several ways they have been brought up in, or employ- 
 ments they have followed. 
 
 6. Though our estimation of things commonly first arises from the credit 
 they bear with other people, yet the judgments of mankind being so various 
 obliges us to look out for some other rule to direct us in our observation : 
 for by following what we see admired at one time, we may be thought to 
 pursue trifles or incur censure at another. To avoid the trouble such 
 accidents would give us, we have none other remedy than by hardening 
 ourselves sometimes against reproach, which we see every one ready to do 
 more or less upon occasion : for there could be no steadiness of conduct nor 
 perseverance in any purpose, if we were to veer about with every blast of 
 applause or censure. But as no man would wish to throw off all sensi- 
 bility, he must distinguish when to restrain and when to give it scope : 
 this teaches him to look inwards upon himself and observe what estimation 
 things bear in his own mind, and the judgments the mind passes in such 
 cases immediately upon inspection are called the sentiments. I know this 
 term is often applied to opinions concerning the truth or falsehood, expe- 
 dience or inexpedience of things : as when a man is asked to declare his 
 sentiments upon a point of natural philosophy or a maxim of policy or 
 measure of prudence, the question means no more than to know what he 
 judges most agreeable to reason, or most conducive to the purpose aimed 
 at. But Sentiment being derived from Sense or Feeling, seems more 
 peculiarly applicable to those judgments the mind passes upon matters of 
 praise or blame, which she cannot do without feeling a degree of compla- 
 cence or disgust in contemplating the subject whereon she so passes her 
 judgment. 
 
 One can live but little while in the world without acquiring some of 
 these sentiments, and when deeply rooted by long habit, they become 
 powerful incentives of action. The testimony of a man's own breast when 
 clear and full will bear him up against the reproaches of the whole world. 
 Self- approbation when strong and well grounded will support him under 
 hardships, disappointments, and distresses ; and the desire of doing something 
 he may applaud himself for will carry him through labours, difficulties, and 
 dangers. You may move any man almost any way by touching his point 
 of honour, if you can but find out where it lies : but herein and in applying 
 the proper means to affect it rests the difficulty, for perhaps it does not lie in 
 the same part nor look towards the same objects as it does in yourself. We 
 currently pronounce the vulgar void of honour because they want those 
 notions of it instilled into us by education and good company : but if they 
 had not a sensibility of their own, they would never be moved unless by 
 blows or something affecting them in point of interest, whereas we find 
 the meanest of mankind as apt to take fire upon opprobrious language or 
 defamation, when they understand it, as the most refined. 
 
 7. The generality of men draw their sentiments of honour from those with 
 whom they consort, or from the tendency of things to promote what they 
 most ardently desire : they feel themselves affecting some objects and 
 shocked at others ; they neither know nor inquire how they come to be so, 
 but follow the present impulse without further examination. But the 
 studious, desirous to see with their own eyes, and unwilling to trust either 
 the opinions of mankind which they perceive infinitely various and contra- 
 dictory, or even their own sentiments which they find wavering and clashing
 
 192 HONOUR. 
 
 with one another, endeavour to fix upon some criterion whereby to dis- 
 tinguish true honour from the false. This has led many into the notion of 
 an essential quality, which residing in certain objects they became laudable 
 in themselves : which quality I take to have been understood by the Kalon 
 of the Greeks and Honestum of the Romans, to which I know of no word 
 that answers in the English tongue, but it may be described, that which 
 raises your approbation instantly upon being suggested to the thought, 
 without reference to any consequences attendant thereupon. If you asked 
 what this Kalon was, you were referred to the effect it would have upon 
 the eye of an impartial beholder. But several beholders see different appear- 
 ances in the same object : this it was replied arose from a fault in the 
 vision, for the optics of some are so dimmed and overclouded by the mists 
 of error and prejudice, that, like a jaundiced eye, they cannot see the Kalon 
 in its true colours. Well, but how shall we know whether our optics be 
 clear and how to rectify them ? why, observe the best and wisest men, and 
 learn to see as they do. Thus, the whole matter is at last resolved into 
 authority, a method unbecoming a philosopher ; for though the examples of 
 wise men be an excellent guide for us to follow in our conduct, it lets us 
 nothing into the nature of things unless we have the grounds explained 
 whereon they formed their judgment : and as we shall meet with many in- 
 stances wherein we cannot have the benefit of their example, we shall still 
 remain at a loss how to distinguish the genuine Kalon from the spurious. 
 Besides, the actions of the wise themselves have been made the subject of 
 controversy, many judicious persons having doubted whether Cato the 
 censor had a just idea of the Kalon when he persecuted the Carthagenians 
 to destruction, or Brutus, when he assassinated Caesar, or the younger Cato, 
 whom Seneca pronounces a perfect wise man, when he deserted his post 
 of life at Utica : so that we want some other test to try the dictates of 
 wisdom when mingled among the frailties of human nature in the very best 
 of men. 
 
 When such disputes happen, the parties generally recur to some prin- 
 ciples they think will be admitted on the other side; and if those are 
 agreed to, it is very well ; but what if they be denied ? or what if it be 
 asked upon what grounds those principles are founded ? I know of none other 
 way to determine the matter than by a reference to use. And so far the 
 old philosophers seem to have admitted this rule as to allow that all things 
 laudable were useful, but then they placed those qualities out of their 
 proper order, for they held that things were therefore useful because laud- 
 able, whereas the truth appears to me to be that they are therefore laudable 
 because useful : for I cannot conceive how any practice can be laudable 
 which will never do the least service to the performer nor anybody else, 
 nor blameable from whence more good will accrue by following it than 
 letting it alone. All services are esteemed, as well in the eye of the world 
 as in a man's own reflection, according as they are more or less signal : 
 and if temptations and difficulties standing in the way render a deed the 
 subject of greater applause, certainly nothing can be more useful than an 
 ability to surmount difficulties and resist temptations when they would 
 withhold us from anything beneficial. 
 
 8. But if things be laudable because useful, must not use and honour 
 always go together? Is there then no difference between one and the 
 other ? If a man entrusted with a valuable deposit by a person deceased 
 debates with himself whether he shall apply it to the purposes directed or to 
 his own benefit, does not "use exhort him one way and honour the other ?
 
 HONOUR. 193 
 
 Certainly they do : but then use must be understood here of what appears 
 such to him, not what is really such upon the whole upshot of the account. 
 We get a habit of looking upon power, profit, and such like, as valuable, and 
 thence contract a desire of attaining them whenever an opportunity offers ; 
 but this desire would lead us many times into mischiefs and inconveniences 
 if not withheld by the restraint of honour : or we grudge the pains of pur- 
 suing things really valuable, and should miss of them unless shamed out of 
 our indolence : here the sense of honour does us signal service by stimulatr 
 ing when interest wanted sharpness sufficient, and urging to practices whose 
 use we are not sensible of, as lying too remote for us to discern. Were 
 there a race of men of so penetrating and extensive an understanding as to 
 comprehend at one view all the consequences of every action,, and so well 
 regulated a taste as constantly to prefer the greater remote good before the 
 lesser near at hand, they would have no sense of honour because they would 
 want none : for their own discernment would lead them precisely into those 
 very courses which true honour recommends. The necessity of this prin- 
 ciple arises from the weakness and narrowness of our capacities ; they that 
 are whole need not the physician nor his remedies, but they that are sick ; 
 and honour is that remedy which alone can cure the disorders and confusions 
 brought upon the world by a too close attachment to our injudicious de- 
 sires in disregard of the general good, wherein our own is ultimately con- 
 tained, or I may say lies concealed. The voluptuous, who constantly fol- 
 low whatever appetite or fancy prompts, have the narrowest minds ; a pru- 
 dent regard to interest widens them a little ; but a due sense of honour 
 opens the heart and enlarges the soul as far as it is capable of extending. 
 Therefore, the wisest and best of men, as they have ever been observed at- 
 tentive to things useful in preference to things pleasant, so they give the like 
 preference to the laudable before the useful, and for the same reason ; be- 
 cause as use contains the seeds of many future enjoyments, so honour leads 
 to further uses than their wisdom, but imperfect at the best, can always 
 descry. 
 
 Now to come as near as possible to my old friends of former ages I shall 
 readily admit that, although things be not therefore useful because laudable, 
 yet they ought therefore to be esteemed useful because of that approbation 
 we feel resting upon them in our minds. For as we have shown in CHAP. 
 XI. that many truths reputed self-evident were not innate but acquired by 
 experience of facts, nevertheless we may justly employ them as the basis 
 of our reasonings, because the strength wherewith they strike upon the 
 judgment, is a good evidence that we had sufficient grounds for embracing 
 them, though now absolutely forgotten and irrecoverable : so when we per- 
 ceive objects commanding our applause instantly upon inspection, we may 
 rest assured that we ourselves, or those persons from whom we have taken 
 the tincture, have found advantages in them which we do not now retain 
 in memory, nor can readily trace out. The uses we see daily resulting from 
 a principle of honour are enow to give it a value in the eyes of every prudent 
 person ; continual experience testifies that this principle rightly grounded 
 withholds us from folly, rouses us to industry, shines through the mists of 
 prejudice, and balances the influence of passion : nor can anybody avoid 
 taking notice how much men's regard for their credit with others, and self- 
 approbation within themselves, contributes to preserve that good order in 
 the world, the benefits whereof they want penetration to discern. There- 
 fore we shall do well to follow the dictates of our own heart concerning 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 HONOUR. 
 
 what is commendable or unworthy, for that will inform us sufficiently for 
 common occasions, if we take care to consult it sincerely and impartially : 
 and when doubts arise, we must adhere to such sentiments as we find estab- 
 lished most firmly, and striking most strongly. I know nothing further we 
 can do, unless we stand in a situation to discern all the consequences and 
 tendencies of the matters under deliberation ; and then that which appears 
 least confined to private or present gratification, but most extensively and 
 generally advantageous, will deserve the character of the most laudable. 
 
 9. But in computations of this sort regard must be had, not only to the 
 usefulness of the objects proposed, but likewise to the usefulness of praise 
 or blame towards attaining them : for if there be other motives sufficient 
 to set us at work, commendation were thrown away as being superfluous. 
 This explains why, though honour depends upon use, nevertheless every- 
 thing useful is not laudable : because where we discern the use, and are 
 moved by it to exert ourselves, there is no use for honour. Therefore we 
 do not lavish our applauses upon things we find men willing enough to do 
 of themselves, however beneficial they may appear. What is more useful 
 than eating and sleeping ? but nobody gains credit by them, for appetite 
 prompts us fast enough without it. Bakers, shoemakers, and tailors, are 
 very serviceable members of society, but who ever rose to honours by ex- 
 ercising those trades ? for why ? the prospect of getting a livelihood holds 
 them tight to their work, without any other spur to assist it. But upon 
 boys being first put out as apprentices the master finds it useful to encou- 
 rage them by commendation, because they have then none other induce- 
 ment to do their duty besides reward and punishment. We chide and 
 applaud our children to make them careful of their money ; but when they 
 have gotten a competent habit of economy, then honour changes stations, 
 standing as a fence on the other side, to secure them against covetousness. 
 
 Hence too we may learn why the most considerate persons honour the 
 intention rather than the deed, for though the usefulness of an action results 
 from the performance, not the design, yet the use of commendation lies 
 only in its operating upon the mind, nor does it at all influence the success 
 any further than by doubling our diligence. Yet a proper estimate of 
 external objects has its use too, as directing us which way to apply our 
 endeavours out of several presenting : for if there were not a credit in 
 having things neat and handsome about us, many men would satisfy them- 
 selves as well with grovelling always in the dirt ; and if there were not a 
 respect paid to eminence of station and fortune, even where we have no 
 high opinion of the persons, we should invalidate those rules of good 
 breeding which keep up decorum, and render conversation easy. Hence 
 likewise we may see why honour generally runs counter to profit and plea- 
 sure, because the use of it lies in restraining them when they would carry 
 us on to our detriment ; and the more forcibly they tempt us, the greater 
 is the merit of resisting them, because we then need a stronger weight to 
 overbalance their influence. The same reason may account for honour 
 resting upon comparison, because use frequently does so too : for as among 
 many things proposed to his option, a prudent man will always choose the 
 most useful, so he will prefer the most laudable, as carrying the presump- 
 tion of being the most useful. Therefore the desire of surpassing others is 
 always faulty, unless when some real benefit will result therefrom, or there 
 be some good purpose in view, which cannot be attained without it. 
 
 10. The desire of honour, like all other desires, gives an immediate 
 pleasure in the gratification, or when moving on successfully towards its
 
 HONOUR. 195 
 
 object ; and this may bo reckoned among the uses of honour. But these 
 pleasures are not to be valued according to their intenseness, for high 
 delights of all kinds, though they ravish the mind while fresh and new, yet 
 they pall the appetite, and render it tasteless of common enjoyments ; nor ca,n 
 they keep their relish long, because our organs are too weak to support the 
 violent exercise they put them upon. But there is a self-approbation, 
 which, being of the gentle kind, throws the spirits into easy motions that 
 do not exhaust nor fatigue, and sooths the mind with an uninterrupted 
 complacence in the reflections she may cast back upon her general tenor of 
 conduct. For as ease, health, and security, afford a degree of actual plea- 
 sure, though implying no more in themselves than a negation of pain, 
 sickness, and danger, so there is a real satisfaction in keeping clear of 
 everything for which others might justly censure us, or we might blame 
 ourselves. This then the wise man will be most careful to attain, as adding 
 more to the sum total of his happiness than the momentary transports of 
 joy, upon excelling in any way whatever. Nevertheless, an ardent desire 
 of doing or possessing something extraordinary has its value, but as we 
 observed before concerning intense pleasures, not so much for its intrinsic 
 worth, or for the gust found in the gratification, as for the good fruits it 
 may produce, by stimulating our industry, furnishing us with employment, 
 and putting us upon useful services we wight otherwise have omitted. 
 
 11. If there be any meaning in the expression of things laudable in 
 themselves, it must belong to those we find esteemed most universally, or 
 by the best judges, or from which we cannot withhold our applause when- 
 ever we consider them in our own minds, though we know not why they 
 so affect us : but our not seeing the benefits resulting therefrom is no proof 
 of their non-existence. By such tests it behoves us to try our sentiments 
 every now and then, for as we catch a tincture from others by custom or 
 example, without this caution we shall lie perpetually liable to be drawn 
 aside by the glare of false honour from pursuing the true. But when we 
 do employ the method of reference to use, we must carry the reference to 
 all quarters whereto it can extend : for it is not enough to weigh the con- 
 sequences of the present action, but we must consider what effect our 
 departure from a rule may have upon ourselves at other times, how far it 
 may influence other people to follow our example, when they have not the 
 like reason for doing as we do, and in short all the circumstances that any 
 ways relate to the case. Honour, says Mr. Addison, is a sacred tie, and 
 its laws are never to be infringed, unless when more good than hurt will 
 evidently result from dispensing with them : nor must the danger of weakr 
 ening their authority be forgotten in the account ; and if that be considered, 
 there are some of those laws which perhaps a sufficient warrant can never 
 be found for transgressing. 
 
 12. Situation and circumstance may cast a dishonour upon what appears 
 perfectly innocent in itself: there are many things I need not name, that 
 every man must do, and therefore will acquit himself in doing, yet every 
 discreet man will choose to do in private, and conceal from the knowledge 
 of others as much as possible. It is well known what irregularities the 
 Cynics were led into by judging of things as laudable or blameable in 
 themselves : for intrinsic qualities cannot be divested by the circumstances 
 of time and place, from the subject whereto nature has united them. A 
 stone will retain its hardness so long as it remains a stone, and air be 
 yielding to the touch always and everywhere : therefore they made no. 
 
 o2
 
 r !96 HONOUR. 
 
 scruple to commit the grossest indecencies in public, because their adver- 
 saries could not but admit the acts they performed were at some times 
 allowable. But if they had judged by a proper reference to use, they must 
 have seen the expedience of decency and decorum, that what becomes one 
 man may not become another, and that the same actions, according as they 
 do, or do not, tend to give offence, or to the breach of good manners, may 
 become blameable or allowable. 
 
 13. Much ado has been made of late days about certain moral senses, 
 which nature is supposed to have furnished us with, for the discernment of 
 things laudable or blameable, becoming or ridiculous, as she has with the 
 bodily senses for the discernment of sensible objects ; and this notion seems 
 introduced to supply the place of innate ideas, since their total overthrow 
 by Mr. Locke. If we allege that nature is more uniform in her gifts than 
 we find these moral senses to be, which judge very variously of the same 
 object in different persons, we are silenced with the old pretence, that all 
 who do not see as we do must labour under some disorder in their vision, 
 by having contracted films before their eyes from error and prejudice. But 
 how shall the moral sense be proved born with us, when we see no appear- 
 ance of it before we arrive at some use ot our understanding, and there are 
 whole natrons who seem utterly destitute of it ? Our five senses we receive 
 perfect at first, they rather decay and grow duller than improve by time : 
 the child and the savage can see, and hear, and taste, and smell, and feel, as 
 well as the most refined and civilized. Let us then look upon this supposed 
 sixth sense as an acquired faculty, generated in us by the operation of those 
 materials thrown in by the other five, together with the combinations 
 formed of them, and other ideas resulting from them in our reflection. We 
 ordinarily imbibe our sentiments by custom or sympathy from the company 
 we consort with, or from persons whose judgments we revere : therefore 
 the exposing of children, the extirpating of enemies, assassinating for 
 affronts, persecuting for heresy, do not strike with horror in countries where 
 commonly practised, or taught by the leaders. But as all custom must have 
 a beginning, and all judgment some foundation to build upon, let us try to 
 discover what might first bring into credit those objects which the moral 
 sense, when supposed clearest, will recommend : and this will appear upon 
 examination to be nothing else besides their expedience and eminent service- 
 ableness to promote the happiness of mankind. The objects that seem 
 most strongly to affect the moral sense are integrity of justice and restraint 
 of brutal appetites, which we have already seen deriving their value from 
 expedience : and it is remarkable, that the mind discerns the beauty of them 
 abroad before she can discover it at home. For as the eye sees not itself, 
 unless by reflection in a glass, so neither can we know our own internal 
 features, unless by beholding the counterparts of them in other persons : 
 therefore if you perceive the moral sense in anybody a little dull, it is com- 
 mon to clear it up, by asking him how he would approve the like behaviour 
 in another towards himself. Which shows that actions have not an intrinsic 
 turpitude necessarily touching the sense, when contemplating them naked, 
 but we must place them in other subjects, where their tendency to bring 
 trouble and inconvenience upon ourselves casts a turpitude upon them : 
 having frequently seen them in this position, we learn to reflect that what 
 appears foul and ugly without doors would do the same within, if we stood 
 at the proper point of view ; we then practise the art of removing ourselves 
 to a distance from ourselves, through which channel we derive that skill of 
 discernment called the moral sense.
 
 NECESSITY. 197 
 
 Nevertheless, I am not for depreciating these moral senses ; on the con- 
 trary, I wish their notices were more carefully regarded in the world than 
 they are : for their being acquired is no diminution of their value, unless 
 we will despise all arts and sciences, acquisitions of learning, and whatever 
 else we had not directly from the hand of nature ; which would reduce us 
 back again to the helpless and ignorant condition of our infancy. Men of 
 the most shining characters and exemplary lives are found peculiarly atten-r 
 tive to them, nor will ever suffer themselves to be drawn into a disregard 
 for them, by the impulses of passion, or temptations of profit. Yet being 
 apt sometimes to gather films and foulnesses, it may not be amiss to examine 
 them at the bar of reason by a jury of their peers ; that is, by comparing 
 them with one another, when we have leisure and opportunity to give them 
 a fair hearing, and take full cognizance of the cause : for the presumption 
 lies strongly in their favour, and the burden of the proof belongs to him 
 that would impeach their character. For we may have had substantial 
 grounds for our estimation of things, though we do not now retain them in 
 mind, and the experience of others may have discovered an expedience that 
 we never stood in a situation to discern : therefore whatever appears shock- 
 ing to our thought, or generally odious in the yes of mankind, deserves to 
 be rejected without very evident and invincible reasons to the contrary. 
 
 <} H A P. XXV. 
 
 NECESSITY. 
 
 BY necessity I do not mean that impulse whereby bodies are made to 
 move and strike upon one another, nor those laws, by which nature carries 
 on her operation in a chain of causes and effects unavoidably depending upon 
 each other, without choice or volition. For I consider it here as a motive 
 driving the mind to one manner of action, when we have the contrary in our 
 inclination and our power : and we hear the term often applied this way, how 
 properly I shall not examine, choosing rather to regard every expression as 
 proper, that obtains currency in the language of mankind. 
 
 I have laid down that all our motives derive their efficacy from pleasure, 
 other satisfactions flowing through the channel of translation, either imme- 
 diately or remotely from that : but then it must be remembered, that under 
 pleasure I comprehend the avoidance of pain, and it is the latter solely that 
 gives rise to the class of motives at present under consideration. In all ne- 
 cessary actions, we have some uneasiness, or displeasure, or damage in view, 
 and some inclination drawing us another way which we should gratify if it 
 were not for such obstacle ; and as inclination generally stands for Will, we 
 are said in such cases to act unwillingly or against their Wills, notwith- 
 standing that we perform the acts by our volition, and therefore are no 
 more necessary agents than when pursuing the thing most agreeable to our 
 heart's desire. 
 
 2. Thus the motives of necessity have the very reverse for their objects to 
 those of the three former classes, to wit, some pain or disquietude of mind, 
 some detriment to our possessions, or blemish in our character, to which 
 may be added the omission of something pleasant, profitable, or creditable, 
 which we conceive in our power to attain; for whatever we desire strongly 
 we feel an uneasiness in the thought of going without, which uneasiness
 
 198 NECESSITY. 
 
 many times lays us under a necessity of taking all measures to prevent it. 
 To this class belong the obligations of duty, of honour, of justice, of pru- 
 dence, of the laws of the land, and of fashion : the attachment to professions, 
 application to business^ preservation of our persons and properties, checks 
 of conscience, and the greatest part of the influence of our moral senses. 
 For whenever we do so or so because we must, whether the obligation be laid 
 upon us by our own fondness for particular objects, or by the judgments of 
 reason, we are actuated by the apprehension of some mischief attendant 
 upon the forbearing it. Conscience particularly acts as a monitor, like So- 
 crates' demon, never exhorting to anything* but restraining our desires from 
 the course they would otherwise take, informing us what is right, no 
 otherwise than by warning us against what is wrong : and moral senses, 
 when young and newly acquiredj operate by the dread of that compunction 
 we should feel upon transgressing their dictates. 
 
 The very term Must implies that we should have acted otherwise, had 
 matters been left to our choice, and indicates a desire subsisting in the 
 mind, which unavoidably degenerates into want upon our being obliged to 
 thwart when we cannot stifle it. Therefore, want being an uneasy passion, 
 necessity always throws the mind into a state of suffering, greater or less in 
 proportion to the degree of want urging us to the course we must not take. 
 But men frequently misapply the term, using it as a pretence to justify what 
 they really like and might have omitted without the least inconvenience : or 
 when there is a real necessity, ascribing their action to that, though they 
 were in fact pre-engaged by other motives. For we must remember the 
 motive of action is always something actually in the scale ; not every good 
 reason that might move us if its help were wanted, but some object in view, 
 and weighing with us at the instant time of acting. So that we cannot 
 certainly conclude people uneasy when we hear them talk of being obliged 
 to such a particular proceeding : for perhaps there was no obligation, and 
 they only amused themselves, or meant to amuse us, with the pretence of 
 one ; or if they were, perhaps they had nothing Jess in their thoughts, but 
 proceeded upon other grounds. What is more necessary than eating ? yet 
 which of us sits down to table upon that motive ? we do not need to be 
 told that without victuals we cannot sustain life, nor keep our bodies in 
 health, and this consideration might have sufficient influence to bring us to 
 them, if there were nothing else : but appetite engages us beforehand, and 
 sets our jaws at work long before necessity can heave itself into the scale. 
 On the contrary, physic, having no other recommendation, will not go 
 down with us, until we throw in the heavy weight of necessity. And in 
 this as well as all other cases wherein the cogency of necessity gives the 
 real turn to our activity, there is an uneasiness corresponding to the reluctance 
 we feel against complying with it. 
 
 But as this uneasiness proceeds from the opposition of contrary desires, 
 if that which occasioned the reluctance can be totally silenced, necessity 
 changes its nature, and becomes a matter of choice, having no competitor 
 to struggle against it : for as when driven by necessity, we should have 
 acted otherwise if that necessity had not occurred, so we should have readily 
 complied with it as a thing desirable, if we had had no contrary inclination 
 which must be thwarted by it. Therefore persons well practised in the 
 ways of honour, take delight in performing the obligations of it, and fulfil- 
 ling the rules of duty and justice : for though these ties were obligations at 
 first, and still retain the name, they no longer act as obligations, but as ob- 
 jects of desire, nor does the party influenced by them once think of any
 
 NECESSITY. 199 
 
 mischief that would ensue, or any pleasure he might lose upon transgressing 
 them. 
 
 3. The bare exemption from evil often suffices to touch us with a sensible 
 pleasure. The testimony of a good conscience, although implying no more 
 than a clearness from offence, has been ever held a continual feast to the 
 mind. And in common cases, the avoidance of mischief does not operate 
 as a motive of necessity, where there is nothing to raise a reluctance against 
 the measures to be taken for preventing it. We bar up our doors and 
 windows every night to secure them against robbers ; we provide fuel 
 -against winter, and send down stores into the country for our summer occa- 
 sions : there is no pleasure in all this, nor should we do it unless necessary; 
 yet being familiarized to the practice, we do it as a thing customary without 
 thinking of that necessity. The essence of necessary action consists in an 
 unwillingness to perform it ; take away that unwillingness and the necessity 
 is gone. There are persons of so happy temper as to bring their minds 
 into a ready compliance with what must be done, and upon discerning that, 
 whatever desires they might have had before for doing otherwise instantly 
 vanish : if we could attain a perfect acquiescence in whatever the present 
 circumstances require, we should escape the iron hand of necessity, we 
 might see which way it drives, and lay our measures accordingly, but should 
 always elude its grasp, and take the gentler guidance of expedience. 
 
 Nevertheless, since our desires will not always lie down quiet at the word 
 of command, we can only restrain them from mischief by contemplating 
 the necessity of so doing, and inculcating that idea so strongly as to 
 drive us into the performance of what we could not do willingly : for though 
 it will throw us into an uneasy situation, we must submit to it for the good 
 fruits expectant thereupon ; the road to ease and pleasure lying frequently 
 through trouble and uneasiness. It is by this way we first come within the 
 influence of honour, prudence, and justice ; and the moral senses, as we ob- 
 served before, begin their operation in this manner, though by a long and 
 steady practice they get the better of all opponent inclinations, and become 
 themselves the sources of desire, which would then prevail with us if there 
 were no necessity to enforce them. 
 
 But as necessity by good management may be refined into pleasure, so 
 pleasure by indiscretion may be corrupted into necessity ; a constant indul- 
 gence of our appetites increases their cravings while it lessens and at last to- 
 tally destroys the gust we had in gratifying them ; so that desire, whose 
 office it is to solace and delight us, changes into the tormenting passion of 
 want. It has been often said that hunger is the best sauce to our meat, 
 but this the voluptuary never finds in his dish ; and likewise that novelty- 
 gives a relish to pleasures, but by hunting continually after a variety of 
 them, we may bring novelty itself to be nothing new. Many run a perpe- 
 tual round of diversions abroad only because they should be miserable at 
 home ; so that while they seem invited by pleasure, they are really lashed 
 on by the scourge of necessity. Therefore if we wish to pass our time 
 easily and agreeably, the worst thing we can do is to make a toil of a 
 pleasure, and the best to make a virtue of necessity.
 
 200 
 
 CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 UEASON. 
 
 THUS far we have been busied in laying our foundation, a toilsome and 
 tedious work, but wherein diligence and an attention to minute particulars 
 was requisite, because we were unwilling to leave any cracks or chasms un- 
 filled, over which our future building might stand hollow : how well we 
 have succeeded in the attempt, and whether we have worked the whole 
 compact with a mutual dependence, and due coherence of parts, must be 
 left to the judgment of others, whose decision in our favour I rather wish 
 for than expect. For, to say truth, it has not answered my own expecta- 
 tion, as wanting much of that complete workmanship I am well satisfied 
 the materials were capable of : but with regard to the necessity and useful- 
 ness of all we have been labouring, I beg the determination of that may be 
 suspended until it shall be seen what uses we can make of it. Let us now 
 begin to raise the superstructure, wherein I hope to proceed with a little 
 more ease to myself, and satisfaction to anybody that may deign to look 
 upon me. We have examined how and upon what incitements men act, 
 together with the tendencies and consequences of their action : let us try 
 to discover from thence how they ought to act. But I am not so fond as 
 to imagine anything can be done this way so completely as to render all 
 further care and consideration of other persons needless : if I can set up 
 the main pillars of morality, and perform the offices of mason and carpenter 
 in erecting the edifice, this is all can be required of me : I may leave it to 
 each particular man to fit up the several apartments according to his cir- 
 cumstances and situation in life; for things calculated for general use 
 require some pains and circumspection in applying them to private conve- 
 nience in the variety of cases that way happen. 
 
 2. We have seen how the actions of men are of two sorts, inadvertent 
 and deliberate, the former prompted by imagination, and the others by 
 understanding. To imagination belong our combinations and judgments, 
 starting up immediately upon the appearance of objects, our spontaneous 
 trains of thought, our passions, habits, and motives giving the present turn 
 to our volition. Of what kind all these shall be, or when, or how they 
 shall affect us, depends upon the impulse of external objects, upon expe- 
 rience, custom, and other prior causes : the mind has no share either in 
 modelling or introducing them, and though she acts by her own power 
 without their assistance to invigorate her, yet she shapes her motions ac- 
 cording to the directions received from them. There remains only the under- 
 standing, in whose operations the mind acts as principal agent, comparing 
 and marshalling her ideas, investigating those that lie out of sight, forming 
 new judgments, and discovering motives that would not have arisen of 
 themselves. It is therefore by the due use of our understanding, or reason 
 alone, that we can help ourselves when imagination would take a wrong 
 course, or proves insufficient for our purposes. To this then we must have 
 recourse, if we would avail ourselves of anything we have learnt in the 
 foregoing inquiry, because we must employ this to rectify whatever shall be 
 found amiss elsewhere. 
 
 3. And in such employment consists principally, if not entirely, the be- 
 nefit we may expect from reason, which is necessary to be noted, that we
 
 REASON. 201 
 
 may know wherein she may prove serviceable : for some people require too 
 much at her hands, more than she is able to perfcm ; they want her to 
 actuate every motion of their lives, which is impossible, for her power lies 
 in her authority rather than her strength, she does little or nothing herself, 
 but acts altogether by her inferior officers of the family of imagination : at 
 least, till she takes them into her service, her efforts terminate in specula- 
 tion alone, and do not extend to practice. Nor can she work, even in her 
 own peculiar province, without continual supplies from elsewhere ; for she 
 works upon materials found in the repository of ideas. She never produces 
 a judgment or a motive from her own fund, but holds the premises in view 
 until they throw assent or satisfaction upon the conclusion. She is perpe- 
 tually asking, Why is such a thing true ? Why is it desirable ? but former 
 experience must suggest the grounds from whence the answer will result ; 
 for reason does not make the truth nor the desire, but only lays things to- 
 gether whereout either of them may grow. And when she has formed her 
 decisions, she must deposit them with her partner for safe custody against 
 future occasions ; who proving ever so little unfaithful, all she has deposited 
 will either be absolutely lost or so weakened in its colours as to become 
 unserviceable. She runs very short lengths, sees very little way at once, 
 therefore must establish rules and maxims for her own guidance, and make 
 over her treasures to imagination as she acquires them, that they may rise 
 spontaneously to serve her afterwards in her further advances towards know- 
 ledge. But we ordinarily mistake the province of reason by supposing 
 everything reasonable to lie within it, whereas that epithet implies no more 
 than a thing that reason would not disprove. But many very just and 
 solid opinions we imbibe from education or custom, without any application 
 to our reason at all : and those we do acquire for ourselves by the due 
 exercise of that faculty, when firmly rooted, become the property of imagi- 
 nation ; conviction growing into persuasion. They then command our 
 assent without contemplating the evidences whereon they were founded, 
 and that full assurance wherewith they strike the mind instantly upon pre- 
 senting themselves is not an act of reason, but of habit or some moral or 
 internal sense, which continue to influence, though consideration and un- 
 derstanding lie dormant. Were our faculty of reason to be suddenly taken 
 from us, how unable soever we might find ourselves to make new acqui- 
 sitions of knowledge or judgment, we should not necessarily lose those 
 already gotten by former exercises of the faculty. 
 
 4. But if the office of reason lie within so narrow a compass in her own 
 province of speculation, we shall find it reduced to narrower limits when 
 applying her theory to practice ; for she is a tedious heavy mover, poring a 
 long while upon objects before she can determine her choice : our active 
 powers will not always wait her leisure, but take directions elsewhere while 
 she deliberates. Besides, there is not always time for consideration : when 
 the season of action comes unexpectedly, we must instantly turn ourselves 
 one way or other, therefore should make no dispatch in business or must 
 give up the reins to chance, if we had not some rules and measures of 
 conduct ready in store for our guidance : and the principal service our 
 understanding does, is by holding our attention steady to those rules, 
 wherein she quickly tires and faints unless there be some motive of pleasure, 
 or profit, or honour, or necessity, at hand to assist her. And yet in doing 
 this service she performs the smallest share of our work, directing only the 
 main tenor of our conduct ; but the component acts whereof that conduct 
 consists must be suggested in train, by former practice and experience ; for
 
 202 REASON. 
 
 it avails little to know what is expedient, or the rules proper for attaining 
 it, without an expertness and readiness in practising them. The orator 
 may choose his arguments and select the topics proper for enforcing them, 
 but the figures, the language, and the pronunciation, will be such as he has 
 accustomed himself to in former exercises. The musician may think what 
 tune he will play, what divisions he shall run, or with what graces he shall 
 embellish it ; but unless his eye has learnt by use to run currently along 
 the notes, and his fingers along the keys, he will make very indifferent 
 harmony. The business of life goes on by means of habit, opinion, and 
 affection, which understanding only checks from time to time, or turns, or 
 sets them at work, without adding anything to their vigour, unless by 
 bringing several of them to co-operate together. Reason, as Mr. Fopa 
 says, is the card, but passion is the gale ; and if there were a necessity of 
 parting with one of them, we might better spare the former than the 1; ttsr ; 
 for though the course of the ship would be very uncertain without a com- 
 pass, yet without a wind it would not move at all. To lose our reason 
 would make us beasts : to lose our appetites, mere logs. 
 
 5. If there be any instances wherein reason shows signs of an active 
 vigour, they are when we surmount difficulties or endure labours or pains 
 by mere dint of resolution : yet even here every one's experience may con- 
 vince him how feeble she acts unless seconded by some powerful motive 
 retained in view, and how carefully she is forced to fortify herself all around 
 with considerations of damage, or shame, or compunction. Nor has she 
 even this little vigour naturally, but acquires it by inuring the mind by 
 previous discipline to a habit of perseverance ; which when gained, a little 
 time passing in softness and indulgence will divest her of it again. And 
 when with all her care and contrivance she has mustered up a resolution, 
 we know too well how wofully it fails in time of trial, how often it is borne 
 down by the weight of pain or passion, undermined by the working of 
 habit, or surprised by some sudden temptation catching her at unawares. 
 
 I have remarked elsewhere that if our imagination were rightly set so as 
 to exhibit no false appearances, and our appetites and desires all turned 
 upon proper objects, we should want nothing else to answer all the purposes 
 of life more effectually and readily than we can do now. On the other 
 hand, if our understandings were so large as to comprise in our respect all 
 the tendencies of things so far as they might affect us, and to see the future 
 in as strong colours as the present, we might serve ourselves of that alone 
 to supply all our occasions. But since we have neither of our faculties 
 perfect, we must employ both in their proper offices to make up for each 
 other's deficiency. Man has been incompletely defined a rational animal ; 
 he is rather, to use Mr. Woolaston's words, sensitivo-rational, therefore 
 must regard both parts of his constitution ; for one can do nothing without 
 the other, and this would run riot and do worse than nothing without con- 
 tinual direction from that. 
 
 6. The contrariety and opposition observable in the mind gave rise, as I 
 have already remarked in my first chapter, to the notion of several Wills 
 within us : for the mind constantly following the direction of her ideas, that 
 state of them immediately preceding her action we entitle the Will, by a 
 metonyme or sometimes mistake of the cause for the effect. For, if we 
 apprehend every prospect of objects inclining us to act to be really a Will, 
 we shall fall into the absurdity of several Wills, several agents and persons 
 in the same man t whereas it is the same agent, the same power, that acts 
 in all cases, whether we act madly or soberly, whether we deny or indulge
 
 REASON. 203 
 
 our Wills. But if we take the matter figuratively, this diversity of persons 
 may serve aptly enough to express the disordered condition of human 
 nature, wherein reason and passion perpetually struggle, resist, and con- 
 trol one another. The metaphor employed by Plato was that of a cha- 
 rioteer driving his pair of horses, by which latter he allegorized the concu- 
 piscihle and irascible passions ; but as we have now-a-days left off driving 
 our own chariots, but keep a coachman to do it for us, I think the mind may 
 be more commodiously compared to a traveller riding a single horse, 
 wherein reason is represented by the rider, and imagination with all its 
 train of opinions, appetites, and habits, by the beast. Everybody sees the 
 horse does all the work ; the strength and speed requisite for performing it 
 are his own ; he carries his master along every step of the journey, directs 
 the motion of his own legs in walking, trotting, galloping, or stepping over 
 a rote, makes many by-motions, as whisking the flies with his tail or play- 
 ing with his bit, all by his own instinct ; and if the road lie plain and open 
 without bugbears to affright him or rich pasture on either hand to entice 
 him, he will jog on, although the reins were laid upon his neck, or in a 
 well-acquainted road to take the right turnings of his own accord. Perhaps 
 sometimes he may prove startish or restive, turning out of the way, or 
 running into a pond to drink, maugre all endeavours to prevent him ; but 
 this depends greatly upon the discipline he has been used to. The office of 
 the rider lies in putting his horse into the proper road, and the pace most 
 convenient for the present purpose, guiding and conducting him as he goes 
 along, checking him when too forward or spurring him when too tardy, 
 being attentive to his motions, never dropping the whip nor losing the 
 reins, but ready to interpose instantly whenever needful, keeping firm in 
 his seat if the beast behaves unruly, observing what passes in the way, the 
 condition of the ground, and bearings of the country, in order to take 
 directions therefrom for his proceeding. But this is not all he has to do, 
 for there are many things previous to the journey ; he must get his tackling 
 in good order, bridle, spurs, and other accoutrements ; he must learn to sit 
 well in the saddle, to understand the ways and temper of the beast, get 
 acquainted with the roads, and inure himself by practice to bear long jour- 
 neys without fatigue or galling ; he must provide provender for his horse, 
 and deal it out in proper quantities ; for if weak and jadish, or pampered 
 and gamesome, he will not perform the journey well : he must have him 
 well broke, taught all his paces, cured of starting, stumbling, running away, 
 and all skittish or sluggish tricks, trained to answer the bit and be obedient 
 to the word of command. If he can teach him to canter whenever there 
 is a smooth and level turf, and stop when the ground lies rugged, of his 
 own accord, it will contribute to make riding easy and pleasant ; he may 
 then enjoy the prospects around, or think of any business without inter- 
 ruption to his progress. As to the choice of a horse, our rider has no 
 concern with that, but must content himself with such as nature and edu- 
 cation have put into his hands : but since the spirit of the beast depends 
 much upon the usage given him, every prudent man will endeavour to pro- 
 portion that spirit to his own strength and skill in horsemanship ; and 
 according as he finds himself a good or bad rider, will wish to have his 
 horse sober or mettlesome. For strong passions work wonders where there 
 is a stronger force of reason to curb them ; but where this is weak the 
 appetites must be feeble too, or they will lie under no control. 
 
 7. From all that has been said above, as well literally as allegorically, we 
 may learn what the proper business of reason is, namely, to watch ovef our
 
 204 ULTIMATE GOOD. 
 
 motions and look out for the proper measures of conduct with as much cir- 
 cumspection as the present circumstances of the case shall permit or require. 
 For this there is little need of instruction, but rather exhortation, to prevail 
 on men to exert their faculty ; for everybody knows the difference between 
 considerate and thoughtless behaviour. The principal part of her employ- 
 ment lies in storing the mind with solid knowledge, establishing useful rules 
 of conduct, and abpve all, contracting such habits and desires as may con- 
 tinually lead the active powers into proper courses. For this last branch is 
 of the most importance, because it fructifies our knowledge by making it 
 practical ; nor can any one doubt that the world would receive more im- 
 provement by everybody's living up to what they know, than by any increase 
 of their knowledge whatever ; and that they do not live up to it, can be 
 owing to nothing else besides bad habits and inordinate desires. But every 
 rule and every desire must have some purpose to drive at, and it becomes 
 reason to examine the propriety of the purpose as well as conduciveness of 
 the measures towards obtaining it : this commonly leads to some further end 
 first recommending that purpose to our choice, and that many times points 
 out another end lying still beyond, and so on without limitation. For the 
 most part we stop at a few general principles which we have found most 
 universally received or esteem valuable in themselves, without knowing or 
 without remembering what first discovered to us their value : and this me- 
 thod may serve well enough for common use. But the studious, in their 
 seasons of leisure and contemplation, endeavour to carry back their researches 
 as far as they can push them, and penetrate quite to the fountain head : but 
 being sensible that reason must come to a stop at last, and arrive at some- 
 thing which had a recommendation prior to any that she could give it, they 
 strive to find out what is that First or ultimate end ; for first and last here 
 are the same thing, which nature has given for our pursuit, and from which 
 reason must deduce all those principles and rules of action she recommends. 
 And as there has been great variance upon this point, it will deserve a 
 particular consideration, for which I shall appropriate the next ensuing 
 chapter. 
 
 CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 ULTIMATE GOOD. 
 
 FOR so I choose to translate the Summum Bonum of the ancients, as 
 much and as unsuccessfully sought after as the philosopher's stone> rather 
 than call it the Chief Good, as it is vulgarly termed. For the inquiry was 
 not to ascertain the degrees of goodness in objects, or determine what pos- 
 sessed it in the highest pitch beyond all others ; but, since the goodness of 
 things depends upon their serviceableness towards procuring something we 
 want, to discover what was that one thing intrinsically good which contented 
 the mind of itself and rendered all others desirable in proportion as they 
 tended directly or remotely to procure it. Good, says Mr. Locke, is that 
 which produces pleasure, and if we understand it thus strictly, in the tme 
 original sense, our inquiry were vain : for then the very expression of good 
 in itself would be absurd, because nothing good could be ultimate, the 
 pleasure it produces lying always beyond. But it is customary to call that 
 good which stands at the very end of our wishes, and contents the niind
 
 ULTIMATE GOOD. 205 
 
 without reference to anything further : and in this common acceptation the 
 term will be applicable to our present purpose. 
 
 2. Upon perusal of the chapter of satisfaction, and those of the four 
 classes of motives, whoever shall happen to think they contain a just repre- 
 sentation of human nature, need not be long in seeking for this summun 
 bonum : for he will perceive it to be none other than pleasure or satisfac- 
 tion, which is pleasure taken in the largest sense, as comprising every com- 
 placence of mind together with the avoidance of pain or uneasiness. Perhaps 
 I shall be charged with reviving the old exploded doctrine of Epicurus 
 upon this article, but I am not ashamed of joining with any man of 
 whatever character in those parts of it, where I think he has truth on his 
 side : though whether I do really agree with him here, is more than I can 
 be sure of, for I find great disputes concerning what he called pleasure. If 
 he confined it to gross sensual delights or imaginations relative thereto, as 
 his adversaries charged him with, and the bulk of his followers seem to 
 have understood him, I cannot consent to shut myself up within such narrow 
 limits : for though these things may afford a genuine satisfaction sometimes 
 and when sparingly used, yet it is to be had more plentifully elsewhere. 
 Therefore, being regardless whether my sentiments tally or no with those 
 of Epicurus, I shall not trouble myself to examine what he really thought, 
 but endeavour as far as I am able to explain what this satisfaction is, which 
 I suppose the summum bonum or ultimate end of action. And this I can- 
 not do better than by referring, as I have done before in the chapter upon 
 that article, to every man's experience of the condition of mind he finds 
 himself in when anything happens to his wish or good liking ; when he 
 feels the cool breezes of a summer evening or the comfortable warmth of a 
 winter fire ; when he gains possession of something useful or profitable ; 
 when he has done anything he can applaud himself for or will redound to 
 his credit with persons he esteems. 
 
 3. But to consider satisfaction physically, it is a perception of the mind, 
 residing in her alone, constantly one and the same in kind, how much 
 soever it may vary in degree : for whether a man be pleased with hearing 
 music, seeing prospects, tasting dainties, performing laudable actions, or 
 making agreeable reflections, his complacence and condition of mind will be 
 the same if equal in degree, though coming from different quarters. But 
 this complacence, and indeed every other perception, the mind never has, 
 unless excited in her by some external object striking upon her bodily 
 senses, or some idea giving play to her mental organs. We have supposed 
 there may be some certain fibre whose peculiar office it is to affect the mind 
 in this manner, and our organs please or not by their motion according as, 
 in the natural texture or present disposition of our frame, they stand con- 
 nected with this spring of satisfaction. Whether there really be such a 
 particular spring or no is not very material to know, for if we could ascer- 
 tain its existence we cannot come at it either with the finger or surgeon's 
 probe so as to set it a working for our entertainment. Since then we 
 cannot touch this spring directly, we must endeavour to convey an impulse 
 to it by those channels that nature has provided us with for the purpose : 
 for common experience testifies that there are a variety of sensations and 
 reflections qualified to excite satisfaction in the mind when we can apply 
 them. But our attention usually reaching no further than to these causes, 
 for if we can procure them the effect will follow of course, we give the 
 name of pleasure to those sensations and scenes of imagination which touch 
 us in the sensible part : hence pleasure becomes a improper term to ex-
 
 206 ULTIMATE GOOD. 
 
 press the sunimum bonum hy, because objects or ideas that have pleased 
 may not do so again ; therefore if we were to recommend it as the end of 
 action, we might be misunderstood, or mislead some unwary person already 
 inclined that way into the pursuit of a wrong object ; for pleasure in the 
 vulgar acceptation will not always please. If Epicurus understood it in 
 this sense, I renounce communion with him as a heretic ; but if by pleasure 
 he meant the very complacence of mind generated by agreeable objects of 
 any kind whatever, I cannot refuse him my assistance against all oppo- 
 nents ; and the rather for fear this may prove the only point whereon we 
 shall ever have an opportunity of joining forces together. 
 
 4. Nor can it be doubted that satisfaction is proposed to our pursuit by 
 nature, when we reflect how universally and perpetually it engages all 
 mankind, how steadily volition follows the prospect of immediate satisfac- 
 tion, as has been shown in the foregoing inquiry, if one may be said to 
 show a thing that was before sufficiently manifested by Mr. Locke. The 
 man and the child, the civilized and the savage, the learned and the vulgar, 
 the prudent and the giddy, the good and the wicked, constantly pursue 
 whatever appears most satisfactory to them in their present apprehension : 
 and if at any time they forego an immediate pleasure for sake of a distant 
 advantage, it is because they conceive a greater satisfaction in the prospect 
 of that advantage or uneasiness in the thought of missing it. Therefore, 
 those who can content themselves with the enjoyments of to-day without 
 feeling an actual concern for the morrow, will never be moved to action by 
 anything future, how fully soever they acknowledge the expedience of it : 
 and when pain rises so high as that the mind cannot find any contentment 
 under it, it will overpower the best grounded resolutions. Neither is there 
 any more room to doubt of satisfaction being the ultimate end than of its 
 being a natural good, because all other goodness centres in that : the grati- 
 fications of pleasure, the rules of prudence and morality, are good, only as 
 they tend by themselves or in their consequences to satisfy the mind : one 
 may give a reason for all other things being good, but for that alone no 
 reason can be given, for experience not reason must recommend it. Why 
 is knowledge good ? because it directs us to choose the things that are most 
 useful. Why are useful things good ? because they minister to the supply 
 of our wants and desires. Why is this supply good ? because it satisfies 
 the mind. Why is satisfaction good ? here you must stop, for there lies 
 nothing beyond to furnish materials for an answer : but if anybody denies 
 it, you can only refer him to his own common sense, by asking how he finds 
 himself when in a state of satisfaction or disquietude, and whether of them 
 he would prefer to the other. 
 
 In short, the matter seems so clear that one may be thought to trifle in 
 spending so many words to prove it : and after all, what is the upshot of 
 the whole but to show that satisfaction satisfies ? a mere identical proposi- 
 tion adding nothing to our knowledge, but the same as if one should say 
 that plenitude fills, that heat warms, that hardness resists and softness yields 
 to the touch. Yet as trifling as the proposition may appear, Mr. Locke 
 has bestowed a great deal of pains in proving the value and efficacy of 
 satisfaction : nor have there been wanting persons of no small reputation 
 with whom such pains were necessary, who out of their extravagant zeal 
 for virtue denied that all other pleasures conferred anything towards better- 
 ing the condition of the mind. Had they pronounced them cloying, un- 
 stable, often delusive of the expectation, and productive of greater mischiefs, 
 they had said right, and enough to answer their main purpose : but this
 
 ULTIMATE GOOD. 207 
 
 would not do ; they insisted that when we see a man actually pleased with 
 trifles, wanting nothing else, but fully contented with the condition of mind 
 they throw him into, nevertheless he was miserable at the very instant of 
 enjoyment without regard to consequences. What is this but undertaking 
 to prove that satisfaction does not satisfy, which whoever can accomplish 
 may rise to be a cardinal, for he need not fear being able to demonstrate 
 transubstantiation. Our divines talk more rationally when they admit that 
 the pleasures of sin may satisfy for a moment, but are too dearly bought 
 when purchased with disease, shame, remorse, and an incapacity for higher 
 enjoyments. 
 
 5. One remark more concerning the summum bonum, viz. that though 
 a noun of the singular number, nevertheless it is one in species only, con- 
 taining a multitude of individuals. For our perceptions are fleeting and 
 momentary, objects strike successively upon our organs, and ideas rise 
 incessantly in our imagination, which thereby throw the rnind into a state 
 of complacence or disquietude, corresponding with the manner of their im- 
 pulse, which has no duration : therefore satisfaction cannot continue with- 
 out a continual application of satisfactory causes. This gains another name 
 for the summum bonum, and makes us entitle it Happiness, which is the 
 aggregate of satisfactions. For though this term be sometimes applied to 
 the enjoyment of a single moment, and then is synonymous with satisfac- 
 tion, yet it more generally and properly denotes the surplus and successes a 
 man has met with or may expect over and above his disappointments : if 
 the surplus be anything considerable, we pronounce him happy ; if his dis- 
 quietudes greatly exceed, we style him miserable. Ovid understood it in 
 this sense when he laid down that we can never pronounce a man happy 
 before his death, because the fortune of life being uncertain, whatever 
 enjoyments we see him possessed of we can never be sure they may not be 
 overbalanced by evils to come : and Milton the same, in his apostrophe to 
 our first parents, Sleep on, blest pair, yet happy if ye seek not other happi- 
 ness and know to know no more. But sound sleep, being a state of insen- 
 sibility, is capable neither of satisfaction nor uneasiness : therefore the 
 sleeping pair were happy only in respect to that ample store of unmingled 
 pleasures lying in reserve for them against they awoke. 
 
 Thus happiness relates to the whole tenor of our lives, but multitudes of 
 our actions do not reach so far as to affect our condition so long as we 
 have our being : this breaks happiness again into smaller portions corres- 
 ponding with the length or extent of their influence. It may be all one 
 after dinner whether I eat mutton or chicken, but if one will please me 
 better during the time of eating and the indulgence will do me no harm, 
 why should not I take that I like best ? When we lay out a day's diver- 
 sion by some little excursion abroad, we regard what will entertain us most 
 for the day, notwithstanding some trifling inconveniences of sloppy roads 
 or indifferent accommodations at a paltry inn. If we take a house we 
 consider, not what will be the most easy for the first month, but most com- 
 modious during the whole lease. And when a father puts his son to school, 
 he might supply him with more enjoyment at home than can be expected 
 during the seven years of schooling ; but he considers that learning will 
 enable him to pass his life afterwards more agreeably and usefully. Thus 
 upon several occasions proposed to our option, that is always the best 
 which will add most to our happiness as far as its consequences extend. 
 
 6. Our satisfactions come sometimes from causes operating of their own 
 accord, as upon change of weather from chill or sultry to moderate, or upon
 
 208 ULTIMATE GOOD. 
 
 hearing joyful news unexpectedly ; but for the most part we must procure 
 them for ourselves by application of proper means. Now since we are 
 prompted to use our activity by desire, since the good things occurring 
 spontaneously would have been objects of our desire had we known of them 
 beforehand, or our intervention been wanted, therefore may justly be styled 
 desirable ; and since desire of itself renders objects satisfactory which would 
 otherwise have been indifferent, therefore it is the first rule of happiness to 
 procure the gratification of our desires ; nor shall I scruple to recommend 
 this as the proper business of life. Let every man by my consent study to 
 gratify himself in whatever suits his taste and inclination, for they vary 
 infinitely : one man's meat is another man's poison ; what this person likes 
 the next may abhor ; what delights at one time may disgust at another ; 
 and what entertains when new may grow stale and insipid afterwards. 
 Our appetites and fancies prompt us fast enough to this gratification, to 
 choose objects suited to our particular tastes and to vary them as we find 
 our relish change : but the misfortune is that desire often defeats her own 
 purpose, either by mistaking things for satisfactory which are not, as when 
 a child goes to play with the flame of a candle ; or by a more common 
 mistake apprehending gratification to lie in a single point, whereas this, 
 like happiness, consists in the sum aggregate of enjoyments. He that in- 
 dulges one desire to the crossing of many others, ought no more to be 
 thought pursuing gratification than he can be thought to pursue profit who 
 takes twenty pounds to-day for goods that he might have sold to-morrow for 
 forty : a true lover of money will reject it when offered upon such terms, 
 and a true lover of gratification who knows what he is about will reject it 
 upon the like. Therefore there is no occasion to persuade men out of their 
 senses, and face them down that gratification adds nothing to their satis- 
 faction, no not for a moment : on the contrary, we may exhort them to 
 pursue it as a thing most valuable, and therefore to pursue it in the same 
 manner as they would other valuable things, that is, not to take a little in 
 hand in lieu of more they might have by and by. Any trifle that hits our 
 fancy suffices to content the mind, and if we could enjoy it for ever with 
 the same relish, it would answer our whole purpose; for I know of no 
 weariness, no satiety, no change of taste in the mind ; these all belong to 
 the organs bodily and mental. When a glutton sits down to a well-spread 
 table with a good appetite, if he ever has any, he possesses as much of the 
 summum bonum as can be obtained within the time ; and if he had victuals 
 continually supplied him, a hole in his throat to discharge them as fast as 
 swallowed, and nothing in the world else to do, he might attain it com- 
 pletely : but this cannot be : yet if he can prolong appetite beyond its 
 stretch by high sauces, until he has overcharged himself, still I can allow 
 him in a state of enjoyment during the repast, for he has a desire, and he 
 gratifies it. But has he none other desires that will solicit him by and by ? 
 has he not a desire of being free from sickness of stomach, or distemper ; 
 nothing else he wants to do with his money ; no diversion, no business 
 that requires alertness of spirits, no regard for his credit, the good word of 
 his friends, or his own peace of mind ; if he has other desires that must 
 suffer by indulging this one, he is a very bad accomptant in the article of 
 gratification. Thus the very interests of our desires sometimes require 
 self denial, which is recommendable only on that account : nor would I 
 advise a man ever to deny himself, unless in order to please himself better 
 another time. 
 
 7. Since then our desires mislead us so grossly, sometimes mistaking
 
 ULTIMATE GOOD. 209 
 
 their own intention, and at other times starving one another, let us have 
 recourse to reason to moderate between them, and to remedy the incon- 
 veniences they would bring upon us : and this, upon observing the opposition 
 among them, will quickly discover that there are two ways of attaining 
 gratification, one by procuring the objects we desire, the other by accom- 
 modating desire to the objects before us, or most convenient for us upon 
 the whole. Either of these methods would answer our purpose, if we 
 could pursue it effectually : were it possible to command everything with a 
 wish, and supply fuel to our desires as fast as they start up, still varying 
 their objects, as they themselves vary ; or could we carry our heart in our 
 hands, moulding it like wax, to the shape of every circumstance occurring, 
 we need never feel a moment's uneasiness. But neither of these is possible : 
 many things that would please us, lie out of our reach, some of them 
 never to be obtained, others only now and then, as opportunity favours, 
 but the greater part of them satiate, before desire abates : on the other 
 hand, there are some natural desires we can never totally eradicate, some 
 necessaries, without which we cannot sustain our bodies in vigour, nor our 
 spirits in alertness, to serve us upon any occasion. Therefore we must 
 drive the nail that will go, use our understandings in surveying the stock 
 of materials for gratification, either generally or at any particular time in 
 our power, and examining the state of our desires, which among them are 
 most attainable, or least contradictory to others, or what we can do towards 
 blending them to ply most suitable to our convenience. 
 
 The former of these methods, that of procuring objects to our fancy, is 
 the most obvious, therefore most commonly practised. We see men run 
 eagerly after whatever their present desire urges them to, in proportion to 
 the strength of their inclination ; yet even here they must often call in con- 
 sideration to their aid. For our pleasures, even those of them which are 
 attainable, do not always hang so close within our reach, as that we can 
 gather them whenever so disposed, but there are many things preparatory 
 to the obtaining them ; materials to be provided for supplying them, skill 
 to be learned, dexterity to be acquired for the making and properly applying 
 of that provision. This gives rise to the common rules of prudence, to all 
 arts and sciences, directing or enabling men to make advances in fortune, 
 honour, elegance, or other principal object they have set their hearts upon, 
 and supplying the world with the conveniences and entertainments of life. 
 The preparatories to pleasure will by translation become themselves ob- 
 jects of desire sufficient to move us, without the reference they bear to 
 their end : and it is necessary they should, or else we must miss of the be- 
 nefit they will do us. For as a traveller must not keep his thoughts con- 
 stantly intent upon the place he wishes to arrive at, if he would make any 
 dispatch in his journey, but having once taken the right road, fixes his eye 
 upon the nearest parts of it as he goes along ; so neither can we always 
 contemplate the enjoyments we are providing for ourselves without inter- 
 rupting our progress. Our capacities are too short to hold the whole line 
 of our pursuit in view, but we must rest upon some part of it most conve- 
 nient for our present direction : nor indeed could we always see to the end 
 of our line if we were to strain ever so much, therefore must trust to others, 
 or to our own former determination, for an assurance that it will lead us 
 the way we would wish. Thus happiness, although the ultimate end of 
 action, yet is not always, perhaps I might say, very seldom, our ultimate 
 point of view : for our road lies through lanes and hedges, or over an 
 VOL. i. p
 
 210 ULTIMATE GOOD. 
 
 uneven, hilly country, where we can see very little way before us : nay, 
 sometimes we must seemingly turn our backs upon it, and take a compass 
 round in the plain beaten track, to avoid impracticable morasses, or other 
 obstacles intervening. Hence we may learn why pleasure is so deceitful a 
 guide to happiness, because it plunges us headlong forward through thick 
 and thin, fixing our eyes upon a single point, and taking them off from the 
 marks leading to that aggregate of satisfactions whereof happiness consists. 
 Wherefore he that resolves to please himself always will scarce ever do so, 
 for by perpetually indulging his desires he will destroy or lose the means 
 of indulging them. 
 
 8. For the skill of providing materials to gratify our desires, we must 
 consult common prudence and discretion, or resort to the professors of arts 
 and sciences containing the several branches of it : but the other method 
 of gratification by managing the mind itself and bringing desire to the most 
 convenient ply, belongs properly to the moralist ; whose business lies not 
 so much in informing you how to procure what you want, as how to forbear 
 wanting what you cannot have, or would prove hurtful to you. But want 
 cannot be removed without aid of some other want ; for as you can never 
 bring a man to assent to a proposition unless by means of some premises 
 whereto he does already assent, so you can never bring him to any desire, 
 unless by showing the connection it bears with something he already de- 
 sires. The desire of happiness would suffice for this purpose, if we had it 
 stronger infixed than we find in our breasts : but though all have this desire, 
 so far as that they would be willing enough to receive happiness, if they 
 could get it upon asking for ; yet, being an aggregate, and therefore always 
 in part at least distant, they prefer the present gratification of other desires 
 before it. Therefore the moralist \\ill begin with striving to inculcate this 
 desire of happiness into himself and others as deeply as possible. But since 
 this can hardly ever be done so effectually as one would wish, for we can 
 never raise so vivid an idea of remote objects, as to equal those standing 
 close to us, he will examine all other propensities belonging to us in order 
 to encourage those which are most innocent, most satisfactory, most compa- 
 tible together, and best promoting his principal aim. These he will en- 
 deavour to render habitual, so as that they may start up to the thought un- 
 called, and gather strength enough to overpower others he wishes to eradi- 
 cate. As we cannot upon every occasion see to the end of our proceedings, 
 he will establish certain rules to serve as landmarks for guiding us on the 
 way. These rules, when he has leisure and opportunity for mature consi- 
 deration, he will build on one another, erecting the whole fabric upon the 
 basis of summum bonum before described. But because their reference to 
 the ultimate end cannot be continually kept in mind, he will inure himself 
 and everybody within his reach, by such methods as he shall find feasible, 
 to look upon them as good in themselves, that they may become influencing 
 principles of action. The outer branches of these rules, calculated for ordi- 
 nary occasions, will of course vary according to those occasions or to the 
 tempers, abilities, situations, and needs of different persons, to particularize 
 all which would be endless and impracticable ; but there are a few general 
 rules universally expedient, as being the stem whereout the rest are to grow. 
 The first seems to be that of habituating ourselves to follow the dictates of 
 judgment in preference to any impulse of passion, fancy, or appetite, and 
 forbear whatever our reason disapproves as being wrong : for there is no- 
 thing more evident than that the knowledge of right and wrong can do us 
 no benefit while resting in speculation alone and not reduced into practice ;
 
 RECTITUDE. 211 
 
 which it can never he unless hecome hahitual, and striking with the force 
 of an obligation or an object of desire. 
 
 CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 RECTITUDE. 
 
 WK hear much of an essential rectitude in certain things, hut hefore we 
 attempt to judge of their essence it will he expedient to settle with our- 
 selves the purport of the word Right, for we shall be likely to reason very 
 indifferently without understanding the terms we employ. Right belongs 
 originally to lines, being the same as straight in opposition to curve or 
 crooked. Everybody knows a right line is the shortest that can lie be- 
 tween two points so as to touch them both, and the nearest approach from 
 any one to any other given point is along such right line. From hence it 
 has been applied by way of metaphor to rules and actions, which lying in the 
 line of our progress towards any purpose we aim at, if they be wrong they 
 will carry us aside, and we shall either wholly miss of our intent, or must 
 begin again and take a longer compass than necessary to arrive at it : but 
 if they conduct effectually and directly by the nearest way, we pronounce 
 them right. Therefore the very expression of right in itself is absurd, be- 
 cause things are rendered right by their tendency to some end, so that you 
 must take something exterior into the account in order to evidence their 
 rectitude. Rules are termed right upon a supposition of their expedience, 
 and so are actions too for the most part : when a man digs for hidden trea- 
 sure, we say he has hit upon the right spot if he pitches his spade just over 
 where the treasure lies, though perhaps he did it by guess : but since we 
 are often uncertain of our actions, we apply them to some rule in order to 
 determine their propriety. Hence action has another source of rectitude, 
 namely, its conformity with rule, and consequently may chance to be right 
 or wrong, according to which of the two sources you refer it ; for our rules 
 being generally imperfect or built upon probability, we may act right, that 
 is, conformable to them, and yet take a wrong course with respect to the 
 design we had in view. If you look over the hands at whist, and see the 
 party upon whose side you have betted lead his ace of trumps when the ad- 
 versary has king alone, you will be apt to cry out Right played ! because it 
 suits your purpose best of anything he could have done ; yet perhaps he 
 might play wrong according to the rules of the game. What if you see 
 him playing on Sundays ? you may perceive he plays his cards extremely 
 well, yet if you are a conscientious man you will condemn him for acting 
 wrong : but playing is acting, so then he acts right and wrong at the same 
 instant. What becomes now of the essence of rectitude, when the opposite 
 essence resides in the same subject ? Can the essence of things change 
 without any alteration in themselves, but as they are compared to this or 
 that particular object, or set in various lights ? Besides that actions per- 
 fectly innocent, having neither essence regarded nakedly in themselves, 
 may derive it elsewhere : nothing can be more harmless than wagging your 
 finger considered in itself, yet if the finger-rest against the trigger of a 
 loaded musket, and a man stand just before, you cannot do a wronger thing, 
 and why ? not because of anything contained in- the essence of the action, 
 
 p2
 
 212 RECTITUDE. 
 
 but because of the fatal consequences attendant thereupon. Nor are rules 
 less liable to vary their rectitude, which constantly follows expedience and 
 changes with the change of persons or circumstances. Suppose you lay 
 down for a rule, When you want provisions to go to the east ; this may be 
 a very good precept for those who live to the westward of a market-town, 
 but when carried to villages on any other point of the compass loses its 
 essence. 
 
 2. It must be owned that this essential and intrinsic rectitude is not 
 attributed to all rules, but to those only supposed invariable and general, 
 not confined to particular cases. I know of none better entitled to this cha- 
 racter than that recommended at the close of the foregoing chapter, to follow 
 reason in preference to passion and appetite : yet one may question whether 
 this be in fact perpetual, for what rule is it to a young child not arrived at 
 the use of his understanding, or to a man who has lost it through age or 
 distempers ? Or if there were a man whose appetites were so happily turned 
 as to fix always upon things beneficial, our rule would be wrong, because 
 reflection and consideration would retard the speed of appetite and inter- 
 rupt it in its operations. But this case being never likely to happen upon 
 earth, we will admit the rule to be invariable ; still its rectitude flows from 
 the condition of mankind, which may be looked upon as a permanent cir- 
 cumstance attending them through the whole line of their existence. So 
 then all rules whatever, as well general as particular, become right, not 
 from anything essential or in themselves, but from their reference to hap- 
 piness, and the situation either natural or accidental of the party to be 
 directed by them. 
 
 3. Though I said just now that the conformity to rule was a second 
 source of rectitude in actions, yet this conformity does not so much consti- 
 tute as discover their rectitude. Could we always see the certain conse- 
 quences of our conduct we should need no rules, for our own sagacity would 
 be a sufficient guide ; but since our ultimate end is not perpetually our ulti- 
 mate point of view, as lying beyond our ken, we want certain marks to 
 direct us in our approach towards it. The rules of life are those marks 
 hung up by observing men for the benefit of themselves and others travel- 
 ling the road : but nobody supposes a mark to carry any essential intrinsic 
 goodness. Thus rules draw their goodness from the shortness of our views 
 and narrowness of our capacities, and bear a reference not only to the good 
 end whereto they conduce, but likewise to the need we stand under of a 
 conductor. As people make further proficiency in any art or business they 
 employ the fewer rules, and in things quite familiar to them they use none : 
 like carriers jogging on continually in the same road with whom posts of 
 direction lose their quality and become no direction at all. To tell a man 
 that when he walks he must step one foot first and then the other, were no 
 rule, for he does it of his own accord ; but what is nothing can have no 
 essence and contain nothing. 
 
 4. But it may be objected that actions sometimes receive a rectitude from 
 their conformity to rule when they do not answer the purpose intended by 
 them. A good man, failing in the success of his endeavours, will find great 
 consolation in reflecting that he had acted right, that is, had laid his mea- 
 sures justly and executed them punctually. But let us remember that the 
 good man aims at happiness rather than pleasure, that is, at the greater sum 
 of satisfactions preferably to the less, and though he misses his purpose in 
 the present instance by following his rule, yet he shall attain it more com- 
 pletely in other instances by the like adherence. Your gamesters have two
 
 RECTITUDE. 213 
 
 sayings current among them, one that the cards will beat anybody, the 
 other, that the best player will always come off winner at the year's end. 
 So how much soever fortune may influence our success in the game of life, 
 yet she is not so unequal in her favours but that prudence and steadiness 
 will always succeed in the long run better than folly and inconsiderateness. 
 The consolation under disappointment of measures rightly taken rests upon 
 this bottom, that as acts of conformity to rule strengthen and evince our 
 habit of adherence to regular conduct, the possession of this habit conduces 
 more to our happiness than any little success we might have gained by a 
 lucky misconduct ; and we may reasonably esteem ourselves put into a 
 better condition upon the whole by performing those acts of conformity than 
 we should have stood in had we omitted them. Therefore whenever we can 
 discern the inexpedience of our rule, and may depart from it without lessen- 
 ing our own regard for it or those of other people, we always deem this an 
 excepted case : and if it be true, what is commonly held, that there is no 
 rule without exceptions, then there is no rule which may not become wrong 
 in some instance or other. 
 
 5. Let us now trace out if we can the origin of those epithets Essential 
 and Intrinsic, and examine how they first came applied to rectitude of rules: 
 for we cannot but suppose there must be some good foundation for the use of 
 terms we see currentlyused among learned and judicious men. There are some 
 rules which respect the qualities of objects wherewith we have any concern, 
 and of course must vary according as those objects change their position, or 
 others succeed in their room, or as we have or cease to have a concern with 
 them : these we style occasional, being calculated for particular occasions 
 and relating to the situation wherein we happen to stand. Others take their 
 rise from the make and constitution of man, and therefore cannot change 
 with any change of place or things external, because we can never remove 
 ourselves from ourselves : these are called essential, as being founded on the 
 very essence of human nature. Thus, lay in a stock of coals in summer, is 
 a very proper rule of family economy here in this climate, where the cold- 
 ness of our winters renders such a provision necessary : but if we were to 
 inhabit the torrid zone, this rule would lose its rectitude. But look before 
 you leap, is a rule calculated upon the observation of human nature, wherein 
 appetite would continually hurry on to mischief if not restrained by con- 
 sideration : therefore this rule will remain right everywhere and always so 
 long as we continue to be human creatures, that is, sensitive-rational 
 animals. The former I take to be of the occasional kind, and the latter 
 essential : and a very proper distinction it is, as instructing us which to prefer 
 when they happen to come into competition. Nevertheless, the essence 
 belongs, not to the rule, but to the object whereon it is grounded. 
 
 6. The idea of right in itself I conceive arose from observing that our 
 rules grow from one another, their rectitude depending upon the rectitude 
 of those whereout they spring ; and that some of them may be rendered 
 right or wrong by authority, custom, or compact. It was right some years 
 ago to import and wear cambric, but now it would be wrong, because the 
 laws have prohibited it : it was right among our ancestors to appear in 
 public with ruffs, slashed sleeves, and high hats, but now wrong, the fashion 
 being altered : it might have been right yesterday for me to have resolved 
 upon taking a long journey of pleasure, but if I have since made a solemn 
 appointment to meet a neighbour here at home, it would be wrong to- dis- 
 appoint him. These things are rendered right or wrong by their conformity 
 or contrariety to the higher rules of obedience to the legislature, of decency
 
 214 RECTITUDE. 
 
 and good manners, and of fidelity to our engagements, without which there 
 can be no order nor agreeable converse, nor dependence in the world : but 
 because we do not always discern, or at least not think of their expedience, 
 we entitle them right in themselves ; whereas the rules receiving their sanc- 
 tion from them we do not call so because we can see to what they owe their 
 (rectitude. This distinction likewise is of great use, because it helps to dis- 
 cover the proper objects of authority, custom, and compact ; for what car- 
 ries a strong intrinsic rectitude they cannot alter : no laws, nor general 
 .practice of a country, nor private engagement, can make it right to commit 
 murder. I said a strong intrinsic rectitude, for there are various degrees 
 of it, and rules carrying a higher degree may supersede those of a lower. 
 Surely the rule of self-preservation must be acknowledged right in itself, 
 yet the laws of every country oblige men to neglect this by compelling them 
 into military service, and I never heard such laws absolutely condemned by 
 the speculative as unrighteous. And when intrinsic rules interfere, that 
 ought to carry the preference which conduces most largely to happiness, 
 wherein not only the present expedience is to be considered, but likewise the 
 danger of invalidating a rule and the greater mischiefs that may ensue 
 thereby : which make such cases many times extremely difficult to deter- 
 mine, there being so many distant consequences to be taken into account. 
 
 7. Thus I conceive those rules essentially and intrinsically right of whose 
 rectitude we are well satisfied or find no controversy made, although we do 
 not discern from whence that rectitude flowed ; and these rules are of signal 
 service for trying others of an inferior kind by an application to them : 
 therefore, I am not for discarding the terms, but giving them their due 
 weight and setting them upon their proper foundation. For some men 
 carry them a great deal too far by supposing them to imply something 
 valuable contained in the exercise of a rule without reference to anything 
 further : as when they place the wisdom of Regulus's choice of a certain 
 and cruel death rather than breaking faith with his enemies, in the sole act 
 of conformity to the rules of fidelity abstracted from consequences. If 
 Regulus did right, it must be not for any value in the naked act, but upon 
 supposition that he acted more for his own happiness in the sequel than he 
 could have done by any breach of faith, for we can hardly think he acted 
 more for his present ease. I know of nothing absolutely good besides satis- 
 faction ; but since there are many actions not apparently satisfactory or some- 
 times the reverse, which yet tend to procure an increase of happiness, rules 
 are the marks directing us to the choice of such actions : and the highest 
 rules are those which answer this purpose most generally and effectually. 
 We meet with persons sometimes who, perceiving a character of rectitude 
 in their rules, will not suffer you to ask why they are right, but stop your 
 mouth with the repetition of a necessary and essential rectitude : such may 
 be very honest and worthy men, and if their principles be good and their 
 practice conformable, they certainly deserve that character ; but to talk in 
 this strain upon a serious inquiry or contest with an opponent, is talking 
 very unphilosophically. For no rule is right without a reason that renders 
 it so, nor are the clearest of them above examination ; nay, an examination 
 now and then is advisable, they being apt to warp with common use or 
 contract rust and dross with lying by ; and if their purity and sterling be 
 doubted of, there is none other so certain way to try them as by the touch- 
 stone of expedience.
 
 215 
 
 CHAP. XXIX 
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 VIRTUE has been always esteemed something habitual : our first advances 
 towards it were styled by the ancients an Indication of virtue, or as we 
 may call it the embryo or seedling not yet arrived to perfection. A 
 drunkard who abstains from liquor once or twice does not instantly com- 
 mence a sober man, nor do we think him entitled to that appellation until 
 he has so mastered his fondness for tippling that it disturbs him no more. 
 Thus virtue we see is a habit : it remains to fix on some characteristic 
 whereby to distinguish it from other habits. The most obvious definition 
 is that of a habit of acting rightly : but this upon examination will be found 
 much too large, as taking in other things which do not belong to the sub- 
 ject we would define : for though we must acknowledge every act of genuine 
 virtue to be right, yet every right action is not an act of virtue. It is 
 certainly very right to eat when we are hungry, sleep when we are weary, 
 put on boots when we ride a journey, and a great coat when we must walk 
 abroad in the rain : so is the habit of taking things with the right hand 
 rather than the left, speaking when we are spoken to, crying out when 
 somebody treads upon our toe : but these are never looked upon as instances 
 of virtue, nor have they any other concern with her than that she does not 
 disallow them. The next definition occurring is a habit of contradicting 
 any inordinate desire or impulse of passion ; but against this there lies two 
 exceptions. One that there are people whose natural temperament or 
 manner of education inclines them to be temperate, chaste, industrious, 
 generous, or obliging, without any efforts of their own : now it would be 
 hard to deny these qualities the title of virtues, and imprudent not to pro- 
 pose them as such to the imitation of other persons. The other that this 
 definition seems not to suit with virtue at all unless in her imperfect embryo 
 state wherein she is not herself : for after the opposite passion being com- 
 pletely mastered, there remains nothing for her to contradict. Can we 
 suppose then that virtue loses her essence the moment she has gotten it ? 
 or were there a man who had conquered all his passions, should we deem 
 him destitute of every virtue because he possesses them all ? Let us try 
 then once more and call virtue a habit of pursuing courses contrary to those 
 pernicious ones that passion or appetite generally lead men into : we shall 
 now save the credit of natural good qualities and those imbibed insensibly 
 from custom, together with the benefit of their example to the world, and 
 secure the prize to all who have completed their conquest. Nor shall we 
 contradict the old observation, that the paths of virtue are rugged and 
 thorny at first, but lead in a delightful champaign country : whereas did 
 virtue consist in opposition alone, she could accompany her votary no further 
 than through the thorny paths, but must quit him as soon as the champaign 
 opens. This definition, I believe, contains the idea of virtue most generally 
 entertained, and will serve best for common use : for those courses which 
 virtue would recommend being beneficial, let us encourage the practice of 
 them by any means we can, and bestow our applauses upon them in what- 
 ever manner acquired. If a man be affable and courteous, and ready to 
 help his neighbours upon every occasion where wanted, it is all one with 
 respect to the world and to his own pleasure of mind in the exercise of
 
 216 VIRTUE. 
 
 those qualities, whether he had them from nature or good company, or 
 gained them by his own good management and industry. Under this 
 notion of virtue it will appear capable of variation both in kind and degree ; 
 for as many evil courses as there are into which men stand liable to be 
 drawn by their passions and desires, there will be so many opposite virtues ; 
 and as every habit gathers strength by exercise, it will enable a man more 
 and more to resist temptation in proportion as it strikes deeper root. The 
 man may be sober at home, who cannot forbear excesses among a jovial 
 company : or may have common honesty, though he wants that total ex- 
 emption from the bias of self-interest which would denominate him strictly 
 righteous. 
 
 2. Yet it still remains a question whether we ought to satisfy ourselves, 
 much less can please everybody even with this last definition ; for it may 
 be asked, What merit is there in following the bent of inclination or torrent 
 of example when they chance to carry us in a right course ? Does not the 
 province of virtue lie solely in controlling the passions and surmounting 
 difficulties ? at least, is she not stronger and more conspicuous in the con- 
 quest of an adversary than when she has none to contend with ? When we 
 see a man bear slander and reproach with a becoming patience, does it 
 not heighten our opinion of him to hear that he was of a warm violent 
 temper, bred up in a country remarkable for being choleric and testy ? 
 Remember the story of Zopyrus, the physiognomist, who, pretending to 
 know people's characters by their faces, some of Socrates' scholars brought 
 him to their master, whom he had never seen before, and asked him what 
 he thought of that man. Zopyrus after examining his features pronounced 
 him the most debauched, lewd, cross-grained, selfish old fellow he had ever 
 met with : upon which the company burst out a laughing. Hold, says 
 Socrates, do not run down the man ; he is in the right, I assure you : for 
 I was all he says of me by nature, and if you think me otherwise now, it 
 must be because I have in some measure corrected my nature by the study 
 and practice of philosophy. Now does not this story manifest a higher 
 pitch of virtue in Socrates than he could have attained had his stars be- 
 friended him with the happiest turn of constitution ? 
 
 To these queries I shall answer, there is a particular species of virtue, 
 which we may call the habit of following the dictates of judgment in pre- 
 ference to the impulse of fancy or appetite, and therefore may well enough 
 fall within our definition, and if it were possible to be attained in full per- 
 fection would subdue all other desires, so that it could not then consist in 
 opposition, having none to struggle against. This I acknowledge to be the 
 most excellent of the virtues, as most generally serviceable to influence the 
 practice, and being the root whereout we might raise all the others : for if 
 we had this habit in any considerable degree, it would supply their places 
 and quickly bring us into such of them as were wanting. Therefore when 
 we behold a man persevering in a right course against the bent of nature 
 and stream of example, we know he must have an ample portion of this 
 higher virtue, which redounds more to his honour than any of the inferior 
 kind. But I see no reason why the superior excellence of this virtue 
 should destroy the merit of all the rest. Silver may be worth having 
 though not so valuable as gold : and whatever tends to mend our manners, 
 to the benefit of society, or our own convenience, does not deserve to be 
 despised, though something else may tend more eminently to the same 
 purposes. If a man be made honest by self-interest to preserve his cus- 
 tomers, it is better than that he should not be honest at all : if he keep
 
 VIRTUE. 217 
 
 himself sober for his health's sake, still it is a point gained : if he learn 
 activity and perseverance in difficult undertakings from a love of fame, it is 
 likely he will do more good to the world, and find more engagement for his 
 time, than if he sat still in indolence. Therefore I am for storing up as 
 many of these inferior virtues as possible, by any means we see feasible. 
 As old Gripe said to his son, my boy, got money ; if you can, honestly ; 
 however, get money : so would I say to anybody that will hear me, Acquire 
 good qualities by your desire of rectitude, if you can ; however, acquire 
 them. Yet notwithstanding what I have been saying here, I think we 
 ought to make the love of rectitude our principal care, to strengthen it as 
 much as in us lies, and keep it in continual exercise by rectifying the frailties 
 of our nature and turning those inclinations that still point towards an im- 
 proper object. 
 
 3. The stoics, as far as I understand of them, would allow none other 
 virtue besides this of rectitude : therefore they held all exercises of virtue 
 and all offences equal and alike, robbing an orchard as criminal as breaking 
 open a house or betraying the most important trust. For they said that 
 right action without regard to consequences being the sole proper object of 
 desire, so that the wise man would not forbear housebreaking out of fear 
 or shame or because it hurt his neighbour or any other consideration, 
 except because it was wrong, every departure from this rule showed a want 
 of such desire or at least an influence of other desires : he that quits his 
 rule of right to steal a cauliflower, shows that he has riot an abhorrence of 
 wrong-doing purely as such, therefore when he travels the right road it is 
 by accident, and if he abstains from robbing a house there must be some 
 other motive that withholds him. I think this doctrine of the equality of 
 crimes is now quite out of doors, and therefore we need not trouble our- 
 selves any further about it. But they held some other tenets that we still 
 hear of now and then, as that virtue is good in itself and only desirable, 
 that it is the ultimate good, making the possessor invariably happy ; and 
 1 think some of them denied that it could be acquired, but must be im- 
 planted by nature, or that the party possessing it could ever lose it. 
 
 4. As to the unacquirableness of virtue, this somewhat resembles Whit- 
 field's day of grace, which being not yet come or being once past, no man 
 can attain to righteousness. But if we look back upon human nature, 
 there will appear no colour to suppose ourselves born with an idea of right 
 or that it ever comes upon us at once. Our senses first put us in action, 
 and upon observing what objects please them we get a desire of those 
 objects : in our further progress we find it often necessary to make long 
 preparation for obtaining the things we desire, but the measures we take 
 sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing, we learn by observation to 
 form rules for our conduct, and thence get the idea of right, by which we 
 understand no more than that such a measure will lead us surely to any 
 purpose we have at present in view : thus if we would obtain the favour of 
 tyrants, obsequiousness and flattery may be the right way. But this is not 
 rectitude considered as a virtue, which we know nothing of until having 
 experienced that our desires thwart one another, that it is expedient to 
 restrain them, and that the exercise of such restraint in adherence to the 
 dictates of judgment meets with commendation from others and the appro- 
 bation of our own breast : we then look upon the Honestum as a mark 
 directing us to what will conduce most to our happiness, and at length as 
 an object of immediate desire ; and when this view appears in the highest 
 pitch of colouring imaginable, and becomes steady so as never to vary nor
 
 218 VIRTUE. 
 
 fade, then, ii ever the case happens, I conceive a man completely possessed 
 of the virtue of rectitude. Thus we see the desire of Honestum is a trans- 
 lated desire, drawn originally from our others by a prudent regard for the 
 greater number of them in preference to any particular one that may solicit 
 at present. Nor can it be doubted without contradicting experience, that 
 a man's progress in virtue may be quickened by instruction, exhortation, 
 example, and his own industry, or that after having in some measure 
 attained it he may receive further improvement by the same means. There 
 may be a particular time wherein virtue first manifests herself, and so there 
 is in the manifestation of most other habits and acquirements. If you con- 
 verse every day with a man from his beginning to learn any art or language, 
 you will become able in some one moment to pronounce him a master of it : 
 yet for all that, his skill was growing gradually all along from his first 
 entrance upon the rudiments ; nor perhaps did he make a larger progress 
 in that day when you took notice of it than in any other before, or than he 
 will do again by further use and practice afterwards. And as we gain 
 habits by use so we may lose them again by disuse : therefore it is a very 
 dangerous position which some have maintained that the saint can never 
 sin ; it were much safer to take Saint Paul's caution, Let him that thinketh 
 he standeth take heed lest he fall. 
 
 5. Whether virtue be good in itself may be determined by referring to 
 the last chapter but one, wherein it appears that satisfaction, the only in- 
 trinsic good, lies in our perceptions : action is only good as it applies the 
 proper objects for raising those perceptions, and virtue, which is a habit or 
 disposition of mind, is good only as it leads into such actions : so that 
 virtue stands two removes from the summurn bonum. Thei'e are some 
 pleasures fully contenting the mind which come upon us by the operation 
 of external objects without any care of our own to procure them : if we 
 could have a continual and uninterrupted supply in this manner we should 
 have no use for volition at all, and -//ere our appetites so rightly set as 
 to put volition upon everything most beneficial for us we should have as 
 little use for virtue, which is good for nothing else but to rectify the dis- 
 orders of our nature ; but that is enough to make its value inestimable 
 though not intrinsic. But it will be said, there is a satisfaction in the very 
 exercise of virtuous actions : this I grant ; but then it must be to those who 
 have a taste for virtue ; and there is the like satisfaction in gratifying every 
 other taste. The virtuoso finds it when catching a curious butterfly, the 
 proud finds it when flattery soothes hi? ear, the covetous when driving an 
 advantageous bargain, the vindictive when taking measures to satiate his 
 revenge. Perhaps you will say there is a secret misgiving and compunc- 
 tion attending the performance of unwarrantable actions : I believe there 
 would be in you or me, because I hope we have some seeds of virtue in. us ; 
 but the consummate villain, who has none of these, feels no remorse to 
 embitter, no reluctance to lessen, the pleasure of any wickedness his vicious 
 inclinations prompt him to ; so then in this respect he has the advantage 
 of us. But it is the fairest way to compare both parties in those instances 
 wherein they gratify their respective desires. If you and I can at any time 
 command our passion by the authority of reason, as I hope we sometimes 
 do, we find an immediate content and complacence of mind : if the hardened 
 wretch goes on successfully in any wicked attempt he has set his heart 
 upon, he finds an immediate content and complacence of mind ; therefore 
 thus far the case of both is similar. You will ask whether, if the thing 
 could be done with a fillip, I would be content to change my situation with
 
 VIRTUE. 219 
 
 his ? By no means, for it is in my power to act right always, unless where 
 my judgment happens to be doubtful ; but it is in my power to gratify my 
 other inclinations only now and then as opportunity favours. When I act 
 right I am providing for my future enjoyments ; when I act wrong I am 
 doing something that will cross my other desires or bring mischief upon 
 me. If I take one course I shall find frequent occasion to reflect with 
 pleasure on having pursued it ; if the other, I shall find perpetual cause, if 
 not to repent, at least to rue sufficiently for my misconduct. Thus the ad- 
 vantage of virtue over vice and trifle does not lie in the very act, but in the 
 consequences. The pursuit of either will please each man in proportion as 
 he has a relish to it : but one relish prompts to take in wholesome food, 
 the other to that which will bring on sickness of stomach, painful dis- 
 tempers, and perhaps utter destruction. 
 
 6. Were virtue the ultimate and only desirable good, she would have 
 nothing else to do besides contemplating her own beauties : she could never 
 urge to action ; because action must proceed upon a view to some end, and 
 if that end were not desirable the action were nugatory ; but such contem- 
 plation is so far from being our only good that one may question whether it 
 be a good at all. I grant the satisfaction felt in acting right makes one 
 considerable part of virtue's value, but then it must be such as arises spon- 
 taneously, not forced upon the thought. Should a man do nothing all day 
 long but reflect with himself, How I love rectitude ! how happy am I in the 
 possession of virtue ! you would hardly think the better of his character for 
 this practice. Such contemplations as these, I fast thrice a week, I pay 
 tithe of mint, annise, and cummin, I give alms of all I possess, are more 
 likely to engender spiritual pride and bring mischief upon a man than to 
 prove his virtue or insure his happiness. Besides, the confining virtue to 
 the satisfaction of possessing her destroys her very essence, which consists 
 in the efficacy she has to set us upon exerting our active powers, which 
 cannot move without an aim at something better to be had than gone with- 
 out : and when the good man enters upon an undertaking, though the satis- 
 faction of doing right might urge him to resolve upon it, yet our capacities 
 are too narrow to admit of his carrying this reflection throughout ! when he 
 comes to the performance he will be too busy in pursuing his measures to 
 think of anything else ; but must fix his desire from time to time upon the 
 several objects as he goes along. He reaps none other benefit from the 
 rectitude of his design, during his engagement in the execution of it, than 
 that his conscience does not check, nor his moral sense disturb him, which 
 is a mere negative benefit. Nor would virtue find materials to work upon 
 if she could find nothing else desirable besides herself ; she does not make 
 her objects desirable, but chooses those already made so to her hands, whose 
 prior value recommends them to her option : were there no difference what 
 befals us, it were wholly indifferent what we did, for every manner of act- 
 ing and even total inactivity would become equally right. Where would be 
 the difference between setting a man's house on fire, and running in to 
 extinguish the flames ? or why does virtue urge you to the latter, unless 
 because you think the security of a family, and preservation of their pro- 
 perty, desirable things ? If you knew them to be virtuous persons, I sup- 
 pose you would not be the less forward to assist them : but why may you ; 
 desire to do what virtuous persons ought not to desire should be done ? and 
 if they may desire to have it done, the desirableness has no relation to their 
 virtue, which would continue the same whether burnt out of house and 
 home or no, nor would suffer diminution though they were to perish in the
 
 220 VIRTUE. 
 
 flames, but must arise upon some other account. I would not willingly 
 drop a word to abate our love of virtue, for I tbink it cannot glow too strong, 
 so long as we preserve it pure and genuine : but you know I have distin- 
 guished between love and fondness. Let us not then be so fondly enamoured 
 with our mistress as to allow nothing valuable elsewhere, for there are 
 other objects desirable previous to her recommending them : nay, she her- 
 self would never have become desirable had it not been for them ; for why 
 should I ever desire to do right, or whence come by a satisfaction in so 
 doing, unless from a persuasion that it is better for me, that is, productive 
 of more good, to act right than wrong ? 
 
 7. We will now examine whether virtue will make the possessor com- 
 pletely and invariably happy ; or, in modern language, whether of the two 
 kinds of evil, physical and moral, the latter alone be really such, and the 
 former only in imagination. For my part, I can see none original evil, be- 
 sides the physical ; were there none of that in nature there could be no such 
 thing as moral evil, for we could never do amiss if no hurt could ever 
 redound from our actions, either to ourselves or anybody else. Could you 
 steal a man's goods without endamaging his property, without depriving 
 him of something useful, without taking off the restraint of honesty from 
 your own mind, or shaking the authority of those rules which keep the world 
 from disorder and confusion, why need you scruple to do it? Were it 
 possible to murder a man without pain, without abridging him of the enjoy- 
 ments he might expect in life, or might assist in procuring for other people, 
 and without setting an example that might occasion the murdering of others 
 not so circumstanced, where would be the immorality of the deed ? But 
 since these are wild and impossible suppositions, and that moral evil con- 
 stantly leads some way or other, directly or remotely, into physical, there- 
 fore it is an evil most strenuously to be avoided. 
 
 8. The question we are now upon commonly produces another, namely, 
 whether pain be an evil, or only rendered so by opinion : because it being 
 never pretended that virtue would exempt a man from all pain, while this 
 remained an evil, she could not perform her engagement to insure him per- 
 petual happiness. In the first place, let us observe that pain appears an evil 
 to young children, before they can be supposed to have contracted any erro- 
 neous opinion, so there remains no doubt of its being sometimes an evil not 
 of our own making ; and if we may afterwards render it harmless, merely by 
 thinking it so, then it will follow that we can change the nature of things by 
 our opinion of them, which surely no philosopher will assert. The truth 
 seems to be, that we may sometimes help ourselves against the pungency of 
 pain, not by pulling out its sting, but by turning it aside from us. It was 
 observed at the close of the chapter of sensation, that our frame is of a very 
 complicated texture, the influence of objects passing through many stages 
 before they arrive at the seat of perception, where only they can affect us : 
 now if pain can be stopped in any part of its passage, we shall receive no 
 hurt from it. The mind sits retired in kingly state : nothing external, not 
 even the bodily organs, can approach her, but they deliver their message to 
 the mental organs, and if these officers do not transmit it to the royal 
 audience, it is the same as if never delivered. But the mental organs do 
 not stifle messages out of wantonness, they only drop them when engaged 
 by something else picked up in the family : therefore when painful sensations 
 do not gall, it is by means of some other idea occupying our notice, and 
 sheltering us from their sharpness. Certain it is, we can all upon occasion 
 support a small degree of pain without uneasiness : young ladies will bear
 
 VIRTUE. 221 
 
 it for their shape, a beau for the neatness of his foot, a common labourer for 
 his sustenance ; sometimes diversion will beguile it, business lull it asleep, 
 fear banish it, revenge despise it, wilfulness, eagerness after pleasure, or the 
 love of rectitude, overpower it. In all these cases there is a withdrawing of 
 our notice from the pain, and turning it upon other objects, either by pre- 
 senting those objects, or by an operation of our own upon the organs, in 
 which latter case, the moment we remit our efforts, the pain pinches again. 
 In like manner, affliction may be rendered easy by suggesting topics of con- 
 solation, or encouragements for enduring it, or diverting the thoughts into 
 another channel. But it does not prove a burden not galling in its own 
 nature, because you can shrink away your shoulder from it, or thrust in 
 something soft between : and while you can thus keep off the pressure of 
 the burden, it is no wonder you are of opinion it is easy. Therefore we 
 may admit it true that pain is no evil to those who do not think it so, be- 
 cause they think it none who do not feel the smart : but opinion must follow 
 fact, and cannot make it ; nor can you alter your opinion, without an ap- 
 pearance, at least, of evidence, but merely by willing it. However, it may 
 be of excellent service to entertain a good opinion, if you can, beforehand, 
 for nothing like a strong assurance to help us in exerting our strength for 
 applying the proper means to relieve ourselves : when Virgil said of his com- 
 petitors for the naval prize, that they could because they thought they 
 could, he did not mean that success was nothing more than opinion, 
 but that their confidence spurred up their activity to a higher pitch than 
 they could ever have raised it without. If any man can attain so ardent 
 a desire of rectitude as shall overbalance all attacks of pain, it is happy 
 for him ; but he may allow us, who have not such an effectual remedy 
 in store, to call it an evil : and if he can master it so far as to keep it from 
 stinging him, yet I suppose it will require his whole efforts, so that he will 
 have none to spare for other occasions wherein he would wish to employ 
 them, and in this light it deserves some bad appellation : let him choose 
 his term to express it by. 
 
 9. The desire of rectitude, like other translated desires, cannot subsist 
 without continual exercise in actions tending to the gratification of it : 
 therefore virtue alone, how completely soever possessed, cannot insure hap- 
 piness, as being unable to insure its own continuance without the concur- 
 rence of fortune supplying opportunities of exerting it, which are the food 
 necessary for keeping it alive and vigorous. This probably induced some of 
 the most extravagant zealots for virtue to maintain the lawfulness of suicide, 
 when fortune was so averse that there was no sustenance for virtue to be 
 had. And even in its most flourishing state, it gives more or less delight 
 in proportion as things fall out well or ill : for how much soever the virtuous 
 man may comfoi't himself under disappointment of his endeavours to serve 
 his neighbour with the reflection that he had done his best, yet I suppose 
 he would have been still better pleased had the success answered his inten- 
 tion : and if he sees a distress he knows not how to relieve, will he not feel 
 an additional joy upon the proper means being put into his hands ? Could 
 he say to any one imploring his assistance, Look ye, friend, I'll do my best 
 to serve you, because it is right, but I do not care twopence whether you 
 reap any benefit from my services or no : were he capable of saying this, it 
 is hard to conceive how he could have any spice of benevolence, and as hard 
 to conceive, how without benevolence his virtue could be complete. So 
 that were there two persons alike consummately virtuous, the one destitute 
 of all materials or abilities for doing good to mankind, the other amply pro-
 
 22$ VIRTUE, 
 
 vided with both, this latter would pass his life more happily than the 
 former. Besides, as we have remarked before, there are many right actions 
 requisite for the sustenance and support of nature, whereto we are prompted 
 by appetite ; in these virtue has no concern unless negatively to forbear re- 
 straining us from them : if the moral sense does not check, if the demon 
 does not warn, this is all that appetite desires, for she wants no assistant 
 nor conductor ; and he must be of an uncommon make, different from all 
 other men, who will never eat when hungry, nor lie down when sleepy, 
 until urged by the motive of its being right. 
 
 Now, during the performance of these actions, the virtuous man must be 
 happy, or else he would have gaps in his happiness, which it would be woful 
 heresy to allow ; but during such performance, he receives no benefit from 
 his virtue, her influence being suspended, for he does the same and feels 
 the same as the sensualist : therefore he is beholden in part at least to na- 
 ture for his happiness in giving him appetites, the sources of these enjoy- 
 ments, and to fortune for supplying him with materials for satisfying his 
 appetites. 
 
 10. But how mighty matters soever may be justly ascribed to perfect 
 virtue in the highest idea we can form of it in speculation, I fear such per- 
 fection is not attainable among the sons of men : the highest pitch we can 
 rise to will not set us above all approach of evil ; pain will gall, labour will 
 fatigue, disappointment will vex, affliction will torment, when they cannot 
 overcome us ; so that we owe more of our enjoyment to nature and fortune 
 than to virtue. There are people with a very moderate portion of virtue, 
 no more than just to keep clear of turbulent passions and destructive vices, 
 who, being placed in an easy situation of life, pass it more agreeably than 
 others of far superior merit, forced to struggle perpetually with disease, 
 poverty, contradiction, and distress. Much less will it appear upon an im- 
 partial survey, that every man's share of enjoyment in the world bears an 
 exact proportion to the measure of his virtue. Nor yet do the strongest 
 instances of virtue prove always the scenes of greatest enjoyment : for we 
 must remember that uneasiness sets our activity at work as well as satis- 
 faction, and the love of right sometimes operates by the uneasiness of de- 
 parting from it. If we have desires which we cannot banish from our 
 thoughts urging us strongly to do wrong, but the moral sense threatens 
 with shame, remorse, and mischief, it acts as an obligation, laying us 
 under a necessity of fulfilling it : and we have shown in the proper place 
 that necessity always throws the mind into a state of uneasiness. For 
 aught I know this might be the case of Regulus. I would not detract from 
 his merit, nor pretend to dive into the exact situation of his thoughts ; there- 
 fore shall suppose what I conceive possible in theory, that he might feel 
 so strong a satisfaction of mind as overbalanced the pain of the tenters. 
 But suppose another person, not quite so happily disposed, yet he might 
 have a violent abhorrence of infamy, self-reproach, and breach of faith, and 
 ' the uneasiness of falling under what his soul abhorred might prevail upon 
 him to undergo any torments for escaping it : he might still expect un- 
 easiness in the tentered cask, nevertheless, might choose it as the lesser 
 evil, and in so doing he would act right, and what all men of honour and 
 probity would applaud him for ; yet this less evil remains still an evil, and 
 he, while under it, in a state of suffering. Nor is it a just inference, that 
 whatever all wise men approve, and the moral sense clearly recommends, 
 must necessarily be an act of enjoyment ; for wise men and the moral sense 
 regard the whole of things, therefore will recommend a present diminution
 
 VIRTUE. 223 
 
 of happiness, for a greater increase of it to he obtained thereby. We may 
 sometimes fortify ourselves against pain and self-denial by the dread of in- 
 famy or compunction, and holding the force of our obligations strongly in 
 view, when we cannot raise an immediate satisfaction in our proceeding : 
 therefore, it is for the interests of virtue that we should, upon occasion; put 
 ourselves into the iron hand of necessity ; she will pinch us sorely while she 
 has us under her clutches, and all that time we shall be very virtuous, and 
 yet very uneasy. 
 
 1 1 . Thus we see that virtue cannot secure us uninterrupted enjoyment, 
 for there are other causes contributing to procure it ; but though the con- 
 dition of men does not always answer to their degree of virtue, yet I con- 
 ceive every particular man will be more or less happy in proportion as he 
 acts right. Life has been compared to a game, and we know the cards 
 will beat anybody, but he that plays them carefully will do more with the 
 same cards than another who throws them out at random. The gifts of 
 nature, education, and fortune, are the cards put into our hands : all we 
 have to do, is to manage them well by a steady adherence to our judgment. 
 Therefore virtue, taken in the largest sense, as including every right con- 
 duct, as well upon small as great occasions, may well be styled the only 
 thing desirable, as drawing all other good things in our power after it ; 
 for though there be others valuable, yet Seek ye righteousness first, and all 
 these shall be added unto ye. In common language, a thing is called de- 
 sirable for its consequences ; therefore this, on which all good consequences 
 we can procure depend, may well deserve that epithet : we may have other 
 desires, but they need be only such as arise of their own accord, or the pre- 
 sent occasion requires, but upon this alone it behoves us to take pains in 
 fixing our desire, because it will direct us to encourage or restrain our 
 other desires as shall be most for our benefit. And things are said to be 
 good in themselves, when they have a natural tendency to our advantage, 
 without regard to reward or pleasure, or other adventitious benefits attend- 
 ing them ; so virtue may be termed good in itself, although bringing no 
 honour nor profit, nor anything else we desire, because it will lead us into 
 a right behaviour most conducive to purposes we shall hereafter desire, and 
 furnish us with pleasing reflections that will abundantly repay the trouble 
 we are at in pursuing it. In like manner, Happy, in vulgar expectation, as 
 when Milton pronounced the sleeping pair happy, does not stand confined 
 to the instant time of speaking, but like an estate which denominates the 
 owner rich, though at present quite low in pocket, it relates to the whole 
 stock of enjoyments belonging to a man. Thus virtue, which we may look 
 upon as an estate, yielding an income of happiness, may well entitle the 
 possessor happy, although the rents may not happen just now to come in ; 
 and, as a man, having his all, amounting to a hundred pounds, in hi? 
 pocket, would be glad to exchange condition with one of large fortune 
 whom he finds at a distance from home without ready money or credit ; so 
 a prudent man, deficient in virtue, would think it a happiness to be placed 
 in the condition of one possessing it in an eminent degree, though at that 
 time not in a state of enjoyment. In the sense herein last described as 
 being the most obvious, one should naturally understand those expressions 
 of virtue, being the one thing desirable, good in itself, and making the 
 possessor invariably happy ; and I believe the persons who first employed 
 them meant to be so understood, wherein they carry a just and useful 
 meaning. Therefore, I am not desirous of discarding or contradicting 
 them, nor shall I hesitate a moment to agree with Socrates, that it is hap-
 
 224 VIRTUE. 
 
 pier to receive an injury than to do one: but, as some of his followers, 
 ancient and modern, men of deeper thought than judgment, have strained 
 them to an extravagance, I was willing to endeavour restoring them to 
 their proper and genuine signification. This is one of those transmutations 
 spoken of in the introduction, whereby valuable and excellent truths, which 
 have been debased into error and falsehood, may be transmuted back again 
 into their original sterling. 
 
 12. I apprehend several advantages accruing from our resting the merit 
 of virtue upon this true and solid basis, its usefulness : for if you talk of an 
 essential and independent goodness, few can discern it ; if you appeal to 
 the judgment of the wise, many think themselves wiser ; if you tell them 
 that every act of virtue affords greater immediate enjoyment than the 
 practice of vice, they will not believe you, nor do I know how they should, 
 as it contradicts their experience ; so you will have your principle to battle 
 for, before you can deduce anything from it. But we proceed upon a pos- 
 tulatum that will readily be granted, for nobody can deny that he had rather 
 have his desires gratified than crossed : we need only exhort men not to 
 forget their absent friends, nor to neglect such desires as they may have 
 at another time, for the sake of one or two at present uppermost in their 
 thoughts : so the door stands open before us, and we shall be willingly 
 admitted to go on in showing the necessary connection of virtue with gra- 
 tification. A second benefit of referring virtue to use is, that it helps us 
 to rectify our notions of it, to interpret our rules, and teaches us which of 
 them to prefer when they appear to clash : for our moral sense, though the 
 best guide we have, is not always to be trusted ; education, custom, preju- 
 dice, and human frailty, will sometimes set it to a wrong point, and when 
 suspicions of this kind arise, there is no surer way of trying the justness of 
 them than by examining whether the courses we find ourselves prompted 
 to tend more upon the whole to the increase or diminution of happiness. 
 Many of our rules may be understood variously, but when this is the case, 
 that construction, which appears evidently the most conducive to general 
 convenience, ought to be chosen as the truest : nor is it scarce possible to 
 apply a rule always properly, or know what circumstances require an ex- 
 ception, without understanding the drift and design of it : and when two 
 of them interfere, we can never determine the preference so well as when 
 we can clearly discern which of them it would be most dangerous to break 
 through. For a third advantage of frequently tracing out the good conse- 
 quences of virtue, we may reckon that it will give us a better liking of her, 
 and greater confidence in the rules she dictates ; for by consideration and 
 continual observation of their tendency, we shall often discover an expe- 
 dience we could not at first descry, and shall more readily entertain an 
 opinion of the like expedience in other cases where we cannot discern it. 
 Whatever practices have the general approbation of mankind or our moral 
 sense urges us earnestly to, though seeming needless or inconvenient in 
 our present apprehension, will then carry a strong presumption, sufficient 
 to persuade us of their being beneficial, and we shall pursue them by de- 
 sire, not necessity ; that is, not as an obligation but as our interest. This 
 seems the readiest way to conduct us to a love of virtue for her own sake, 
 for having once gotten our thorough confidence and esteem, wherever she 
 appears she will become our ultimate point of view, which we shall follow 
 without looking for anything beyond, and this we may do without supposing 
 her the ultimate end of action, for we have seen before that these two are 
 often different.
 
 225 
 
 CHAP. XXX. 
 
 PRUDENCE. 
 
 I GAVE warning in the introduction, that I might sometimes seem to 
 shake the main pillars of morality, but should never do it, unless when I 
 conceived them slid off their original basis, in order to restore them to a 
 solid and durable foundation. I hope I have not been found failing of my 
 promise ; for though in the last preceding chapters, we have appeared 
 sometimes to turn our backs upon rectitude, and take the gratification of 
 every man's tastes and inclinations for our ultimate end, yet, at the close of 
 them, we have left virtue in a recommendable light sufficient to engage the 
 attention of every reasonable person, as being justly entitled to be called 
 good in itself, the one thing desirable, and capable of making the possessor 
 happy, in the proper and genuine meaning of those expressions, when not 
 strained to unwarrantable lengths, but understood as common sense would 
 lead us to understand them. We have likewise endeavoured to ascertain 
 the province of virtue, which does not extend to everything right ; for our 
 appetites prompt us to many right things, the sensualist doing the same in 
 some instances as the righteous : therefore, the office of virtue lies in 
 watching over their motions and instigating to such right actions, from 
 which our other inclinations would lead us aside. But this description of 
 virtue being thought too general, your ethic writers have distinguished her 
 into four principal branches, Prudence, Fortitude, Temperance, and Jus- 
 tice, which they call cardinal virtues, from a Latin w r ord signifying a hinge, 
 these four -being the main hinges whereon all inferior virtues and particular 
 rules of conduct hang. The first of these in order they reckon Prudence, 
 as being the chief, and, in effect, comprehending the other three, which 
 relate to the removing three certain obstacles in our nature most apt to dis- 
 turb and stop us in the exercise of prudence. 
 
 2. Before we enter upon a particular consideration of this cardinal virtue, 
 it will be necessary to observe, that there are two kinds of prudence which 
 may be distinguished, as evils have been, into physical and moral. The 
 former consists in knowing the best measures to be taken upon any 
 occasion, and depends upon sagacity, quickness, and strength of parts, or 
 upon experience, instruction, or the opportunities we have had of advancing 
 our knowledge : this we may reckon a valuable endowment, but can by no 
 means be ranked under any class of virtues, for we find it conspicuous in 
 persons overwhelmed with vice and debauchery. But moral prudence, 
 with which alone we have concern at present, consists in making the best 
 use of such lights as we have, not in the number or clearness of them ; for 
 virtue lies solely in the right application of our powers, and may reside with 
 those of the narrowest as well as the largest extent. Were a man wholly 
 void of moral prudence, to be invested with it at once in the most eminent 
 degree conceivable, he would not become a whit the more knowing for the 
 acquisition : it is true, at the year's end, he might advance considerably in 
 knowledge, because he would omit no opportunity of improving it, but he 
 would not instantly discern a single truth more than he did before, unless, 
 perhaps, by dispelling the mists of some passion that might just then pre- 
 vent him from taking notice of what he knew well enough already. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 PRUDENCE. 
 
 3. If we survey the transactions of mankind, we shall find there is a dis- 
 cretion much more valuable than knowledge, as being more generally 
 serviceable and carrying on the affairs of life more completely and clearer 
 of mistakes. Your men of fine sense, having lost their common sense, get 
 nothing by the exchange : they will work wonders sometimes in matters hap- 
 pening to suit their talents, but know not, or regard not, how to apply nor 
 conduct them, or commit some egregious blunder that overthrows all the good 
 they have done : they perform excellent service under proper direction, but 
 plunge into some quagmire when left to themselves : they can give the best 
 advice to others, but through some whim or oddity let their own affairs run 
 to ruin. On the other hand, we see persons of very moderate capacities, 
 who, by a discreet management of them, pass their life with more comfort 
 to themselves and credit among their neighbours, than others of far superior 
 endowments. They know the extent of their talents, and do not aim at 
 things beyond their reach. They regard the propriety of their design as 
 well as of the measures of executing it ; no less carefully considering what 
 they shall do than how they shall compass it. They attend to all the notices 
 of their judgment, never fondly fixing upon any one point to the overlook- 
 ing of others. They are ductile and flexible, never striving obstinately 
 against the stream, but ready to seize every light that shall break in upon 
 them, and to lay by their design or change their measures as occasion 
 varies ; yet steady to their purpose, so as not to waver with every sudden 
 start of fancy. Willing to play a small game, rather than stand out, and 
 always making some progress when they cannot run extraordinary lengths ; 
 yet not backward to quicken their pace and enlarge their schemes, when- 
 ever they find it safe and feasible. Their conduct is uniform and consistent 
 throughout : if they cannot perform great undertakings, what they do is 
 complete and free from fatal mistakes, one of which may do more mischief 
 than a great deal of sagacity and diligence can afterwards repair. 
 
 4. Now this discretion discoverable in the ordinary behaviour of some 
 persons is not the moral prudence we seek after, yet seems to be the root 
 giving birth to it, and communicates its own complexion and flavour to the 
 fruit : for persons having practised this happy manner of proceeding in the 
 common affairs of life, will follow the same when they come to have an idea of 
 virtue ; they will use their whole understanding, regard all the rules of rec- 
 titude, and proceed upon a judicious love, not a fanciful fondness for virtue, 
 regarding all her interests so as to hurt none of them by too eagerly pur- 
 suing others. It is a virtue, says Horace, to escape vice, and the first step 
 to wisdom is made by getting clear of folly : and we know where else it is 
 recommended not to confine our eyes so closely to what things we ought to 
 have done as to overlook what things we ought not to have left undone : 
 therefore they will be more solicitous to avoid acting wrong, than to act 
 remarkably right, nor think that the omission of common duties can be com- 
 pensated by works of supererogation. I do not say that moral prudence 
 is incompatible with great accomplishments; on the contrary, it will im- 
 prove them to the utmost, employ them most usefully in services whereto 
 they are fitted, and appears most conspicuous in the management of them : 
 nevertheless it may subsist without them, or be wanting where they abound, 
 being a distinct quality of itself. It does not always accompany the most 
 glowing zeal, nor give birth to the most shining performances : as Horace 
 says, we may pursue virtue too intensely, that is, when we pursue her with 
 passion, not with judgment. It is not the disquisitions of the closet, excel- 
 lent discourses, or profound speculations upon the nature of right and
 
 PRUDENCE. 227 
 
 wrong, nor yet single acts, how exemplary soever, but the general tenor of 
 a man's conduct that denominates him virtuous. As thought and considera- 
 tion contribute greatly to increase and clear up the lights of our understand- 
 ing, one should be apt to imagine that those who think most carefully upon 
 the subject of righteousness should be the most righteous persons ; but this 
 is no certain rule ; for men may contemplate for ever without making use of 
 their discoveries, which then tend only to enlarge their knowledge ; wherein 
 we have seen virtue does not consist, but employs it only as an instrument 
 for effecting her purposes. And there are persons of lively tempers and 
 little inured to study, who cannot think intensely at all, yet do not want 
 discretion to steer them right in all the variety and quickness of their motions. 
 In most common instances it is easy to see at a glance what is the best step to 
 be taken, the characters of our duty being printed so large, that he that runs 
 may read them : and if men would use themselves constantly to follow their 
 present judgment, when clear and vivid, they would make greater progress 
 towards rectitude than by any other exercise of their faculties whatsoever. 
 
 5. It is not easy to pronounce upon actions, or distinguish precisely, when 
 they proceed from the virtue of prudence, and when not ; for we have seen 
 the rectitude of actions consists either in their conducivenes to the purpose 
 intended, or in their conformity to rule : but men sometimes act very right 
 upon wrong principles, or adhere to their rule, because no temptation starts 
 up in their thought to draw them aside : in neither of which cases their pru- 
 dence can be inferred from their acting prudently ; for their taking the right 
 course is luck rather than virtue. Nor are we complete judges even of our 
 own prudence, because having no better method of estimating it than by re- 
 flecting back upon our past conduct, we cannot retain in mind the secret 
 motives that may have actuated us, much less tell what unlucky turn of ima- 
 gination might have led us another way. Therefore, as I said before, we may 
 judge best of ourselves or others from the general tenor of conduct, rather than 
 from any particular parts of it how shining soever. Yet this will not insure us 
 against mistake. 1 ?, for our leading principle or ruling passion, as it is called, 
 which gives the general turn to our actions, may have been inculcated by 
 others, or taken up upon hazard, and we been led by good fortune into a 
 right course of behaviour, without having ever examined whether it had that 
 tendency, or discerned the reasonableness whereon it was founded. 
 
 6. Neither is it an easy matter to settle the exact idea of this cardinal 
 virtue we are speaking of, so that we may know what to look for when we 
 go to pass our judgment. It is not knowledge, nor acuteness of parts, nor 
 clearness of understanding, nor largeness of information, nor goodness of 
 principles instilled ; for it should be something entirely our own : but all 
 these depend upon other causes. It may seem, at first sight, to lie in the 
 exercise of our reasoning faculties, because most of the miscarriages in life 
 proceed from inconsiderateness and hasty determination ; but then it lies as 
 much in quickness of following the lights of reason, whenever they shine out 
 clear : for to stand thinking when we should be acting, or hunt after specu- 
 lations when something lies ready at hand for us to do, were not much less 
 imprudent than never to think at all. Since then it is so difficult to de- 
 scribe, and when we seem to have laid our finger upon it still it eludes our 
 grasp, let us endeavour to place it in several lights, that one may supply what 
 shall appear wanting in another. I conceive, then, prudence will enable 
 him that has it completely to keep the mental organs open and watchful, 
 hearing the whispers of the moral sense amid the clamours of passion, and 
 
 Q2
 
 228 PRUDENCE. 
 
 discerning the feeblest glimmerings of reason through the glare of fancy ; 
 so that every object in the prospects glancing before him, whether the scene 
 contain more or fewer of them, will be seen in its true shape, and his notice 
 will instantly turn upon that which is most proper. For our doings being 
 all made up of single momentary acts, volition perpetually following the fresh 
 ideas thrown up by imagination, must take their denomination from that of 
 their component parts : therefore if the steps be prudently taken, the whole 
 progress must needs be so too : but if they be not, we may still chance to 
 steer the right course while nothing occurs to mislead us ; but our success 
 will be owing to the goodness of our lights rather than to the soundness of 
 our eye. Nor does this vigilance or openness of the mental eye depend 
 wholly upon industry and the intense application of our optics : they help to 
 improve it when deficient, or on the contrary may sometimes do hurt by 
 confining it to one narrow point ; but when once acquired, it becomes a 
 habit operating spontaneously, rather using application as an instrument to 
 effect its purposes than wanting it as a spring to put itself in motion. Who- 
 ever could attain this habit completely would never act in the dark nor at 
 random ; for though his lights might be faint, he would distinguish which 
 of them were the clearest, he would find an opportunity for doing something 
 in every situation of circumstances, and would discern what is feasible as 
 well as what is desirable. It would direct him which of his several facul- 
 ties to exercise, when to deliberate and when to execute, when to suspend 
 his judgment and when suspension were needless, when to exert resolution 
 and when to comply with the occasion, when to bestir himself, and when to 
 receive whatever ideas occur. In short, he would act with the same uni- 
 form tenor throughout, as well in trifles as matters of importance, and 
 though he might sometimes take wrong measures through ignorance, his 
 every motion would be right with respect to his degree of knowledge or 
 present information. 
 
 7. In another light we may consider prudence as a disposition of mind 
 to regard distant good equally with present pleasure, estimating both accord- 
 ing to their real not apparent magnitude : like the skill we have of discern- 
 ing a grown person twenty yards off to be larger than a child sitting in our 
 lap, although the latter take up more room in our eye. Nature first moves 
 us by sensations of pleasure or pain : experience soon teaches us that 
 pleasurable sensations will not always come of themselves, but we must do 
 something to make provision for obtaining them ; hence spring our desires 
 and passions. Upon further experience we learn that desire often leads 
 into mischief, this gives rise to the moral sense admonishing to restrain 
 desire when pointed the wrong way : but there being an ease in gratifying 
 and a trouble in crossing it, the contest in these cases lies between expe- 
 dience and pleasure, and to choose constantly the former is an effect of 
 prudence. For as worldly prudence engages a man upon every occasion to 
 improve his fortune rather than get a little ready money in hand, so moral 
 prudence will incline him always to prefer that which is best before that 
 which will immediately please his senses or gratify his desire or his in- 
 dolence. 
 
 8. The third light wherein I shall endeavour to place our virtue is that of 
 a readiness in following the dictates of reason ; but by reason-we must not 
 understand here the act of reasoning ; for that, in many cases, might be im- 
 prudent, but those treasures which we have shown elsewhere reason deposits 
 in the storehouse of ideas, that is, such notices occurring from time to time 
 to our judgment as were formerly the produce of careful consideration, or
 
 PRUDENCE. 229 
 
 have been examined and approved thereby. The bare possession of these 
 treasures renders a man more knowing and many times a more useful mem- 
 ber of the community, because the deed does the service, not the internal 
 disposition of the performer ; but it is the readiness in following them 
 instantly upon their appearance that constitutes him a perfectly prudent 
 man. For our active power must take some turn every moment, and if the 
 present judgment does not operate, the turn will be taken imprudently, though 
 no damage may happen to ensue. This readiness depends upon a happy 
 cast of imagination, representing the dictates of reason as satisfactory ; for 
 volition ever moves towards that point where satisfaction appears connected, 
 and is not influenced by a conviction of the understanding until it becomes 
 a persuasion too and an object of desire : therefore prudence is no more 
 than a steady, habitual desire of acting reasonably, generated by a thorough 
 persuasion that in so doing we shall act most for our advantage; for 
 nothing else can give birth to such a desire, because all desires not natural 
 must derive by translation from those that are. 
 
 9. Hence it appears that this cardinal virtue must have had a beginning, 
 owing its rise either to natural constitution inclining some men to be more 
 observant than others, and rendering their imagination more pliable to 
 receive persuasion easier from conviction, or to accidents teaching them 
 discretion from their own miscarriages, or to instruction and example. The 
 growth and progress indeed depends chiefly upon our own care and industry, 
 but then we must be prompted to use that care and industry by some con- 
 sideration already in our thoughts, and the first act of prudence we ever 
 exerted must have had some prior motive exciting us to it, which was 
 suggested by our other desires. Whether, as the nature of man is con- 
 stituted, it may be lost again when once arrived to perfect stature, we 
 cannot certainly know, having never seen an instance of such perfection 
 among us ; yet it seems hard to conceive how the habit of following reason 
 can subsist after reason itself is totally lost and all the characters imprinted 
 by her obliterated by age and distempers : but we find by woful experience, 
 that such degrees of it as man can attain may be lost again by despondency, 
 or uninterrupted prosperity, or too great security, or evil company, or other 
 causes. Nevertheless, it is the most durable possession we can have, as 
 being untouched by many outward accidents that may deprive us of all 
 others, and warning us against the approach of whatever might endanger 
 it : and the most valuable, for though it cannot insure us perpetual success, 
 it will help us to the greatest measure of all other valuable things in our 
 power to obtain : nay, if we believe Juvenal, we shall find no deity averse 
 if prudence be not wanting. 
 
 10. This virtue of prudence constitutes the essence of moral wisdom, 
 of which some in former ages have entertained very absurd and extravagant 
 notions ; supposing the wise man beholden to himself alone for his wisdom, 
 placed above the reach of fortune to hurt him, and master of all arts and 
 sciences, from the highest to the lowest, even to the making the clothes 
 upon his back, the shoes upon his feet, and the ring upon his finger : 
 wherein they confounded wisdom with capacity, which are manifestly dif- 
 ferent, the one consisting in extensiveness of knowledge, the other solely 
 in the due management of such as we have, be it more or be it less. 
 Therefore there may be the greatest folly where there is the most know- 
 ledge, and upon that very account ; for if two persons take the same im- 
 proper course together, he will be deemed to act most imprudently who 
 best knew how to have acted right. If a man unacquainted with ( wood
 
 230 PRUDENCE. 
 
 takes a country fellow for his guide, who knows all the paths and turnings 
 perfectly well, but will needs push on the nearest way through the thickest 
 part until both are entangled in the briars, it is easy to see that the charge 
 of folly lies wholly at the door of the guide, and for this very reason, 
 because he knew better than the other. Besides, by placing wisdom in 
 science, they overthrow the wise man's claim to the sole merit of it, making 
 it to depend upon the natural endowments of body or mind, and accidental 
 advantages : for not to mention the necessity of instruction, leisure, and 
 quickness of apprehension, to render knowledge complete, I suppose they 
 would hardly pretend that a man born blind could ever make himself per- 
 fect in the art of painting, or science of optics. 
 
 1 1 . But neither, when we understand wisdom in the proper and genuine 
 sense, can the possessor claim it as entirely of his own creation, for it grows 
 out of common discretion, being the same quality carried to the greatest 
 length human nature can contain : but this depends upon an observant, 
 though perhaps not always a thoughtful temper, upon good guidance or 
 example, and upon lucky accidents : for men often learn discretion from 
 their own misconduct, when the mischiefs of it happen to be so obvious 
 that they cannot but take notice, and so galling that they cannot fail of 
 remembering them. And he must have an uncommon degree of self- 
 conceit who can persuade himself that he should have acted with the same 
 discretion he does, had he been born with a dull apprehension, and strong 
 sensations, or bred up among the savages in America. I know some affect 
 to cry up the barbarous nations, as furnishing instances of as great sound- 
 ness of judgment as is to be met with among the most civilized : I shall 
 not deny that such instances may be found, because having no acquaint- 
 ance with those nations, I cannot disprove them ; but we must remember 
 that discretion proceeds from observance of temper, incidents touching the 
 notice, instruction, or example ; and any one of these causes may some- 
 times operate so favourably as to supply the place of the others. 
 
 Let us now suppose the sage possessed of perfect wisdom, yet is he secure 
 that he shall always retain it ? Why yes, it is always in his power to act 
 according to the circumstances of every situation that shall happen. I grant 
 it, but this is no answer to the question, for so it is in the power of the un- 
 wise : but our power takes its turn, or in other words, volition is determined, 
 by the motives and ideas present in the thought, and what ideas, or in what 
 colour shall be presented, depends upon the state of the mental organs ; so 
 that any little change in their texture might destroy the best disposition of 
 mind, or turn it into the worst. Now who can know the whole composition 
 of man so thoroughly, as to pronounce certainly, that no external causes may 
 operate to work a different texture in our organs ? It may perhaps be 
 alleged, that the mental organs have a separate mechanism of their own, 
 independent of the bodily, so that though their play may be suspended or 
 varied, according to the different action of the latter, yet no disease nor acci- 
 dent happening to the grosser parts, nor impulse of outward objects, can 
 alter their texture. Whether the case be so in fact, or no, is more than I 
 can tell, but admitting it true, still is the wise man beholden to nature for 
 having framed his composition in two such distinct compartments ; and 
 he owes the preservation of his best property to the laws she has kindly 
 provided for securing it against damage from that part of his mechanism 
 which does not lie under his absolute command. Neither is he little 
 beholden to fortune for supplying him with materials and opportunities 
 of exercising his wisdom, which render it more serviceable to othci:
 
 FORTITUDE. 231 
 
 and productive of enjoyment to himself than it could be without those 
 assistances. 
 
 12. But whatever condition the consummate wise man may stand in, we 
 who only make distant advances towards his perfection cannot pretend to 
 self-sufficiency, nor claim the merit of every little success we meet with as 
 all our own : for we find our pittance of virtue improve and kept alive by 
 exercise, but when this exercise is interrupted for want of proper subjects 
 to work upon, or our minds thrown off the hinge by cross accidents, or our 
 discretion beguiled by temptations, we perceive ourselves retarded, if not 
 thrown backward in our progress. Let us then acknowledge our obligation 
 to nature, as well for the good she has already done us, as for the continu- 
 ance of it by her salutary establishments, and own ourselves dependent upon 
 fortune for the favours we may still hope for at her hands, leaving, how- 
 ever, like wise generals, as little to her disposal as possible : and nothing 
 will better put us in a way of being befriended by her when favourable, or 
 shelter us from her attacks when she proves out of humour, than such de- 
 gree of moral prudence as we are capable of attaining. 
 
 CHAP. XXXI. 
 
 FORTITUDE. 
 
 OF all the obstacles standing in our way, when disposed to act right, none 
 operates so powerfully as fear : other passions beguile or tire us out, but 
 this stops us short in our career ; therefore the conquest of this passion has 
 been made one of the cardinal virtues. It is not easy to fix upon a proper 
 definition of this virtue : at first thought one should be apt to call it a habit 
 of fearlessness, but every absence of fear is not courage : for it may proceed 
 from ignorance of the danger, as when a child goes to play with the muzzle 
 of a loaded musket ; or it may arise from an insensibility of temper, for 
 there are people who see their danger, but want feeling enough to be 
 touched by it. Now we must acknowledge this insensibility a very useful 
 quality to the public, for without it perhaps we could not properly man 
 our fleets nor recruit our armies : yet is it so far from deserving the name 
 of virtue, that it seems scarce compatible with the principal of them. I 
 mean prudence, which grows out of caution, and ever keeps it in company 
 throughout all her proceedings. Besides that, we find fear a necessary 
 engine to restrain many inordinate desires and unruly passions that would 
 else make strange havoc and disorder in the world : and if the intrepidity of 
 pirates and banditti could be wrested from them, it would be much better 
 both for themselves and all others within their reach. 
 
 2. This fearlessness of temper depends upon natural constitution, as much 
 as any quality we can possess ; for where the animal system is strong and 
 robust, it is easily acquired, but when the nerves are weak, and extremely 
 sensible, they fall presently into tremors that throw the mind off the hinges 
 and cast a confusion over her. Nor are the changes in our disposition of 
 body without their influence ; old age abates the spirit ; men have their ebbs 
 and flows of bravery, and some distempers bring a mechanical terror upon 
 the imagination. It has been observed, that courage maybe partial, daunt- 
 less to some objects, and gone upon the appearance of others. Mr. Addison 
 tells us he knew an officer who could march up to the mouth of a cunrjn,
 
 232 FORTITUDE. 
 
 but affrighted at his own shadow, and unable to bear being left alone in the 
 dark. Such contrariety of character must have been owing to impressions 
 taken in his youth ; and indeed courage as well as timorousness may come 
 by sympathy and imitation from the company wherewith men consort : the 
 recruit becomes intrepid by the dauntless looks and discourses of his com- 
 rades, and their taunts upon cowardice ; he improves better this way than 
 he could do by all the lectures of philosophy aided by his own utmost in- 
 dustry. Courage, from whatever cause arising, may be ranked under those 
 inferior virtues mentioned at the beginning of CHAP. XXIX. which spring 
 indifferently from nature, education, custom, or our own diligence : nor is 
 it the less intrinsically valuable, because sometimes turned to mischievous 
 purposes, for the best things corrupted become the worst. It gains admi- 
 ration and applause more than the rest, for fear being the most difficult 
 passion to overcome, therefore the conquest of it deserves to be most ho- 
 noured, because honour, as we have already seen under that article, belongs 
 not only to things the most useful, but to those where the honour itself will 
 be of the greatest use : as it certainly will here, for nothing carries men so 
 effectually through danger as a quick sense of honour, which therefore has 
 always been looked upon as the necessary qualification and distinguishing 
 characteristic of a soldier. Yet courage, to deserve the name of virtue in 
 any degree, must be habitual, not owing to insensibility ; for the danger 
 must be seen but despised ; nor accidental, or occasioned by the prevalence 
 of any passion. Some folks are mighty valiant in their cups, others in the 
 heat of resentment care not what becomes of themselves so they can but 
 wreak their revenge ; others again, eagerly bent upon some foolish desire, 
 will run any hazards to gratify it : in all these cases their courage is not their 
 own, but cast upon them by another agent working upon their organs, and 
 is rather a mark of stupidity, or weakness of mind, than of bravery. 
 
 3. From what has been observed above, we may gather the true notion 
 of fortitude, and having seen what it is not, may more easily discover what 
 it is. The contempt of danger, when owing to the want of apprehension, 
 thoughtlessness, or to some other idea forcibly occupying the thought, 
 carries no merit at all : when the effect of constitution, education, or the 
 desire of applause, has become habitual, it deserves the name of virtue, and 
 our commendation as such : but to entitle it a cardinal virtue, it must be a 
 branch of prudence, which we have seen consists in discerning all the lights 
 of our understanding as they present from time to time before us. There- 
 fore he that possesses fortitude completely, will enjoy a perpetual presence 
 of mind; nothing will ruffle or discompose him, but he will proceed in an 
 equal tenor, not having his seasons of failing, nor particular objects to start 
 at ; the dread of shame will no more disconcert him than other evils ; he 
 will regard consequences in order to take his measures accordingly, but 
 rest wholly unconcerned at the event ; he will suffer no idea to intrude 
 upon him against his liking, and will have the absolute command of his 
 notice to fix it upon any point he judges proper. Etymologists derive 
 virtue from virility, supposing it to denote a manly strength and vigour of 
 mind : now vigour will naturally exert itself in throwing off everything dis- 
 pleasing or unwelcome ; and as a concern for sinister events, further than 
 requisite in directing us to provide against them, and the dazzle of objects 
 preventing the sight of others that lie before us, are what everybody would 
 wish to avoid, when ideas intrude forcibly upon the mind, it proves her in- 
 firmity and inability to resist them. Thus the being master of our thoughts, 
 having the perfect use of our discernment, and all that authority over our
 
 FORTITUDE. 233 
 
 mental organs which they are capable of obeying, constitutes prudence ; and 
 that branch of it relating to terrible ideas is understood by fortitude, which 
 though not the less for being aided by nature, custom, or other causes, yet 
 is not complete until it can operate without them. 
 
 4. But in order to render this command of our ideas complete, it is 
 necessary that present evils should be no more capable of discomposing us 
 than the apprehension of them at a distance ; for if we can face danger 
 while aloof, but shrink under mischiefs when actually falling upon us, it 
 argues a feebleness of our ideas rather than the strength of our mind. 
 Therefore patience has always been esteemed a species of fortitude, enabling 
 us to bear pain, labour, indignity, affliction, disappointment, and whatever 
 else is irksome to human nature. I will not undertake to determine 
 whether these may be rendered quite harmless, so as not to hurt at all, yet 
 if there be any salve to prevent their galling, patience is certainly the 
 thing, which whoever possesses completely, if he cannot escape suffering 
 by them, yet he will be able to divert his thoughts in great measure upon 
 other objects : for he will never be thrown off his basis, nor permit them 
 so to obscure the notices of his judgment, as that he cannot find something 
 proper to be done upon the present occasion, which may in part, at least, 
 engage his attention. Nay, he will very often prevail to fix it wholly upon 
 the measures of his conduct ; in which case, he will relieve himself entirely ; 
 for when we can forbear attending to uneasiness, it vanishes, which made 
 some imagine it lay solely in opinion. When the mind has gotten this 
 habitual command over her motions, she will exercise it, I conceive, for I 
 can do no more than conjecture, with ease, freedom, and readiness, and 
 without variation. But for us learners in the art we must expect to meet 
 many difficulties, which we cannot surmount, nor hope to make any im- 
 provement without frequently exerting our utmost resolution : nor should 
 we disdain to avail ourselves of example, company, shame, argumentation, 
 or any other helps that may advance us forward. But to make the most 
 of our resolution, it will be requisite to know the strength of it, that we 
 may not put it upon more than it will perform : because repeated ill success 
 may drive to despair, and damp the spirits instead of raising them. It will 
 be expedient to take all opportunities of increasing what little courage or 
 patience we have, to examine in what particulars we are defective and what 
 feasible methods we have of remedying that defect, thus keeping our reso- 
 lution in continual exercise ; for every habit and every power of our nature 
 gathers strength by being exercised. With such good management, and a 
 vigilant but judicious use of the strength we have, we shall be continually 
 advancing forwards by little and little : and the acquisition of any of those 
 inferior virtues spoken of in 2, will bring us so much nearer to perfection ; 
 for if it were possible to attain every one, I imagine the aggregate of them 
 all would make that fortitude we are in quest of. 
 
 5. Intrepidity in the day of battle is not the only species of courage, for 
 I suppose many a brave officer might not be able to walk upon a wall like 
 our common bricklayers ; which shows he has not an absolute command 
 over his ideas, since some of them will intrude so far upon his judgment as 
 to make him throw himself down for fear of falling. The art of walking 
 upon walls, is scarce necessary for those who do not intend to follow the 
 trade of a bricklayer, for they may find other objects whereon to exercise 
 their resolution to better advantage; therefore I do not recommend it 
 anybody to learn until he has completed himself in all other branches of
 
 234 FORTITUDE. 
 
 knowledge : but I apprehend the ideal sage, having a perfect mastery over 
 his imagination, would upon occasion run along the ridge of a house as 
 securely as he could upon the same tiles ranged along his chamber floor ; 
 and would likewise, where it were necessary, bear any filthy discourse, 
 noisome smell, or nastiness besmearing him, without squeamishness or 
 offence to his delicacy. But besides natural terrors which may seize any- 
 body upon first trial, before they have hardened themselves by custom, 
 there are others which gather like rust upon the imaginations of particular 
 people, making them distrust their own senses, and afraid that some sudden 
 impulse should drive them upon extravagant actions, though they have never 
 yet done any such, and have the strongest intention to avoid them. I know 
 a very sensible man, who once scrupled to take a bank note into his hand 
 for fear he should throw it into the fire : another unwilling to go near a 
 precipice, lest he should have an inclination to throw himself down. I 
 have heard of a lady that terrified herself when going a visiting with a 
 notion that she might tumble down on entering the room, or say something 
 very rude ; and I myself when a boy, having occasion to retire to some 
 private corner, have been sometimes grievously disturbed, lest I should be 
 still in a room full of company, and only fancied I had left them. I am 
 apt to suspect there are more of these whimsies in the world than one 
 hears of, for people are shy of betraying their foibles, and it is but by 
 chance, after being very intimate, that one gets any such confession out of 
 them. These little distempers of mind may proceed from too great intense- 
 ness of thought ; for as hard labour brings a trembling and weakness upon 
 the nerves until refreshed by rest, so the organs of attention being over- 
 strained, become unable to resist whatever fancies start up in its way, 
 and I believe your hard students if they take notice will find more of this 
 disturbance after a series of close application or having been much alone 
 than at other times : but if it be thought that ladies and children cannot 
 be supposed to hurt themselves this way, let it be remembered that they 
 too sometimes puzzle their brains as much, though not upon the same sub- 
 jects nor in the same manner as great scholars. The like effect may 
 spring from a custom of making uncommon suppositions, which the studious 
 sometimes necessarily and sometimes needlessly give in to, or the habit of 
 building castles in the air, that others often divert themselves with i for, 
 by these practices, we teach imagination to paint her figures as strong as 
 the real objects exhibited to us by nature. Another source of the same 
 stream may rise upon taking too much of the pillow, for sleep protracted 
 longer than necessary will not be sound : but in dreams, volition remains 
 inactive, all being earned on by the spontaneous workings of our organs, 
 which having thereby gotten a habit of moving themselves, will afterwards 
 throw up dreaming thoughts amongst our waking ones so strongly, that we 
 shall scarce be able to know them asunder. I would recommend it to 
 persons labouring under this infirmity, to observe whether they do not find 
 it trouble them less upon those days wherein they happen to have risen 
 early. I do not know that the believers in a free will of indifferency are 
 more subject to these fantastical disturbances than other folks, yet one may 
 well wonder why they should not, for upon their principles the danger 
 would be real, not fantastical : because what avails it to have our senses, 
 our judgment, and discretion, if, by our elective power, we may annex the 
 idea of Best to whatever they warn us most clearly against ? How can we 
 depend upon our subsequent behaviour corresponding with our precedent.
 
 FORTITUDE. 235 
 
 if volition be determined by nothing antecedent, nothing exterior to the will 
 itself? In short, take away the influence of motives, and all before us 
 becomes contingent, doubtful, and hazardous. 
 
 But whatever causes give rise to such apprehensions, they certainly in- 
 dicate an impotence of mind, that has not a command over her ideas, nor 
 can turn her notice upon any spot she pleases in the scenes of her imagina- 
 tion. One cannot expect a remedy in this case so much from reason as 
 resolution, or rather care and vigilance ; for authority grows by custom, 
 and every power gathers strength from exercise : therefore it is expedient 
 to accustom ourselves to choose out of the ideas before us for our inspec- 
 tion, to thrust away those that would intrude upon our notice, and to discern 
 the degree of evidence sufficient to work assurance. It has been made ap- 
 pear in CHAP. XI. that absolute mathematical certainty was not made for 
 man ; therefore whoever looks always for that must hang in perpetual 
 doubt and obscurity. 
 
 6. There is likewise a courage of assenting, as well as acting; for it 
 cannot be denied that men may cramp themselves in their deliberations for 
 fear of discovering a fallacy in something whereof they have conceived a 
 favourable prejudice : and certainly, without a freedom of thought, there is 
 very little advance to be made in our researches after truth. But then it 
 ought not to be forgotten that there is a difference between courage and 
 rashness, between freedom and change of servitude : for if we run deeper 
 into one prejudice by flying eagerly from another, we shall not much en- 
 large our liberty. Therefore, it behoves us to join caution to our bravery, 
 without which it will not be genuine ; to look around us, observing every 
 quarter from whence an undue influence may fall upon us; to examine all 
 sides calmly and impartially, and give a just weight to the presumption 
 that our prejudice may have been founded upon solid reasons formerly dis- 
 cerned by ourselves or others, though we cannot now recover them. 
 
 7. Neither is patience confined solely to the endurance of pains and 
 labours ; those whose situation exempts them from such trials, may yet 
 find subjects whereon to exercise this branch of fortitude. There is nobody 
 but meets with disappointments, cross accidents, contradictions and inter- 
 ruptions, as well in business as diversion ; and if we could bear these with- 
 out ruffling, it would certainly be gaining a valuable point. For my part, 
 I often envy the patience of hackney coachmen sitting whole hours .in all 
 weathers upon their boxes, tradesmen waiting behind their counters, and 
 servants attending in anti-chambers liable to be called upon any trifling 
 errand at every touch of the bell : were I in their situation, restrained from 
 employing myself as I liked, and unable to enter upon a train of thought, 
 because expecting every instant to have it broken, I should be miserable : 
 but though I would not choose to pass my time in idleness, I should be 
 glad to bear it when forced upon me unavoidably. While I am pouring 
 with the microscope upon objects lying within the light of nature, if a 
 billet rolls off the hearth, or my servant comes in abruptly with a message, 
 I cannot help fretting and vexing a little inwardly : this I acknowledge to 
 be a failing, and would wish to receive all events with tranquillity and 
 evenness of temper, pursuing my little engagements without anxiety, and 
 breaking them off without discomposure. For virtue is valuable all over ; 
 if we cannot obtain large portions of her, yet every little scrap will repay 
 the trouble of acquiring, as containing a source of enjoyment, and adding 
 something to our estate in the fund of happiness.
 
 236 
 
 CHAP. XXXII. 
 
 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 THERE have been heroes intrepid in dangers and indefatigable in labours, 
 despising death, wounds, and hardships, who yet have been shamefully 
 overcome by luxury and all kinds of wanton desires, made slaves to popular 
 applause, or to some favourite mistress. For besides the dread of ap- 
 proaching, or pressure of present evil, there is another obstacle against the 
 influence of reason by the allurement of pleasure, either in prospect or frui- 
 tion ; and it no less requires an exertion of vigour in the mind to secure 
 her against being drawn off her basis by the one than driven by the other. 
 Therefore the habit of resisting pleasure and controlling desire has been 
 justly reckoned a cardinal virtue, called by the name of Temperance. Nor 
 does it less deserve a title to one of the four principal places than fortitude, 
 as being more generally useful for all ranks and conditions of people and 
 more difficult to be attained completely. For many persons are not in a 
 situation exposing them to much danger or labour, nor of a constitution 
 subjecting them to acute or frequent pains, and so may pass through life 
 well enough, although somewhat deficient in courage or patience : but 
 there is no man without desires, and no man whom they will not lead 
 astray from the paths of reason if he has not power to restrain them. Nor 
 perhaps is it harder to subdue terror effectually than pleasure : the one re- 
 quires a stronger resolution, the other a more constant vigilance. Pain 
 and danger assault us rarely ; their attacks are furious but generally short ; 
 if you can sustain the first onset, the business is done ; or should they 
 renew the charge, they will do it feebler after every repulse, until at length 
 they cease to be formidable : but desire brings a numerous host into the 
 field ; put one enemy to flight and another presently succeeds in his place ; 
 if they cannot master you by force, they will weary you down by importu- 
 nity ; if they find you invulnerable in front, they will detach a regiment of 
 secret motives to take you in rear, so that you may be brought to the 
 ground without knowing from what quarter the blow came. Therefore you 
 must continually keep upon your guard and bestir yourself without respite, 
 which demands a larger fund of vigour to perform than any sudden starts 
 of resolution, as it shows more robustness to carry a weight for miles than 
 to pull out a wedge at a jerk. Besides that intestine enemies are always 
 accounted the most dangerous, and though pleasure sometimes allures with 
 outward objects, it oftener tempts by desires that have found harbour in the 
 breast : and the most judicious persons have always esteemed the conquest 
 of oneself the most important and most glorious of victories, which a man 
 miy most justly applaud himself for, however the world may thiak other- 
 wise. 
 
 2. According to my notions of temperance, it is not confined to restrain- 
 ing the solicitations of appetite or what is usually called pleasure, but ex- 
 tends to habit, passion, humour, and whatever else would entice us away 
 from following our judgment : therefore covetousness, ambition, resent- 
 ment, extravagant joy, sanguine hope, thirst of knowledge, and even zeal 
 for virtue, when not conducted by reason, are species of intemperance, as 
 well as luxury, debauchery, and indolence. Pleasure is most dangerous in 
 the season of youth, when the organs are vigorous, sensation strong, and
 
 TEMPERANCE. 237 
 
 every allurement presents with the charm of novelty : in our riper years 
 there is generally some ruling passion, either of advancement in honour or 
 fortune, increase of knowledge, or other particular aim, that captivates the 
 mind, and instead of obeying the command of reason presses it into its 
 service : and the intemperance of old age shows itself in an attachment to 
 our own ways and humours upon the most trifling occasions. But educa- 
 tion, custom, and constitution, raise a different set of ideas in each man ; 
 therefore it behoves him to examine his condition of mind, and set himself 
 most carefully to guard that quarter where he perceives the greatest danger 
 threaten. 
 
 3. As desire not only entices by the delight promised upon gratification, 
 but when opposed often degenerates into want, which arrives by the un- 
 easiness of missing the thing desired, therefore temperance must call in 
 patience as an auxiliary to assist her ; and we find the uneasiness arising 
 upon a delay of desire vulgarly styled impatience. He that cannot forbear 
 hankering after pleasure lost, nor support the trouble any little importunate 
 habit may give him, will make no progress towards mastering them ; for 
 whatever ground he may have gained by repelling the first attack, he will 
 lose it all again upon the second. And sometimes, I believe, men give way 
 for fear of this uneasiness, when it might not have proved insupportable ; 
 so that a little courage and confidence in our strength is very helpful upon 
 these occasions. 
 
 4. Of all the propensities that take us at unawares none are more dan- 
 gerous than indolence and pride, or vanity, because none are more universal, 
 and none more sly in making their approaches covertly : a man can hardly 
 fall into excesses of debauchery without being sensible of them ; but he 
 may be vain or idle without ever knowing that he is so. Laziness seems 
 to be the very opposite to virtue ; for as this consists in exerting the vigour 
 of the mind to discern the lights of our judgment when overshaded by 
 other ideas, he that could keep this vigour perpetually alert would never 
 fall into any error of conduct. But there is a love of ease in us all, that 
 makes people often bestir themselves prodigiously in the prosecution of 
 some fond desire, rather than be at the pains of overcoming it, and gives 
 birth to the violence and impatience of passion, which wants to have the 
 purpose aimed at by it presently attained that the business may be over. 
 And, perhaps, laziness may lie at the bottom of all pride and vanity ; for 
 there is much less trouble in persuading ourselves we possess accomplish- 
 ments we have not, in contemplating those we have or displaying them to 
 public view, than in improving them, or acquiring new ones. He that is 
 always diligent in advancing forwards, will scarce have time for more than 
 a transient look now and then upon the progress he has made, much less 
 will he stand pointing out the length of it to every passenger he sees in 
 the way. But vanity is so deeply rooted in us by education, by example 
 and sympathy, and assails on so many quarters, that no wonder we can 
 never guard against it effectually : we are taught to judge of ourselves and 
 our possessions of any kind by comparison with others, to despise or over- 
 look what we have not, and value ourselves upon any trifle peculiarly our 
 own. The Spectator tells us of a young lady whom he found one day hold 
 up her head higher than ordinary, and wondering what could be the occa- 
 sion, her sister whispered him that she had got on a new pair of silk 
 garters. One would think virtue should secure a man most effectually 
 against all vain imaginations ; but there is a pride of thinking oneself and 
 a vanity of appearing virtuous : nay, some have been proud of their
 
 238 TEMPERANCE. 
 
 humility and contempt of pride, as witness Diogenes, when he trampled 
 upon the fine tapestry brought by Plato from the court of Sicily. But 
 until a man can discover all the secret recesses of his heart, and restrain his 
 fondness for contemplating or displaying any supposed perfection, he will 
 not have attained completely the virtue of temperance. 
 
 5. Nor is moderation less necessary than courage to insure a true liberty 
 of thought. Men esteem themselves free-thinkers because they can think 
 anything, but I do not hold them really such unless they can likewise for- 
 bear to think anything. It has been often observed there is a certain 
 enthusiasm in poetry, and perhaps there is a degree of it though not so 
 much observed in argumentation and most prose compositions. The neat 
 structure of an hypothesis, the shrewdness of a discovery, the acuteness of 
 an observation, the charm of novelty or pleasure of overthrowing a vulgar 
 error, will sometimes transport men beyond themselves : one sparkling 
 thought will eclipse all others their judgment presents, and a secret inclina- 
 tion cast a glare of evidence upon any notion that favours it. There are 
 other restraints upon our freedom besides pusillanimity, and in order to think 
 perfectly free we must learn to think soberly as well as boldly ; for courage 
 and caution, like two antagonist muscles, serve to keep one another from 
 drawing the mind awry : if either of them have lost its tone, the party may 
 be said to labour under a paralytic disorder. 
 
 6. Some seasonable austerity and self-denial will be found expedient, or 
 rather necessary, for us all to practise : for we have not such strength of 
 mind as to surmount all opposition, therefore must endeavour to weaken 
 the enemy by entering the lists against him as often as we can do it safely, 
 and by so doing we shall add vigour to our own resolution, which always 
 gathers strength by exercise. This consideration will engage us sometimes 
 to deny innocent desires, that we may have it in our power to restrain 
 them when hurtful. For the same reason we ought to keep a guard upon 
 our thoughts as well as upon our actions : for there is an intemperance of 
 imagination that engages men to dwell upon fantastical scenes of power, or 
 gain, or revenge, or unwarrantable pleasures, under a notion of their being 
 harmless, because they do not immediately break forth into act. But, when 
 we reflect upon what has been shown before in the course of these inquiries, 
 how great a sway imagination has, in shaping our behaviour, it will appear 
 extremely dangerous to let that take a wrong turn, for it may steal upon us 
 insensibly, and give a wrong turn to our conduct when we are not aware ; 
 at least it will abate our relish for other employments wherein we might 
 spend our time to better advantage. 
 
 7. But self-denial is an evil considered in itself, wherefore those are 
 not to be heeded who would persuade us into a life of austerities without 
 regard to any good purposes to be effected thereby : for happiness, that is 
 content and solace of mind, is our proper aim, nor does present enjoyment 
 ever deserve to be rejected, unless for the sake of some greater enjoyment 
 to be had in exchange for it. There is no good merely in crossing and 
 afflicting ourselves ; but self-denial becomes recommendable, for the ease it 
 will procure us, by breaking the force of those desires that would interrupt 
 and teaze and torment us perpetually with their importunities. Our busi- 
 ness is not to extinguish desire, without which there could be no pleasure 
 in life, no choice among objects before us, nor glee in anything we under- 
 take, but to prevent it from being troublesome : and while we have unruly 
 desires belonging to us, it is necessary to travel the rugged road of self- 
 denial in our progress towards the wise man's tranquillity. For I conceive
 
 TEMPERANCE. 239 
 
 the consummate sage, if there were such a one upon earth, would never 
 practise self-denial, because he would not have an opportunity, his desires 
 lying under such control as never to raise an opposition for him to struggle 
 against : not that he would be without desires ; on the contrary, I imagine 
 he would abound in them more than we do, receiving delight from them in 
 many things we should count insipid ; but they would hang so loose about 
 him, as to let go their hold the instant an object appeared improper or un- 
 attainable, to leave no secret hankering behind nor ever degenerate into 
 want like the sheep, who they say is never thirsty, unless when he sees 
 water ; so his appetites would prove sources of pleasure to him, but none 
 of pain. And why should we think such a disposition of mind impossible 
 when there is scarce any of us who do not possess it in some little degree ? 
 We can sit down with desire to a party at cards when proposed, or content 
 ourselves without it, if not agreed to : we may eat fruit with good appetite 
 in summer, and take pains in planting trees to procure it, without wanting 
 it in winter : we can bestir ourselves lustily in forwarding schemes of 
 hunting, or bowling, or dancing, or other diversion, when they fall in our 
 way, and rest fully contented with our situation when they do not. So that 
 we have nothing to do but improve a faculty we already possess, and extend 
 our authority gradually to all our other propensities, whether of profit, or 
 honour, or building, or equipage, or curiosity, or knowledge, or whatever 
 else would raise an intemperance of desire. The secret of happiness lies in 
 having a multitude of engagements fitted for every occasion that can happen, 
 so that some or other of them may constantly give us an appetite for em- 
 ployment, but none that shall disturb us when we judge it necessary or 
 proper to break them off. 
 
 8. As self-denial helps to bring desire under control, so indulgence must 
 needs have a contrary effect, adding vigour to the adversary and enfeebling 
 ourselves : it is throwing the reins upon the horse's neck, which will quickly 
 make him grow unmanageable. Wherefore, it behoves us to be cautious of 
 our most innocent desires, lest by indulging we render them habitual, and 
 instead of inviting, which is their proper office, they will drag us forcibly 
 along : nor shall we ever recover our liberty, without a more painful self- 
 denial than had been otherwise needful. Nor do intense pleasures deserve 
 the value too commonly set upon them : it may be a man's misfortune to 
 have been too highly delighted, for it will often destroy the relish of his 
 common enjoyments, or fix so strong an impression upon the fancy, as shall 
 obliterate all other ideas, and make him perpetually restless for a repetition : 
 so that whoever seeks to be highly pleased, runs a hazard of being seldom 
 pleased, and passing the greatest part of his time in disquietude and impa- 
 tience. Many persons, especially young folks, make pleasure their sole aim 
 whenever they can get the command of their time, in those intervals when 
 the restraints of their superiors are withdrawn, imagining they shall enjoy 
 the more by how much the more assiduously they pursue it : but this is a 
 fallacious way of reckoning, for pleasure is an errant coquet, flying those 
 who court her most servilely, and showing herself most gracious to those 
 who bear the greatest indifference towards her. She makes forward ad- 
 vances to the unwary to bring them to her lure ; but when she has gotten 
 them fast in her fetters, she uses them scurvily, allowing them no rest in her 
 service, and feeding them only with delusive expectations and stale scraps 
 of enjoyment, that have utterly lost their savour. Nor indeed is it in her 
 power, were she ever so kindly disposed, to give a solid and lasting enjoy- 
 ment ; for those pleasures your men of pleasure hunt after, owe their gust
 
 240 JUSTICE. 
 
 merely to their novelty and the vigour of youthful blood and the freshness 
 of the organs, but our organs can supply no more than a certain portion of 
 entertainment ; for when much employed in the same way, though they may 
 still perform their work, yet they lose that sensibility in the exercise, which 
 they had originally. Therefore, he that makes intense pleasure his whole 
 business, is like an extravagant heir, who squanders away his whole patri- 
 mony in a year or two, and leaves himself nothing to live upon afterwards 
 besides poverty, want, and distress. Hence we may see the benefit of this 
 cardinal virtue, Temperance, which will debar us no pleasure we can have at 
 free cost, but rescue us from those that would make us pay more for them 
 than they are worth, will open to us many sources of delight the voluptuous 
 never taste of, and secure us an estate for life in such enjoyments whereof 
 our nature is capable. 
 
 CHAP. XXXIII. 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 THERE is one particular desire, that of appropriating whatever we can get 
 to ourselves, and following our own pleasure without regard to the hurt it 
 may do other persons, which prevails so universally and strongly among 
 mankind, and which, indulged, causes such disorder in the world, that the 
 restraint of it has been thought worthy to be made a cardinal virtue, distin- 
 guished by the name of Justice. It is easy to see that justice owes its being 
 to society, for it could have no place were each man to live separately by 
 himself, or had he not in any instance a power of endamaging the posses- 
 sions, infringing the liberty, or abridging the enjoyments of his fellow 
 creatures. Were men just now brought out of such a state, and placed upon 
 this habitable earth, every one would naturally take of the good things scat- 
 tered around him, whatever he wanted for his present occasion ; when he 
 went to do the same a second time, he might often find that somebody else 
 had taken away the things he wanted before him ; this wculd put him, as 
 often as he had an opportunity, upon securing as many of them as he could 
 get together, to provide against the like accidents for the future ; from 
 whence springs self-interest, the desire of gain, and covetousness. But as 
 others would do the same, the public stock would be soon exhausted, the 
 fruits all gathered from the trees, and the desire of engrossing would then 
 prompt men to invade one another's hoards : whence must ensue trouble, 
 vexation, and contention, and much waste must be made in the struggle, 
 to the great damage of them all. These inconveniences being severely felt, 
 would teach them to see that their true interests lay in restraining their own 
 desires within such compass, as might bring them compatible with those of 
 others, and they would form rules for securing to each man his share of the 
 blessings that nature had poured out among them. But it being obvious 
 that the gifts of nature may be improved by labour, nor indeed can fully 
 supply our wants without it, and there being no encouragement for any man 
 to labour, if all the rest were to share the fruits of it with himself, they 
 would find it necessary that all should enjoy the produce of their skill and 
 industry in severally, without interruption from others : and this would lay 
 the foundation of property. But as it may often lie in a man's power to 
 work out some advantage for others or for the public, and the security of 
 property would be no encouragement with him so to do, because the fruits
 
 JUSTICE. 241 
 
 of his labour-in this case would not redound to his own benefit, they would 
 see the expedience of a compensation or reward, to serve as an encourage- 
 ment for performing such services. On the other hand, some would still 
 employ their strength or cunning to encroach upon their neighbour's pro- 
 perties, or through mere wantonness, or resentment, or other unruly pas- 
 sion, would endamage them in their persons or possessions : this would 
 show the necessity of punishment to restrain such outrages, ^.nd as vicious 
 inclinations, according to their strength, would require a greater or less 
 restraint to curb them, therefore punishment would be apportioned to the 
 heinousnegs of the ofFenpe, of which the greatness of the mischief done would 
 be deemed an evidence when the inward depravity could not otherwise be 
 discovered. 
 
 2. Were mankind reduced to a state of nature, I imagine they would 
 gradually fall into notions of justice by such steps as those above described. 
 Rut we being born into settled communities, having regulations already 
 established, take them as we find them, with the sanction of authority an- 
 n.exed to them, without penetrating into the sources from whence they are 
 derived. Yet if we were to suppose all reward and punishment, all law and 
 honesty, banished from among a people, there would be nothing left to guide 
 them besides self-interest, appetite, passi: n, and humour ; and it is easy to 
 ee what wild doings, what havoc and distraction, these would introduce. 
 Since then we find sp manifest a necessity of justice to secure the happiness 
 and tranquillity of life, we need seek for no other foundation than utility, 
 whereon to build our obligation to support it. Many laws are calculated 
 for the particular convenience of the people to whom they are given, and 
 would be unjust because inconvenient if transported into other countries. 
 The duty of subordination and obedience to higher powers, arise from the 
 benefits of union : for it being impossible that all individuals should agree in 
 their measures of conduct, or stand in a situation to judge of them, if the 
 authority were not placed in a few hands, a nation could never act as one 
 man to repel the invasions of an enemy, nor execute any one undertaking 
 that required the cpnpurrence of numbers. Therefore, though it be possible 
 that governors may command things inconvenient, yet it is not justifiable to 
 disobey them, because of the debility that must ensue upon loosening of their 
 authority. Just as a man, who should find a troublesome twitching in his 
 muscles, would do very wrong to destroy the tone of them : for he had better 
 bear the present uneasiness than lose the use of his limbs. It has been com- 
 monly said, the worst kind of government was preferable to anarchy : where- 
 fore the consideration of that preference will prove a tie upon evqry prudent 
 man to submit to such government. 
 
 3. Nobody will deny there is a natural justice distinct from the legal, 
 and must be presupposed before men can pay a proper submission to autho- 
 rity : for whoever obeys the law for fear of incurring the penalty is not a 
 just man ; he only deserves the title pf just who would deal honestly, and 
 forbear offending, although there were no terrors hanging over to compel 
 him, and who does not think of the penalties annexed, but acts upon a mo- 
 tive of principle. Where this principle is wanting, the best contrived laws 
 cannot wholly supply the deficiency ; for they being calculated for general 
 use, it is impossible to shape them so exactly as to suit all the variety of 
 cases that may happen, therefore there wants some other clue to direct us 
 when to pursue and when to abate the rigour of justice. Besides, there are 
 many ways by which men have it in their power to affect one another in 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 JUSTICE. 
 
 matters where the law does not and perhaps could not interfere, particularly 
 in the application of applause and censure : in all these cases they can have 
 no other guidance than the law of their own minds binding to the observ- 
 ance of certain rules, founded originally upon utility, though not always, or 
 rather very seldom, carrying a visible connection therewith. We have seen 
 under the article of honour, that praise and blame belong properly to those 
 objects whereto the annexing them will do greatest service. Reparation for 
 damages tends to the security of property,, preventing retaliation, and an- 
 swering as a penalty to restrain mischievousness and heedlessness. The 
 labourer is worthy of his hire, because it cannot be expected men should 
 labour without it : and the shopkeeper ought to be paid for his goods, be- 
 cause else there would be an end of all commerce and industry. Merit and 
 demerit of all kinds arise from a right understanding, and prudent regard 
 to our own interests ; and the very term Deserve, implies that such a parti- 
 cular treatment will be most expedient upon such or such a behaviour. 
 
 4. Thus every species of justice, as well public as private, as well commu- 
 tative as distributive, rests upon the basis of utility : but what causes the 
 mistake upon this matter is, the double sense of the word utility, as distin- 
 guished into real and apparent ; for in philosophical consideration, it is un- 
 derstood of that which upon the whole amount of consequences teuds most 
 to advance a man's real happiness, but in vulgar language it stands for that 
 which exhibits the clearest prospect of advantage or profit. If we look back 
 upon the chapter of Use, we shall find how pleasure transfers satisfaction 
 upon things instrumental or preparatory to the procuring it, from whence 
 grow the principle of self-interest and many desires of things conceived be- 
 neficial or conducive to our purposes. Now if we take this self-interest, and. 
 the gratification of these desires of utility, it is certainly quite different from 
 ' justice as standing generally at the greatest variance with it ; he that deals 
 honestly when not compelled either by the fear of punishment or censure, and 
 without this he cannot claim a title to honesty, manifestly foregoes his in- 
 terest for the sake of justice. But our ultimate end of action is not always, 
 or rather very rarely our ultimate point of view, for our faculties being too 
 scanty to look forward to the journey's end, we set up certain marks where- 
 ori to fix our attention from time to time for our guidance on the way : some 
 of the first of these marks are the rules of interest, profit, convenience, and 
 worldly prudence ; but they proving often insufficient, we find a necessity 
 of other marks in the rules of honour and justice to rectify their mistaken 
 directions. 
 
 I am well aware that each of us singly learns our honesty by instruction 
 or sympathy from others, but then it can scarce be denied that those who 
 first set the example did it from observation of the mischiefs attendant upon 
 a too close attachment to interest. If we could constantly see to the end of 
 our proceedings, and compute exactly the whole produce of enjoyment and 
 suffering to be expected from them, we should want no other rule than that 
 of preferring the greater distant good before present pleasure, for our own 
 advantage wojild guide us sufficiently in all parts of our conduct ; but since 
 we cannot look so far, and interest frequently leads astray from its own pur- 
 poses, we have need enough of the restraint of justice to keep us from being 
 beguiled by it, and led out of the road to real utility, which we often miss 
 of through too great eagerness for the apparent. It may be remarked, that 
 honour aad justice abound more in rules than any other principle of action; 
 because, lying further removed from pleasure, we can seldomer discern the 
 connection therewith, and consequently stand more in need of direction.
 
 JUSTICE. 243 
 
 But rules will stand us in no stead without a propensity urging strongly to 
 practise them, which propensity, in the present case, is styled the moral sense 
 or conscience : wherefore it behoves every man to cultivate or improve this 
 moral sense or conscientious regard for the obligations of justice to the 
 utmost, and adhere to it without reserve against all the solicitations of in- 
 terest. The proper office of justice lies in restraining our selfish desires : a 
 thorough righteous man will never suffer any of them either to draw him 
 privily, or hurry him forcibly upon actions for which his heart may after- 
 wards misgive him, or which his moral sense warns him to beware as unlaw- 
 ful, although he may not directly discern their inexpedience. It is true he 
 may sometimes mistake and forego his lawful advantages needlessly, but the 
 possession of a strong moral sense is more valuable than any present benefit 
 he could receive from its weakness ; and he may look upon these inconve- 
 niences in the light of troubles naturally attending an estate, which no man 
 would throw away for the sake of escaping them. 
 
 Therefore it is much the safer side to be too scrupulous than too remiss, 
 especially for young people. Tully used to reckon exuberance a good sign 
 in a young orator, and say he loved to find something to prune off. The mo- 
 ralist may say the same with respect to his scholars, that he loves to see the 
 moral sense vigorous and redundant, affording something to prune off; for 
 it is much harder to nourish up a weakly plant than reduce one that is 
 luxuriant. The expedience of justice lies through so many stages, that it 
 is difficult to trace them, but the inconveniences of over strictness are easier 
 manifested, nor will fail to discover themselves upon a little experience. 
 But though the moral sense ought to master desire, it ought not to prevail 
 over reason ; therefore whenever upon a full and fair examination we find 
 our rules tend to greater harm than good, we must alter or dispense with 
 them ; and since they are liable to error, it will behove us, as often as a 
 proper opportunity offers, to try them by a reference to use. This will pre- 
 vent their running into extravagances, and give us a better opinion of 
 them ; for by frequently observing the benefit of justice, we shall become 
 intimately persuaded of its expedience at other times when we do not dis- 
 cern them : which will teach us a confidence in our moral sense, and make 
 us look upon the laudableness of an action as a certain evidence of its use- 
 fulness. 
 
 5. As we are mighty fond of personifying everything, even the creatures 
 of imagination, abstract notions, and whatever we can express by a noun 
 substantive, it is common to consider the law either of the land, or of na- 
 ture, as a person, having perception, volition, design, desire, and passion 
 In this light, if we look for what design the law must be supposed to have, 
 we cannot well conceive any other than the preservation of property, the 
 security of life, limb, peace, liberty, and all other requisites for enjoyment, 
 that may be destroyed or lessened by the behaviour of men to one another. 
 But all design tends to something future, the past being no object of power 
 or contrivance : hence it is plain the law carries always a prospect for- 
 wards, and only casts a retrospect behind, in order to take her measures for 
 providing against the time to come. The reparation she awards for da- 
 mages sustained, manifestly relates to the future convenience of the party 
 aggrieved ; for if he be satisfied by being reinstated in the possession of 
 those materials for enjoyment he had before the offence committed, or re- 
 ceiving an equivalent that will answer his purposes as well, the law is 
 satisfied too. But it may often happen that the offender is not able tq 
 
 R 2
 
 244 JUSTICE. 
 
 make reparation, or the injury^ as in cases of murder or maiming, is of a 
 nature not to be repaired or compensated : under these circumstances the 
 law will not be supposed to design impossibilities, and can only have in 
 view the preventing the like injuries for the future, by such punishment as 
 shall be judged sufficient for that purpose. So that in reality punishment 
 is not inflicted for crimes committed, but as a remedy against those which 
 might be committed hereafter ; and guilt is rather a direction than a mo- 
 tive for taking vengeance. And that this is so, will appear more evi- 
 dent when we reflect that natural justice restrains the thoughts, desires, 
 and intentions of men, as well as their outward actions : nor do the laws 
 sometimes scruple to punish for the intent where no mischief has been 
 actually done. Conspiring to defraud, assaulting with intent to rob or 
 ravish, are deemed misdemeanours ; lifting up a latch in the night-time 
 with intent to commit burglary, forging or knowingly publishing a forged 
 note, are made felony; imagining the death of the king, is high treason. 
 And if an overt act be required to convict the delinquent, I believe every 
 one, who knows the nature of right and wrong, will admit that the overt 
 act adds nothing to the delinquency, but is only necessary to prove it, be- 
 cause we cannot dive into the thoughts of men, nor judge of them otherwise 
 than by their actions. Were there a man to whom the hearts of all others 
 should lie open, and a discretionary power entrusted, to do as he judged 
 reasonable, he would not think it unjust to apply such punishment for the 
 most secret evil designs, as he conceived effectual for preventing them from 
 breaking forth into act. 
 
 6. But to pursue our idea of personality in the law ; as we all look upon 
 the defeating of our designs as a damage, and the law designing the peace 
 and security of those under her protection, therefore every hurt brought 
 upon individuals is considered as an injury done the law itself, for which 
 she will require such satisfaction, as can be made, that is, such adequate 
 punishment as may deter the offender or others from repeating the offence, 
 and reinstate her in her power she had before of protecting : this brings 
 punishment under the idea of a reparation or satisfaction for damage done, 
 not indeed to the party injured, but to the law ; for when the offender has 
 undergone the chastisement allotted him, he is said to have satisfied the 
 law, and to stand right again in court. Then as in ourselves satisfaction 
 becomes often transferred from the end to the means, particularly in re- 
 sentment, where we think of nothing further than wreaking our revenge, 
 and in pursuits of honour or power, which we do not follow for their uses 
 but to gratify our present desires of them, we conceive the same passions 
 to prevail and the same narrow views to obtain in the law, which animad- 
 verts upon delinquents for her own satisfaction rather thaji for the sake of 
 the community under her charge, 
 
 7. This custom of conceiving the law to have interests of her own to 
 serve, and the detestation which arises instantly in the hearts of the best 
 and wisest men upon the thought of heinous wickedness, has given rise to 
 the opinion of an immediate and essential connection between offence and 
 punishment, which is supposed due to the former without taking any other 
 idea into consideration. I shall readily agree that in taking measures for 
 punishing we need consider nothing further than the degree of delinquency ; 
 for being well satisfied our rule is right, we need not, nay cannot constantly 
 look forward for the reasons inducing us to believe it right ; and so we de- 
 pend upon the 47th of Euclid as a certain truth, without running on to the 
 demonstrations convincing us of its being true : but if we search for the
 
 JUSTICE. 245 
 
 foundation of justice, though here toe- we shall find a -connection, it will he 
 hard to trace it out unless by the intervention of two links lying between ; I 
 mean, the power of men still to hurt one another, and the tendency of punish- 
 ment to make them change or withhold them from executing their evil inten- 
 tions. Were mankind to be suddenly placed in a situation which should 
 render them incapable of ever more receiving damage from others, or their 
 dispositions of mind so changed as that they should never more think of 
 doing acts of injustice, I believe every good man would vote for a general 
 amnesty of all former misdemeanors, because the remembrance of them 
 would be needless in one case and useless in the other. 
 
 If the connection between offence and punishment were natural and 
 necessary, submission and repentance could never dissociate them, for the 
 nature of actions cannot be altered by anything subsequent ; but repentance, 
 answering the purpose intended by chastisement, takes away the use of it, 
 and thereby dissolves the connection : therefore when severity appears 
 necessary as a warning to others, that they may not expect to come off 
 upon the like easy terms, the just man will not accept of repentance : thus 
 we see justice disarmed upon becoming needless, and the sword put into 
 her hands again upon the further prospect of necessity. 
 
 And the same cause extends her province beyond the limits naturally 
 belonging to it, by warranting her sometimes to take vengeance upon the 
 innocent for wrongs wherein they have had no share : for this is the case of 
 war, wherein the goods and possessions of private persons are invaded for 
 injuries received from the state. I know that in national transactions all 
 the members of a community are looked upon as constituting one person, 
 and in this light you take revenge upon the person that injured you : but 
 this is only an imaginary personality, very useful for pointing out the 
 measures of national justice, but by no means supporting it as a foundation. 
 If the French king has fortified Dunkirk, or encroached upon our colonies 
 in America, in breach of treaties, you cannot charge the merchant trading 
 from Martinico with any faithlessness or badness of heart upon that account : 
 so justice stands here separated from delinquency and every spice of evil 
 intention ; for you esteem it lawful to seize his effects by way of reprisal. 
 But why do you judge it lawful? because you cannot right yourself 
 otherwise : so necessity makes it justice ; for were it possible to come at 
 the governors directly without touching the subjects, no righteous man 
 would think the latter method justifiable, notwithstanding any supposed 
 identity of persons between them. 
 
 8. Were the justness of actions essential and inherent, whenever the 
 rules of justice clash, as we find they sometimes do, that which must be 
 superseded must abate something from the justness of the other : for the 
 case is so in matters of profit or pleasure. If you lay out a sum of money 
 to make an improvement of greater value upon your estate, you are cer- 
 tainly a gainer : yet could you procure the same improvement free of 
 charges your gain would be greater. If you might partake of some very 
 agreeable diversion by going five miles through very dirty roads, it is 
 worth your while ; yet could you have it without that trouble I suppose you 
 would like it better. But suppose two men in different .parts of a field near 
 a river, alarmed by the cry of some person drowning, one hath a path to 
 run along, but the other cannot go to help without trampling down his 
 neighbour's corn, which you must allow to be an unjust action considered 
 in itself, nevertheless I conceive the strictest casuist would acknowledge 
 the merit of both equal : so the lesser rule bears no intrinsic value to be
 
 246 JUSTICE. 
 
 subtracted from the greater, for the expedience of abstaining from 
 another's property is taken off by the higher importance of saving a man's 
 life. 
 
 9. Nor do the obligations of truth and fidelity rest upon any other basis 
 than expedience : it is easy to see that were truth banished the world, 
 there could be no intercourse among mankind, no use of speech : if you 
 asked anybody's direction upon the road, you might as well let it alone, for 
 you could gather nothing from their answer if there were no truth in men. 
 Were all falsehood wrong as such, why are poems and novels suffered ? 
 why do moralists invent fables wherein they introduce beasts talking, gods 
 appearing in the air, and the moon desiring to be taken measure of for a 
 suit of clothes ? But when fiction may serve some good purpose and does 
 no hurt, the wisest do not scruple to employ it. Did the bare form of an 
 agreement create an obligation to perform it, no circumstances whatever 
 could render it invalid. Are then all those suitors unrighteous who apply 
 to our courts of equity to be relieved from their contracts ? or are the 
 courts iniquitous in decreeing them relief ? But were there no faith among 
 men, no regard to their engagements, anybody may see, with half an eye, 
 what stagnation of business, what mutual diffidence and confusion must 
 ensue ; and it is the avoidance of those evils that gives them their sanction : 
 therefore> when the rigid observance of compacts manifestly tends to greater 
 mischiefs than could be avoided thereby, no righteous judge, having autho- 
 rity so to do, will scruple setting them aside. Nevertheless, this does not 
 justify a man in breaking his engagements whenever he finds it detrimental 
 or inconvenient to keep them, for our views are so narrow that we cannot 
 always see all the consequences of our actions, and rules are the marks 
 hung out to direct us to an advantage we cannot discern : therefore the 
 wise man will adhere inviolably to his rules though he cannot discover their 
 expedience ; for he will look upon the manifest injustice of a thing as a 
 stronger evidence of its being detrimental than any appearance that may 
 arise to the contrary ; yet an expedience there must be, or the rules will 
 not be right. For justice is the minister of reason, though it ought to be 
 the master of action ; and it is one thing to establish rules of conduct, but 
 another to show the foundation of them. When a man is to act, he ought 
 to consult his ideas of justice, and follow whithersoever they direct, without 
 reserve or looking to anything further ; but when we inquire why justice 
 is recommendable, it behoves us to trace out the reference it bears to hap- 
 piness ; for without this it will be hard to prove the obligation to it ; and 
 this being once clearly evinced, it would want nothing else to give it all 
 the influence that could be desired. 
 
 This method seems to have been attempted by the old philosophers, 
 but they stopped short in the midway, as we may learn from Cicero, who 
 was no philosopher himself, but an elegant reporter of the Greek philosophy, 
 where he endeavours to show the prudence of Regulus' conduct in LIB. III. 
 CAP. 27, 8, 9, of his offices ; for he tells us those are are to be rejected 
 who would separate utility from justice ; because, says he, whatever is 
 just or honestum is therefore useful. This is giving the ladies' reason, It 
 is so because it is ; for he does not vouchsafe a word to prove why it is 
 useful. That everything just is really advantageous I shall not deny, nor 
 that the practice of justice is the surest road to happiness, but I must deny 
 that this is a first principle or self-evident proposition, or to be discerned 
 without much thought and consideration ; for I know that in many cases 
 th& contrary appears upon first sight: therefore it had become a philo-
 
 JUSTICE. 247 
 
 sophcr, especially such a powerful artificer of words as Cicero, to have laid 
 open the fallacy of this appearance and shown the intermediate steps by 
 which justice leads to utility. He might have had an ample field to expa- 
 tiate upon the benefits and necessity of justice to the welfare of mankind. 
 He might have shown that the Roman commonwealth rose to that pitch of 
 grandeur they shone in by a strict fidelity to their engagements, and that 
 they afterwards began to decline and fall into confusion by their oppression 
 of the provinces taken under their protection, and their selfish endeavours to 
 encroach upon one another's rights. He might then have gone on to prove 
 the good of every individual contained in that of the republic, and thence 
 concluded that Regulus, all things considered, acted more for his own ad- 
 vantage in submitting to the torments he underwent than he could have 
 done by any breach of faith whatsoever* As for his rhodomontade that the 
 brave man looks upon pain as a mere trifle, this overthrows his other asser- 
 tion, because it seems to admit that if pain were an evil it might justify the 
 breach of engagements : and indeed we, who take it for such, commonly 
 do admit it as an excuse when in a degree we conceive intolerable. When 
 a sum of money is sent for a particular purpose, justice certainly requires it 
 should be disposed of according to the owner's directions. Suppose then 
 the party carrying it attacked on the way by ruffians, who threaten him 
 with some grievous mischiefs unless he will deliver it them : if he be per- 
 fectly honest, and at the same time possessed of the stoical fortitude so as 
 not to value pain at a straw, he will bear the worst they can do to him 
 rather than betray his trust : but suppose the messenger were a weak and 
 fearful woman, to whom violent ill usage were really terrible, I believe 
 none of us would think it the least abatement of her character for hone-ty 
 if she yielded to her terrors. So that justice is not so necessarily connected 
 with use, but that a greater evil on the other side may separate them, and 
 in that case the action ceases to be just : wherefore utility constitutes the 
 essence of justice, but not justice that of utility. 
 
 10. But though justice be not utility, nevertheless it ought to be esteemed 
 the certain mark aad evidence of utility, and an intimate persuasion of its 
 being so will fasten desire upon it as upon an ultimate point of view, with- 
 out needing anything beyond to recommend it. Whoever has this desire so 
 strong as to counterpoise all other desires, possesses the cardinal virtue here 
 treated of ; and whoever has not this desire at all cannot be called an honest 
 man in any degree, though he may do honestly for fear of punishment or 
 prospect of advantage. Therefore, if a righteous man be asked why he 
 fulfils his engagements, though to his own manifest detriment, he will 
 answer, because it would have been unjust to have failed in them ; for he 
 wants no other motive to induce him ; and if the querist be righteous too, 
 he will want no other reason to satisfy him. But if he be asked further, 
 why he esteems justice a proper motive of action, and he be a person who 
 does not take his principles upon trust from the example or authority of 
 others, but has used to examine them himself, he will refer to the general 
 necessity and expedience of justice, and allege that what conduces to the 
 general good of mankind must be good for every particular. But could it 
 be made to appear that injustice in some single instance tended to the genera! 
 advantage, he would not think himself warranted to practise it, because the 
 mischief of setting a bad example, and weakening the authority of a bene- 
 ficial rule, would be greater than any present advantage that might accrue 
 from the breach of it. And even supposing his injustice could be concealed 
 from all the world, so that it could do no hurt by example, still he would
 
 248 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 not believe it allowable, for fear it should have a bad influence upon his owri 
 mind. For whoever understands human nature, knows how dangerous it is 
 to lessen the force of those restraints that withhold us from the exorbitances 
 of self-interest : if we break into them in some instances where we might do 
 it innocently, we shall run a great hazard of losing their influence at other 
 times when it will be absolutely necessary for keeping us within bounds. 
 Nor can we doubt of there being an utility in justice, when we find it ac- 
 knowledged in some measure by the unanimous consent of all mankind : it 
 is a vulgar saying, that Honesty is the best policy ; nor perhaps is there a 
 man who, if he could accomplish his desires justly, would not choose it that 
 way rather than by wrong. The very gangs of highwaymen and street 
 robbers observe some fidelity, though little enough it is true', in their engage- 
 ments with one another : so that even those persons who take their 
 notions of utility and pleasure for their sole guidance, still pay some regard 
 to justice, being led by their experience of its conducing necessarily thereto. 
 
 1 1 . The just man, to deserve that appellation, must be so throughout, in 
 small matters as well as great : he will regard natural justice, and legal too, 
 when it is hot superseded by the other : he will abstain from injuring, not 
 only the persons, possessions, and liberties of his neighbours, but likewise 
 their good name, reputation, and claim to the merit of their performances, 
 neither deceiving by flattery, blackening by calumny, overbearing by 
 haughtiness, nor overreaching by cunning : he will beware of wronging 
 anybody, even in his own private estimation, nor give credit hastily to un- 
 favourable reports, but judge of persons and interpret actions candidly and 
 cautiously : he will look upon all untruth or bias to the prejudice of another 
 as a species of injustice, and will esteem ingratitude one of the most flagrant. 
 
 12. As justice consists in a hearty desire of doing right to every one 
 against the solicitations of other desires urging another way, and as among 
 contending impulses the most vigorous will always prevail, therefore justice, 
 though distinct from temperance and fortitude, cannot well subsist without 
 them, because it is their office to reduce our other desires within a manage- 
 able compass. Ambition, covetousness, extravagant fondness for pleasure, 
 anger, and all kinds of intemperance, hurry men on, otherwise well dis- 
 posed, to unwarrantable actions. Fretfulness, sloth, over delicacy, effemi- 
 nate softness, and every other branch of impatience, will not suffer them to 
 do justly, where any pains or difficulty are requisite. These vices lay them 
 under a necessity of transgressing : but though we have seen before that a 
 real necessity takes away injustice from a deed, yet an unnecessary neces- 
 sity, if I may be allowed the expression, that is, one brought upon us by our 
 own folly, leaves it in full colours. Therefore, the ancients were right when 
 they said that whoever possessed one virtue completely must possess them 
 all, because they mutually nourish and protect one another. 
 
 CHAP. XXXIV. 
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 THE grand impediment against making philosophy universally understood, 
 arises from the particular style unavoidably employed therein, different from 
 that used upon common occasions. Sometimes it is found necessary to 
 frame technical terms unknown to the man of plain sense : at other times,
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 249 
 
 when words of general currency will serve, yet a peculiar idiom and struc- 
 ture is necessary to make them answer the purpose effectually. This is 
 nowhere more apparent than in speaking of the virtues, which are vulgarly 
 conceived infinitely numerous and various : but the moralist, being willing 
 to methodize his thoughts and reduce the wilderness into a regular plan, 
 endeavours to comprise them all under four general heads, to which he 
 assigns names already in use, but must extend their signification beyond 
 what custom will warrant, in order to bring them wide enough to take in 
 all he would have them. By this means it happens that the plain man, 
 attempting to follow his method, finds himself frequently perplexed ; for 
 after being fully satisfied that an action is right, he still remains at a loss to 
 know what particular species of virtue it belongs to ; or perhaps sometimes 
 mistakes that to be the virtue recommended which is really no virtue at all. 
 Thus prudence, the principal virtue comprehending all the rest, stands in 
 vulgar acceptation for sagacity, penetration, experience, and clearness of 
 judgment, which are not virtue but good fortune ; or if attained by our own 
 industry, still are the fruits of virtue rather than the tree itself : and as pru- 
 dence is vulgarly understood of a cautious regard to interest, we find it often 
 standing at the greatest variance with virtue. But we have seen before, 
 that moral prudence consists in making a due use of our lights, not in the 
 abundance or clearness of them, and vigorously adhering to the dictates of 
 reason, against the solicitations of interest, or any other desire whatsoever. 
 So likewise fortitude is made to include patience, because the same robust- 
 ness of temper that enables the possessor to stare danger in the face, is 
 supposed to render him invincible by pain. But to common apprehension a 
 man may be very patient and yet "very timorous ; nor on the other hand, if 
 we see him preserve an uninterrupted presence of mind in perils of all kinds, 
 shall we think him deficient in courage, because he frets under imprison- 
 ment, or cannot bear disappointment and contradiction. In like manner 
 temperance implies the moderation of every desire and appetite that would 
 carry us on unadvisedly to present gratification : but in our familiar dis- 
 courses, we confine it to sobriety in eating and drinking ; for if we find a 
 man abstemious in these points, we count him a model of temperance, not- 
 withstanding he may be ambitious, or slothful, or revengeful. To come 
 lastly to the cardinal virtue of justice, the philosopher must comprise under 
 it benevolence and whatever we do for the benefit or pleasure of others 
 without regard to our own : but nobody else would esteem that person a 
 friend or good neighbour who should do no more to serve another man than 
 what the strictness of justice obliges him to. 
 
 2. For this reason I have thought convenient to make a distinct article 
 of benevolence, which if you please may be called a fifth cardinal virtue. 
 For though it has been hitherto reputed a branch of justice as springing 
 from the same ground, namely, that our own good is contained in the good 
 of others, yet I do not see why it may not as well be reckoned the root, 
 and justice the branch, since it bears that and many good fruits beside ; for 
 we do not use to behave dishonestly to our friends, and if we had a proper 
 regard and concern for all mankind I do not imagine we could ever deal un- 
 justly with anybody. However this be, there is a manifest difference be- 
 tween them in the common conceptions of the world. Justice only restrains 
 from doing damage or wrong : good nature does the same too, but over 
 and above, this prompts to do all the service for which there is an oppor- 
 tunity. A debt and a favour seem essentially distinct, so that what is one 
 cannot be the other; for a man is bound bv oblation to render to every one
 
 250 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 his dues, but in doing a kindness he must he free from all obligation or 
 else it is no kindness. If a man pays you what he owed, you do not thank 
 him for it, he only escapes the censure you might have thrown upon him 
 for failing : hut if he does you a service you had no right to expect, he de- 
 serves your acknowledgments. Since then benevolence carries a different 
 idea in common apprehension from justice, what has been offered in illus- 
 tration of that subject will not suffice for this : and if we consider how it is 
 generally understood, I think it may be called a diffused love to the whole 
 species, in which light the same definition we gave of love will remain ap- 
 plicable here, to wit, the pleasure of pleasing : or if, as we distinguish the 
 passion into love and fondness, so we should distinguish the virtue into be- 
 nevolence and good nature : the one will be a pleasure of benefiting, the 
 other that of pleasing. To render it perfectly formed, desire must connect 
 immediately with these ends, for if there be any thought of our own interest 
 or gratification between, what we do for others is not an act of kindness. 
 I do not apprehend that nature gives us any such desire, but we have already 
 shown in several places by what steps desire becomes transferred from our- 
 selves to other objects, and when we can perform good offices upon the sole 
 consideration of their being such, then is the translation complete. Who- 
 ever has this desire habitual, will feel a satisfaction in acts of kindness pro- 
 portionable to the benefit of them which will urge him to perform them as 
 a matter of entertainment, whenever they fall in his way. 
 
 3. Persons deficient in this quality endeavour to run it down, and justify 
 their own narrow views, by alleging that it is only selfishness in a parti- 
 cular form : for, if the benevolent man does a good-natured thing, for his 
 own satisfaction that he finds in it, there is self at bottom, for he acts to 
 please himself. Where then, say they, is his merit ? what is he better than 
 us ? he follows constantly what he likes, and so do we : the only difference 
 between us is, that we have a different taste of pleasure from him. To take 
 these objections in order, let us consider that form in many cases is all in all, 
 the essence of things depending thereupon. Fruit, when come to its ma- 
 turity, or during its state of sap in the tree, or of earthy particles in the 
 ground, is the same substance all along : beef, whether raw or roasted or 
 putrified, is still the same beef, varying only in form : but whoever shall 
 overlook this difference of form will bring grievous disorders upon his sto- 
 mach : so then there is no absurdity in supposing selfishness may be foul 
 and noisome under one form, but amiable and recommendable under another. 
 But we have no need to make this supposition, as we shall not admit that 
 acts of kindness, how much soever we may follow our own inclination 
 therein, carry any spice of selfishness. Men are led into this mistake by 
 laying too much stress upon etymology ; for selfishness being derived from 
 self, they learnedly infer that whatever is done to please one's own inclina- 
 tion, must fall under that appellation, not considering that derivatives do not 
 always retain the full latitude of their roots. Wearing woollen clothes, or 
 eating mutton, does not make a man sheepish, nor does employing himself 
 now and then in reading render him bookish : so neither is everything selfish, 
 that relates to oneself. If somebody should tell you, that such an one was a 
 very selfish person, and, for proof of it, give a long account of his being 
 once catched on horseback by a shower, that he took shelter under a tree, 
 that he alighted, put on his greatcoat, and was wholly busied in muffling 
 himself up, without having a single thought all the while of his wife or 
 children, his friends or his country : would not you take it for a banter ? 
 or would you think the person or his behaviour could be called selfish in any
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 251 
 
 propriety of speech ? What, if a man agreeable and obliging in company, 
 should happen to desire another lump of sugar in his tea to please his own 
 palate, would they pronounce him a whit the more selfish upon that account ? 
 So that selfishness is not having a regard for oneself, but having no regard 
 for anything else. Therefore the moralist may exhort men to a prudent 
 concern for their own interests, and at the same time dissuade them from 
 selfishness, without inconsistency. 
 
 4. As for the influence of satisfaction, we have already seen how that 
 gives life to all our motions, so that if that rendered them selfish, there 
 would be no use for the term, nor any distinction between selfish and dis- 
 interested : for the wise and the foolish, the good and the wicked, the 
 thoughtful and the giddy, in business and diversion, in their deliberate and 
 inconsiderate actions, all incessantly follow satisfaction. But we have 
 shown that satisfaction is ever one and the same in kind, and the variety of 
 motives arises from the difference of vehicles containing it, which vehicles 
 are the objects of desire, for we know well enough we must have the satis- 
 faction if we can attain the satisfactory object : wherefore desire fixes upon 
 this as an ultimate point, and we take our measures according to what we 
 conceive satisfactory. Nature first conveys satisfaction by the ministry of 
 the senses, from thence it becomes transferred to the instruments or mate- 
 rials we have found qualified to furnish us with agreeable sensations : by 
 degrees we come to have an intercourse with mankind, and find that they 
 get away the materials of pleasure from one another, we then learn a desire 
 of securing as many of them to ourselves as we can, and this I apprehend 
 gives rise to self-interest, which is never understood, either in common or 
 philosophical language, of the natural propensity to pleasure, but of the 
 pursuit of our own ends in opposition to those of other persons. In process 
 of time, wantonness, or resentment, or bad company brings some to delight 
 in mischief, and these we term mischievous : others are led by consideration, 
 or kind usage, or better example to take the like delight in good offices, 
 and these become benevolent : such as have neither of those tastes, but 
 always do either good or hurt, just as it serves their own purpose, are pro- 
 perly selfish. Hence the following of inclination does not constitute selfish- 
 ness, for in this respect all men are alike ; but the difference results from 
 what they severally fix their inclinations upon : for it is the object of desire, 
 the ultimate point in prospect, that denominates an action. He that ab- 
 stains from mischief, out of fear of punishment, or for some private advan- 
 tage, is selfish, not benevolent in the deed, and if he do it because he thinks 
 it his duty, still he is not benevolent, though he may have some other virtue 
 which guided him in the doing ; for to entitle an action to that epithet, it 
 must proceed from the sole motive of good-will, without thought of any- 
 thing beyond the benefit of the party who is the subject of it. 
 
 5. Nor need anybody be at a loss to form an idea of such an inclination, 
 for I suppose the most selfish creature breathing may chance to be some- 
 times in good humour, and has some child or mistress, or boon companion, 
 to whom he can take delight in doing a favour when he has no end of his 
 own to serve upon them : let him only reflect upon the state of his mind 
 in these hearty moods, and he may understand that benevolence is no more 
 than the same disposition carried as far as human frailty can extend it. 
 Neither need we seek for any greater refinement or purity of intention than 
 this I have been speaking of: we may lawfully and laudably follow our 
 pleasure, provided that be set upon such an employment. The good old 
 rule holds in this case, of doing and standing affected to others as we would
 
 252 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 have them do and stand affected to us : now what can we desire better, 
 than that they should take delight in pleasing us ? Could your family, your 
 friends, your neighbours, your acquaintance, come and say with truth and 
 sincerity, Sir, please to let us know wherein we can serve you, for we shall 
 take delight in doing it : what would you want with them more ? what other 
 disposition could you wish them to put on ? Would you answer them, 
 Look ye good folks, while you take delight in serving me, you do it to 
 please yourselves, so I do not thank you for it : but if you would lay a real 
 obligation upon me, you must first hate me with all your might, and then 
 the services you shall do me will be purely disinterested. Surely he that 
 could make this reply must have a very whimsical turn of thought, and a 
 strong tincture of envy, since he cannot be content to receive a kindness, 
 unless the person conferring suffers for it, by forcing himself against his 
 inclination. 
 
 6. As commendation and a return of good offices tend to encourage 
 benevolence, therefore it deserves them : for we have seen in a former 
 place that honour and reward belong properly to where they will do most 
 service. But the reward must not constantly follow too close upon the 
 action, for then it will be apt to catch the eye, and become the end ex- 
 pected, at every performance, which will render it selfish. But when good 
 offices meet with a return of the like only in general, or in the gross, they 
 lie too wide to be carried always in view, and desire will fix upon the acts 
 of kindness as upon an ultimate point : wherefore many spoil their children 
 by hiring them perpetually with playthings to do as they would have them. 
 As an action takes it quality not from the thing done, but from the 
 motive operating to produce it, therefore benevolence, to be genuine, must 
 be free and voluntary : for what we are drawn or overpersuaded to do, does 
 not proceed from inclination, and is rather an act of impulse than choice. 
 There is a softness and milldness of temper that cannot say nay to anything ; 
 but he that can never refuse a favour, can hardly be said ever to grant one : 
 for it is wrested from him, not given ; he does it to rid himself of an oppor- 
 tunity, and save the trouble of a denial, in which case it is a weakness 
 rather than a virtue. Hence good nature is often called, and sometimes 
 really proceeds from folly, which gets no thanks when it proves most bene- 
 ficial : for men applaud themselves for having gained a compliance by 
 wheedling or pressing, and secretly laugh at the silly thing that could be 
 won by such artifices. 
 
 7. There is likewise a spurious benevolence which flows from vanity; 
 it makes men helpful and obliging to show their power and importance, of 
 gain the incense of applause, or bring others into dependence upon them. 
 Persons actuated by this motive may behave kindly enough to such as are 
 submissive to them, but are generally envious of their superiors, and carry 
 themselves haughtily to those who do not want them, and cannot endure 
 to see any good that is not done by themselves. Wherefore how much soever 
 they may value themselves upon their good deeds, they carry no intrinsic 
 merit : for their desire never terminates upon the good of another, but onlv 
 urges to it as a necessary means for serving their own ends. So that the 
 commendation bestowed on them by such as penetrate into their motive, is 
 not paid as a debt, but thrown out as a lure, drawing them to a continuance 
 of the like practices ; and the commerce on both sides is rather a traffic of 
 interest, than a mutual intercourse of kindness. 
 
 8. But true benevolence, as it will not bear mingling with any other 
 motive or passion, so neither may it become a passion itself, for it must be
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 253 
 
 judicious, and then can never be such. We have laid down in the chapter 
 of passion that the difference between that and affection lies only in the 
 degree, and that not in the absolute strength of it neither, but in its rising 
 so high as to become uncontrollable by reason. If this description of 
 passion be admitted, I can readily come into the stoical doctrine concerning 
 apathy : for the wise man will always remain master of his own actions, 
 he will never suffer any inclination, not even the best of them, to gain an 
 ascendant over him, he will permit them to recommend and invite, and will 
 employ them to assist him, but never follow them implicitly, and will pre- 
 serve his seat of empire over them to prevent their encroaching upon one 
 another's rights. By this impartiality and steady tenor of conduct he will 
 fall deficient in no one branch of benevolence ; and though he will prove a 
 tender and affectionate relation, a sincere and zealous friend, yet his attach- 
 ment to particulars will not overwhelm his regard to mankind in general, 
 but rather cherish and purify it : for by reflecting on the sincerity and 
 heartiness wherewith he can run to oblige those who are dearest to him, he 
 will have a pattern from his own expenence, instructing him what kind of 
 disposition to put on with respect to others. Nor will he carry himself 
 stiffly and austerely, despising little good offices, when they do not stand in 
 the way of more important ; for though his benevolence will not degenerate 
 into fondness, neither will it want for tenderness. He will study not only 
 to do solid good, but to please and humour whenever it can be done with- 
 out ill consequence, and will be as much though not so weakly compliant, 
 as the good-natured man a little before spoken of, to every innocent desire 
 and fancy : but in the manner of his compliance, will resemble the ivy 
 which twines and conforms itself freely to all the inequalities of the sub- 
 stance whereto it adheres, rather than the metal that takes an impression 
 forcibly stamped upon it, or the vapours drawn up out of their element by 
 the insinuating action of the sun. Courteousness is the skin and outside 
 of virtue, and though a man would wish, in the first place, to enjoy 
 vigour of limbs and soundness of constitution, yet if he can have a good 
 skin too, it is no detriment to his person. Therefore this will not be 
 neglected by the sage we have in idea, he will finish his virtue in every 
 part, small as well as great, ornamental as well as serviceable, nor think the 
 body of it complete until the bones and muscles are invested with their 
 proper covering. 
 
 9. But the having one inclination does not necessarily imply the utter 
 banishment of all others, therefore benevolence will never make a man's re- 
 gard for another destroy his proper regard for his own interests, nor super- 
 sede the obligations of justice, temperance, or other rules of action : much 
 less will it prompt him to humour anybody to their own real detriment. If 
 we take our idea of benevolence from the notions of it current among the 
 polite world, it should seem to consist wholly in trifles, subscribing to a con- 
 cert, making one in a party of pleasure, saying civil things, promoting any 
 little scheme of one's acquaintance, or complying with them in all their 
 follies and fancies. What is this but placing the essence of virtue in her 
 outside, making her a man of straw, an empty covering containing nothing 
 within ? But the wise man, though not regardless of an agreeable com- 
 plexion, will desire to have a solid substance underneath ; he will aim con- 
 stantly at the greater good, use his judgment to discern it, consult his moral 
 sense and discretion as the surest guides to find it, and exert his resolution 
 
 tto follow their directions. 
 
 10. Nevertheless, if different inclinations may reside in the same person
 
 254 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 yet inclinations directly opposite cannot ; wherefore pure and perfect benevo- 
 lence can never delight in mischief, nor harbour any thought of revenge. 
 I do not say that it will preserve the same behaviour under all kinds of 
 usage, for this would make it a weakness instead of a virtue, but a proper no- 
 tice may be taken of injuries without any sentiment of revenge. The judge 
 is not revengeful when he pronounces sentence upon the criminal, nor the 
 magistrate when he chastises those who contemn his authority ; for they do 
 it to preserve peace, property, and order, the great blessings of society. But 
 revenge is properly a desire of hurting those who have offended, without any 
 further consideration : the view terminates on that point, which it can never 
 do in the good man, being always turned a contrary way. He may punish 
 or censure where he has it in his power, and judges it expedient and neces- 
 sary, but he always carries that necessity in view : so that his animadver- 
 sions will be matter of compulsion not of choice, an undesirable means to 
 attain a greater good. He will consider wickedness as a distemper of the 
 mind, dangerous to the patient, contagious and pernicious to the public, 
 and proceed against it in the same disposition as a surgeon who performs a 
 painful operation for the sake of a cure, or cuts off a limb that would en- 
 danger the whole body. He will take injuries patiently when he has not 
 power to resent them, or finds the retaliation attended with more inconve- 
 nience than advantage. He will be ready to forgive whenever repentance 
 renders punishment unnecessary, and rejoice to find it become so. Nor will 
 he not retain a good will even towards his enemies, nor enmity he will have 
 none himself, nor any resentment against them, but will only oppose them- so 
 far as to repel their attacks, or take away their power, or restrain their incli- 
 nation to do hurt : in all other matters consistent with those purposes he will 
 be ready to do them any kindness. He will have that laudable love of plea- 
 sure as to take it in all the 'good he sees, and feel the prosperities even of 
 strangers ; and be so covetous of enjoyment, as to make that of other per- 
 sons his own, by partaking in the satisfaction attending it. 
 
 1 1 . This it may be said is a glorious and happy temper of mind, but pos- 
 sible only in speculation and unattainable by frail mortal men, who are so 
 deeply engaged in providing for their own necessities as not to be capable 
 of opening their thoughts much beyond themselves, whose passions prove 
 too strong for their reason to control, and whose aptness to injure would 
 perpetually break out into act, if there were not a desire of revenge to keep 
 it in awe. I am afraid all this is but too true, yet by contemplating the cha- 
 racter of an ideal sage, we may learn what it is we are to aim at, and if we 
 despair of arriving at perfection, we may endeavour to resemble it in some par- 
 ticulars we find feasible. For we are none of us without some seeds of good 
 nature, which, with due cultivation, may be made to produce something in 
 the most barren ground. Our own occasions do not so perpetually engage 
 us but that we may sometimes spare a look elsewhere, nor do any of us want 
 our seasons of good humour, wherein we can find a sensible delight in as- 
 sisting and obliging without prospect of advantage to ourselves. The busi- 
 ness then is to encourage these favourable dispositions whenever they appear, 
 for though we cannot raise nor change an inclination at once, yet experience 
 testifies that like a tender twig it may be brought to grow in any shape by 
 continual bending : so that though we must force ourselves at first, yet re- 
 peated acts will contract a habit, which we shall then follow with ease and 
 pleasure. It will be of signal service frequently to place ourselves in the 
 situation of other persons, to adopt their desires, and imagine ourselves 
 under their wants, at least to paint as exact a representation as we can of
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 255 
 
 their condition of mind, according to our manner of behaviour towards them: 
 for then the force of sympathy will assist us greatly, because as a cheerful 
 countenance makes the company cheerful, we shall be willing to brighten 
 the prospect as much as we can, that it may reflect the more pleasurable 
 ideas upon ourselves. Nor must we neglect to root up those weeds that 
 check the growth of benevolence, an intemperance of self-interest, an averse- 
 ness to trouble, a contemptuousness of pride, an inconsiderateness of vanity, 
 but, above all, a spirit of animosity. I hope we are none of us insatiable 
 in our resentments ; and if we can set a measure to them all, what better 
 able to assign the proper limits than reason ? but this will always apportion 
 them to the necessity of preventing some greater mischief that could not 
 otherwise be avoided. And though passion may sometimes suspend the in- 
 fluence of reason, we may hinder it from enslaving her ; and if we cannot 
 help being angry, may take care that the sun shall not go down upon our 
 wrath. As an encouragement to practise the methods above pointed out, or 
 any others our observation may suggest, let us consider and inculcate in our 
 memory the benefits naturally redounding to ourselves from a benevolent 
 temper of mind, which I shall now endeavour to investigate. 
 
 12. I have assigned happiness, a man's own happiness, or the ag^rega'e 
 of his satisfactions, for the ultimate end of action : therefore it behoves me 
 to show what reference the quality I recommend bears to that end, or else 
 it will not appear worth the wise man's possessing. Nor does this contra- 
 dict what I laid down a little while ago, that a benevolent act must carry 
 nothing of self in view : for it has been made evident upon several occa- 
 sions already, that our ultimate end is very rarely our ultimate point of 
 view, but we have divers principles, like so many stages of our journey, 
 which occupy our thoughts from time to time as we proceed. Thus, when 
 the wise man meets an opportunity of doing a kind thing, he follows his 
 dispostion to embrace it without looking for anything further ; he performs 
 the good office because he likes it, because he judges it right : but we must 
 imagine he had taken his own heart under examination before, and deter- 
 mined to cherish benevolence there, because of the connection he had ob- 
 served it to have with' happiness, or with some other principle wherein he had 
 formerly found the like connection. Let us then suppose him utterly di- 
 vested of all his desires, except that of happiness, and that virtues, vices, 
 tastes, and inclinations of every fashion, were to be sold like clothes ready 
 made at the saleshop : let us consider why he would choose to purchase 
 benevolence as most convenient for his wear. In the first place, he would 
 presently discern the benefits of society, which arise solely from the mutual 
 help afforded by mankind to one another ; and though there be other mo- 
 tives urging them to provide for one another's conveniences, as fear, shame, 
 glory, profit, self-interest, or custom, he would see these are only expedients 
 to supply the want of mutual good-will, but cannot answer the purpose so 
 completely nor universally. We see how, in parties of diversion or inter- 
 courses of friendship, the pleasure and interests of all are much better 
 provided for by a willingness to promote them than they could be by any 
 regulations that human skill can devise ; and could mankind in general be 
 inspired with the like sentiments, there would want nothing else to keep 
 the world in order. If the desire of promoting the general good were to 
 prevail among all individuals so strongly as to overcome their averseness to 
 labour and trouble, I am persuaded it would bring back the golden age or 
 paradisiacal state again, without any change in the elements ; and whatever 
 advances the happiness of all, must necessarily increase that of every parti-
 
 256 BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 cular. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that benevolence, in the midst of 
 a selfish world, must admit a little more reserve and caution than would be 
 needful among persons of its own character : yet still every feasible ex- 
 ercise of it tends something towards advancing the general good, wherein 
 a prudent man will see his own contained. 
 
 13. Secondly, benevolence, judiciously exercised, will generally engage a 
 return of the like, and entitle us to the assistance or comfort of others 
 when we may stand in need of it : at least it will afford no fuel for malice, 
 but tend to lessen animosity. A soft word, says Solomon, turneth away 
 anger, and kind usage seems most likely to prevent it : if it meet with un- 
 suitable returns, they do not fall so heavy as suitable returns upon the ma- 
 licious ; for malice, disappointed or chastised, fills with a vexation that has 
 nothing to alleviate it ; but the good man repaid with ingratitude still has 
 the consolation to reflect that he acted right, and possesses a quality that 
 will yield him better fruits upon other occasions. One receives no pleasure 
 unless successful : the other feels a delight in the action as well as the 
 event, so misses a part only of his reward by failing of success. Add to 
 this that a readiness to do good offices begets esteem even with those who 
 want it themselves : it gives a confidence in the possessor, and renders his 
 transactions of all kinds easier to be dispatched ; for nobody will scruple to 
 trust him whom they find always wishing them well and ready to do them 
 more than justice. 
 
 14. Thirdly, benevolence is an inclination oftener to be gratified and less; 
 liable to disappointment than malice. It is true, mischief may be done 
 easier than good, but then mankind will quickly be aware of it and take 
 measures to prevent it, whereas they will be ready to assist the endeavours 
 of him that designs them well. So that though according to the principles 
 formerly laid down, we must admit that acts of good or ill nature may give 
 equal pleasure to those who have a taste for either, yet the one will natu- 
 rally meet with opposition and the other with concurrence from the persons 
 upon whom they are to be exercised. If I take delight in mischief, there 
 may be ways of vexing another which I do not know ; these he will care- 
 fully conceal from me, and so I shall miss a pleasure that was in my power 
 to have enjoyed : but if he knows me fond of good offices he will be ready 
 enough of his own accord to tell me wherein I can serve him, and so fur- 
 nish me with opportunities of gratifying my inclination that I might never 
 have thought of myself. 
 
 15. Fourthly, good nature multiplies the sources of enjoyment, for as the 
 pleasure of life consists for the most part in action, and he is the happiest 
 man who can always find something to engage his pursuit, therefore a 
 relish for good offices is an advantage to the owner, because it will furnish 
 agreeable employment for many spaces of time wherein he has nothing to 
 do for himself. Besides, it will teach him to rejoice in services wherein he 
 had no hand, make him partake of the pleasures he sees, and eyen lighten 
 his misfortunes by reflecting how many people are exempt from {hem. 
 Nor let it be objected that those who sympathize with the successful will 
 be apt to do the like with the afflicted, for the perfect wise man would feel 
 none of the uneasiness of compassion, and though we imperfect creatures 
 must encourage it so far as to give a spur to our industry in helping, yet 
 we may prevent it from making us suffer much at the sight of distresses 
 we cannot possibly relieve. So that for a few troubles of this kind the 
 tender-hearted man meets with, he finds a multitude of enjoyments the 
 cross-grained and selfish never taste of.
 
 BENEVOLENCE. 257 
 
 16. Fifthly, benevolence prevents groundles suspicions and jealousies, ill 
 opinions of mankind, unfavourable construction of words and actions ; for 
 men are not wont to think ill of those to whom they wish well. It w-ill 
 likewise make us observant of happy events befalling other people, for we 
 naturally take notice of objects we are pleased to see ; which will give us a 
 better notion of external nature and the dispensations of fortune. For the 
 tastes and wants of mankind varying infinitely, what suits one extremely 
 well is wholly useless to another, wherefore those narrow souls who can 
 see nothing good that does not relate to themselves, if their own desires 
 happen to be disappointed, grow melancholy, discontented, and out of 
 humour with the world. But the generous open hearted man sees a thou- 
 sand bright spots in the prospect around him, not striking directly upon 
 himself but reflected from others : when the clouds hang over his own head 
 he can smile at the sunshine on either hand, and please himself in contem- 
 plating the uses of things that cannot do him any service. I believe it 
 may be generally remarked that the best tempered people are the best 
 satisfied with the persons and things about them, freest from gloominess 
 and repinings at the condition of human life, and consequently easiest in 
 themselves, most uninterruptedly cheerful, and best pleased with their 
 situation. 
 
 17. By often contemplating these advantages of benevolence, a man may 
 bring himself to a hearty liking of it, and then whatever opportunities of 
 exercising it offer, he will embrace them out of inclination, not from any 
 selfish views, but because he thinks it the best, the most becoming, and 
 most satisfactory thing he can do. For desire being perfectly translated to 
 the act itself, he will no more need to retain in mind the reasons first 
 inducing him to put on that disposition, than the covetous man has to keep 
 his eye upon the conveniences he may purchase with his money, or the ma- 
 thematician to run over perpetually the whole process of demonstration by 
 which he arrived at his theorems. For we have remarked more than once 
 before, that it is the motive at present in view not any inducement formerly 
 recommending that motive, which denominates the action : therefore he 
 who shows an habitual readiness to do good offices without further consi- 
 deration than there being such is truly benevolent, whatever prudential or 
 other causes first gave him that relish. 
 
 18. But there is a spurious benevolence, too often mistaken for the 
 genuine, which proceeds from violent attachments to particular persons : 
 some will do anything for those they fancy, but nothing for those whose 
 faces they do not like. This stands but one little remove from selfishness, 
 being a weakness rather than a virtue, rendering men partial to their 
 favourite?, unjust or indifferent to everybody else, and therefore ought care- 
 fully to be guarded against. For the virtues do not use to destroy nor in- 
 terfere with one another, nor will sterling benevolence ever make the pos- 
 sessor unequitable, or intemperate in his likings ; it knows no bounds 
 besides those of reason, and diffuses itself to all capable of receiving benefit 
 by it : I do not say in equal measure, but as justice, though not requiring 
 an equality of possessions, yet secures the rights of all alike, so will bene- 
 volence deal out to all their proper share of kindness, nor ever confine her 
 regards so closely to one or a few objects as to have none left for any 
 others. 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 258 
 
 CHAP. XXXV. 
 
 MORAL POLICY. 
 
 PLATO, in his fifth republic, introduces Socrates declaring, that the 
 world would never go well until either philosophers were entrusted with 
 the management of public affairs, or persons in authority became philo- 
 phers : that is, as he explains it afterwards, until both sciences of political 
 and moral wisdom centred in the same persons. If this assertion be taken 
 literally, I am afraid it will not conduce much to the benefit of mankind, 
 for each science being more than enough to employ the thoughts of any 
 single man, were our ministers to spend their time in hunting after the 
 abstractions of metaphysics, they must unavoidably neglect many duties of 
 their station ; and on the other hand, were the helm of government com- 
 mitted to persons well versed in these matters, the ship would quickly 
 strike against the rocks for want of skilfulness in the pilots, who would be 
 more attentive to the rectitude of their course than expert in their measures 
 for pursuing it. This construction then savours more of philosophical 
 vanity than sound prudence : as it arrogates to the studious a claim to 
 power, or at least would make him of consequence with men of power, by 
 urging them to a pursuit wherein they must resort to him for instruction. 
 Therefore I should rather interpret Socrates' meaning to be, that either 
 professor, without interfering in the province belonging properly to the 
 other, should only adopt so much of each other's science as may render his 
 own more complete and effectual. 
 
 2. How much of philosophy may be requisite for politicians I shall not 
 presume to determine : for as they must be possessed of great sagacity and 
 penetration to have merited that character, they are much better qualified 
 to judge for themselves than I can be to direct them. Yet I think I may 
 without offence exhort them to use their own judgment, not only in con- 
 triving methods for bringing their schemes to bear, but in discerning the 
 propriety of the schemes they take up. What tends most effectually to in- 
 crease their power and aggrandizement, it belongs to their own science to 
 ascertain; but I could wish they would ask themselves further why they 
 desire power or aggrandizment at all. I do not propose this question by 
 way of defiance, as if I thought there could no solid reason be given for 
 entertaining such desire : but if we have ever so good reasons for our con- 
 duct, I conceive it expedient we should know them, because they may 
 direct us how far and in what manner to pursue it. Common persons may 
 be allowed to act implicitly upon principles instilled into them by others, 
 for their want of capacity to strike out lights for themselves will plead their 
 excuse : but for men of extraordinary talents to make power their ruling 
 passion merely because they were taught to admire it in their childhood, 
 because they see others aspiring eagerly after it, because it gains the 
 applauses of the multitude, because it happens to hit their fancy, seems 
 unbecoming their character. It may be expected from such that, instead 
 of acting upon impulse or suffering themselves to be drawn by sympathy 
 and example, they should trace thier motives up to the first principle* 
 whereto reason can carry them, and before they begin their career of am- 
 bition, examine the grounds which may justify them for entering upon such
 
 MORAL POLICY. 259 
 
 a course. If they should find upon such inquiry that happiness or com r 
 placence of mind, from whatever object received, is the sole proper and 
 ultimate end of action, that the good of every individual is best promoted 
 by promoting the general good, that our passions and particular aims 
 ought to be regarded as engines, employed by reason for spurring on our 
 activity to work out her purposes, and that whatever desire can be no 
 longer gratified it is most prudent to extinguish, they might then employ 
 their power while they had it, in advancing the welfare of their country, as 
 well by procuring it strength and security against foreign dangers, as by 
 establishing regulations for its internal polity : and if age or infirmities, 
 the intrigues of a cabal or popular distaste, should divest them of their 
 authority, they might resign it quietly, without reluctance, without attempt- 
 ing to raise disturbances, and without want of employment to solace them- 
 selves with, in a private station. I am the more emboldened to offer this 
 exhortation, because I conceive it not disagreeable to the taste of the 
 present times ; if one almost immured within his closet may judge of the 
 sentiments of the great by so much of their behaviour as stands exposed to 
 public view. For our wars are made, not for ambition or conquest, for 
 particular views or private resentments, but for the security of commerce 
 and advancing the public interests : wholesome provisions are annually 
 contriving for the better order, the convenience, and even pleasures of the 
 community : when changes happen in the ministry they pass on silently 
 without interruption to public affairs, except a little clamour and invective 
 while the smart of a disappointment is fresh, which disturbs the quiet of 
 none but such as are fond of the sport for want of something better to 
 employ their time in : and in general I think I can discern a stronger tinc- 
 ture of sound philosophy and regard to the general good among our modern 
 statesmen than I can find in the histories of our ancestors. 
 
 3. Thus much may suffice for the politicians, and more it might not have 
 become me to urge upon men of their superior talents : but with regard to 
 the philosophers, under which class I would beg leave upon the present oc- 
 casion to comprehend all who apply any serious attention to study the mea- 
 sures of right and wrong, I may be more free and particular, as reckoning 
 them to lie nearer my own level. And I cannot help remarking that their 
 ardour for virtue sometimes outruns their discretion, and like other strong 
 desires defeats its own purposes through too great eagerness in pursuing 
 them. It is possible with the best intentions in the world to bring much 
 mischief both upon ourselves and others, by following headlong a blind zeal 
 without knowledge and without examining the expedience of our aims or 
 fitness of the measures taken to effect them. The province of zeal lies in 
 seasons of action, and its office is to carry us through labour, pain, difficulty, 
 danger, to bear down the force of any passion that shall obstruct our pas- 
 sage; but it does not become us to act without considering why nor where- 
 fore, and in seasons of deliberation the mind cannot be too calm and unpre- 
 judiced, nor the mental eye too disengaged from any single point, or too 
 much at liberty to look upon every object around and discern them in their 
 proper colours. Wherefore, I apprehend with Socrates, that the world would 
 go on much better, if well disposed persons would not confide too inplicitly 
 in their rules, but examine them from time to time as they have leisure and 
 opportunity, consider their tendencies, mark how they succeed, and observe 
 whether in particular instances they lead to that ultimate end of all rules, 
 the increase of happiness : and further, if in the prosecution of them they 
 
 s 2
 
 260 MORAL POLICY. 
 
 would mingle a little policy with their uprightness, choosing such measures 
 as upon every occasion will contribute most to the purpose they have in 
 hand. Craft, cunning, and artifice stand opposed to fair dealing, sincerity, 
 and open-heartedness ; from whence it seems to have been unwarily con- 
 cluded, that to be honest a man must have thrown aside his understanding. 
 But there are honest arts as well as deceitful tricks, and it is not the manner of 
 proceeding, but the aim driven at, that denominates them either. The same 
 sagacity and attention to catch opportunities, which makes craft in the 
 selfish, becomes prudence and good policy in the benevolent : nor do I see 
 why a man should not employ all the talents nature and education have fur- 
 nished him with to good purposes, because some others have perverted them 
 to bad ones. The covetous man, who makes money his idol, will cheat for 
 it if he cannot procure it otherwise : what then should hinder the good man, 
 who takes happiness for his sole aim, from cheating his neighbours into it, if 
 he cannot get them to receive it willingly ? 
 
 4. The foundation of politics I take to lie in submitting every other de- 
 sire to the ruling passion ; though honours be particularly alluring to the 
 ambitious, yet if the statesman sees that he shall have greater influence by 
 sitting among the commons, he will not accept of a title ; and how strongly 
 soever he may have established maxims with himself for increasing his in- 
 terest, if he perceives them by any circumstances rendered improper for his 
 purpose, he will readily forego them. Now the virtuous man's principal aim 
 is the advancement of happiness, to which every other consideration ought to 
 give way ; and though he may have contracted desires as subservient thereto, 
 and set up marks for himself to guide him on his way, yet if by any acci- 
 dent his desires become incompatible therewith or his rules lead him astray, 
 he ought to depart from them without scruple ; he may cast his eye upon 
 the marks for the direction they will afford him, but ought never to forget 
 the main purpose for which they were set up. We have seen that satisfac- 
 tion consists in perception, that action is good only as it affords satisfactory 
 perceptions, and virtue good as it leads into a course of such actions ; so 
 that virtue is a means only conducting to our ultimate end, and stands at 
 least two removes from happiness. It is true we cannot expect to attain 
 our end without using the proper means, and I know of no means so proper 
 or effectual as a steady adherence to whatever our moral sense represents to 
 us as right. Were our internal senses of nature's immediate donation, they 
 would probably discern their objects as truly and distinctly as the bodily 
 senses, but it has been shown in a former place that their judgments are of 
 the translated kind, conveyed to us through experience, sympathy, or the 
 instructions of others, which channels sometimes corrupt the stream ; so 
 that this guide, though the surest we have, does not always prove infallible, 
 nor is there anything so idle or absurd but what men have been reconciled 
 to under a notion of its being right. How many have been led into all the 
 follies of fashion, drawn into mischievous compliances with the company, 
 put upon ruinous expenses, urged to take revenge for slight affronts and 
 supposed injuries, hurried on through all the cruelties of persecution, be- 
 cause they esteemed them right ? Perhaps their own judgment and inclina- 
 tion would have carried them another way, yet they proceed, though with 
 reluctance, because they think they ought. For shame, resentment, vanity, 
 and prejudice, will sometimes assume the garb and countenance of a moral 
 sense. 
 
 5. Nor is reason herself to be trusted too hastily, for she may find occa- 
 sion to correct her own mistakes : and an obstinate adherence to her deci-
 
 POLICY. 2Di 
 
 sbns once made, against further information, tends as much to produce 
 bigotry as any deference to authority whatsoever. Persons of this tena- 
 cious turn allege ordinarily in their defence, that we must necessarily follow 
 our reason, because we have no higher faculty to control it : but it is no 
 uncommon thing for the same faculty to control its own judgments. What 
 have we to judge of visible objects beside the eye ? yet this eye, upon their 
 being brought nearer, or placed in a different light, may discover the 
 fallaciousness of the notices itself had given before : or on perceiving a 
 haziness in the prospect, may know its own appearances to be imperfect, 
 and yield to the information of others who stand in a situation to discern 
 them clearer. So reason may find causes sometimes" to submit herself to 
 authority, and trust to others in matters belonging to their several sciences, 
 although appearing paradoxical to herself : nor can she ever be so sure of 
 her determinations, but that evidence may arise sufficient to overthrow 
 them. Let us then admit it possible that a man may act very unreasonably 
 through too strong an attachment to reason ; let her therefore continually 
 watch over her own motions, as well as those of our inferior powers, for if 
 she treads confidently and carelessly, she may be as liable to trip as appetite. 
 
 6. Besides, it has been made appear before that reason actuates very few 
 of our motions, she acts chiefly by her inferior officers of the family of 
 imagination : while her treasures remain in her own custody they rest in 
 speculation alone, nor do they become practical until she has made them 
 over in property to her partner, in which case they take the nature of 
 appetites. For it avails nothing to know what is right, nor to resolve upon 
 it, until we have contracted a desire and inclination strong enough to can-y 
 us through all difficulties in the pursuit of it : so that virtue itself when 
 completely formed is but an appetite, acquired indeed by our own industry, 
 but impelling to action in the same manner with the natural. Now none 
 of our appetites, not even the best of them, can be left entirely to themselves 
 without extreme hazard : our very hunger and thirst after righteousness, 
 like that of meats and drinks, if eagerly and fondly indulged, may rise to 
 extravagant cravings, or hanker after unwholesome food. 
 
 7. But neither can the love of rectitude in general answer all the purposes 
 of life : we must divide it into various branches, and furnish ourselves with 
 under propensities suitable to the various occasions wherein we are to act, 
 from whence spring those inferior virtues that help to diversify the characters 
 of mankind. Now how much soever the main foundations of right and 
 wrong may be laid in nature, and consequently unalterable, certain it is 
 that the particular habits and propensities, conducting us in the several 
 parts of our behaviour, may change their rectitude with a change of situa- 
 tion or circumstances ; and what is virtue at one time or in one man, be- 
 come vice or folly in another. What is more commendable than application 
 in a young lad, while the spirits are brisk, and the animal circulation 
 vigorous ? but if he continues the same intenseness of application after age 
 and infirmities have disabled him from doing any good thereby, when it 
 takes him off from other duties whereof he may be capable, or tends to 
 impairing his health, it becomes faulty. To the young trader beginning 
 upon a slender stock, a habit of parsimony and attention to little matters is 
 a necessary duty : but if any sudden fortune should cast an estate upon 
 him, the same disposition of mind would remain no longer proper or be- 
 coming. It is well known what strong hold our habits of all kinds take 
 upon us, and those first recommended by reason, or taught us by persons 
 in whose understanding we confide, are looked upon as right in themselves.
 
 262 MORAL POLICY. 
 
 taken as first principles of action, and not easily laid aside when grown 
 unreasonable ; unless we have practised that statesman's habit of casting our 
 eye frequently upon our ultimate end, and used ourselves to try our rules of 
 conduct by a reference to expedience. 
 
 8. The same consideration likewise may induce us to regard other things 
 more beneficial to the world in some cases than what is ordinarily esteemed 
 virtue. A man that wants shoes will sooner resort to a clever workman 
 than one scrupulously honest, that is a bungler in his trade : and when 
 attacked by a distemper, had rather call in a debauchee physician, skilful 
 in his profession, than one strictly conscientious, but of dull capacity and 
 little experience. Were all our artisans and professors to barter their 
 knowledge and dexterity for a proportionable degree of virtue, the world 
 would suffer greatly by the exchange : we should all be ready indeed to help 
 one another, but could do no good for want of knowing how to go about 
 it. Therefore there are other qualities, beside that of an upright disposi- 
 tion, worthy the attention of him that designs the general good. The want 
 of making this reflection seems the grand mistake of enthusiasts and rigid 
 observers of a stoical rectitude : for by their incessant and vehement ex- 
 hortations to inward righteousness they either make men selfish, so busied 
 in improving the state of their own minds as never to do anything for any- 
 body else, unless to pray for them, or censure them, or give money to those 
 who pretend to give it away again ; or else take them off from the business 
 of their callings, wherein they might do real service to their neighbours. 
 But virtue, as has been observed before concerning reason, confers us very 
 little benefit with her own hands, no more than by that complacence of 
 mind we feel in the exercise of it, which we may sometimes find as well in 
 the gratification of any other desire : the principal service she does is by 
 keeping us diligent in acquiring all other things beneficial to us, and apply- 
 ing them, when acquired, to the best advantage, both of ourselves and 
 others. Wherefore he that never loses remembrance of the general good, 
 will endeavour to procure for himself and such as lie within his influence, 
 all useful endowments both of body and mind, as well as the disposition to 
 use them rightly. If he should do otherwise, he would be like a man who 
 should spend his whole time in a riding-school, in order to make himself a 
 complete horseman ; but never get a horse to ride upon either on the road 
 or field. 
 
 9. Nor must it be forgotten that our virtues do not start up in us in- 
 stantaneously, but grow out of other habits and desires. Ambition, covet- 
 ousness, vanity, spur us on to industry, an affectation of being thought 
 polite makes men obliging, fear begets caution, obstinacy produces courage, 
 and a careful regard to our own interests generates discretion, from whence 
 sprouts the cardinal virtue of prudence. The main turn of our future lives 
 is ordinarily given before we arrive at manhood : the course we are then 
 put upon by our friends, or led into by our own particular liking, taken up 
 without judgment but by mere fancy, the tastes, inclinations, opinions, we 
 then imbibe, lay the foundation of those virtues we afterwards acquire. 
 Perhaps, an admiration raised at the finery of a Chancellor, or Lord Mayor's 
 coach, may have stimulated many a young school boy or apprentice to that 
 application which lays the ground-work of those good qualities that will 
 make him eminent at the bar or in commerce. Therefore a judicious lover 
 of virtue will study to cultivate and prepare the ground for its reception, 
 and nourish up such wild plants as may serve for stocks whereon it may be 
 grafted most easily, and flourish most abundantly.
 
 MORAL POLICY. 263 
 
 10. He will consider further, that the busy mind of man cannot stand a 
 moment idle : our activity must exert itself some way or other from morn- 
 ing 1 to night, and if reason has not planned out a course wherein it may 
 expatiate, it will run after any whim or folly that shall present it with 
 allurement. Besides, satisfaction being momentary, cannot be provided for 
 completely without supplying fresh fuel every moment to keep it alive : 
 happiness depends upon having something constantly at hand, wherein we 
 can employ ourselves with relish. Now, the grand occasions of exercising 
 virtue do not offer at every season, nor can the mind always find employ- 
 ment in her immediate service : wherefore it will be expedient to furnish 
 ourselves with other aims and pursuits, methods of engagement or recrea- 
 tion, which may fill up the spaces she leaves vacant ; choosing such, if 
 possible, as may conduce remotely to her interests, or at least such as are 
 innocent, and may protect her by preventing the growth of those evils that 
 might blight and overshadow her. 
 
 11. It is one characteristic of policy, that it aims at things feasible rather 
 than things desirable, never attempts impossibilities, but applies its endea- 
 vours always to drive the nail that will go, and lays aside its most favourite 
 schemes when the tide of popular dislike sets most strongly against them. 
 If the nation will not have an excise, the statesman lays aside all further 
 thoughts of it ; and if they will have a militia, he concurs in planning 
 schemes to satisfy them. In this respect your very righteous people prove 
 often grossly deficient : they fix their eye upon the sublimest heights of 
 virtue, without considering whether they be attainable ; they confine their 
 exhortations to practices that would prove of excellent service, but they 
 have no likelihood of ever being followed ; and so by aiming at too much, 
 miss of that benefit they might have done. Whereas it would become 
 them better to study not only the abstract nature of things, but likewise the 
 nature of men, their characters, dispositions, and capacities ; accommodating 
 their endeavours to the subjects whereon they employ them, and circum- 
 stances of the times wherein they exert them ; choosing rather to sow such 
 seeds as the soil will bear, and the season cherish, than such as would yield 
 the most delicious grain. The interests of virtue require sometimes that 
 we should temporize and dissemble, becoming all things to all men, if by 
 any means we may gain some, and drawing them unawares into their good, 
 by seeming to soothe them in their favourite inclinations. He that would 
 serve virtue effectually, must not disdain to do her small services as well as 
 great, for occasions of the latter, as was observed in the last section, do 
 not occur at every turn ; and many times, when we cannot get her authority 
 to prevail, we may introduce something very much resembling her, and 
 contribute to the growth of other good qualities, that shall in some measure 
 supply her place, by instigating to the very works she herself would recom- 
 mend. Besides, when the mind has been habituated to the practice of good 
 works, from what motive soever induced thereto, it will become more sus- 
 ceptible of right intentions afterwards. 
 
 12. There is a well-known maxim of politics, Divide and govern, which 
 the moralist may turn to good account in the management of his province. 
 The little state of man is far from being an absolute monarchy, or having 
 any settled or well-regulated polity, the prerogative lies within a very nar- 
 row compass, but the power lodges in the rabble of appetites and passions: 
 and any importunate fancy, that like some popular orator, the favourite of 
 the day, can raise a mob of them to clamour after it, bears down all oppo- 
 sition. Reason can do nothing to stem the torrent, unless she can stir up
 
 264 MORAL POLICY. 
 
 a party among the populace to side with her : for if they begin to quarrel 
 among themselves, she may then cast in her weight, to turn the balance 
 between them. Nor can she ever prevail by mere dint of resolution, to have 
 her commands vigorously executed without aid of some passion to second 
 her : and, as she will always find one or other of them opposing her mea- 
 sures, she must continually play them one against another : pleasure against 
 indolence, selfishness against pleasure, vanity against selfishness, fear against 
 rashness, shame against indulgence, resentment against cowardice, repu- 
 tation against injustice, and particular desires against their several compe- 
 titors. Wherefore she ought to bend her endeavours towards suppressing 
 the most riotous, rather encouraging the weaker and more manageable, that 
 she may have something ready at hand to assist in pulling down the others : 
 but above all, she must beware of letting any one grow so powerful, as that 
 it may wrest the staff out of her hands. If she does admit a ruling passion, 
 let her employ it as a first minister to execute her orders, not as a favourite, 
 to gain an ascendant over her, nor suffer it to fill the council board with a 
 clan of its own dependents. Your zealots sometimes commit this oversight ; 
 for observing that all men have a desire of excelling, they endeavour to turn 
 this principle to the services of virtue, and herein they do well : but they 
 go on to encourage it without measure until it begets spiritual pride, cen- 
 soriousness, sourness, envy, and ill nature, possesses their whole minds, 
 becomes the sole motive to do good works, and vitiates the best of their 
 performances, 
 
 13. The politician carefully surveys the ground before him, considers 
 what may be done with the materials he has to work upon, does not run 
 counter to prevailing humours nor particular fancies, but studies how to 
 turn them to his own advantage, sets every engine at work, and neglects 
 no trifle that may be employed any ways to advance his purposes. So let 
 the moralist observe the disposition and qualities of his own mind, the cir- 
 cumstances of his situation, the temper and character of the times wherein 
 he lives : not striving to force his way by opposition, nor vainly expecting 
 to make everything tally with an ideal plan, how well soever framed in his 
 own imagination ; but contriving how to draw the most good from opinions 
 and customs already received, by grafting something beneficial upon them : 
 not driving men violently out of their accustomed courses, but turning them 
 gently and dexterously into such track as may lead to their solid advantage. 
 For a single person may promote the interests of virtue better by joining in 
 with the company to encourage practices tending in any degree thereto, than 
 he can by striking into a new road which he has nothing besides his 
 own authority to recommend. Nor let him despise every little ceremony 
 or vulgar notion as idle and unworthy his notice : for sometimes these small 
 springs may be turned to good account, or made to put others in motion 
 which may prove more efficacious. 
 
 14. It is no inconsiderable branch of the minister's art to discern the 
 talents of men, to know what they are fit for, and employ every one in the 
 way wherein he may be most useful. In like manner, it is an essential 
 part of the moralist's office to observe carefully with what endowments 
 nature and education have furnished himself or any others he has to deal 
 with, what are the duties of their respective stations, and what opportu- 
 nities they have of promoting the grand design of happiness. For though 
 it were to be wished that every virtue might be infused into every man, 
 yet this being impracticable, it behoves each person to acquire such parti- 
 cular species of them as arc best adapted to his use. For different profes-
 
 MORAL POLICY. 2G5 
 
 sions require different qualifications to succeed in them : courage is pecu- 
 liarly necessary for some, temperance for others, impartiality of justice for 
 others. 
 
 Wherefore let every man apply himself to the attainment of that virtue 
 wherein he can make the greatest progress, and which will render him the 
 most serviceable according to the situation and circumstances he stands in. 
 Were it possible to make profound philosophers of the common artizans and 
 mechanics, the world would be very little benefitted thereby, for it might take 
 them from attending to the business of their occupations, and render them 
 less useful members of the community : therefore it were better for them to 
 cultivate the qualities of honesty and industry in their callings without 
 aiming at much beside. Some, whose talents fit them peculiarly for the 
 office, may do more good by improving their reason, pursuing such specula- 
 tions as may produce something beneficial to others ; but few of these are 
 wanted in the world, for one man may discover what will employ thousands 
 to use. The far greater part of mankind have little more work for their 
 reason than to choose their guides and apply the directions received to their 
 own particular occasions, for the service they do lies in action. The pur- 
 poses of life are effected by an infinite variety of different ways, and would 
 be better answered by every one taking the task properly belonging to him, 
 than by all crowding in to perform a few of the most important. 
 
 15. Your statesmen are observed often to stand much upon punctilios, to 
 contend strenuously for the precedence of an ambassador, the ceremonial of 
 an entry, or style to be used in a treaty. So the moralist, though he always 
 prefers substantiate before forms, yet where the latter affect the former he 
 will stickle as earnestly for them : for he extends his view as far as it can 
 reach, and regards not only the present action but the most distant conse- 
 quences attending it. When he sees usages and ceremonies, however insig- 
 nificant in themselves, so connected in people's minds with matters of import- 
 ance as that one cannot be broken through without endangering the others, 
 he will consider them as bulwarks protecting the essentials, and contend for 
 them accordingly with might and main. As the inhabitants of a town exert 
 all their efforts in defending the ramparts, though yielding neither corn nor 
 pasture nor accommodations for their dwelling, for this obvious reason, be- 
 cause when those are taken the town lies at mercy. Of this kind we may 
 reckon the rites of burial and decencies observed towards the dead, which 
 though of no real avail or intrinsic value, yet find place in all civilized 
 countries : because they stand as barriers against that savageness which 
 might otherwise encroach upon men's tempers and cause infinite mischiefs 
 among the living. Nor will he consent to have his rules dispensed with 
 whenever he sees them expedient for the present, if there is a hazard of 
 their being so weakened thereby as never to recover their influence again : 
 proceeding upon my Lord Coke's maxim, that the law will rather suffer a 
 private injury than a public inconvenience. 
 
 10. But how anxious soever the man of consummate policy may appear 
 about niceties upon proper occasion, there is nobody less hampered with 
 scruples when he sees them standing in the way of his designs : he can 
 throw aside animosities, put up with injuries, submit to indignities, when it 
 serves his purpose, and join with his bitterest enemies when there chances 
 to be a coalition of interests. Here, too, the man of judicious virtue will 
 follow his steps, nor disdain to employ the ministry of her adversaries in 
 promoting her designs, not scrupling to cherish any vice or folly that tends 
 evidently to check the growth of others more enormous. It is true he can
 
 266 MORAL POLICY. 
 
 scarce ever find occasion to use his endeavours this way, for vice and folly 
 sprout fast enough of themselves without needing any culture, and were it 
 possible it would be desirable totally to eradicate them all, for then we 
 might expect to reap a more plentiful crop of happiness. But since evil 
 dispositions will abound, since they continually oppose one another's aims, 
 and prevent the mischievous effects that would flow therefrom, it behoves 
 him to act circumspectly, forbearing to do good where it may occasion a 
 greater hurt, nor attempting to reform the world in points wherein, though 
 it may be faulty, yet a worse evil would ensue upon such reformation. 
 Nor can it be called deserting the interests of virtue to turn our backs upon 
 her for a while in order to serve her more effectually, for policy requires 
 us to do the same in our other pursuits : we follow pleasure through the 
 road of self-denial, money must be disbursed to purchase commodities that 
 will bring in a larger return, and lowliness, says Shakspeare, is young am- 
 bition's ladder. So that virtue may well excuse us for running into the 
 enemy's camp to turn his own cannon against him, if we have her inte- 
 rests at heart all the while, and a reasonable prospect of promoting her 
 service in the long run by so doing. 
 
 17. Great pains was taken by a particular author some time ago to show 
 that the vices of men tend to the benefit of the community, and though he 
 seems to have made good his assertion in particular instances, yet it was 
 an unfair conclusion to infer from thence in general that private vices were 
 public benefits : for so it might be proved that disease conduces to health, 
 because the doctor sometimes brings on a gout in order to cure other more 
 dangerous distempers, or wishes to raise a fever to force away obstructions 
 causing paralytic disorders. But disease is then only salutary when neces- 
 sary to remove disease, and vices then only tolerable when they put men 
 upon actions from which their other vices would withhold them. So that 
 the benefit of vice, when it affords any, arises from its hurtfulness : for if 
 the vices it counteracts were not mischievous, there would be no good in 
 that which obstructs their operation. 
 
 18. But it is the property of a politician to be close and covert and keep 
 his motives of action to himself. This the man wisely righteous will imitate 
 with respect to the doctrine above mentioned of conniving at particular 
 vices occasionally, which falling into unskilful or ill-designing hands may 
 prove of dangerous consequence, as opening a door to the most latitudi- 
 narian practices. Therefore he will lock it up among his esoterics for the 
 use only of adepts, and think the sacredness of the rules of virtue cannot be 
 too strongly inculcated upon the vulgar, who, being apt to take that for 
 good which suits their own humours and interests, would make mad work, 
 unless restrained by the authority of rules. For they do not stand in a 
 situation to judge of the general expedience, but can only be led into it by 
 the maxims of morality, and must unavoidably lose their way the moment 
 they take off their eye from that guidance. I have said before under the 
 article of justice, and repeat it here with regard to morality in general, that 
 I like to see young men rather over scrupulous, nor would wish them to 
 wear off their scruples but by degrees, as they arrive at a full discernment 
 of their respective inconveniences : for it requires a considerable degree of 
 skill and competent experience to prevent liberty from running into licenti- 
 ousness. Our school-masters keep their lads strictly to the rules of gram- 
 mar and prosody, nor until perfect therein ever suffer them to launch out 
 into poetical licences : they would whip a boy who should write, like Milton, 
 Adam the .godliest man of men since born his sons, the fairest of her
 
 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 267 
 
 daughters Eve ; or reckon only three syllables in Tiresias, or four in Beel- 
 zebub, or place their accent in the middle of Proserpine. It is the master- 
 piece of moral science to know when a fundamental rule may be dispensed 
 with, nor ought great liberties ever to be taken until we have learned by 
 long experience how to do it safely, and have made such a proficiency in 
 virtue, as that a single act of necessary disrespect cannot endanger the 
 lessening our cordial regard for her. 
 
 19. There is one piece of good policy very proper for the moralist, 
 though not at all suited to the cabinet, which is, to make others like him- 
 self, and diffuse his virtues as far and wide as he has opportunities for so 
 doing. Considering how much of our enjoyments depends upon those we 
 converse with, it may be made a question whether it would be more for a 
 man's ease to be wicked himself, but surrounded with persons just, prudent, 
 and benevolent, or to be singly good in the midst of a corrupt and perverse 
 generation : but there is no need to canvass this point, for it must certainly 
 make for his interest, that the morals of all with whom he has any concern 
 should be improved, and he can take no likelier method for propagating 
 good qualities elsewhere than by cultivating them first in himself. But 
 then he must proceed in this culture with discretion, attending not only to 
 the growth of his plants but to their aptness for transplanting, taking care 
 to make his virtues inviting as well as genuine, to set them off with such 
 appearance as may make them more easily catched by sympathy, to abate 
 of such rigour and austerity as might raise a distaste against them, to for- 
 bear what is innocent when likely to give offence ; remembering that things 
 lawful may not be expedient, and to have a view in all his actions to their 
 exemplariness, as well as their rectitude. 
 
 CHAP. XXXVI. 
 
 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 
 
 1 HOPE what has been hitherto delivered, may be found tending to 
 recommend virtue as the most desirable object a man can pursue, to rest it 
 upon the solid foundation of human nature, instead of those airy notions of 
 an essential beauty wherein some have placed it, and to purify it from those 
 extravagancies wherewith it has been loaded by the indiscretion of zealots. 
 But to deal ingenuously and aim at truth, rather than saving the credit of 
 our performance, let us not suppress an exception there lies against it, as 
 limiting and confining the obligation of virtue within a certain compass 
 which ought to extend to all cases universally. For it may be urged, that 
 if satisfaction, a man's own satisfaction, be the groundwork of all our 
 motives ; if reason can furnish no ends of her own, but serves only to dis- 
 cover methods of accomplishing those assigned her by sense ; if she recom- 
 mends virtue and benevolence solely as containing the most copious sources 
 of gratification : then are virtue and benevolence no more than means, and 
 deserve our regard no longer than while they conduce towards their end. 
 So that upon an opportunity offering wherein a man may gain some plea- 
 sure or advantage slily and safely without danger of after damage to him- 
 self, though with infinite detriment to all the world beside, and in breach 
 of every moral obligation, he will act wisely to embrace it. 
 
 2 I cannot deny that the consequence follows in speculation upon the
 
 268 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 
 
 case above supposed, but I conceive such case can never happen in fact, so 
 long as a man has any prospect of good and evil to come. For we must 
 take into account, not only the advantage accruing from an action, but 
 likewise the benefits or mischiefs of the disposition of mind giving birth to 
 it : and if this will lead us into evils overbalancing the present profit of the 
 action, we cannot be said to do it without danger of after damage to our- 
 selves. The virtues belong to the heart rather than the head, or to speak 
 in our own style, their residence lies in the imagination not the understand- 
 ing ; and to be complete must direct our inadvertent motions as well as our 
 deliberate, that is, must become appetites impelling to action without stand- 
 ing to consider their expedience. Now whoever resists their impulse 
 soberly and premediately upon consideration of their being inconvenient to 
 his private purposes, will thereby make such a breach upon their authority 
 and give such a crooked turn to his mind, as must unavoidably draw him 
 into evils greater than any immediate advantage he may gain. All vice, 
 says Juvenal, stands upon a precipice, and if we once step over the brink, 
 nobody can tell how far we shall go down : one of these two things must 
 necessarily follow, either we shall continue sliding until we fall into destruc- 
 tion, or must put ourselves to infinite trouble in climbing the precipice, a 
 trouble far exceeding the pleasure we may have felt at first in the ease of a 
 downhill motion. He that cheats when he can do it safely will want to 
 cheat at other times, and consequently must suffer, either by a self-denial 
 or the mischiefs of an indulgence : so that it had been more for his benefit 
 to have adhered inviolably to his rule of honesty. The ultimate end we 
 have assigned for a reasonable creature to act upon was not present pleasure 
 or profit but the aggregate of enjoyments : and we have laboured, I hope 
 not unsuccessfully, to prove from a survey of human nature that nothing 
 adds so largely to that aggregate as a right disposition of mind. We have 
 indeed placed enjoyment in gratification, but then have put those who will 
 lend us an ear in mind, that gratification depends more upon bending 
 desire to such a ply as that it may fasten upon things attainable and con- 
 venient, than upon procuring the objects of every desire starting up in our 
 fancy. Now the habits of moral prudence and benevolence alone can bring 
 desire to the proper ply : but those habits cannot retain their influence with 
 him who shall wilfully and upon principle permit his other desires to break 
 in upon them. Therefore though the common rules of virtue may lawfully 
 be dispensed with upon an honest regard to her interests and a judicious dis- 
 cernment of the greater general good, for this strengthens our attachment to 
 those objects whereon the rules were founded : yet we may never infringe 
 them upon any other consideration of pleasure or selfishness, for this would 
 be introducing another principle of action inconsistent with the former. 
 But it would be the most imprudent thing in the world for a man to allow 
 himself in such liberties as must destroy a principle of conduct that pru- 
 dence and reason have recommended, so long as there remains any prospect 
 of his receiving future benefit from its influence. 
 
 3. Nevertheless, it must be confessed that when life draws near- to an 
 end, if it should be urged upon us that then the obligations to virtue must 
 cease, I should not know what to answer. For since they arise from expe- 
 dience, they must drop of course when there is no longer a possibility of 
 that expedience taking place. We have laid down before, that a man need 
 never deny himself in anything unless in order to please himself better 
 another time ; if then he shall never see that other time, there is no reason 
 why he should deny himself at all : but he may without scruple gratify
 
 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 2G9 
 
 whatever desires he finds in his heart, since there is no room for any bad 
 consequences to follow upon them ; nor need he fear their subverting a 
 principle he has found all along of excellent use to guide him in his con- 
 duct, when he has no further course to run wherein that principle may 
 direct him. Why should he restrain his extravagance when he has enough 
 to last him the little time he expects to live ? why should he forbear intem- 
 perance when it cannot have time to fill him with diseases ? why should he 
 scruple to cheat when he shall slip out of harm's way before a discovery 
 can overtake him ? why should he trouble himself with what becomes of 
 the world when he is upon the point of leaving it : or do anything for the 
 benefit of others, when he can receive no returns from them, nor in any 
 manner gather the fruits of his labours. 
 
 4. But notwithstanding this concession, it does not necessarily follow 
 that a man must quit the practice of virtue when he sees his dissolution 
 approaching ; for this will depend upon the turn of mind he has already 
 taken. If indeed he has pursued it hitherto by constraint, and still finds 
 in himself strong propensities to gluttony, debauchery, gallantry, and other 
 inordinate desires, I have suggested no arguments which might induce him 
 to restrain them, nor offered advantages he can reap sufficient to compen- 
 sate the trouble of a self-denial. For as physicians permit a patient, whom 
 they have absolutely given over, to eat and drink whatever he pleases, 
 because when nothing can do him good nothing can hurt him ; so the 
 moralist will think it in vain to prescribe a regimen for diseases of the 
 mind, when there is no time to work a cure, nor any enjoyment of health 
 to be expected. Our motives of action are not to be changed presently, nor 
 can we give a new turn to desire as easily as put on our clothes ; therefore, 
 when the glass is almost run out, it is too late to think of taking up a set 
 of fresh inclinations, but every one must be left to make the most of those 
 he already possesses. But this very consideration will engage the man 
 who has spent his days in a virtuous course to persevere in it to the last : 
 not indeed now from obligation or expedience, but for the ease and pleasure 
 he finds in pursuing an habitual track. We observed just now that the 
 virtues to be complete must have fixed their residence in the heart, and 
 become appetites impelling to action, without further thought than the gra- 
 tification of them ; so that after their expedience ceases, they still continue 
 to operate by the desire they raise. Nor is it unusual in other cases for 
 men to continue the courses they have been accustomed to, after the 
 reasons upon which they began them are no more. I knew a mercer, who 
 having gotten a competency of fortune, thought to retire and enjoy himself in 
 quiet, but finding he could not be easy without business, was forced to return 
 to the shop and assist his former partners gratis, in the nature of a journey- 
 man. Why then should it be thought strange that a man, long inured to 
 the practice of moral duties, should persevere in them out of liking, when 
 they can yield him no further advantage ? To tell him that he may 
 squander without fear of poverty, gluttonize without danger of distempers, 
 and bring a secret mischief upon others without hazard of its ever coming 
 round upon himself, were no temptation to him : for he has no relish to 
 such divertisements, his appetites having been long since set upon what is 
 just, and becoming, and beneficent. So that though prudence has no 
 further commands, he will employ himself in the same exercises she used to 
 enjoin, as the most agreeable way wherein he can lay out his few remain- 
 ing moments. 
 
 5. Upon this occasion, I cannot avoid entering the lists once more on
 
 270 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 
 
 behalf of Epicurus, to vindicate him against a charge of inconsistency, laid 
 by Tully in his second de Finibus, Cap. 30, 3 1 . Epicurus it seems had 
 written a letter, on the last day of his life, to one Hermachus, earnestly 
 recommending his pupils, the children of his deceased friend, Metrodorus, 
 to his tuition. And had directed by will, that his executors should provide 
 an entertainment, yearly, on his birth-day, and on the like day of every 
 month, for such as used to study philosophy with him, in order to preserve 
 alive in their minds the remembrance of himself and of the said Metrodorus. 
 Now this friendly concern for the name and family of Metrodorus, and this 
 careful provision for keeping up the spirit of the sect, by bringing them to- 
 gether once a month, Tully thinks acting out of character in one who referred 
 all things to pleasure, and held that whatever happens after our decease is 
 nothing to us. But whoever observes the motions of the human mind, may 
 see that many things which are nothing to us when they happen, are yet a 
 great delight to us in the prospect and contemplation. How often do people 
 please themselves with laying schemes for raising a family, or spreading 
 their fame to future ages, without any probable assurance that they shall 
 enjoy the successes of their family, or have any knowledge of what the world 
 shall say of them a hundred years hence ? but the thought of what shall then 
 happen affords them a present entertainment, and therefore they follow 
 pleasure as much in promoting those schemes as they should do in pursuit 
 of any favourite diversion. I would fain know how Tully would have had 
 Epicurus dispose of his last day to have acted in character : should it have 
 been spent in the enjoyment of nice dainties, exquisite wines, or fine women? 
 this he might have expected had he had the same notion of Epicurus that 
 we have of an epicure. La Fontaine's glutton having eaten up a whole 
 salmon all but the jowl, so surfeited himself therewith, that his physicians 
 declared him past all hopes of a recovery : well, says he, since the case is 
 so, then bring me the rest of my fish. Now this man we must own be- 
 haved consistently with himself throughout : but why must other people 
 follow his example who have not the same fondness for salmon ? Let us 
 give everybody their due, whether we like them or not : it appears from 
 what accounts have been handed down to us, and which Tully was not 
 ignorant of, that nobody was less of an epicure than Epicurus himself. He 
 had carefully studied the sources of pleasure and found nothing more con- 
 ducive thereto than temperance, patience, benevolence, and all the moral 
 virtues ; we may suppose he had so full a persuasion of this their tendency, 
 and so inured himself to the practice of them, that he had gotten an 
 habitual liking to them, and could not turn his hand to anything else with 
 equal relish. Imagine then a man of this turn arrived at the last morning 
 of his existence, and considering how to pass his only remaining day with 
 most satisfaction to himself : how could he do it better than by continuing 
 that course which he had constantly found most pleasurable and best suited 
 to his taste ? There is no occasion to suppose the love of probity, friend- 
 ship, and public spirit, to be innate : for the perpetual experience and con- 
 templation of their advantageousness is enough to make them objects of 
 desire. 
 
 6. But though I have thus much to allege in favour of Epicurus, towards 
 showing that his conduct might be all of a piece when he wrote the letter 
 and made the will above mentioned, notwithstanding his referring all things 
 to pleasure : yet I cannot so easily justify Regulus against all imputation of 
 imprudence upon the like principle. For it is one thing to contrive how we 
 shall lay out the day in a manner most agreeable to our liking, when nothing
 
 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 271 
 
 we do therein can affect us to-morrow, and quite another to take our mea- 
 sures wisely when it depends upon our present behaviour whether we shall 
 have a morrow or no. There is nothing more glaringly evident than that 
 the end of Being must put an end to enjoyment : therefore, he that takes a 
 course, how satisfactory soever to his own mind, which must destroy him, 
 acts imprudently, as he consults present satisfaction rather than the aggre- 
 gate of it, wherein happiness properly consists. Nor am I moved with 
 those ranting exclamations of the Stoics, that there is more joy in a day 
 well spent than in years of sensual delights : I am sensible our pleasures are 
 not all equal in degree, but I cannot conceive how so much enjoyment can 
 be crowded into a small space of time as to make it worth our while to neg- 
 lect years to come for the sake of it ; for our organs can neither bear nor 
 contain so large a measure. Such outcries are in the style of the dissolute 
 and inconsiderate, as encouraging the same disregard to the future with the 
 maxim they proceed upon, a short life and a merry. But the most fatal 
 mistake men are apt to fall into, lies in their estimating pleasures according 
 to the degree of them : for it has been made appear under the article of 
 Pleasure, that we are much more beholden to those of the gentler kind, as 
 adding more largely to the aggregate of satisfactions, than to the intense. 
 Even our common diversions please more by the engagement of some pursuit 
 they put us upon than by the joy of an acquisition. Nor shall we see cause 
 to lay so much stress upon the raptures of virtue, when we reflect how many 
 less worthy objects can give them as well for a time ; a sudden turn of good 
 fortune, a title of honour, a ribbon, whether blue, green, or red, the smiles 
 of a mistress, a kind word, a delusive promise, the veriest trifle, will do it in 
 proportion to the fondness there is for them : so that a day spent in the ac- 
 complishment of any eager desire carries as much intrinsic weight, abstracted 
 from all considerations of the future, as a day spent in the exercise of 
 virtue. Wherefore the preferableness of virtue does not arise so much 
 from the transports she occasions as from the calm serenity and steady com- 
 placence of mind she insures, the satisfactory reflections she gives scope to, 
 the attainableness of the desires she raises, their compatibleness with one 
 another, and their clearness from mischievous consequences : all which 
 regard the time to come, and therefore cannot consist with whatever renders 
 us incapable of good or evil for the future. 
 
 7. Yet neither can it be certainly concluded from men's enduring pa- 
 tiently for a good cause, that they feel those transports in supporting it 
 which shall keep their minds in a state of continual enjoyment : for we 
 may remember, that objects operate no less by the want than the desire of 
 them ; by our unwillingness to miss them than by the pleasure of moving 
 towards them : and that there is an abhorrence of vice as well as a love of 
 virtue. When motives act this way they fall under the class of necessity, 
 which always throws the mind into a state of uneasiness ; nor is her condi- 
 tion instantly bettered upon doing well while it is done out of obligation, 
 nor until we can come to do it upon liking. If this were Regulus' case, 
 we must certainly pronounce him to have acted imprudently, and that 
 Epicurus could not have done the same consistently with his principles, 
 since he gave up all those enjoyments he might have expected in a longer 
 life without receiving even present pleasure in exchange : and it had been 
 for his benefit to have had no such strong attachment to his obligations. 
 But not to derogate from the character of Regulus, let us suppose the 
 utmost that can be supposed in his favour : let us allow him to have felt 
 so great satisfaction in the nobleness of his conduct as drew out the sting
 
 272 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 
 
 of every evil that could bcfal him, and to have ended his days in exquisite 
 delight amidst all the cruel torments that were inflicted upon him. Still 
 this delight, how high soever in kind, must necessarily fall short in dura- 
 tion; and he had better have contented himself with smaller pleasures 
 which might have compensated by their continuance for what they wanted 
 in weight. Perhaps it may be said he had contracted so strong a de- 
 testation of treachery and abhorrence of infamy that he could not support 
 himself in any quiet of mind under the reflection of them : so that being 
 no longer capable of enjoying life with pleasure he chose to end it in a 
 manner that might prove most satisfactory. But what brought him under 
 this incapacity besides his own disposition of mind which could find a 
 relish in nothing but what was just, becoming, and laudable ? Another 
 who had not the same squeamish disposition might have found enjoy- 
 ments enow under general censure and self-reproach to make life desir- 
 able. Nor will it suffice to allege that he had good grounds at first for 
 acquiring this disposition, which having once taken up it was not in his 
 power to lay down again at pleasure : for it is not our business to find 
 excuses for him in the weakness of human nature, which cannot sud- 
 denly change a rooted habit of acting or liking that we have long ac- 
 customed ourselves to, but to inquire whether this procedure of his were 
 a weakness or no. And for this purpose we must imagine to ourselves a 
 man who should have an absolute command over his inclinations to turn 
 them this way or that as he saw proper, and consider how such an one 
 would use his power in the situation of Regulus. We cannot well suppose 
 otherwise than that such a person would keep his eye constantly fixed upon 
 the original rule of rectitude which drives solely at happiness. He would 
 establish upon that bottom certain maxims of conduct and morality as he 
 judged them conducive thereto : but he would never suffer himself to be 
 enslaved by the maxims himself had established, nor let any subordinate 
 means lead him away from his ultimate end. He would know that what is 
 good and laudable at one time, may become mischievous and blameable by 
 a change of circumstances. He might encourage in himself a love of pro- 
 bity and honour as yielding the largest income of satisfaction, yet if matters 
 came to that pass as to make it appear they must have a contrary tendency, 
 he would throw aside his scruples and turn his thoughts to such enjoyments 
 as were to be had without them. 
 
 8. Upon the whole we are forced to acknowledge that hitherto we have 
 found no reason to imagine a wise man would ever die for his countiy or 
 suffer martyrdom in the cause of virtue, how strong propensity soever he 
 might feel in himself to maintain her interests. For he would never act 
 upon impulse nor do anything without knowing why : he would cultivate a 
 disposition to justice, benevolence, and public spirit, because he would see 
 it must lead him into actions most conducive to his happiness, and would 
 place such confidence in his rules as to presume they carried that tendency 
 in particular instances wherein it did not immediately appear. But it is 
 one thing not to see directly that measures have such a tendency, and 
 another to discern clearly that they have a contrary : and when they take 
 away all capacity of further enjoyment, this is so manifest a proof of their 
 inexpedience as no presumption whatever can withstand. Therefore he 
 will never let his love of virtue grow to such an extravagant fondness as to 
 overthrow the very purposes for which he entertained it. 
 
 9. I am apprehensive this conclusion will give offence to many as seem- 
 ing to undo all we had done before in the service of virtue, by thus
 
 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE. 273 
 
 deserting her at last in time of greatest need when she is entering upon her 
 roost arduous undertakings. Yet I know not wherein we have acted 
 unfairly either in the choice of our premises or deduction of inferences from 
 them. We have searched every corner of the human breast, and found 
 that all our motives derive either immediately 01 remotely from our own 
 satisfaction and complacence of mind. Nature has given us this spring as 
 the first mover of all our actions and ultimate object of all our contrivances. 
 We have seen that reason cannot work upon her own bottom, but must 
 fetch materials from elsewhere, for there is no reasoning unless from pre- 
 mises already known before we enter upon the consultation : therefore how 
 far soever she may investigate her principles upon one another she must at 
 last rest in such as she finds assigned her by sense and appetite, her office 
 being only to correct their errors in the prosecution of their aims, to take 
 better measures than they do, and lead to the same point discreetly and 
 effectually which they drive at preposterously and vainly. We have shown 
 that the rules of morality stand on the foundation of happiness, that all 
 notions of them which have not this basis to rest upon are fantastic and 
 unstable : from whence it will follow that whenever, by the unlucky cir- 
 cumstances of our situation, this support happens to be withdrawn from 
 under them, they must necessarily fall to the ground. Thus if our premises 
 lead us to a conclusion we do not like, we may say with Doctor Middleton, 
 that we cannot help it : for it was not our business to hunt for arguments 
 in support of any cause whatsoever, but to take a careful survey of nature 
 without prejudice or prepossession, and gather such observations as should 
 appear resulting therefrom. 
 
 10. But it will be said that we have made only a partial and imperfect 
 survey ; for if we had availed curselves of all the light nature would have 
 afforded, we might have discovered that the end of life is not the end of 
 Being, that our dissolution is but a removal from this sublunary stage to 
 act upon some other, where onr good works shall follow us and yield a 
 plentiful harvest of happiness which had not time to ripen here : therefore 
 a man does not act imprudently who perseveres in his virtues to the very 
 last, although they manifestly tend to cut him off from life with all its 
 enjoyments, and promise him nothing but pain and torment for the little 
 time he has to continue upon earth. All this, consistently with the nature 
 of my work, I can regard yet only as a suggestion, having found nothing in 
 the progress of these researches to convince us of another life, or show the 
 tendency of what we do here to affect us hereafter : yet neither have I found 
 anything to disprove them, so that they remain proper matter of further 
 inquiry. And since I find them maintained by persons of the greatest 
 learning and judgment, and almost universally received among mankind, 
 since they are in themselves matters of the utmost importance, and we see 
 the limits of virtue cannot be ascertained without them, it would be inex- 
 cusable to pass them over unregarded, or without a thorough and careful 
 examination ; which not being easily dispatched, so as to settle those points 
 to our satisfaction, I shall reserve them for the subject of another volume. 
 Therefore it may be considered that I am but in the midway of my journey, 
 and what I may learn in the succeeding stages of it is yet uncertain ; nor 
 because it is said in 4 that I have suggested no arguments to induce a 
 vicious man near the end of his days to restrain his desires, and in this 
 section, that I have found nothing to convince us of another life, ought it 
 to be inferred from thence that I may not in my further progress ? He 
 
 VOL. i. T
 
 274 LIMITATION OF VIRTUE, 
 
 that has a good opinion of religion, as having a rational and solid founda- 
 tion to stand upon, ought to believe that I shall find such arguments and 
 grounds of conviction as have not hitherto occurred, when prosecuting the 
 subject with a fair and careful examination ; and may presume that what 
 now appears the most exceptionable part of my doctrine will then become 
 capable of being turned to the advantage of religion, by showing its abso- 
 lute necessity to make the system of morality complete. In the meanwhile 
 he cannot surely blame me for attempting to prove that the practice of 
 virtue is the wisest course a man can follow to attain happiness even in this 
 world ; and to abate the scandal he might take at the exception made of a 
 person in Regulus's situation, to whom a strong attachment to virtue would 
 be a misfortune, he may please to reflect it is not unsimilar to a declaration 
 of St. Paul's, that if in this life only we had hope we were of all men the 
 most miserable. But one who is proceeding on a course of inquiries can 
 take nothing for granted beforehand, he can draw his inferences only from 
 the premises already collected, and must shape them in such manner as they 
 shall naturally lead him. So that I must still adhere to my present con- 
 clusion, until seeing cause to alter it, for I cannot yield to any authority 
 how great or general soever : this would be to depart from the plan I pro- 
 posed at setting out, which was to try what lights I could strike out by the 
 exercise of my reason, without calling in foreign aids ; the extent of that, 
 'be it greater or be it less, is the line I am to run ; and when I am come to 
 the end of this line I must stop short, unless by another effort of reason I 
 can chance to catch hold of another clue. 
 
 1 1 . Nevertheless, I am very loath to leave the scrupulous reader with an 
 ill impression of me upon him, though but for a season, and yet I do not 
 know how to efface it myself, but must trust to his candour to do the best 
 he can for me. Perhaps his good nature may suggest to him, that if this 
 conclusion I pretend to abide by were my real ultimate opinion, I should 
 not be so inconsistent with myself as to divulge it. For the discovery tbnt 
 a man's own safety will supersede all obligations, is of a nature not to be 
 communicated without lessening its value to the owner : he may believe 
 then I should have locked it carefully up, as a precious deposit to be reserved 
 for private use, that if ever the case should so happen as that I cannot obey 
 the dictates of honour and conscience, without endangering my person, I 
 might avail myself of this secret to slip my own neck out of the collar : 
 but it would certainly be for my interest to persuade the world that the 
 duties of virtue are indispensable, and they ought to sacrifice everything for 
 the good of the public, whereof I am a member, and must consequently 
 share in the fat of their sacrifices. Therefore I think it is no unreasonable 
 favour to expect, that he will suppose I have already run over in my own 
 mind the matters I am to present him with by-and-by, and foresee some- 
 thing will occur among them, which will oblige me to recant the odious 
 part of my doctrine, and come over to his sentiments. Let us then take 
 leave in good hopes, that however we may part a little out of humour for 
 the present, we shall grow better satisfied with one another upon our next 
 conversation.
 
 THE 
 
 LIGHT OF NATURE PURSUED. 
 
 THEOLOGY. 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 SUBSTANCE. 
 
 HITHERTO I have proceeded only upon a view of human nature, and the 
 things we are daily conversant with ; in order to frame some rules for our 
 conduct, as well in the prudential management of our powers with regard 
 to our own interests, as in joining our mutual endeavours towards promot- 
 ing those of one another, whereby we may render life more comfortable and 
 happy. But as I proposed in my general introduction to examine the 
 foundations both of Religion and Morality, the reader may think himself 
 disappointed in that, after having attended me through so large a portion 
 of my work, he finds me amusing him with one of them alone without 
 mentioning a single word of the other, and that in such manner as to leave 
 it grossly defective at the conclusion. I am now going to satisfy him in 
 this particular, by which, if pursued with tolerable success, he may expect I 
 shall be able to restore morality to that completion whereof he thinks I have 
 defrauded her. 
 
 Let us now therefore enter upon a careful examination of what other 
 principles may be found besides those we have already collected, and push 
 our researches beyond the scene exhibited by our senses and our experi- 
 ence. And as this attempt will lead us to take a view of external nature 
 and things invisible, or which can be discovered only by the eye of reason, 
 we shall have an ample field to expatiate in, distant objects and extensive 
 prospects to contemplate, no less than universal Nature, comprehending 
 things visible and invisible, with the connections and dependencies running 
 between them, so far as the feeble optics of human understanding can reach 
 to discern them. In the progress of this task I must learn to handle the 
 telescope, the vastness of whose scenes may demand as close an attention 
 to view them distinctly as our minute observations of the microscope have 
 done before. For the objects we are ordinarily conversant amongst lie 
 within a certain compass of magnitude : whatever greatly exceeds or greatly 
 falls short of the sizes familiar to our acquaintance, carries a strangeness 
 and unwieldiness forbidding and irksome to those who read for amusement 
 only. The description of them must not be read but studied, and the de- 
 scriber can do no more than strive to make the study as little laborious as 
 possible. But I cannot yet consent totally to lay aside the microscope, for 
 I pretend to no extraordinary illumination nor direct intuition of things in- 
 
 T 2
 
 276 SUBSTANCE. 
 
 visible, but can hope only to investigate them by the things that are seen : 
 therefore, it behoves me to attend still for a while to minute objects, being 
 desirous to lay the remainder of my foundation with the same exactness J 
 have endeavoured at before. 
 
 2. But before we enter upon a view of external nature or proceed to in- 
 vestigate causes from their effects, in order to discover what powers or 
 what laws there may be to govern the invisible world, it will be proper to 
 consider whether we are likely to have any concern in their operation. For 
 as Epicurus rightly observed, that what shall happen after we cease to exist 
 is nothing to us, it will be superfluous to inquire into the sources of enjoy- 
 ment or suffering in future times, until we have satisfied ourselves that we 
 shall stand in a capacity of being affected by them. Nothing is more cer- 
 tain than that this bodily frame of ours shall be dissolved in a few years : 
 we daily see instances of its mouldering into dust or putrefying into cor- 
 ruption, so that we cannot flatter ourselves with its having a long continu- 
 ance : but it has been made appear in our survey of human nature, that the 
 body serves only as a channel of conveyance to the mind, which is properly 
 ourselves as being our sentient principle which perceives whatever is per- 
 ceived by us, acts all that we do, and receives notices from external objects 
 through the corporeal organs. So that our capacity of good and evil to 
 come must depend upon the durableness of the mind : concerning which 
 we can know nothing from sense or experience, for they inform us not 
 what becomes of the mind upon dissolution of the body, we do not see it 
 moulder and putrefy like that, yet neither do we see it give any signs of 
 life or existence ; nor can we learn anything from the testimony of others 
 concerning the inhabitants of that country from whose bourne no traveller 
 returns. Therefore, we must endeavour to gather by deduction of reason- 
 ing from such observations as experience has afforded us, what is the con- 
 stitution of the mind and whether it be of a lasting or a perishable nature. 
 I do not forget that we are taught to believe a resurrection of the body, 
 and that some have maintained that the mind, although naturally perishable, 
 may be preserved in Being by the agency of a superior power. I would 
 not be thought to reject either of those opinions, but it is obvious that the 
 consideration of them cannot fall within the compass of my present plan : 
 for none ever attempted to show by the mere light of reason, either that the 
 body shall rise again, or that the mind, if corruptible in itself, shall be con- 
 tinued longer than the term assigned her by nature. Wherefore the nature 
 of the mind is the thing to be inquired into : and all who have examined 
 this point, seem agreed to resolve it into another, namely, whether the 
 mind be a compound made up out of several materials, or a pure simple 
 substance without parts or mixture. 
 
 For it was admitted on all hands, that whatever was generated may be 
 corrupted ; the productions of nature being only so many various assort- 
 ments of matter united together by the natural action of the elements upon 
 one another, as that action never ceases to operate, it must of course de- 
 stroy what itself had produced : so that the forms of bodies whereon their 
 essence depends continually change and fluctuate ; what is one thing to-day 
 becoming another to-morrow, and a quite different the day after. Those 
 therefore who would shorten our existence to the period of human life, 
 proceeded upon a supposition that the finer parts of the elements, united 
 properly together in a certain organized structure, might produce an animal 
 endowed with life, sense, and motion ; that the degree of sense depended 
 upon the greater or lesser nicety of this organizatian ; and that thought and
 
 SUBSTANCE. 277 
 
 reason could not subsist out of the human rorm. So they held that the 
 mind itself was nothing else beside a curious assortment of elementary par- 
 ticles ranged together after a particular manner, or a harmony resulting 
 from the nice order and mutual congruity wherein they were disposed. 
 This being laid down, it would follow incontestably that the laws of nature, 
 which have brought those elements into the order wherein they stand, may 
 as easily separate them again, and divest them of that sense and reason 
 they had acquired by their contexture : in which case the mind must be 
 destroyed upon dissolution of the body, nor can the harmony subsist after 
 the strings that gave the notes composing it are broken asunder. From 
 whence they justly inferred that the end of life must be the end of being, 
 and that we can have no concern with anything that shall happen after our 
 decease. 
 
 3. Those on the other hand, who would extend our duration beyond the 
 present state, generally set out with showing the absurdity of imagining that 
 any combination of senseless matter could produce sense and reason, which 
 must be primary qualities belonging essentially to the subject wherein they 
 are found, and not resulting from any others. They insist that Mind is a 
 kind of fifth element, different from the other four, not producible out of 
 them, and totally dissimilar from that first matter, whether water, or fire, 
 or atoms, or whatever else can be supposed, whereout the elements them- 
 selves originally sprung : that being no production of nature, it is not 
 destructible by any law or power of her's : that when united to body, it does 
 not inhere therein as an accident or modification, but is joined thereto as a 
 distinct substance, and may be separated again without losing its existence. 
 They conceive that upon such separation it may perform its proper functions 
 better and freer than while encumbered with flesh : or if it should become 
 incapable of exercising its powers, it will nevertheless retain the powers them- 
 selves, and continue capable of being united to another organization, which 
 may prove equally fitting for its purposes with that it now inhabits. From 
 whence they as justly infer that death is not an end of Being, but at most 
 only a suspension of sense : therefore it behoves us to carry our thoughts 
 beyond this present state to what shall happen hereafter, as being matters 
 wherein we ourselves may have an actual concern. 
 
 4. This question, then, concerning the simple or compounded nature of 
 the mind, I am to begin with : but before entering upon the discussion, I 
 conceive there is something to be done preparatory thereto, for ascertaining 
 the terms we must employ, without which we cannot proceed with exact- 
 ness in our reasonings : and as our ideas of compounding seem a little 
 variable and undetermined, I shall begin with endeavouring to settle what 
 is to be understood by the terms Composition and Substance. 
 
 5 . I have met with people who pretend they have no idea of substance, 
 because they cannot comprehend a naked substance divested of all its acci- 
 dents : they want to see one taken out from its qualities, and laid upon a 
 table for them to push about and examine, like the spring of a watch taken 
 out from the work. But this is a most unreasonable expectation, for though 
 I see no impossibility there may be a substance devoid of all qualities what- 
 soever, it is not at all probable there should, because it could be of no use 
 either to itself or anything else ; yet if there were any such we could never 
 know it, for substances discover themselves to us only by their qualities, and 
 those qualities are as irrefragable an evidence of their existence as we could 
 have were we able to discern them without. What we term qualities, as
 
 278 SUBSTANCE. 
 
 Mr. Locke observes, are powers of affecting us, or of causing alterations in 
 other substances, making them affect us differently from what they did be- 
 fore ; thus, whiteness in snow is the power of affecting us with the sensa- 
 tion of white, heat in fire is the power of affecting us with the sensation of 
 warmth, and of melting wax, whereby it is made to exhibit another appear- 
 ance than it did while cool and hard. But an act of power is the operation 
 of some agent, of which therefore it gives as full evidence as of the power 
 thereto belonging ; for there cannot be power with nothing to exert it. So 
 that naked quality is no more comprehensible than naked substance, and 
 you might as well undertake to lay a substance devoid of quality upon the 
 table as to lay whiteness, squareness, softness, coolness, without laying some- 
 thing white, or square, or soft, or cool : now if this assertion be intelligible, 
 as I presume it is, you must have an idea of every term employed in it, and 
 consequently of the word Something ; if then there be a meaning in the 
 word, you may take that for your idea of substance. 
 
 6. But the quality that most commonly gives us evidence of substance is 
 solidity, or tangibility, therefore the vulgar do not count those things sub- 
 stantial which they cannot feel compact in their hands, such as froth, vapour, 
 smoke, light, odours, or the like : and they frequently conceive a production 
 of substance, as in the growth of plants ; or the destruction of it, as in 
 burning wood, or evaporating water over a fire. But those who use ever 
 so little reflection, know that our senses cannot in any manner be affected 
 without an agent to operate upon their organs : we cannot see light with- 
 out something striking upon our eyes, nor smell an odour without some- 
 thing entering our nostrils : we cannot perceive a smoke or vapour unless 
 there be something floating about in the air to obscure it, nor discern the 
 colours in a bubble unless there be something capable of refracting the 
 light. They know likewise that our discernment of things, though an 
 evidence of their being, is not an evidence that they began to be just when 
 we discerned them : nor is the loss of that discernment an evidence of their 
 ceasing to be, but only of their removing beyond the reach of our senses. 
 If I find my table dusty, I shall not think the dust a new production, but 
 that it was flying about in the air before I perceived it, and is now only 
 gathered into a thickness to make it visible : and if, on my return after 
 going out of the room, I find the table clean, I shall not suppose the dust 
 absolutely destroyed, but only swept away somewhere out of my sight. So 
 when I see a tree which I remember to have been a slender twig, there is 
 no need I should imagine the great accession of substance a new production, 
 but drawn from the earth, the air, or the clouds, wherein it lay dispersed 
 and undistinguished : and when the tree is cut down and consumed in the 
 fire, there is no occasion I should believe it reduced to the little substance of 
 ashes left behind, but that the rest is dissipated in imperceptible portions in 
 the same manner as before their coming into the tree. Yet when sub- 
 stances by their minute divisions are withdrawn from our observation, we 
 still apprehend them possessing qualities had we senses acute enough to be 
 affected by them : for we are ready to think that we could feel the smallest par- 
 ticles if we had fingers fine enough to take them up, and that if one were 
 pressed ever so strongly on each side by two others of equal bulk, it would 
 keep them from coming into contact. Thus some qualities, especially those 
 of resistance and solidity, seem to be inseparable companions of the sub- 
 stances we are ordinarily conversant with or exercise our thoughts upon ; 
 and all qualities, during their continuance, are inseparable from the sub-
 
 SUBSTANCE. . 279 
 
 stances whereto they belong, nor can be removed from them T^thout being 
 lost, for if you rub over a piece of paper with ink, the whiteness is not 
 banished into another quarter but is absolutely destroyed. 
 
 7 . This necessary connection of qualities with some substance makes them 
 an evidence to us of its existence, for if there could possibly be whiteness 
 without an object to exhibit it I could not conclude from seeing a whiteness 
 that there is something white lying before me. This likewise may convince 
 us that existence belongs solely to substance, quality having none of its 
 own, being no more than a particular mode of existence in whatever pos- 
 sesses it. Not but that quality has a reality concerning which we are liable 
 to mistake, for a child, on seeing an evening mist rise out of a pond, may 
 take it for smoke and think the water must be hot : but what else is this than 
 an apprehension that the water is so conditioned as that it will scald him 
 upon putting in his finger, whereas in reality the condition of the water is 
 otherwise and would feel cold to the touch ; so that the existence of cold- 
 ness is nothing else than the water being in such a state as might affect our 
 flesh with a sensation of cold upon being put into it. I am not unapprized 
 that Plato supposed qualities might subsist without any substance to possess 
 them, because while we can form an idea of them they may have a reality 
 in our thoughts : but I beg leave to observe that our idea of a thing is not 
 the thing itself, for one may remain after the other ceases, and may subsist 
 though the other never had a being. I know well enough what the tooth- 
 ache is though now quite free froai it ; I remember the transactions of yes- 
 terday, but the occurrences themselves are clean gone and over ; I have a 
 clear idea of a Cyclops, a Centaur, a Chimera, yet without believing there 
 ever were such things in nature. Nor do I find other people backward in 
 denying the reality of qualities they conceive readily enough ; some in their 
 melancholy moods, when put out of humour by egregious impositions, will 
 insist there is no such thing as honesty in the world, they do not mean that 
 they have no idea of it, but in their notion of its reality they refer to some 
 substances possessing it, and you must understand them saying there is no 
 man who possesses a principle of perfect honesty. Besides that the reality 
 of a quality in one subject is not preserved by its remaining in others : the 
 whiteness of this paper does not depend upon the whiteness of that, but 
 would continue the same though there were nothing else white in the world 
 besides ; and if I blot it over, the whiteness of that particular paper is 
 utterly gone out of all reality, though I should have ever so many sheets in 
 my closet still unsullied, and should remember ever so well how it looked 
 before I spoiled it. 
 
 8. From hence it appears that identity carries another meaning when 
 applied to substance than what it does when applied to quality, in the latter 
 being nominal only, not real : for though we currently say that two sheets 
 of paper have the same whiteness, yet upon colouring one, the whiteness of 
 that is absolutely destroyed, the other remaining still unhurt, but it is ab- 
 surd to suppose the same thing can subsist and be destroyed at the same 
 instant. Nevertheless our uses deriving from the qualities of things, it 
 concerns us chiefly to take notice of qualities ; for which reason whatever 
 continues to serve our uses in the same manner, we denominate the same 
 thing, notwithstanding any change of substance there may have been in it. 
 Thus we count a river the same although perpetually changing its waters, 
 provided those waters be equally fit for our services in swimming, or rowing, 
 or washing, or drinking. Here it is easy to see, that the identity of form 
 only in the river continues all along, the substance every moment varying :
 
 280 SUBSTANCE. 
 
 as, on the other hand, if you mould a piece of wax with your fingers, it 
 may become sometimes round, sometimes square, sometimes triangular, 
 according as you fashion it, the wax being still the same. Therefore, there 
 is a formal or specific, and there is a substantial identity ; the former, when 
 several substances stand so conditioned as to affect us exactly in the same 
 manner ; the other, when we are satisfied the substance remains the same, 
 whether appearing under the same or various forms. Specific identity is a 
 branch of the formal, being of those qualities which constitute its essence, 
 adapt it for some particular uses, and gain it a particular name : thus the 
 wax, while moulding into different figures, still is wax ; but if laid long in 
 a damp place where it loses its oiliness, the essence of wax is gone, and it 
 becomes dirt or some other kind of thing, yet substantially the same it was 
 before. As we can know substances only by their qualities, if we have a 
 dozen eggs in all respects similar which we would distinguish apart, it is 
 common to mark them with No. 1, 2, 3, &c. in order to know them again 
 severally, after being taken out of our sight : for this reason, I suppose, 
 substantial is often called numerical identity, as a synonymous term. Sub- 
 stantial or numerical identity cannot be lost, though we may not know 
 where to find it, for one substance cannot be changed into another, but 
 must always continue the same it ever was ; it can only succeed in the 
 room of another, or assume its form upon that being removed to some other 
 place : and though qualities be so far unchangeable as that squareness can 
 never be roundness, yet are they perishable and producible ; for when the 
 wax is new moulded, the squareness it had is totally lost, not flown off to 
 some other quarter, and the roundness substituted in its place is a new 
 production, not drawn from any fund where it had lain concealed before. 
 
 9. As to the unity of substances, that is not easy to be ascertained, for 
 want of acuteness in our faculties which require numbers of them to affect 
 us in any manner ; for frequent experiments assure us, that all the objects 
 we discern are composed of substances numerically distinct from each other, 
 which when separated, are singly too feeble to touch any of our senses ; 
 we cannot see them, nor feel them, nor count their numbers, but are per- 
 petually perplexing ourselves with subtile questions concerning their infini- 
 tude. But though we cannot tell what is one, we may know what is many; 
 for whenever we perceive distinguishable parts in an object, we may rest 
 assured it contains as many substances as there are parts we can distinguish. 
 If 1 have a gallon of wheat before me, I may pronounce that the gallon 
 consists of so many substances as there are grains in the vessel, though I 
 cannot restrain them to that number ; because not knowing how many dusts 
 of flower or particles of bran, all of them distinct substances, lie in each 
 grain : and if I pitch upon some particular grain, and then shake the 
 vessel, I may still remain satisfied that my grain is somewhere among the 
 rest, numerically the same as when I took notice of it, and not changed 
 into any other, though I cannot now find it again. Or suppose the wheat 
 sent to mill, the flour kneaded into dough, then baked into bread, and the 
 bran all employed to stuff pin-cushions : I cannot doubt that the substance 
 of my grain, although altered in form, and dispersed indiscriminately among 
 that of the other corn, still subsists undiminished in the meal, the bread, 
 and the cushions, and that all together contain at least the same number of 
 substances as there were grains in the gallon, besides an accession of others 
 in the water, the yeast, and silk coverings to hold the bran. And as the 
 corns in the gallon, and particles of flour or bran in the corns, have eacli a 
 distinct being and existence of their own, independent on the rest, and
 
 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 281 
 
 which receives no increase by their junction ; hence it seems to follow that 
 the gallon has no other existence than that of the corns, and the corns none 
 other than that of the flour and bran composing them ; that nature has 
 made all things in individuals, and though we cannot tell whether what we 
 commonly term so consists of finite or infinite parts, yet that it must 
 derive its existence originally from single substances, how many soever there 
 be that enter into it. 
 
 10. I have observed before, that though qualities are our sole evidence of 
 the substances possessing them, yet we do not imagine the substance de- 
 stroyed upon losing its qualities : in like manner, though the operations of 
 qualities upon ourselves, or upon other substances, when we can perceive 
 them, are our sole evidence of their reality, yet we apprehend the qualities 
 more permanent than their operations, and not lost when they cease : for, 
 if I take a snow-ball into my hand, I shall be satisfied of its coldness by 
 my sensation ; but if I throw it out upon the grass where I no more feel it 
 cold, nor perceive its effects upon anything else, nevertheless I shall still 
 remain persuaded it retains the quality of coldness ; but if I put it into a 
 saucepan over the fire it will lose its specific essence, being turned into water, 
 and may exchange its quality of freezing for that of scalding. Hence it 
 appears there are qualities which a substance may assume or lay aside 
 according to the texture and position of its component substances or mo- 
 tions among them, and these we term secondary qualities : others which 
 we conceive inseparable from all substances falling under the observation 
 of our senses, whether single or in junction with others, such as solidity, 
 impulse, and mobility, and these are called primary qualities. Which 
 primary qualities are a necessary foundation of the others, for with- 
 out solidity a knife could not have the quality of sharpness to force its way 
 into whatever we employ it to cut ; without motion and impulse the lucid 
 darts of day-light, as Lucretius calls them, could not affect our optics with 
 colours ; nor could bodies discover to us their figures without resistance to 
 our touch or force to throw off the light in a particular manner upon our 
 eves. 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 
 
 WHOEVER will consider the idea of composition a little attentively must 
 perceive it to be a particular manner of juxtaposition, and to contain several 
 species under it, as joining, coalescing, mixing, incorporating, and the like. 
 But every bringing of things together does not form them into a compound : 
 if I bespeak a table of Hatchet the carpenter, which I will needs have him 
 make up in my presence, he prepares the materials at home, and brings 
 them all together in a hand-basket ; but I do not conceive them in that 
 position to be anything until he has joined the several parts properly to 
 one another, and then I look upon the boards, the legs, the hinges, the 
 screws, the glue, and whatever else he has put among them, as one thing, 
 which I call a table. So when the cook brings out her flour, her suet, her 
 sugar, her raisins, they still are but what they were before, though laid ever 
 so close upon the dresser ; nor do we even then consider them as single 
 things, but call them heaps or parcels, which are nouns of multitude, until 
 she has mingled them well into one mass, which then becomes a pudding.
 
 282 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 
 
 2. In like manner, nature forms her productions out of materials col- 
 lected from the elements, but with this difference, that as she works in a 
 finer manner than art can imitate, we seldom know the ingredients she uses 
 until they appear in the composition. Thus the particles constituting a 
 plant could not be distinguished whilst they lay mingled in the mould, the 
 water, or the air, nor do we perceive the sources at all diminished from 
 whence they were drawn, wherefore we are vulgarly apt to regard them as 
 new beings not framed out ol any others. Sometimes indeed we may know 
 partly what are the ingredients employed, as when a farmer enriches his 
 ground with manure ; but then the manure must be divided by putrefaction 
 into imperceptible parts before it be fit for nature to work upon. Never- 
 theless, it is universally agreed by all men of thought and consideration that 
 the substance of everything we see produced was existing before, and is only 
 brought together into that form and order which renders it the object of our 
 notice. 
 
 3. Nor does the mind want a power of compounding things that nature 
 has not joined, or of making arbitrary junctures for which she has given no 
 foundation ; as a flock of sheep, a nation of men, a parish, or a bay. For 
 the sheep of a flock or men of a nation have no more natural connection 
 with one another than with those of any other drove, or country, the lands 
 of a parish lie as closely contiguous to those of the next as they do to any 
 lands of the same, and the waters of a bay are as much mingled among the 
 waters of the ocean as they are with one another : yet we consider each of 
 them as one thing, and call them by names of the singular number. 
 
 4. Thus we see compounds produced three ways, by nature, by the hand 
 of man, and by the imagination : and all three proceed in the same manner, 
 to wit, by selecting materials from the funds where they are to be had and 
 placing them together so as to strike our observation as one object. Never- 
 theless they proceed differently in this respect, that the two former make a 
 real change of position in the things they compound, whereas imagination 
 can work only upon its own ideas, throwing them into a particular order or 
 combination, without actually removing anything from its place. But all 
 composition, whether actual or mental, bears a reference to the thought, for 
 the essence of things depends upon the uses we have for them, the proper- 
 ties we observe in them, or the manner wherein they affect our senses : 
 therefore we conceive them to remain the same so long as they continue to 
 exhibit the same appearances, how much soever the component parts may 
 be shifted : thus we esteem the Thames the same river we saw last year, 
 although the waters of it have been changed a thousand times. Nor do we 
 consider everything as entering into a compound if it does not answer our 
 purpose so to do, although joined as closely as those we call constituent 
 parts : if while Hatchet makes up the table he carelessly drops a spoonful 
 of glue which fastens a chip to it ; or if while our backs are turned, an 
 unlucky boy screws a piece of deal upon one of the leaves, we do not reckon 
 the chip or the deal a part of the table. So neither do we esteem an oak 
 apple as part of the tree, but an excrescence, although adhering as firmly 
 to the leaves as they do to the branches. We say oil will not incorporate 
 with vinegar : because after shaking them ever so long we can still distin- 
 guish them floating amongst one another : but water, arrack, orange juice, 
 and sugar, compose punch, which we reckon a new production, because it 
 affects our senses with a taste and appearance the several ingredients had 
 not before. The blood, humours, and fat in our bodies, seem to enter into 
 the composition of them ; but not the breath in our lungs nor victuals in our
 
 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 283 
 
 stomachs ; because we perceive these continually coming and going : but 
 we do not see when the others fly off or are renewed. Nature unites no 
 thing, not even the strongest of her works, any otherwise than by holding 
 the parts of them firmly together. It is now I think generally agreed among 
 the learned that that quality of bodies called the attraction of cohesion, which 
 keeps them united, is the effect of a certain subtile fluid pressing strongly 
 against them on the outside : so that if a carpenter setting an upright post 
 to support a floor, upon finding it too short, should drive in a plank between 
 the post, the plank and the beam above, although manifestly distinct from 
 one another, would be as truly united as the parts of iron, marble, or other 
 the most compact and durable substances. 
 
 5. But it seems this subtile fluid, which makes the particles of matter 
 cohere so firmly when pressing them on the outsides, if it can get between 
 them, rends them as forcibly asunder, whence proceeds their elasticity ; so 
 that the heaviest bodies, upon having their parts dissipated beyond their 
 sphere of attraction, may become the lightest : and Sir Isaac Newton sup- 
 poses air itself generated this way out of metals and minerals. Thus all 
 production is no more than an assortment of minute bodies, imperceptible 
 before, in such manner as to render them discernible ; or else throwing 
 them into new forms from whence shall result qualities they had not in their 
 former state : and all destruction no more than a dissipating of them again, 
 or else such a change of their contexture as shall divest them of the quali- 
 ties they had by their first union. And it depends upon our customary 
 manner of conception and the use of language to determine what shall be 
 deemed a change of one thing into another or only a circumstantial change 
 of quality in the same thing. Cream beaten into a certain consistency by 
 churning produces butter, but upon the same consistency being destroyed 
 by melting it continues butter still, unless the careless cook, thinking of 
 her sweetheart, should let the saucepan stand over the fire, for then we say 
 it is turned into oil. So butter kept to be sour still retains its essence ; but 
 dough grown sour makes leaven, and well baked becomes bread, though raw 
 beef well roasted is nothing more than beef as it was before. What is it 
 forms the stars into constellations besides the consent of astronomers ? and 
 that upon an apparent only without a real juxtaposition ; for the stars of 
 each constellation lie at immense distances from one another, and probably 
 some of Aries may stand further apart from others of the same sign than 
 they do from those of Libra in the opposite hemisphere. 
 
 6. The more closely we consider the nature of compounds the more fully 
 shall we be convinced, that how much soever they may change and vary, 
 there is nothing new in them beside their order and situation and the pro- 
 perties arising therefrom ; and that they are nothing but collections or 
 numbers of things brought together so as to affect us in a different manner 
 from what they did when separate, or joined into one idea by the arbitrary 
 power of imagination. It is this collectiveness of compounds that enables 
 us to divide them, and furnishes us with the idea of whole and parts, which 
 being relative terms cannot subsist without their correlatives : for nothing 
 is a whole unless as it contains all the members necessary to complete it, 
 and nothing a part except in reference to other parts among which it is to 
 be numbered. Every compound must have some quantity, and all quantity 
 may be expressed by numbers, which alone renders it divisible ; for nothing 
 beside numbers is capable of being divided ; but they being combinations of 
 one another and ultimately of units, may either in fact or thought be sepa- 
 rated into them again. But what perplexes this matter is that arithmcti
 
 284 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 
 
 cians understand by dividing a separating into equal parts : but there may 
 be an unequal as well as an equal division, twenty may be parted into nine 
 and eleven as easily as into two tens, or into three, four, six, and seven, as 
 into four fives ; and in this sense there is no number divisible until you 
 come to unit ; lower than which you cannot go, for one cannot be divided. 
 I know we often proceed to fractions supposed to express less than unit, 
 but in this notion we impose upon ourselves by shifting our ideas and con- 
 sidering that as a multitude which before we considered as one ; therefore 
 we cannot make a fraction without multiplying first before we divide. He 
 that would part a sum of money into several shares, procends first to see 
 how many pounds belong to each, if there be a remainder he multiplies it 
 by twenty to find the shillings he shall allot beside, and so on to pence and 
 farthings ; if there still be a remainder and he would be very exact, having 
 no lower denomination of money to reduce into, he makes an arbitrary coin- 
 age in his own mind, and supposes his farthings to contain so many pieces 
 as there are shares into which he would distribute them, which he sets down 
 for the denominator of his fraction : so a farthing with him is no more an 
 unit than a pound was at first ; nor is seven thirteenths of a farthing less 
 than an unit, any more than three-pence or seven shillings, which every- 
 body will allow to be whole numbers. 
 
 7. Hence and from what has been said in the last chapter may be 
 gathered that composition works a different effect upon qualities from what 
 it can do upon substances : for quality having no existence of its own, but 
 being a particular manner of existing in substances, it is easy to conceive 
 how the manner will vary according to their various coalitions, and that 
 they may acquire powers of affecting us which they had not while single, 
 which will then be new productions having no reality before. This expe- 
 rience testifies, for things invisible when separate may become objects of 
 sight by being brought together in numbers : the vapours in a clear sky 
 we see nothing of, but when condensed into clouds we discern them plainly 
 enough ; if you bring up a bottle of wine out of a cool vault in a hot day, 
 though the air appear clear you will quickly perceive a dew gather upon the 
 glass. Qualities mingled together may generate a new quality different 
 from all its constituents : blue and yellow will make a green : all the variety 
 of colours we behold are supposed to be only various combinations of the 
 seven primary, yet you cannot possibly tell which of them, nor in what pro- 
 portion go to form a brown : whiteness has been demonstrated to arise 
 from the joint action of all the seven operating equally upon you, yet the 
 idea of white contains nothing of other colours as component parts. Posi- 
 tion likewise will give substances a form which they had not singly ; I may 
 place a number of shillings so as to make a square, the shillings themselves 
 still continuing round ; here then squareness has a reality in the number 
 and roundness in the several pieces : so there is no absurdity in a compound 
 having forms and qualities of which the component members are destitute. 
 But this holds good only with respect to secondary qualities which are pro- 
 ducible and perishable, as the primary are not ; for a solid body cannot be 
 made up of unsolid materials, nor a moveable body of those that are inca- 
 pable of motion. Therefore forms, qualities, and essences are producible 
 by composition, destructible by dissolution, and interchangeable among one 
 another by the various stationing of the materials composing them : but 
 with substances the case is otherwise, for however dispersed, or gathered 
 together, or however variously placed among one another, they contiune 
 always numerically the same, without increase or diminution of their num-
 
 COMPOUND SUBSTANCES. 285 
 
 bers, or of their quantity, without transubstantiation of any particular one 
 into any other that was not of their number before. A pint of water is the 
 same quantity whether lying in a basin, or evaporated in steam, and if there 
 were five millions of particles in the vessel, there are still the same identical 
 five millions floating about in the air : it is not now water, but still is sub- 
 stance, having lost its essence but not its existence. Or if you suppose 
 each aqueous particle to consist of infinite parts, which might then be sepa- 
 rated to infinite distances, yet in their dispersion they would be the same 
 quantity and number of substances, be it finite, or be it infinite, as while 
 collected in the particle : for it is inconceivable that nature can ever lessen 
 or add to the number of substances she has already in store ; she can do no 
 more with them than congregate, or dissipate, or assort them variously, by 
 changing their positions with respect to one another. But our business in 
 common life lies solely with the qualities of things, not their substance, for 
 so we find them convenient for our purposes, we need not care what sub- 
 stance or particular materials they are composed of. If a vintner gives me 
 the taste of wine from a particular pipe in his vaults which I like, I may 
 perhaps desire to have a parcel out of that very pipe, because doubtful 
 whether any of the others might please me so well : but if I could be 
 assured he would send me wine of exactly the same quality and pala- 
 tableness, I should not be solicitous to have it drawn out of that or a 
 different vessel. 
 
 8. For this reason we ordinarily denominate things the same or different, 
 according to their appearances or aptness for our purpose, and when we 
 give them those epithets, we oftener mean specifically than numerically the 
 same or different. Thus if I order my merchant to send me the same wine 
 I had last spring, I can expect only wine conditioned alike ; for I must 
 know it is impossible he should send the very wine I have already drank 
 out. Or should I bespeak a box of the joiner, which on coming home 
 appears not shaped according to my orders, I may be apt to say, this is not 
 the thing I wanted : if he carries it back, and afterwards brings me one 
 exactly answerable to my intentions, I shall be content with it, as being 
 the very thing I would have, yet without regarding whether he had made 
 it up of the same materials with the former, reframed, or of fresh stuff, and 
 if he tells me I shall not alter my opinion thereupon. Therefore it is very 
 material for having a just idea of identity and composition to observe 
 whether, when we use the word Same, we understand thereby the same 
 thing, or the same sort of thing : in the case before mentioned of sending 
 the same wine, it is plainly to be understood wine of the same kind, and 
 when I say of the ill-contrived box it is not the thing I wanted, my mean- 
 ing must be that it is not such a sort of box as will suit my purpose, for 
 had it been constructed and worked to my mind, I should have been equally 
 satisfied whatever pieces of deal or wainscot it had been made of. Cream 
 churned into butter is still the same thing it was before, but a different 
 kind of thing, and applicable to different uses : the human body is certainly 
 a different thing in a full-grown man from what it was in the new-born 
 infant, yet is counted all along the same body, because conveying sensa- 
 tions and serving for an instrument of action to the same person. But the 
 common language of mankind adapted to the common occasions of life, 
 which require our attention to the kinds, the qualities, and uses of things, 
 leads us perpetually to mistake essence for existence, specific for substan- 
 tial identity, and the manner of being for being itself. Hence we look 
 upon the production of a compound as a creation, and the change of a sub-
 
 286 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 stance from one species into another as a transubstantiation : for, when a 
 millwright has set up a windmill, we suppose there is a new thing, a new 
 being produced, because there is a new kind of thing, having properties 
 wanting before, for now it will turn with the wind, and grind our corn, 
 which the disjointed materials could not do : and upon salt being thrown 
 into water, we think the salt has utterly lost its being, and a new substance 
 produced which we call brine. Whereas anybody, with a little reflection, 
 may see that the materials of the windmill retain the same existence when 
 put together as while separate, making only a more serviceable kind of 
 thing than while lying in confusion : and that the brine contains no more 
 nor other substance than was in the water and salt when kept apart. So 
 that all the operations of nature and art which have been performed in the 
 preceding year have neither added to the number of substances, be they 
 finite or infinite, which were in being a twelvemonth ago, nor diminished 
 nor changed them, but only cast them into various kinds, exhibiting different 
 appearances, and diversely answering our uses. 
 
 9. From all that has been observed above, I think it must appear mani- 
 fest that existence belongs only to individuals, that whatever has a being 
 of its own cannot be divided, and that a compound is no substance other- 
 wise than to our apprehension, but an aggregate of so many substances as 
 the component parts whereof it consists. This will be seen plainer if we 
 consider the incorporations made by men : if our sovereign lord the King 
 embodies six hundred men into a regiment, to be called the royal volun- 
 teers, the regiment taken collectively is no real being, but a creature of the 
 imagination : I do not mean to call it a mere shadow, for the brave fellows 
 composing it have a real existence, and I doubt not will prove themselves 
 effective substances in the day of trial, but the body has no other existence 
 than what belongs to the men ; if it had, there would be a power of crea- 
 tion by human management, for then, upon the incorporation, there must be 
 six hundred and one beings instead of only six hundred there were before. 
 In the like manner the productions of nature, which are only collections of 
 imperceptible particles into a perceptible form, add nothing to the number 
 of beings, nor does anything properly deserve that appellation, unless what 
 is uncompounded and indivisible. 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 BUT an objection may be thought to arise against the sole claim of indi- 
 viduals to existence, from the divisibility of matter, which according to the 
 fashion at present prevailing among the learned, is held to be absolutely 
 infinite. For it may be urged, that if all body consists of parts, those again 
 of under parts, and so on for ever, we must either suppose with Dr. Berkeley, 
 that the bodies we daily see and handle are mere phantoms and ideas of 
 the mind ; or if we allow them a real existence, we must needs rest it at 
 last upon something which is itself a compound ; because, after infinite 
 divisions, we can nowhere find anything which is not so. But it must be 
 granted that infinite divisibility, as well as finite, lias its difficulties ; which, 
 I believe, are gotten over principally by the definition generally given to 
 matter of an extended substance. If you ask what is meant by the term
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 287 
 
 extended, they tell you it is the having parts without parts, that is, 
 extraneous to one another. Now for understanding this explanation we 
 must observe, that appearances, or ideas, may have parts within parts, co- 
 extensive together throughout the whole compound : thus our idea of a 
 piece of gold contains the ideas of weight, compactness, ductility, fusibility, 
 with many others as parts thereof, and each of these is diffused equally through 
 the whole piece : but when we consider its bulk and substance, the right 
 side does not reach into the left, nor is the top diffused among the bottom ; 
 so that the substantial parts do not lie within one another, but each has its 
 separate station. Thus to say that matter is divisible, because extended, 
 amounts to no more than saying it is so because it consists of parts distinct, 
 and removable from one another : a pretty way of proving the point, being 
 no better than the ladies' reason, it is divisible because it is. 
 
 2. It seems a more colourable argument, when our conception is appealed 
 to, and we are defied to imagine any particle which must not at least have 
 two sides distinct and distinguishable from one another. I may perhaps 
 by-and-by accept the challenge, and attempt to show, that we do not always 
 conceive of things as having two sides : but for the present, let us see what 
 can be concluded from this argument, supposing the premises assumed in 
 support of it were true. It has been shown by Mr. Locke, and in our 
 chapter on Reflection, that our ideas concerning external objects are originally 
 derived from sensation, all we can do for ourselves is by repeating, com- 
 pounding, associating, dividing, or extracting from what we have received 
 by that channel. Nor is it certain we can form any conception of magnitude 
 greater or less than what we have seen : we talk indeed currently of im- 
 mense spaces, of millions of miles, of vortices and planetary systems ; but 
 our imagination keeps all the while within the same compass it would do 
 if we were to contemplate any measurable portion of ground we could dis- 
 tinguish with our eyes. We proceed in the same manner a person would 
 who should undertake to draw any plan assigned him upon a slate : if he be 
 set to describe a garden, he marks the walks, the beds, the groves, the 
 buildings, in their proper dimensions, so that the whole may just fill up the 
 space he has to delineate them upon ; if a county, then spacious roads and 
 wide rivers run in the place of walks, and you find towns occupy the spots 
 where there stood alcoves before ; if the terraqueous globe, the parishes are 
 lost through their minuteness, and their room is taken up by mountains, 
 kingdoms, seas, and oceans ; if the solar system, he places a little ball in 
 the middle to represent the sun, draws the planets with their satellites 
 rolling round at proper distances, and makes the orbit of Saturn touch the 
 edges of his slate : thus when he is put to take in a larger space he does not 
 enlarge his draught, but contracts his scale, and lessens his figures to bring 
 them within the limits to which he is confined. Just so it fares with ima- 
 gination, whose scenes contain the same dimensions whether we contemplate 
 larger spaces or smaller : we fancy ourselves climbing to immense heights, 
 but in reality contract our objects to a conceivable size, and draw down im- 
 measurable distances within the length of our own line : like Prior's squirrel 
 in the tinman's shop, who seemed continually mounting up in his rolling 
 cage, but never advanced one step higher beyond his own length. 
 
 3. Let us now invert the glass and turn our thoughts upon objects less 
 than what ordinarily fall under our observation. He that would cut a hair 
 as small as possible, may work a good while with a caseknife by drawing 
 the pieces doubled along the edge : when he has reduced them so small 
 that they will not double, he may lay them upon a smooth table and cut a
 
 288 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 little longer with a penknife ; after he has done what he can this way, he 
 may take a microscope, and by help of that make two or three cuts more 
 with a fine lancet : there is now no more room for manual operation, but if 
 he will proceed further he must go to work with his imagination ; which 
 may chance to play him a sly trick he is not aware of; for, upon contem- 
 plating one of the little particles of his last division, he will find it grow into 
 a magnitude having two distinguishable sides, which he can easily conceive 
 separated from one another ; but upon their separation, each will imme- 
 diately grow again into their former size ; and thus he may go on without 
 end until he be tired of the sport. Hence it appears, that our imagination 
 is hemmed in by certain boundaries on both sides beyond which it cannot 
 pass : nor can we conceive things greater or less than certain dimensions, 
 unless by diminishing or magnifying them we can bring them to a size 
 discernible by our senses ; and that when we attempt an infinite division, we 
 proceed without making any way, undoing as fast as we work, and only 
 dividing what we had magnified ourselves : just as was shown before in the 
 case of numbers, where we make a fraction supposed less than an unit, by the 
 process of multiplication, how much soever we may fancy it dividing. 
 Wherefore this argument drawn from our want of conception seems incon- 
 clusive ; it may convince us of a failure in our faculties, but proves nothing 
 concerning the nature and constitution of matter : for since there is a cer- 
 tain measure below which we cannot form an idea, since experience and 
 reason assure us there are particles far within that measure, how know we 
 what we might conceive, had we faculties piercing enough to discern them 
 clearly ? 
 
 4. Mathematicians tell us, that points disposed in a row form a line, that 
 lines placed side by side make a superficies, and that a number of superficies 
 laid over one another compose a solid. Let us try to analyze a solid into 
 its constituent parts : we cannot by any contrivance actually take off a 
 superficies without thickness ; if we go to work with our imagination, after 
 having detached the surface from the main body, we shall find it have an 
 upper and an under side : endeavour to split the sides asunder, and suddenly 
 you will find each af them by a kind of magic provided with a lining. The 
 fault then lies in the imagination, which cannot perform what is desired of 
 her for making the experiment ; for those who hold the divisibility of matter 
 surely must allow that every part may be separated from every other, but 
 in all solids there must be some parts lying uppermost : we only desire you 
 to take off these, and not meddle with anything else, but this it seems you 
 cannot do, for you cannot separate them without tearing up others clinging 
 underneath. Thus our solids resemble a quantity of fine paper piled up in 
 a stationer's shop, if you set a man with gloves on, or a rustic whose hands 
 are hard by labour, to take off a single sheet, he will fumble about a long 
 while, and at last take up two or three together : so if we attempt to take 
 off a superficies we cannot do our work neatly, but our clumsy-fisted imagina- 
 tion pulls up another adhering to it beneath. 
 
 5. Having so little success with superficies, considered by themselves, 
 let us try what can be done with them in their state of junction with the 
 main body. When one thing lies upon another, how porous soever we may 
 imagine them, there must be some solid parts of each which touch, and 
 those who contend that all body has magnitude must admit that these parts 
 have superficies by which they rest upon others of equal size that support 
 them. But not to perplex ourselves with such minute parts, since we are 
 inquiring only into our conceptions rather than the reality of things, let us
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 289 
 
 consider larger objects that we can easily comprehend : it is certain we may 
 and do conceive of compact substances as of perfect solids, and therefore 
 these will answer our present purpose as well as if they were truly such. 
 Let us suppose then a six-inch cube of glass perfectly smooth standing upon 
 a well polished marble table, here we may conceive a superficies of six 
 inches square that touches a like superficies of the table : but what does it 
 touch ? is it not real body ? and must not that body be void of thickness ? 
 for none ever imagined that bodies could penetrate at all into one another. 
 If you say this body must have an under side, that cannot be, for the under 
 side will be a distinct thing from the body, one being touched by the glass 
 and the other not, but the same thing cannot be touched and not touched 
 at the same time. But this same individual body, individual I mean in 
 depth, which touches the glass, must likewise touch some part of the table 
 below, or else it would fall lower until it did : if you say again it touches 
 only by the under side, then you make it a compound consisting of two 
 parts, the uppermost of which touches the glass and nothing else, and so 
 has nothing to sustain its weight with the weight of the cube above ; and 
 the undermost touches the rest of the table but nothing else, and so has 
 nothing that it can support, nor any weight resting upon it. Wherefore 
 there must be a number of superficies, each whereof touches both the next 
 above and the next below, running on in continuity to make the thickness 
 of the table. Now consider the surface covered by the cube as joining to 
 the rest of the table's surface, that part which it touches on the right hand, 
 for instance, you must acknowledge to be a body, and as it cannot be diffused 
 or penetrate thereinto, what it touches must be a line without breadth or 
 thickness. Consider again what this line touches of the further and higher 
 parts of the table, and we shall find them to be points, that is, bodies 
 destitute of any dimension. 
 
 6. Some have questioned whether magnitude be really inherent in bodies 
 or only an idea wherewith they affect us : I do not know how this matter 
 can be determined with absolute certainty, for we can know nothing of 
 bodies unless by our ideas, but if it be real we must suppose it to corres- 
 pond with our idea, and everything to be predicated of it, which may be 
 predicated of that. Now though we must acknowledge that our idea of 
 magnitude consists of parts, yet it is not necessary those parts should have 
 a magnitude too ; things may affect us with an idea by their united force 
 when they could not do it singly. We know visible objects are compounded 
 of invisible particles : and audible sounds made up of little motions in the 
 air which cannot be heard : the watery vapours dispersed up and down in 
 fair weather affect none of our senses, but when condensd into rain we can 
 both see and feel it ; a single drop falls silently down, but when multitudes 
 of them pour in showers we hear them patter against the ground : why 
 then may not bulk and thickness be composed of what has neither ? One 
 is no number, yet all numbers are made up of units, and two of them are 
 enow to compose the lowest : we have observed before that all magnitude 
 may be expressed by numbers, as of yards, inches, or fractions of an inch, 
 and indeed is no more than a number of parts undistinguished from each 
 other in the thought. Therefore, in things whereof we can perceive 
 the parts singly, we reckon by number, as a hundred men, a thousand 
 sheep, twenty guineas ; where we cannot, we estimate by measure or mag- 
 nitude, as a pint of water, a square yard of clay, an ounce of gold. Now 
 we shall see this doctrine confirmed if we attend to the discourses of such 
 
 VOL. i. v
 
 290 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 as would prove the divisibility of matter, for you will find them always 
 contented with number two to make a dimension : there is no line, say 
 they, so short but must have two ends, no superficies so narrow as to be 
 without two sides, and no solid so thin as not to have two surfaces ; allow 
 them two extremities and their conception does not boggle at any dimen- 
 sion without wanting a middle to complete the idea. Then again, if we 
 take our judgment from the scenes in our imagination, no body can be 
 infinitely divisible, for infinities are the most inconceivable tilings we can 
 turn our thoughts upon, and I defy any man to form a clear conception of 
 an infinite number of parts in a mountain, or a province, a planet, or a sun. 
 
 7. But before I am entitled to give a challenge I must take care to acquit 
 myself manfully in answering that I accepted a little while ago : let us 
 therefore examine whether it be really true that we have no conception of 
 a body without parts. When we look upon the wainscot of a room where 
 the panels are painted of a different colour from the stiles and mouldings, 
 we do not take the objects we behold for fancies or delusions, but for some- 
 thing real and material, yet we conceive of the paint on the panels as square 
 substances, utterly devoid of thickness : it argues nothing to tell me the 
 paint must have some depth and that if I scrape off a little with a penknife 
 I shall perceive a colour still lying behind, for our business is now only with 
 our manner of conception, which takes in nothing of the latent colour, nor 
 do we apprehend our eye penetrating at all into the boards or the paint, but 
 touching lightly upon the surface. So if I see a carpenter draw a line with 
 his lead pencil, perhaps I might easily discern a space between the sides 
 if I looked for them, but this I do not, so the breadth does not enter into 
 my idea of the line, which I conceive as a black substance (for I do not 
 suppose it an apparition) extended only in length. Should I, upon hitting 
 my pen against something, chance to dash out a few sparkles of ink upon 
 my paper, I should see them plainly and apprehend them to be substances, 
 yet might neither discern nor conceive any dimensions they had. What 
 shall we say of the smaller stars ? I do not deny them to be immense 
 bodies much larger than this whole earth we inhabit, yet every common 
 man who looks at them in the night conceives them as no more than points, 
 and as astronomers tell us that if they were brought a hundred times nearer 
 than they are, we should not find them having any perceivable magnitude. 
 So then, whether there be such things as points, lines, and surfaces, in na- 
 ture or no, certain it is from experience that we have sensations and ideas 
 of them. 
 
 8. Men of thought, like children pulling their playthings to pieces to see 
 what is in the inside, endeavour to separate the objects striking their senses 
 from the rest of the body whereto they belong, in order to turn them round, 
 and as it were handle them on all sides in their contemplation ; but in so 
 doing, as has been observed before, there constantly grows something more 
 to what they so take off, reflection adding other ideas out of her own fund 
 to those sensations exhibited : so that a point, a line, a superficies, consi- 
 dered apart, is not what it was when lying in the body. Thus they deceive 
 themselves, thinking to find dimensions in objects which have none : they 
 do indeed fin*T them in their idea, but then they find only what their own 
 imagination had laid there just before. 
 
 9. The like may be said of figure as has been observed concerning mag- 
 nitude, for the one cannot well subsist without the other, whatever has mag- 
 nitude must have some figure, and contrariwise : but possibly neither may 
 reside in bodies any otherwise than as qualities affecting our senses in such
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 291 
 
 a particular manner ; therefore it is hard to say what figure belongs to 
 things so immensely great or extremely small as to baffle all our methods of 
 admeasurement. We are apt indeed to conceive of points and of infinite 
 space as being round, and the Stoics confidently assigned that figure to the 
 universe, but then where shall we place the centre ? why always in that 
 spot where we happen to stand ourselves, because we can conceive no other- 
 wise of immensity than by spreading our thoughts to boundless distances 
 on all sides of us : but then this centre must move as we move, and accord- 
 ing to the time when we make our reflection, whether in June or December, 
 will stand a hundred and sixty millions of miles apart from itself. We 
 imagine points round because we can conceive them equi- distant from every 
 part of a circle drawn about them, which we could not conceive of any other 
 figure lying in the middle ; but then the circle cannot be drawn within the 
 point nor unless at some distance from it. So that our spheres of both sorts 
 are incomplete, the one being a centre without a circumference and the 
 other a circumference without any or with a movable centre. In short, 
 the notion of rotundity in these things seems grounded on the following 
 syllogism. They must have some figure, but they cannot have any other 
 besides roundness, therefore they must have that. The minor we may prove 
 well enough, because in all other figures there must be angles or protube- 
 rances which we may conceive broken off and what remains only will be the 
 point ; and we may conceive the sides between those angles and protube- 
 rances swelled out, therefore the figure before such swelling was not 
 immense. But the major we assume without any foundation, our faculties 
 not being sufficiently acute to inform us with certainty whether there may 
 not be bodies or spaces without any figure at all : thus much we may rest 
 satisfied with, that we can neither conceive a sphere consisting of no parts, 
 nor yet how finite parts can make up an infinite compound. 
 
 10. Upon the whole matter it seems too hasty a conclusion to pronounce 
 that all body must have magnitude and divisibility because we cannot con- 
 ceive of it otherwise : for we have produced instances of our seeing and 
 conceiving bodies without sight or conception of their having all or any of 
 the three dimensions required to make a solid ; and if we cannot compre- 
 hend them apart in our imagination without dimensions, why should we 
 presume that imagination is a competent judge in the case ? For our ideas 
 being all received originally from sensation, reason has no other materials 
 to work upon besides those furnished by the senses ; and the objects strik- 
 ing upon there, even when assisted by the best contrivances of art, are all 
 undeniably compounds, so that we have no experience of anything else 
 whereon to ground our judgments. But had we senses piercing enough to 
 discern that first matter whereof all bodies are composed, how know we 
 what other appearances might exhibit different from any we have ever yet 
 beheld ? which might enable us to understand what now remains incon- 
 ceivable. Therefore the argument drawn from our manner of conception, 
 which we must needs own imperfect, is scarcely sufficient to overthrow 
 that taken from the existence of body, which you can never come at until 
 you get to something uncompounded ; for a compound is not a Being, but 
 a number of Beings, nor has any other existence than what belongs to com- 
 ponent parts. So then we must necessarily either admit individuals or deny 
 all existence to body, and suppose it only an idea or phantasm of the brain. 
 And that there are such atoms seems to stand confirmed by the current doc- 
 trine of cohesion wherein the strength of beams, bars, long stones, and 
 
 u 2
 
 292 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 other solid bodies consists, enabling them to support heavy weights ; for 
 their parts are not held together by any cement or strings, but, as Sir Isaac 
 Newton, and from him our modern naturalists, suppose, by the external 
 pressure of ether. Now let us imagine an iron bar sliced out into a multi- 
 tude of plates as thin as paper and perfectly smooth : I do not say this can 
 be done by art ; but, if matter be infinitely divisible, the bar is certainly 
 capable of being so divided and its length is actually made up of such plates 
 standing upon their edges side by side of one another, and it seems incre- 
 dible they should be made to cohere so firmly, as experience shows they do, 
 by a lateral pressure against the two outermost. You might easily hold up 
 a quire of paper by pressing it with your flat hand against the wainscot, 
 the same I suppose you might do with a ream, or perhaps two or three, only 
 you must shove with both hands and all your might ; but if you had glass 
 plates, as finely polished as art could make them, to try with instead of 
 paper, and enow of them to reach almost across the room, you would never 
 be able to prevent the middle ones from slipping through between the rest, 
 especially if you laid a parcel of boxes and trunks over them. Possibly you 
 might contrive by means of strong screws to keep even this glass beam 
 compact, because glass and all other the most finished productions of human 
 industry still have some little roughness, which hinders their sliding down 
 when very forcibly squeezed: but the plates composing our iron bar, were mat- 
 ter infinitely divisible, must be mathematically smooth, so that the greatest 
 pressure could never make them cohere. Therefore we must conclude that 
 the thinnest plates whereinto a beam or bar is capable of being divided 
 are not mathematical planes, nor perfectly smooth surfaces, but have a 
 roughness not separable from the rest of the plate, whereby when forcibly 
 compressed they take hold of the like roughness in the next adjoining plate?. 
 
 1 1 . Nevertheless, as one must not expect to bring every one to the same 
 mind upon so abstruse a question, I will desire those who still hold the in- 
 finite divisibility of matter to consider that infinity is an inexhaustible fund, 
 and how capable soever matter may be of such division, it can never be 
 effected completely. Let water, air, fire, or whatever causes you please, 
 rend asunder the parts of matter ever so long, they can never reduce them 
 to nothing, but their minutest divisions will still be body, having figure 
 and magnitude : so that we must necessarily conclude there are particles in 
 nature which, notwithstanding all the divisions they have undergone or 
 may suffer hereafter, never were and never will be less than they are. 
 Therefore the most obstinate unbelievers of individuality may without 
 scruple admit the doctrine of atoms actually, if not potentially, indivisible, 
 and that there is a Minimum, below which, though bodies may be capable 
 of being reduced, there is no power in nature that can reduce them : these 
 then we may be permitted to take for our first matter whereout all the 
 bodies of the universe are compounded. 
 
 12. I said at first that infinite divisibility of matter was the doctrine now 
 in vogue amongst the learned, but upon second thoughts I believe I have 
 misrepresented them, and the mistake arose from want of distinguishing 
 between infinite and indefinite divisibility. .For I have observed that men 
 of sober judgment forbear to decide anything concerning the former, which 
 they own to be an unmanageable subject, too perplexing for the human 
 faculties to determine either way : but concerning the latter, they unani- 
 mously agree that we cannot set. any bounds to the division, nor assign the 
 precise number of parts into which any given parcel of matter may be 
 crumbled. If my notion of existence has persuaded me that nature must
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 293 
 
 make a stop somewhere in her dividings, I shall not hesitate a moment to 
 subscribe to the article of indefinite divisibility : for our thought knows no 
 bound in the operation, nor does reason ever find an obstacle against con- 
 tracting or extending her scale without end, in measuring the objects she 
 would contemplate. This is enough to serve the purposes of mathemati- 
 cians and naturalists, and less than this heing not enough, I shall endeavour 
 to confirm it by some observations which, though a digression from my course 
 for the present, yet will not be useless by-and-by, when I may have occa- 
 sion to divide further than everybody will let me. For there are people 
 whom you can please neither full nor fasting ; they will battle tooth and 
 nail for divisibility at one time, and at another will not allow you to use 
 the principles themselves have laid down, but if you go to spin finer than 
 they have been accustomed to, cry out against it as an inconceivable ab- 
 surdity. Now as in the progress of these inquiries I may be driven to a 
 necessity of supposing very small bodies to contain a multitude of various 
 and dissimilar parts, that I may not shock anybody with an idea he might 
 think quite out of the way if presented to hirn at once, I shall endeavour to 
 prepare for its reception, by producing instances wherein little parcels of 
 matter are actually divided beyond what is commonly apprehended possible. 
 13. Those who have gone upon the same undertaking seldom fail to put 
 us in mind of perfumes, which they say will put forth an odour for many 
 years without losing sensibly of their weight ; and of leaf gold, a single 
 grain of which we are told will cover a wire of 1 625 feet long so entirely 
 as to leave no spaces open between. But as the little corpuscles of light 
 are probably the smallest bodies affecting our senses, I shall try to make 
 some computation, though far within bounds, how many of them may be 
 thrown oft' from a certain quantity of inflammable matter. I have been in- 
 formed that a wax candle, of four to the pound, may be seen in a clear 
 night at two miles' distance : this then held up two miles high in the air, 
 would diffuse its light throughout a circumference of four miles in diameter. 
 Let us now consider how near the rays of light must lie to one another in 
 this circumference, so as to he discernible in every part of it, and we can- 
 not well suppose them further apart than one eighth of an inch, for else an 
 eye moving gently to the right or the left would find intervals of darkness 
 when it came between the rays ; therefore there must be 59 many rays as 
 there are square eighths of an inch in such a periphery, and we shall find 
 them upon computation amounting to 354,816,000. But this is not all, 
 for each ray probably consists of successive corpuscles continually following 
 behind one another, and the business is to find out how many of these suc- 
 cessions may proceed from one substance whose quantity is assigned. A 
 candle of the size above mentioned will burn about six hours, therefore a 
 grain of wax, reckoning eighty pounds of Troy to seventy-three Avoirdu- 
 pois, feeds the flame sixteen seconds. Now in order to discover how many 
 successions of light must be sent out in that time, let us have recourse to 
 the pretty childish amusement of making gold lace, spoken of at the be- 
 ginning of our chapter on Reflection. Let a live coal be fixed upon a wheel, 
 and upon turning the wheel a little briskly, you will see the coal draw a 
 trail after it ; as you increase the velocity of the wheel, the trail will lengthen 
 more and more. Let the motion be accelerated until the trail just closes 
 into an entire circle, and then observe in what time the wheel performs its 
 circumvolutions, for this will determine the length of a sensation ; because 
 it is plain the impression received by the eye from the coal at one point 
 lasts until it comes round to the same point again, or else the circle would
 
 294 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 not appear complete. We suppose the wheel to turn in this case (for I 
 have never tried the experiment) ten times in a second : it will follow that 
 an eye seeing the candle without discontinuance must have a fresh succes- 
 sion of light strike upon it in every tenth part of a second. But we have 
 not done yet, for the circle made by the coal will not appear so bright as 
 the coal itself when standing still, from whence we may infer that several 
 successions, following one another before the effect of the former is worn 
 off, are requisite to give us a perfect view of the objects we behold : we 
 must think of some other contrivance to discover how many of these suc- 
 cessions fall within the compass of a sensation. And for this purpose let a 
 room be darkened excepting a long slit a quarter of an inch wide cut per- 
 pendicularly in the window shutter : let a large circular pasteboard be placed 
 so as to turn very smoothly upon an axis laid horizontally upon a level with 
 the bottom of the slit : cut a slit likewise of the same width in the paste- 
 board from the circumference to the centre ; cause it to be whirled round 
 with an even motion just ten times in a second, if that be found the length 
 of a sensation, and place your eye directly over against the window, but on 
 the opposite side of the pasteboard, by which means you will have no light 
 but what comes through both the slits. In this situation I apprehend you 
 will see light continually near the end of the pasteboard but none at a dis- 
 tance, because there the aperture will be too small to admit it. If you can 
 observe exactly the limits between light and darkness, you may determine 
 how many successions at least must follow during a turn of the paste- 
 board : for the rays having no admittance unless during that interval 
 wherein some part of both slits fall in a line with your eye, in which time 
 the pasteboard will have moved half an inch, the proportion this bears to 
 the whole circle described by that part where you see the light terminate 
 will give the successions falling within the compass of a rotation. Suppose 
 for instance you can discern light so far as eight inches from the centre, a 
 circle drawn upon such a radius will measure fifty inches round and contains 
 a hundred of those spaces the rays have to pass through : since then you still 
 perceive them, you may rest assured they keep flowing in every hundredth 
 part of a turn of the pasteboard, and if ten of these were performed in a 
 second there must be a thousand successions following in that time. 
 Therefore to find the number of corpuscles produced by our grain of 
 wax, during its sixteen seconds' burning, we must multiply the prodigious 
 number before set down by sixteen thousand, which will give a produce 
 of 5,677,056,000,000. 
 
 14. I have proceeded upon a supposition that the rays of light are not 
 continual streams, but little balls or corpuscles following one another at 
 certain distances : and if there runs out no more of them than a thousand 
 in a second, the distance between every ball and the next behind will be a 
 hundred and sixty-six miles and two-thirds upon, a calculation from the 
 known velocity of light. Wherefore if you will imagine a ray to be an 
 entire thread or string of balls touching one another, you must multiply the 
 product we have already by as many balls as you can suppose lying within 
 a length of a hundred and sixty-six miles and two-thirds. But this would 
 be carrying the matter too far, for we learn upon the authority of Sir Isaac 
 Newton, that light is emitted by vibrations in the parts of luminous bodies, 
 which vibrations can act only at intervals in that part of their swing when 
 they are moving outwards and not when they are returning, wherefore the 
 matter they throw off cannot flow in a continual uninterrupted stream. 
 Nevertheless, we may find several reasons making it probable that we ought
 
 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 295 
 
 to increase the sum of corpuscles already computed : for as there are 
 creatures much quicker sighted than man, if you could teach a cat to make 
 and communicate the observation, it is not unlikely that puss might give 
 the signal for seeing light much higher up the pasteboard than you could 
 perceive it, which would convince you there are more successions than you 
 had found yourself. Nor could you still be sure of having them all, for a 
 single ball may be too feeble to cause vision at all, and it may require the 
 united force of many to excite a sensation in the optics of any animal 
 whatever : so that you cannot know for certain that the light does not find 
 a passage at a height where neither you nor the cat can distinguish it. We 
 may consider further, that the rays at two miles' distance from the candle 
 may lie closer together than one-eighth of an inch ; that light itself is a com- 
 pound body consisting of seven different coloured parts, as appeai-s by 
 experiments with the prism ; neither does the wax turn entirely into light, 
 for we know a great part of it goes off in smoke and vapour ; nor yet per- 
 haps is the substance of the wax at all converted into light, which some 
 hold to be a body of its own kind dispersed among the pores of luminous 
 bodies and not entering into their composition, in which case it must bear a 
 very inconsiderable proportion to the grain we suppose the wax to have 
 weighed. From all which considerations it may be concluded we have been 
 very moderate in our computation, which is more likely to fall greatly 
 short of the truth than to exceed it. 
 
 15. Now, how astonishing soever it may appear, to find a drop of wax 
 scattered into such a multitude of pieces, our astonishment must increase 
 when we reflect on the great tenuity of the wax, and how far it is from 
 being a solid substance. Sir Isaac Newton assures us that gold, the most 
 substantial body we know of, contains more of pore than solid substance : 
 therefore wax, which will swim in water, does not really occupy one fortieth 
 part of the space it seems to fill. Some have gone so far as to suppose 
 that all the matter of this visible universe compressed into a perfect solid 
 would form a cube of but a few inches on every side. I shall not attempt 
 to make calculations of this sort, having no sure foundation to build upon : 
 but I think it may be made appear by experiments of the firmest and com- 
 pactest bodies that the solid matter contained in them bears a very trifling 
 proportion to their apparent magnitude. I believe few will deny me that 
 whenever a heavy body lies upon another, they touch, for nothing else 
 besides their solidity and contact prevents the uppermost from falling still 
 lower. Some perhaps may controvert this point ; because it being held by 
 the best authorities that every particle of matter has a certain sphere of 
 attraction, immediately beyond which there begins a sphere of repulsion, 
 whose force decreases in more than duplicate proportion the farther you 
 recede from its internal limits, therefore a body falling towards another, 
 when come within the other's repulsion, will be stopped thereby before 
 contact and kept suspended in the air, the force of repulsion exactly balanc- 
 ing that of gravitation. But this, however plausible in theory, will appear not 
 to be true in fact ; because bodies laid on greasy or dirty places upon being 
 taken ofi* again will draw something from thence sticking to their bottom, 
 which shows they were in actual contact before, for the adhering particles 
 can never be supposed to follow what they had constantly kept aloof by the 
 vigour of their repulsion. Besides considering how very small the sphere 
 of strong repulsion is, if a book laid gently upon a table did hang suspended, 
 yet by a smart stroke upon the upper side you might drive it down within 
 the inner sphere of attraction. From hence we may conclude, that bodies 
 lying upon each other have some of their parts in actual contact, and con-
 
 296 DIVISIBILITY OF MATTER. 
 
 sequently, since all body is indued with an attraction of cohesion, they mn?t 
 adhere in such parts, and the largeness of their contact may be determined 
 by the strength of their coherence. 
 
 Now suppose two plates of gold, the heaviest of substances, as perfectly 
 polished as art and industry can make them, let one be laid flat upon a 
 table and the other suspended horizontally by strings upon one arm of a 
 balance, hanging a weight to the other arm that shall exactly counterpoise 
 it, then let down your balance gently till the plate rests upon that on the 
 table, touching it apparently on its whole superficies. If you increase your 
 weight and the balance be very good, I apprehend a very small one would 
 suffice to draw up the upper plate from the under and consequently to over- 
 come -the cohesion between them : a pennyweight might do it though the 
 plates were a foot square, or perhaps a hair could you get a balance per- 
 fectly smooth without any friction. Now were a needle worked into the 
 two plates so strongly as that they could not be parted asunder without 
 breaking the needle, it might require many pounds' weight to separate them 
 when so fastened. But the parts of compound bodies being held together, not 
 by any glue or cement between, but solely by their mutual cohesion cor- 
 responding with their contact, the strength of the needle to resist breaking 
 must be according to the contact its two pieces had together before their 
 disruption : which strength being found so vastly greater than that exerted 
 by the plates to keep themselves united, it is plain the whole superficies of 
 their touching parts bears no discoverable proportion to that of the trans- 
 verse section in a slender needle. From hence we may gather that the 
 superficies of the plates resemble a net- work of wire, whose meshes are im- 
 mensely larger than* the thickness of the threads, and whose threads do not 
 correspond with those of the other plate, but only cross them in some few 
 points. And since if instead of the plates you had a regular cube of gold, and 
 were to try with one of the sides, which make the thickness of the cube, 
 instead of the bottom, the experiment would succeed the same, it follows that 
 the compactest bodies are mere net-work in all their dimensions, containing 
 incomparably more of empty pore than solid substance. But it is happy for 
 us that they are so, for else we should have no use of our goods and 
 utensils, by reason of their perpetually sticking together beyond our power 
 to detach them ; nor could you venture to lay your flat hand upon a table 
 for fear of being never able to draw it off again. 
 
 1 6. If it should be thought hard of digestion to imagine that iron and 
 steel, which force their way so readily through other things, should be 
 themselves such hollow shells or wire cages as we have represented, let us 
 remember that all strength is relative, and there is no absurdity in imagining 
 that one hollow shell may penetrate through another a great deal weaker : 
 nor should I despair, if any virtuoso that has nothing else to do would under-! 
 take the trouble, to see a knife made of the tinder of coarse cloth that 
 would cut tinder of muslin as cleverly as we do cheese with a knife of steel : 
 but then the experiment must be tried in vacua, for fear any little motion 
 of the air should bend our instrument, and make us haggle or cut awry. 
 On the other hand, I do not doubt that if we could toss a little ball of per- 
 fectly solid substance ever so gently against iron, marble, or other the 
 compactest body upon earth, we should see it make its way through them 
 as easily as a leaden bullet would if laid upon the top of a whipped syllabub. 
 Having thus vented my thoughts upon the divisibility and rarity of matter, 
 which, if good for nothing else, may serve to entertain the curious, I shall 
 resume my journey and proceed from the consideration of body to that of 
 mind.
 
 297 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 
 
 How little success soever I may have had in proving the divisibility of 
 matter indefinite, but not absolutely infinite, it will not affect the exclusive 
 title of individuals to existence : for be the smallest particle infinitely divisi- 
 jble, it is still existent only in respect of the infinity of existent parts it 
 contains. And upon this hypothesis we roust admit a gradation of infinites, 
 some greater and others less ; because, if half an orange contains an infini- 
 tude of parts, the other half must contain another, and consequently the 
 whole orange will carry an infinitude double to each of the halves. Now 
 that infinity of parts, whereof the whole material universe consists, although 
 it seems capable of being enlarged by the accession of more matter, will not 
 admit of increase by composition : for there will not be one more Being, 
 nor a larger infinitude in nature upon those parts running into clusters, 
 than there would have been had they continued for ever separate. So that 
 compounds have no place among the rank of Beings, nor does their forma- 
 tion add anything to the number of them. 
 
 2. Therefore, in order to determine between the divisibility and unity of 
 Mind, let us examine whether it has a distinct existence of its own, and 
 whether upon the production of one, there must not be a new Being, not 
 barely a new sovt of Being, in nature added to those existent before, their 
 infinitude being increased by the accession of that one. And for this ques- 
 tion I need only refer to the sense and understanding of every man to 
 answer, whether he does not perceive himself to have a real existence, 
 distinct from all other Beings beside. I do not mean in kind, for there are 
 innumerable other beings of the same species with himself, but in numerical 
 identity, and whether there must not be one more Being in nature for his 
 existence, than there would be without him : but if he consisted of parts, 
 there must have been the same number of Beings existent when he was not, 
 and before the combination of those parts in their vital union, which are 
 become thereby a different kind of Being, that is, the same substance in 
 another mode of existence. Some have doubted the reality of body, of 
 space, of distance, of magnitude, of all sensation, imagining these to be no 
 more than perceptions rising unaccountably in the mind : but I believe no 
 man ever doubted of his existence, at the instant time when he reflected on 
 it. If there be a man of so uncommon a turn as to make this doubt, and 
 he must have another doubt beside, to wit, whether he doubts or no, for 
 nonentity can no more doubt than be assured, he may even turn his back 
 against me, for I pretend to work no conviction upon him. For the rest of 
 us we shall all readily allow, that we have an idea of existence, but whence 
 should we first get it unless from ourselves ? for if we are not, we can per- 
 ceive nothing and know nothing, and consequently can have no assurance 
 of the reality of other things : so that our persuasion of all existence besides 
 must begin and have its foundation in that of our own. 
 
 3. But our ideas being taken originally from sensation, and we having 
 accustomed ourselves to regard whatever appears constantly together as 
 parts of one whole, we contract a grossness of conception which makes us 
 apprehend ourselves as comprising the whole human composition. For our
 
 298 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 
 
 flesh and members accompanying us wherever we go, and the operation of 
 external objects ending at the surface of our bodies, we conceive sensation 
 diffused throughout them, and our very selves extending to the extremities 
 of our organs where we receive the impulse : for because we see with our 
 eyes, and touch with the ends of our fingers, we apprehend ourselves actual! v 
 present in those parts where we take the impression of objects. But not to 
 insist upon the discoveries of anatomy, by which it appears that their im- 
 pulse must be conveyed along the nerves before it affects us with any per- 
 ception, everybody knows, that men may be deprived of their limbs or their 
 organs by diseases or accidents, and yet retain their existence. Let a man 
 lose a leg or an arm, an eye or an ear, he still continues the same man, and 
 holds his rank upon the list of Beings as much as he did before. Whatever 
 can be separated from him, he may look upon as a possession, an instru- 
 ment or organ of conveyance, and that alone which remains after all ima- 
 ginable separation is properly himself. Besides, our organs have their 
 separate offices, not interchangeable with one another : the eye which sees 
 cannot hear, and the ear which hears can never see ; but they being nume- 
 rically distinct, if they were the perceptive substance, it would follow that 
 what sees is a different thing or substance from that which hears. There- 
 fore they can only be channels of conveyance to some one individual thing : 
 for no man can doubt but that it is the same himself which sees and hears 
 and receives all other perceptions ; and we cannot conceive this self divi- 
 sible, because what might be taken away upon division would not be him, 
 for he cannot be parted from himself. Compound bodies consist of parts, 
 having the same nature and primary properties with themselves, nor is it 
 conceivable that any assortment of unsolid or immovable parts should form 
 a solid and movable body : then if composition prevailed in Mind too, 
 every Self must contain a number of little Selves, every Mind many little 
 Minds, and every Sentient principle a multitude of Sentient principles. 
 But this is a supposal that will not bear the mentioning, for who would not 
 be shocked to hear talk of a half or a quarter of a man's self ? Besides, 
 if things sentient were divisible, the parts might be dispersed throughout 
 the four quarters of the world, and a man might have perceptions at the 
 same time in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. 
 
 4. To avoid this absurdity, there have been those who have asserted that 
 Self, Mind, or a perceptive Being, may be produced by a combination of 
 unperceptive principles ; not to repeat what I had urged before, that then 
 there may be a creation effected by compounding, let us remark, that upon 
 such combination, the parts considered singly cannot have, nor are they 
 pretended to have, any other properties than they possessed before, neither 
 can they club to take their several share of a perception ; for perception has 
 not parts without parts, and therefore cannot be received piecemeal, but the 
 perceptivity resides in the whole compound jointly. Now, it seems very 
 hard to understand how a collection of distinct substances, for such every 
 compound must be, can perceive what is not perceived by each of them. 
 I can conceive a whole camp to hear the evening gun, because every man 
 in the camp hears it, but I cannot comprehend how they can all hear a 
 sound that escapes every single person. And the case would be the same 
 if they were tied or glued together, or if the brains of all could be crowded 
 into one head : nor can I for my life distinguish between their all hearing 
 it, and every one of them hearing it : so neither can I discern with the utmost 
 stretch of the microscope a perception in any compound or collection of 
 substancesi however compacted or united together: which must not be
 
 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 299 
 
 complete in each of them. The ancient Hylozoists, as we learn from 
 Cudworth, ascribed an imperfect perception to their atoms, which was not 
 perception till it was rendered complete by the junction of several of them 
 together ; and he seems to have had a notion of this imperfect perceptivity 
 himself, in his plastic nature of elements and vegetables, though he never 
 attempted to complete it by junction. But I can no more comprehend how 
 an imperfect whisper, heard by twenty persons, shall become an audible 
 voice, than how they can all hear a sound heard by none of them singly : 
 I would as soon undertake to explain how a letter might be sent a hundred 
 miles in an hour, by employing twenty men who could walk five miles a 
 piece in the time. 
 
 5. We commonly apprehend things to remain the same while they con- 
 tinue to serve the same purposes, and exhibit the same appearances ; thus 
 you call a canal the same, notwithstanding a perpetual influx and efflux of 
 the waters and after you have new turfed the banks, but though it be the 
 same canal, no man will esteem it the same substance; for it seems neces- 
 sary to substantial identity, that the component parts should remain un- 
 changed. So if the mind be a compound, then upon some of the parts being 
 slipped away and others substituted in their room, though it might still 
 remain a mind it must be a different one from what it was before : and as 
 Lucretius tells us, the mind grows and decays with the body ; every man 
 would have a different Self in his childhood, his maturity, and his old age. 
 
 6. But it may be said, that mind is not so much a collection of particular 
 atoms, as a figure or harmony resulting from the order wherein they lie, and 
 therefore may continue the same although some or all of the atoms be 
 shifted ; for if you place twelve shillings in a circle, change your shillings 
 as often as you please for others, you do not alter the figure, which still re- 
 mains a circle. But what then becomes of our own existence ? for form 
 has none, but is only a modification or particular manner of existence in 
 body ; and harmony has none, being nothing more than the concordance or 
 mutual congruity of sounds whereby they affect the ear in a particular man- 
 ner. Besides, where shall we place personality ? for there is no difference 
 between similitude and identity in forms : an egg at York is of the very same 
 shape with an egg at London, and a concert of the same music, played upon 
 the like instruments, gives the same harmony in both places : therefore two 
 minds composed of atoms, having an exactly similar disposition, must be 
 the same person, and thus there may be a thousand same persons in so many 
 different parts of the globe, as there may be a thousand same forms and 
 harmonies. The same circle maybe drawn at once in Tartary and in Chili, 
 or the same tune played at Canton in China, while it is playing at London. 
 Therefore if one particular form or harmony be you, and another particular 
 form or harmony be me, there might be as many you's and me's in the 
 world as there are clusters of atoms capable of running together in the same 
 manner as ours have done. For it may be remembered, that we are not 
 now supposing mind to consist of a number of particles combined together 
 in such or such order, but to be the order itself, considered apart from the 
 particles, and equally capable of residing in any other that should be 
 brought within its compass. Or if you make any other identity of form 
 than that of equality and similitude, then upon having flatted a globe of wax, 
 by which you absolutely destroy the roundness it had, it will be impossible 
 to restore it to the same figure again : because, if the roundness of one 
 piece of wax be a different thing from the roundness of another, by the same 
 reason the roundness it receives upon a second moulding will be a different
 
 300 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 
 
 thing from that it had before heing flatted, as being a figure newly produced, 
 not one drawn back again from some place where it had lain dormant in 
 the interim. 
 
 Nor will it be easier to preserve the identity of Mind in one collection of 
 particles than we found it to distinguish the diversity of minds in several : 
 for if each particular mind were nothing but a certain order of the particles 
 composing it, we must lose our identity upon every turn of thought ; for 
 we may perceive a change in our mind upon passing out of pleasure into 
 pain ; but there can be no change among forms, without a locomotion of 
 the component parts, which must destroy the order they stood in before. 
 If you change the place of any two in your circle of shillings, you spoil 
 your circle while they are passing into each other's stations : therefore, if 
 their personality depended upon their circularity, the shillings during that 
 interval must make none, or at least a different person ; or should you fancy 
 the varieties of thought made by a variety of motions of the whole com- 
 pound, we could never think of two things together, the same body being 
 incapable of moving with two different velocities or in two different directions 
 at once. Let us consider likewise the variations of character, disposition, 
 and expertness, frequently happening in the same subject : the sucking child 
 who knows not his right hand from his left, may when grown up become 
 master of several sciences ; the cross-grained, peevish, unlucky boy may 
 sometimes by good management be made to turn out a sober, discreet, and 
 well-behaved man. But if they were nothing more than compositions, these 
 permanent changes, which render them a different sort of creatures, could 
 not happen without a change of structure in their component parts ; which 
 must produce a diversity of compositions and consequently a diversity of 
 persons : contrary to the apprehensions of all mankind, who esteem them- 
 selves the same persons from the cradle to the grave, notwithstanding any 
 variations of character or capacity they may have gone through in the 
 interval. 
 
 7. There seems to lie the same objection against Mr. Locke's doctrine of 
 consciousness constituting identity : it would be presumption in me to con- 
 tradict a man of his clear and steady judgment, therefore shall suppose I 
 have somehow or other misunderstood him ; but to the best of my appre- 
 hension he seems to have placed our existence in a quality rather than a 
 substance, for by the term Consciousness I cannot understand a Being, but 
 only a power or property of some Being , nor do I apprehend a man loses his 
 existence or personality every time he loses his consciousness, by falling fast 
 asleep. Could Mr. Locke himself imagine that his person was annihilated 
 every night when he went to sleep, and re-created again when he awoke in 
 the morning ? The most I can allow to consciousness, unless I grossly 
 mistake the word, is, that it should be in most cases the evidence to us of 
 our identity, for scenes that we remember convince us of our being the very 
 persons present at them. I said in most cases, but not all, for who does not 
 know that he was once a baby wrapped up in swaddling clothes ? and who 
 does not believe that baby to be the very same person with his present self? 
 yet I never heard of anybody pretending to have a remembrance or conscious- 
 ness of his being in that condition. Nor do I find little difficulty in settling 
 the identity of consciousness, for in quality, as I observed before in form, I 
 know no difference between identity and similitude : whatever has a like 
 quality with something else, to my thinking has the same. If I have done 
 anything I would conceal, yet I am conscious to myself that I have done it, 
 and I suppose vou would be the same upon the like occasion and so would
 
 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 301 
 
 every other man ; therefore we are all one and the same person. Well, but 
 you all are not conscious of the same fact with me, so the identity of the 
 consciousness depends upon the identity of fact : but this will not do neither, 
 for I am conscious of several actions I have performed, and therefore should 
 be so many different persons. The only way remaining in which I can un- 
 derstand an identity of consciousness, is by placing it in the consciousness 
 of the same person, in which light the idea of person must precede that of 
 consciousness : so it is no help to tell me I may find my personality by my 
 consciousness, because I must fix my idea of personality before I can make 
 use of the explanation. 
 
 8. Mr. Locke has somewhere unluckily let drop that he conceives it pos- 
 sible the faculty of thinking may be annexed to a system of matter, and 
 this notion has been eagerly laid hold of by my lord Bolingbroke to confirm 
 his opinion of the corporeity of all thinking substances. For my part I am 
 not so confident of my own understanding as to pronounce it impossible for 
 nature to do what I cannot conceive possible to be done ; but this I will 
 say, that I cannot conceive it possible perceptivity should be annexed to a 
 system, by which must be understood a composition of matter, or any other 
 substance whatever, but must reside in something that is numerically one 
 and uncompounded. For suppose an object to strike upon any one component 
 part of the system, if it raises a complete perception there, then the rest 
 are useless : if the perception does not begin till this part has communicated 
 the impulse to some other, then is that other the perceptive substance and 
 the first only an organ of conveyance : if both receive it equally, then does 
 the faculty belong not to the system, but to the several parts. Nor can each 
 take its respective share of the perception ; for as we observed before, it is 
 inconceivable that a perception should be received piecemeal or made up of 
 what is no perception. And this matter will appear plainer if we consider 
 the nature of judgment and comparison, where both terms of the one, and 
 both branches of the other, must be apprehended together in order to de- 
 termine between them. If this man knows the other properties of gold and 
 the other knows what ductility is, they can never know the more for this, 
 either jointly or separately, whether gold be ductile : so if one be ever so 
 well acquainted with St. Peter's at Rome, and the other with St. Paul's at 
 London, they can never tell which is the larger, the handsomer, or make 
 any other comparison by virtue of this knowledge. But you say one may 
 communicate his knowledge to the other : very true, but then each has the 
 idea of both before him in his imagination, and the judgment is the act of 
 either severally not of both jointly. Nor is the case different with respect 
 to the parts of a percipient system : let the idea of an elephant be impressed 
 upon particle A and that of a mouse upon particle B, they can never know 
 either jointly or separately which is the larger creature ; nor can a judg- 
 ment be formed until the ideas of both coincide in one and the same 
 individual. 
 
 9 . And what has been said of perception may be applied equally to voli- 
 tion : for as a body could neither impel nor resist another unless all the 
 particles of the whole mass, be they finite or infinite, had a quality of im- 
 pelling or resistance ; for it is unintelligible to talk of an impulse arising 
 solely from the composition : so neither can any system have a power of 
 beginning motion where there was none in the parts. A hundred men may 
 certainly lift a weight that would crush any one of them, but a thousand 
 would never be able to stir it unless each man had some strength of his own 
 independent on the rest. Whence we may justly conclude perceptivity and
 
 302 EXISTENCE OF MIND. 
 
 activity to be primary qualities, essential to the substances possessing them, 
 inseparable therefrom, belonging to individuals, and not producible by any 
 combination whatsoever of imperceptive and inactive ingredients. 
 
 10. If Self be not a substance but a system of substances ranged in some 
 particular order, there appears no such necessary connection between any 
 one Self and any precise collection of substances or percipient form (for we 
 now proceed upon a supposition of forms being percipient) but that they 
 might have contained any other Self : so that these substances and this form, 
 which now constitute Myself, might as well have constituted the Self of 
 John or Thomas, or any other person, without implying a contradiction or 
 absurdity ; and we must look for some cause yet undiscovered to assign 
 each system its personality. This cause, then, before I was existent, might 
 have assigned my personality to any other similar substances disposed in 
 the like order in some distant part of the globe : now why may not this 
 cause do the same at this present instant ? for how should my existing in 
 the spot where I now stand hinder the operations of nature elsewhere, or 
 incapacitate her from doing what she could have done a hundred years ago ? 
 therefore there might have been two Myselves some thousand of miles 
 apart. But if such a supposition would shock the ears and understanding 
 of every man, it will necessarily follow that every Self must be a substance 
 numerically distinct from all others, of whose identity no other substance 
 or system of substances can participate. And if a substance, it must be one 
 uncompounded of parts : for I am nothing else besides Myself, nor can con- 
 tain anything that is not Me, nor yet can I have parts which are neither 
 me nor anything else. As a piece of matter divided makes several pieces, 
 and a compound form dissolved becomes many lesser forms, so a perceptive 
 substance divided would yield many percipients, and perception always im- 
 plying personality, each percipient must have a Self distinguishing it from 
 its neighbour : so that upon supposition of a divisibility in the substance of 
 Mind, I should contain as many Selves as there are parts in my compo- 
 sition. 
 
 1 1 . Thus have I endeavoured to place this matter in as many different 
 lights as I could, and to turn it about in all manner of ways ; but it hap- 
 pens sometimes in these abstruse disquisitions that the very pains we take 
 for illustration renders the subject more perplexing, for being forced to spin 
 our thoughts very fine they become liable to entangle in the reader's hands, 
 and the multiplicity of ideas, into which we divide them by such refine- 
 ments, distracts his attention and causes them to throw a cloud over one 
 another. Therefore, since I apprehend this a matter of importance, I wish 
 every one would consider it afresh in his own way, and satisfy himself, in a 
 manner most suitable to his own liking, whether he has not a real existence 
 distinct from every other being whatever, and whether Self be not an inde- 
 lible character which cannot be taken from him nor exchanged witli any other 
 person. We often talk of what we would do, if we were Such an one, that 
 is, if we were in his place, with his strength of limbs, endowments of mind, 
 fortune, or circumstances of situation : but no man can even in imagination 
 suppose himself to feel for another or act for another, to perceive his sensa- 
 tions or perform his actions, or that that other should be his very self. We 
 Kave heard of metamorphoses and transmigrations from one form of being 
 into another, I do not desire anybody to believe the truth of those relations, 
 but the pleasure we receive in hearing them shows they are not unfamiliar 
 to our imagination, nor do we apprehend a contradiction in supposing the 
 same person to take various forms. But in all those changes the same Self
 
 SPIRIT. 303 
 
 continues throughout : Calisto when a bear, and Ino when a cow, are the 
 same persons, though different sorts of creatures, that they were while 
 women, nor does Euphorbus lose his identity by becoming Pythagoras : and 
 though they should lose their remembrance or consciousness, still we rejoice or 
 grieve with them according as we think they have deserved in their former 
 state. When the poet tells us that Aristotle's soul of old that was may now 
 be doomed to animate an ass, or in this very house, for aught we know, be 
 doing painful penance in some beau ; though he goes too far in calling it 
 a painful penance, for the beau perhaps is well satisfied with his present 
 condition and would think it a terrible misfortune to be restored to the dry 
 notions and musty metaphysics of Aristotle, yet we still apprehend the 
 same percipient substance existing in both. We may imagine ourselves 
 having new members added to our bodies, four legs, or twenty arms, or a 
 pair of wings sprouting from our shoulders, yet still we should remain the 
 same selves : or we may imagine ourselves losing our limbs, deprived of 
 our faculties, and becoming senseless as the stones before us, yet even in 
 that case we should not apprehend ourselves the same substance with the 
 stone we see : whence it appears that we are possessed of an existence and 
 identity of which we cannot even in imagination divest ourselves. 
 
 1 2. And for individuality if we cannot find that in ourselves we can find 
 it nowhere, for all the bodies we behold are undoubtedly compounds, and 
 we have seen in the last chapter how difficult it is to ascertain whether 
 there be atoms or no, and if there should be, we cannot come at the appre- 
 hension of them either by experience or reasoning. But we cannot com- 
 prehend ourselves composed of parts so as that something might be taken 
 away and the remainder make an imperfect self, or that such imperfect self 
 should become perfect upon the accession of something else. A house may 
 be half built and then is something of a house but not an entire one ; a 
 foetus may be hah 1 ' formed and then is an imperfect man : but in personality 
 there is no medium between completion and nonentity, we cannot half be, 
 but must either be completely ourselves or not be at all. By such consi- 
 derations as these I apprehend a man may convince himself of his being 
 neither a form, nor a harmony, nor a svstem, nor yet a quality or con- 
 sciousness annexed thereto ; but a real existent substance numerically dis- 
 tinct from all others, uncompounded, and consequently indivisible. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 HAVING settled with ourselves that Mind has a being of its own distinct 
 from that of all other things, and is a pure, unmingled, individual substance, 
 nevertheless for any thing that has yet appeared it may be a single atom 
 of matter, since we have supposed existence and individuality to reside in 
 atoms : now, in order to discover whether it be so or not, let us examine 
 wherein our idea of matter consists. The essence of things arises from the 
 qualities we find them have ; for to ask what a thing is, implies a presup- 
 posal of some substance, and a want of information concerning what qua- 
 lities it possesses, or what appearances it exhibits. Mr. Locke pronounces 
 our idea of substance very confused, and so indeed it is if we go to consider 
 it singly, for you cannot form a clear idea of naked substance divested of
 
 304 SPIRIT. 
 
 all its qualities or manners of making itself known to us : but there are 
 some things we apprehend well enough in the concrete, though we cannot 
 in the abstract, as has been made appear with respect to surfaces, which 
 we conceive easily while lying upon the main body, yet cannot by any 
 effort of our imagination detach them therefrom without pulling up a lining 
 besides ; so if we cannot form an idea of substance apart from all other 
 ideas, yet when we see qualities affecting our senses, we may have an un- 
 confused idea of something exerting them having a real and actual existence 
 independent of everything else. For forms and qualities are not beings, 
 but modes of existence in other beings, and the appearances they exhibit 
 must come accompanied with another idea of actual existence in the subject 
 containing them. Therefore, if I were to make our idea of substance the 
 same with that of actual independent existence, which we cannot conceive 
 apart from every manner of existing, though we can easily with it, I should 
 not deserve much blame from Mr. Locke, who doubts whether space may 
 not be ranked among the class of substances, because it has a reality inde- 
 pendent on any other substances lying within it. 
 
 2. But I believe nobody ever suspected the substantiality of space before 
 Mr. Locke, and he goes no further than to declare his ignorance whether it 
 be substance or accident ; yet few have denied the reality of space, or that 
 we may conceive a vacuum without any substance whatever to occupy it : 
 this is one of the most familiar ideas to our imagination, for any common 
 person entertains it every time he thinks of an empty bottle. Whence we 
 may conclude that substance, in our ordinary notion of it, is that species of 
 existencies which has perception and action, or which affects our senses, or 
 causes discernible alterations in other substances : wherefore space is not 
 usually ranked among substances, because it does nothing, produces no 
 effect, but is the most passive of things, permitting all else to remain in it, 
 remove from it, or pass through it ; we neither see nor feel it, nor does it 
 touch any of our senses, but is rather an idea of reflection, for upon dis- 
 cerning objects in different quarters, and observing their distances, we 
 gather by inference that there must lie a space between them. 
 
 3. I shall not pretend to be wiser than Mr. Locke, nor to ascertain 
 whether space be properly substance, but our comfort is that it matters not 
 for our present purpose whether we can decide the point or no, since 
 nobody ever dreamt of Mind being mere empty space : so the question 
 lies between its being a corporeal atom, or distinct species of substance of 
 a kind peculiar to itself. We get our first idea of substance I conceive 
 from ourselves, our perceptions convincing us of our existence, not as is 
 commonly supposed by logical inference, I see, I feel, therefore I am, for 
 we know our own Being long before we learn to make such abstractions, 
 nor can one imagine a child to form syllogisms, or draw consequences of 
 this kind : but the idea of being is contained in that of perceiving, for you 
 cannot understand a proposition without apprehending the several terms 
 composing it, and in the proposition, I feel, the term I expresses something 
 real and substantial, or else it would not be different from the proposition 
 Nothing feels, which rather implies a denial of feeling than carries an 
 evidence of it, nor can there be an idea of actual feeling without something 
 that feels. 
 
 4. On the other hand, to complete our idea of feeling there must like- 
 wise be something felt, and this gives us our knowledge of substances 
 without us : for when we grasp a stone in our hand we find it press against 
 our fingers, so that we cannot close them into a fist as we might have done
 
 SPIRIT. 305 
 
 before, whence we apprehend it to be a solid substance : and if we cast it 
 behind our back, where we can neither see not feel it, still we conceive it 
 retaining its solidity. But we discover its solidity by other ways, for if we 
 see the stone squeezed hard by a pair of pincers, or struck by another stone 
 hitting against it, though there be no feeling concerned in the case, yet we 
 perceive the stone makes a resistance against whatever presses or strikes 
 upon it : but this resistance between bodies never happens until they touch, 
 wherefore I look upon solidity, resistance, and tangibility, as the same 
 thing, or at least to depend upon one another, and to be inseparable from 
 our idea of body. Lucretius asserts roundly that nothing besides body 
 can touch or be touched, whether he knew thus for certain is more than I 
 can tell, but thus much we must allow him, that if there be anything which 
 cannot be touched, it is not body, and where resistance necessarily ensues 
 upon contact there must be body : but when astronomers, in describing an 
 eclipse, talk of the shadow of the earth touching the outer limb of the 
 moon, I suppose Lucretius would not allow this to be touching. And 
 indeed our touch gives us the first evidence of external substances, which 
 do not discover themselves to our other senses, until we have been convinced 
 of their reality by that : wherefore the vulgar apprehend savours, odours, 
 sounds, and light, to contain nothing substantial, and the learned will 
 hardly deny that the effluvia causing smells and tastes, the undulating par- 
 ticles of air exciting sound, and the little corpuscles of light, might be felt 
 as well as a stone, had we fingers fine enough to pick them up, and squeeze 
 them singly ; and how much soever they may contend that light touches 
 neither the coloured bodies reflecting it, nor the substance of our eye, but 
 operates and is operated upon by attraction, yet since it is a received 
 maxim that nothing can act at a distance or where it is not, they must 
 admit it touches the ether, or whatever else by its pressure causes that 
 attraction. 
 
 5. I know not whether I am singular in the notion, but to me resistance 
 seems a kind of acting power essential to body ; impulse I know it cannot 
 give until received from something else, nor increase it beyond the degree 
 imparted, but when a body resists another striking against it, it does not 
 do so by virtue of any force imparted therefrom, but by an inherent quality 
 of its own. Nor can it be doubted that others have entertained the same 
 notion before, if I translate their Latin expression aright, wherein they style 
 the perseverance of body either in motion or rest a Force or Power of In- 
 ertness. However, as activity has ah 1 along been understood of a power of 
 beginning motion, I shall not comprehend the power of resistance, if it be 
 one, under that term. 
 
 6. Thus solidity, resistance, or tangibility, seems the only positive 
 ingredient in the essence of body, mobility being rather an accidental pro- 
 perty than anything essential. But besides this, we apprehend body to be 
 senseless and inert, which are only negative terms importing no more than 
 a denial of perceptivity and activity ; but these negative terms seem the 
 distinguishing characteristic of body. The Hylozoists, indeed, by Cudworth's 
 account of them, held a mean between perceptivity and senselessness, 
 between motion and rest, something that was neither perception nor stu- 
 pidity, neither action nor inertness, but resembled the thoughts of a man 
 half asleep, or muddled with porter ; and that a multitude of these drowsy 
 atoms clubbing forces together might form a genius penetrating, alert, and 
 sprightly : all which whoever can understand must be a much shrewder 
 
 VOL. i. x
 
 306 STIRIT 
 
 man than me. But bating this whimsy, it has been universally agreed that 
 matter is of itself void of activity and perception ; and though the Stoics 
 and other corporealists conceived that thought and volition might result 
 from a combination of matter luckily disposed into an organized system, 
 yet since we have satisfied ourselves of the distinct existence and individu- 
 ality of Mind, we may safely conclude that it is another species of substance, 
 essentially distinct from body, and which we call Spirit. 
 
 7 . As no bounds can be set to the imagination of man, and new fancies 
 arise in proportion as old ones are exploded, it may come into somebody's 
 head one time or another to improve upon the Hylozoists, and ascribe a 
 complete perception and volition to the atoms. For he may imagine it 
 possible that the mutual action of bodies upon one another may arise from 
 a voluntary exertion of power upon motives, that when they cohere it may 
 be from some satisfaction felt in their contiguity, and when they resist or 
 repel, from some uneasiness brought upon them by the impulse ; from which 
 two actions all the operations of nature proceed. So that what was sup- 
 posed to be spoken figuratively by the ancients, that all things were pro- 
 duced by Love and Hatred, whereby they were understood to mean attrac- 
 tion and repulsion, may be literally true. And here the abettors of indif- 
 ferency will have an advantage over me, for they may infer from bodies acting 
 constantly in the same manner, under the same circumstances, that they 
 have not an elective power, which they conceive an essential property of 
 spirit : but I, having said so much, and being like to say more concerning 
 the certainty of human action, and having remarked that the conduct of 
 persons who have the fullest freedom of will and command of themselves is 
 more steady and accountable than that of the giddy and sensual, am deprived 
 the benefit of this argument. Therefore I shall not undertake to prove 
 demonstratively that the fact is not so as above supposed, but I must observe 
 that if it could be made out to be true, though it would follow that there 
 was but one kind of substance in nature, it would not follow that this sub- 
 stance was body : for the idea of body including inertness and senselessness, 
 if the atoms were sentient the consequence would be that they were spirits, 
 and mankind would have been all this while under a delusion in taking the 
 trees, the stones, the earth, they see for bodies, when they are not in reality 
 such, but clusters of spirits held together by the delight they take in one 
 another's company : and if any impertinent particles of light come to intrude 
 among them, they drive them in great hurry away to our eyes. But as this 
 is a mere imagination, like Berkeley's ideal world, Leibnitz's pre-established 
 harmony, and Hartley's mechanical volition, built upon bare possibility 
 without support of any proof, I shall remain persuaded with the rest of the 
 world, that the bodies we see and handle are substances of a different kind 
 from ourselves who see and handle them. 
 
 8. Now to compare body and spirit together, we must acknowledge the cha- 
 racter of substantiality belonging in common to both ; but they are generally 
 held to differ in these respects, that spirit is penetrable, unextended, having 
 perceptivity and activity, by Mr. Locke called motivity, to which some add 
 illocality, and others self-motion ; body solid, extended, senseless, inert, 
 occupying space, and moveable upon impulse. I have already laid down 
 the capacity and incapacity of perception and action for the distinguishing 
 marks of either, so have nothing more to add upon them : but concerning 
 the other qualities, as I happen not to enter thoroughly into all the current 
 notions of the schools, I shall take leave to deliver my sentiments with the 
 freedom of one who would judge for himself, but without the arrogance of
 
 SPIRIT. 307 
 
 one who would suffer nobody else to do the like. I shall begin with pene- 
 trability, which, though confidently asserted, appears to me a doubtful 
 point whereon we have not sufficient foundation to determine either way : 
 we see by a thousand instances every day that bodies protrude and resist one 
 another, nor can the most yielding of them be forced into the same place 
 by all the contrivances of art or powers of nature ; but how know we what 
 would be the case with spirit could we see the experiment tried ? We live 
 immured in walls of solid bone, so that we cannot come at our sentient part 
 to push against it with our finger, or apply it to the sentient part of another 
 person, in order to know the result. Could we pick a spirit out of its cell 
 and move it along a line upon the table where there lay another spirit with 
 some little body before, we might satisfy ourselves what it would do. If we 
 found it stop at both, or protrude them fonvard, we must pronounce it 
 equally solid with body : if it passed easily through the body but stopped 
 at the spirit, we must conclude body and spirit alike solid with respect to 
 substances of their own kind, but penetrable by those of the other : if it 
 found resistance from neither, we might then pronounce penetrability the 
 distinguishing property of spirit : but these are trials we can never have an 
 opportunity of making. 
 
 Were I permitted to conjecture in a matter wherein nothing better than 
 conjecture can be had, I should suppose spirit naturally penetrable, but 
 capable of rendering itself solid upon occasion with respect to particular 
 bodies, and that hereon our activity depends. I have formerly given my 
 reasons for imagining that the force wherewith we move our limbs is derived 
 from the animal circulation rushing into the muscles through certain nerves, 
 and that the orifices of these nerves are provided with stoppers, which the 
 mind draws up at pleasure to give the animal spirits admittance : now what 
 should hinder our conceiving these stoppers pushed up by little hairs or 
 fibres whose other ends lie within our spiritual part, which by its natural 
 penetrability admits them into the space where itself resides ? but upon the 
 mind rendering herself solid with respect to any particular fibre it is driven 
 forward, thereby lifts up the stopper and opens the passage into the nerves; 
 until volition forbearing to act, the penetrability returns, the fibre no longer 
 pressed falls back to its former station, the stopper following closes the 
 passage, and muscular motion ceases. Whoever should think this conjec- 
 ture probable, would see that spirit possesses the united powers of body and 
 space : for body resists but cannot admit, space admits but cannot resist, 
 whereas spirit can either resist or admit as it pleases. Nor let it be made 
 an objection, that upon the fibre entering the residence of the mind there 
 must be two substances existing in the same place ; for I see no incon- 
 sistency in imagining substances of different kinds to co-exist together : if 
 space be a substance, all bodies coexist with some portion of that, and if 
 there be a Being which fills all immensity, all other substances must co-exist 
 with it, or they will have nowhere to exist at all. 
 
 9. I have already owned that I have but an imperfect notion of what the 
 schoolmen understand by extension : if it imply a consisting of parts I can- 
 not be suspected of ascribing that to spirit after the pains I have taken to 
 prove that perceptivity can belong only to individuals. But I have an idea 
 of a thing being extended without parts, and so have other people, if one 
 may judge by their discourses : for I have heard of the stench of a brick- 
 kiln reaching into the houses in London, and of a noise extending many 
 miles around, yet I never heard anybody talk of the half or the quarter, or 
 
 'x 2
 
 308 SPIRIT. 
 
 any other part of a smell or a sound. And though these be not substances, 
 yet having once gotten the idea of extension without parts, I do not see why 
 we may not apply it to substance, which we may conceive existing and 
 present throughout a certain portion of space without losing its unity. I 
 cannot well be denied the possibility of such a diffused presence by far the 
 greater part of mankind who hold a simple indivisible Being present in all 
 the regions of immensity. But that we ourselves have this extension in my 
 sense of the word, though bounded within very narrow limits, we may be 
 satisfied by considerations drawn from facts falling daily under our notice 
 and principles universally agreed upon. It is an uncontroverted maxim, 
 and may pass for a self-evident truth, that nothing can act or be acted upon 
 where it is not, and though bodies seem to act at a distance, there is always 
 some medium passing between the agent and the patient, nor is anything 
 done to the latter before the arrival of the medium. Thus an engineer may 
 batter down a wall a mile off, but the ball does no execution until it touches 
 the wall. In like manner we see and hear, and are otherwise affected with 
 bodies lying far from us, but then something must be thrown from them to 
 strike upon our organs and raise motions there which are propagated onward 
 to the seat of perception : nor can we receive sensations of any kind, unless 
 the nerve, or animal spirit, or ether, or whatever else it be immediately 
 exciting them, either penetrates the mind itself, or at least comes into 
 contiguity with it. 
 
 Now let us suppose a chess-board with double sets of men, a red and 
 a green besides the yellow and black, so that every square of the board may 
 be covered with a piece : set this board upon a table before you, and I be- 
 lieve it will be granted me that you may have a distinct view of all the 
 pieces at once. We cannot imagine that matter raises different sensations 
 otherwise than by a difference of size, or figure, or velocity, or direction, or 
 composition, or other modification ; but the same particle of matter can be 
 susceptible of no more than one modification at once, therefore there must 
 be sixty -four particles at least operating upon the mind together in the 
 above experiment, I say at least, for it is more than probable that each 
 object upon the board employs many particles to convey its idea : which 
 sixty-four particles cannot possibly enter, nor become contiguous to a ma- 
 thematical point, and consequently the mind must at the same instant be 
 actually present throughout such a portion of space as may touch or contain 
 them all. This space I shall call the sphere of our presence, not that I pre- 
 tend to know it must be round ; but because it is the fashion to apply that 
 term to every figure we know nothing of. If the reasonings above used be 
 just, and I can discover no flaw in them, they will demonstrate a remarkable 
 difference between spirit and body, for the sphere of a spirit's presence will 
 be found at least equal to the space occupied by sixty-four particles of 
 matter : therefore though the atoms should be sentient they cannot receive 
 near the number nor variety of ideas whereof we are capable. 
 
 10. Nor is this sphere of presence a novel thought of mine, but at least 
 coeval with Aristotle, of whom it is currently believed that he held the mind, 
 called by him Entelechia, coexistent with the whole body, being all in all, 
 and all in every part : by which it is plain he apprehended it to be a true 
 individual, yet present and perceptive throughout the whole space occupied 
 by the body, for had he thought it a compound, it would not have been all 
 in every part, but one portion of it in one limb and the others severally in 
 the rest. Indeed this notion of his is generally exploded and ridiculed, be- 
 cause he carried the sphere of presence a great deal too far, for we are now
 
 SPIRIT. 309 
 
 assured by experience, that when the nerves are anywhere obstructed in 
 their passage to the brain, no sensation will ensue though the external 
 organs continue to perform their office, whereas were the mind actually 
 present in the eye she might discern what passes there notwithstanding any 
 obstruction of the optic nerves within. But the same objections do not lie 
 against me who suppose the sphere of presence to enclose an exceeding 
 small compass situate probably somewhere in the brain, yet large enough 
 to contain many variously modified particles of matter, though not large 
 enough to hold the hundredth part of those floating about in our sensory ; 
 for which reason we remember much more than we can at any instant re- 
 collect, and sometimes have an expression or a name at our tongue's end 
 which we cannot bring out, because we cannot draw the particle, whose 
 modification is the idea of it, into our presence for inspection. And there 
 is another particular wherein I have the misfortune to dissent from Aristotle, 
 for if the entelechia be commensurate with the body, it must grow as that 
 grows, and contract when that is diminished, having a much larger scope 
 in a man of full stature than it had in the sucking child, or if a man lose an 
 arm, it must withdraw from the space occupied by the arm. But I appre- 
 hend the presence of a spirit incapable of becoming either larger or smaller 
 than ever it was : for as a solid particle of matter must always occupy, so 
 a spirit must always be present in the same extent of space, magnitude in 
 the one and presence in the other being an essential primary property an* 
 nexed indissolubly by nature to the substance possessing them. 
 
 It. It is true there are insuperable difficulties among our ideas relating 
 to magnitude, which whoever delights to puzzle himself with may receive 
 good assistance in the sport from the notes in Bayle's Dictionary, under the 
 article Zenon. One way by which he disproves the reality of magnitude is 
 because in all continued motions the moving body perpetually changing its 
 place must be in two places at once, that is, in every instant or moment of 
 its passage, for it never stands a moment still. But to add to the foresaid 
 sport I would beg leave to ask Monsieur Bayle how he knows there are 
 moments of time any more than mathematical points of space or atoms of 
 body, or that a minute may not be infinitely divisible as well as an inch of 
 whipcord or of empty vacuum : which if it may, then his argument of the 
 moving body being in two places at once will fall to the ground. These 
 amusements may serve to convince us there are subjects in nature beyond 
 our comprehension, some questions to which the wisest man can give no 
 better answer than, I do not know, and to confirm what I have laid down 
 in my chapter on judgment, that absolute certainty was not rsade for man : 
 yet do they not impeach what was added there, that man is so constituted 
 as to do very well without it, being capable of rational moral assurance to 
 the exclusion of all doubt, which is knowledge enough for the direction of 
 conduct and to answer all the uses of life. And since what knowledge we 
 have derives all originally from sensation, that is best to be depended upon 
 which lies nearest the fountain head, being drawn from experience by the 
 fewest deductions of reasoning. Now constant experience testifies that 
 bodies cannot have different magnitudes, forms, velocities, directions, or 
 other modifications, at the same time ; that while under the same modifica- 
 tion they cannot act variously upon one and the same subject ; that many 
 of them must have so many several places to exist in, which cannot lie in 
 contact with a mathematical point ; nevertheless, that they act veiy vari- 
 ously upon us in the business of perception at the same instant, and that it 
 is the same Self which receives all their various actions : from whence tho
 
 310 SPIRIT. 
 
 sphere of presence belonging to one individual substance follows by a 
 single consequence, without that long chain of subtile deductions hung upon 
 one another which must be travelled through before you can discover the 
 force of Bayle's objections, every step wherein still increases the hazard of 
 an unperceived fallacy. As this notion of an indivisible substance existent 
 and present throughout a divisible portion of space will be made use of 
 upon several occasions by-and-by, I wish it might be maturely considered 
 before proceeding any further : for I do not pretend to infallibility, nor de- 
 sire to lead any man into an error through hastiness, therefore let him not 
 trust to my conclusion, but turn over the matter in his thoughts till he has 
 digested it maturely and satisfied himself whether this, which is one of rny 
 foundation stones, has a solidity sufficient to bear any superstructure I may 
 hereafter raise upon it. 
 
 1 2. There is one quality more belonging both to body and spirit to which 
 we can neither give a name nor a description, but wheron their vital union 
 together depends. We know that wherever the body goes, the mind con- 
 stantly accompanies it, and keeps her station always in the same part of 
 the human frame, but by what power of either this happens we cannot dis- 
 cover. It cannot proceed from solidity, impulse, or perceptibility in the 
 one, nor from penetrability, activity, or perceptivity in the other, but must 
 be a distinct quality of itself. If I could come into Stahl's notion of diges- 
 tion and nutrition being an operation of the mind, and that she can perform 
 a voluntary act without the least idea of any thing relative to what she is 
 about, I might suppose the mind held in junction with the body by her own 
 unperceived volition : but as I happen not to enter into his sentiments upon 
 that point, I cannot take the benefit of them to draw such conclusion. 
 Yet perhaps the junction may be so far owing to the mind as to depend 
 upon the forbearance of her volition, and that she might detach herself at 
 any time had she ideas of the proper manner how to proceed for effecting 
 it : for we may have powers which we cannot exercise for want of knowing 
 them, ideal causes being a necessary preparatory to action. But in our 
 present condition it is fortunate that we have not such ideas, for our per- 
 ceptions all coming to us by the action of our bodily organs, were we to 
 quit them we might lose all our ideas, and so never know how to get back 
 again. Nevertheless, it is not inconceivable, as we shall endeavour to show 
 in another place, that the mind may stand in a situation to receive percep- 
 tions without corporeal organs, and then may join herself to particles or 
 systems of matter occasionally without losing her ideal causes flowing from 
 another fund. 
 
 13. The notion of illocality is at least as old as Aristotle, but has been 
 continued down to the moderns, for Cudworth declares himself of that 
 opinion : but though he will not allow spirit as such to have any place, he 
 admits it may have one with respect to the body whereto it is vitally united, 
 wherefore he tells us some held that spirit must always be vitally united to 
 some body or other that it may have a place in nature : which seems to 
 make the very existence of spirit to depend upon body, for 1 cannot con- 
 ceive a thing to exist at all which has no place in nature. I apprehend 
 this doctrine of illocality arose from the defining extension a having parts 
 without parts, for those who held this definition could no more conceive a 
 mathematical point in space than in body ; therefore whatever had a place 
 must possess some portion of space, which being divisible, so much of the 
 substance as lies in the right-hand half of this portion will be a distinct part 
 from that which lies on the left. Apd that this was Aristotle's way of
 
 SPIRIT. 311 
 
 thinking appears manifest, because he allowed a where to spirit though he 
 would not allow a place ; which seems to me a distinction without a difference, 
 for to be somewhere, or in some place, are in my comprehension synony- 
 mous terms. But I do not apprehend the individuality of a substance 
 depends upon the individuality of the space wherein it exists ; if we cannot 
 conceive the one without the other it is because our conceptions are taken 
 from the bodies we see, whose divisions always correspond with those of 
 the spaces they occupy : but we must, upon many occasions, admit conclu- 
 sions we cannot conceive ; therefore our want of adequate conception is not 
 sufficient to overthrow the reasons before given for the individuality of 
 spirit and at the same time its presence throughout a space consisting of 
 distinguishable parts. 
 
 14. But which way soever we express ourselves, we cannot well appro- 
 priate mobility to body, nor deny that spirit partakes of the like quality, 
 without which there can no more be made a change of Where than a change 
 of Place. While in my chamber this morning I was one where, now I am 
 come down into my study, I am other where ; this Aristotle must needs 
 grant me : but how I could get either from one where or one place, to 
 another where or another place, without locomotion, let him that can com- 
 prehend it explain. 
 
 15. Some have supposed the mind able to move herself by her own 
 energy, which cannot well consist with what I observed long ago, that our 
 idea of Operation requires there should be two substances concerned, one to 
 act and another to be acted upon : but waving this difficulty, if the mind 
 has such power, we can never know it, because she cannot exert it in her 
 present state. We live imprisoned in walls of flesh and bone, and like a 
 snail can stir nowhere without our houses accompanying us : when, we walk, 
 we act upon our legs, which thrust the body forward, and that moves the 
 mind along ; so that in walking we are as much carried as when riding in 
 a coach driven by our own orders. Nor let it be thought the mind moves 
 herself, because in our ordinary movements she goes willingly along with 
 her companion, for this is not always the case ; a man may be pulled 
 forcibly from his seat, though he resist and struggle ever so much, or be 
 ever so averse to stirring ; or he may be earned in his sleep, when there is 
 no exercise of volition : but in these cases, when the body is dragged away, 
 the spirit will not stay behind, which manifestly shows it passive to receive 
 a motion it cannot avoid. 
 
 16. Since we find a passive locomotion in spirit, we must acknowledge 
 it capable of impulse from body, for body can give motion no otherwise 
 than by impulse ; and that spirit is capable of imparting impulse we know 
 by our moving our limbs. But impulse, whether given or received, does 
 not necessarily excite perception, for we have none either of the particles 
 vitally united to us or of those ends of fibres whereon we begin our action. 
 Therefore we must look for some other property in body rendering it per- 
 ceivable, and this we may call perceptibility, without which perceptivity in 
 spirit would be of no avail ; for to produce an effect there must be an active 
 power in the agent, as well as a passive power in the recipient. Whether 
 spirit has the like perceptibility too, we can never certainly know, because 
 we can never try the experiment necessary to discover it. If I may be 
 permitted to conjecture once more, I should suppose this not a primary 
 quality in body, but resulting from a combination of many particles thrown 
 into particular figures, or other modifications, because primary qualities 
 must act uniformly, nor could they exhibit that variety of ideas we perceive.
 
 312 DURATION OF MIND. 
 
 Why then may not spirit, by virtue of its indifference either to solidity or 
 penetrability, imitate the like modifications ? Suppose a piece of marble 
 skilfully engraven so as to leave the letters of a word standing out from the 
 rest of the surface, if the marble were laid upon your hand, you might feel 
 and understand the word. What then should hinder but that a spirit, 
 being contiguous to another, might make itself solid in the parts of the 
 sphere of its presence corresponding with the shape of the letters, leaving 
 its nat'ural penetrability in the spaces between, which then might produce 
 the same effect as the marble did upon your hand. And thus spirits, when 
 disencumbered from the shackles of matter, may communicate the same 
 perceptions, besides thousands more that we receive from our organs, both 
 of sensation and reflection. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 DURATION OF MIND. 
 
 FROM the individuality and distinct existence of Mind may be inferred 
 her perpetual duration ; for the powers of nature can neither increase nor 
 diminish the stock of Beings ; they may throw them out of their assort- 
 ments, and so dissolve the compounds formed thereby, or destroy the 
 secondary qualities resulting from their composition ; but what has existence 
 cannot be annihilated, and what is one cannot be divided, nor can primary 
 qualities, essential to the subject possessing them, be taken away. Per- 
 ceptivity and activity have appeared to be the properties constituting the 
 essence of spirit, and distinguishing it from other substances : as to what 
 has been offered concerning solidity, extension, locality, and mobility, 
 whether it shall be received or no, affects us not at present. 
 
 2. So far then as relates to the individuality, existence, and inherent 
 perceptivity of spirit, I may be counted orthodox, but I will not undertake 
 to preserve that character always, for I am now going to side for a while 
 with the corporealists, whom I take to have the advantage in some parti- 
 culars over their antagonists. Nor can this be called a desertion, for I 
 have never sworn implicit obedience to any master, but have claimed to use 
 a sober freedom to examine whatever I shall hear suggested from any 
 quarter. I laid down in my general introduction, as a reasonable presump- 
 tion, that the tenets of every sect among mankind must contain a mixture 
 of truth, for else they would never have gained credit, because men do not 
 wilfully embrace error, but are led into it by unwary conclusions from some- 
 thing for which they have a solid foundation. If such presumptions be 
 thought a prejudice, and who can keep perfectly clear from prejudice ? it is 
 a more excusable one that that which proceeds from the spirit of opposition. 
 For this engages men to treat an antagonist as an enemy, and even to deny 
 him the rights of an enemy, but my propensity to judge the best of every 
 one inclines me to seek excuses for him in the fallibility of human reason, 
 which draws false conclusions from true premises : therefore how erroneous 
 soever I may judge the corporealists in the main, I am better satisfied in 
 discovering some latent fallacy misleading them in their deductions, than if 
 I could find nothing similar in their way of thinking with my own. 
 
 3. Now the particulars wherein I apprehend them not so grossly mis- 
 taken as commonly supposed, are these, that sense, thought, and reason,
 
 DURATION OF MIND. 313 
 
 result from an organization, therefore whatever possesses those faculties 
 must be a compound. No doubt I shall be thought to contradict myself 
 herein, having all along used sentient, percipient, and perceptive, as syno- 
 nymous terms, and contended so strenuously that every substance to which 
 those epithets belong must be one and uncompounded. We have had no 
 occasion hitherto to distinguish between those terms, and to have done it, 
 while needless, would have tended only to perplex and burden our thoughts ; 
 but I am now under a necessity of making a distinction between percipience and 
 perceptivity, which though a pretty nice one I hope to make it understood. 
 The powers we ascribe to ourselves in our discourses depend partly upon our 
 natural abilities, and partly upon the instruments we have to employ : a 
 man may be called a good rider that is expert to keep a firm seat upon the 
 saddle, but while marching among the infantry he is no rider at all ; or he 
 may be pronounced able to ride a hundred miles in a day, if he have 
 strength to support the fatigue, but he is not able to ride twenty with- 
 out a horse, or with a lame one. So when we find a person asleep, 
 or meet him in the dark, we may affirm of him that he has a very piercing 
 sight, if we know his optics are good ; yet in these situations he can no 
 more see than the table. In like manner a substance is perceptive, that has 
 a quality of perceiving objects upon application of them ; yet it cannot per- 
 ceive without a proper conveyance to bring the impression of objects to it : 
 therefore if it be so placed as that no impression can ever come at it, it 
 is no more percipient than any clod in the fields. Thus perceptivity is 
 nothing else beside a bare capacity in the subject to receive perceptions 
 when excited, but sense or precipience is the standing so circumstanced as 
 that the impulse of objects striking upon us may be transmitted so as to 
 raise perceptions : and this requires an organization, which implies a com- 
 pound of many parts ; for I can no more see without eyes, hear without 
 ears, nor meditate without organs of reflection, than I could without a 
 perceptive spirit to receive the notices transmitted thereby. What notices 
 a separate spirit might receive from other substances accidentally approach- 
 ing it I need not now inquire, for all the percipients we have any know- 
 ledge of being vitally united to some organization, and their perceptions 
 depending thereupon, we may safely pronounce all the percipients we know 
 to be compounds. 
 
 4. And the case is plainer with respect to the faculties of remembrance, 
 consciousness, reasoning, judging, dividing, comparing, and all other 
 modes of thinking ; for we cannot remember or be conscious without in- 
 specting the records lying in our memory, we cannot judge without a dis- 
 cernment of something distinct from that which judges ; in reasoning we 
 employ our organs of reflection to bring the proper materials before us for 
 our contemplation, and when we divide and compare, there must be some- 
 thing within us exhibiting the objects wherein we observe a difference or 
 similitude. Therefore those who define the mind a thinking substance ne- 
 cessarily make it a compound whether they discern the consequence or no, 
 for cogitation cannot be performed without the command of certain instru- 
 ments, to bring ideas before us for our inspection, to change, to marshal, 
 to separate them, and trace their connections or relations from one inference 
 to another. For this reason I remarked in the chapter of sensation that 
 Mind was an equivocal term used to express two very different things, 
 which I called the philosophical and the vulgar mind, though I cannot 
 help acknowledging that men of thought and learning for the most part un- 
 derstand it in the vulgar sense, or rather confound both together. The
 
 314 DURATION OF MIND. 
 
 former I take to be a pure uncompounded spirit endowed with perceptivity 
 and activity, but incapable of actual perception or action without an or- 
 ganization suited to its purposes : by the latter I understand this same spirit 
 together with so much of its organization as is concerned in the business of 
 thinking and reflection, which must be a compound consisting chiefly of cor- 
 poreal parts separable from one another, and all of them from the spirit 
 whereto they are united. In this mind our faculties of reason and memory, 
 our knowledge, our talents, our habits, our passions, our sentiments, and 
 whatever else distinguishes the characters of men, reside : and this mind I 
 apprehend to be the same with what is commonly called the human soul. 
 
 5. If any shall take offence at my making the soul compounded, disso- 
 luble, and perishable, let them consider it is not I who make it so but 
 themselves by their application of the term : for words are mere arbitrary 
 signs, capable of taking any signification that mankind shall agree to put 
 upon them. Were I left to myself I should apply the name of Soul to 
 our spiritual part alone, and shall do so sometimes where the matters I 
 handle will admit of it ; and then after all that has been delivered already 
 nobody can suspect me of holding it perishable. But the misfortune is 
 that men in their division of body and soul do not make the separation clean, 
 but take in some finer parts of the former into their idea of the latter, as 
 appears manifest by their ascribing faculties to it which cannot subsist with- 
 out an organization : for a naked spirit is no more a thinking substance 
 than it is a walking substance, it can indeed think whenever joined in com- 
 position with proper organs of reflections, and so it can always walk in 
 composition with legs and crural muscles. Thus, after the usual division 
 of man into body and soul, we may again subdivide the latter into organi- 
 zation and spirit ; but this subdivision oeing not ordinarily taken notice of, 
 the term Soul becomes applied indifferently either to the perceptive spirit 
 or to the whole percipient containing that in conjunction with its system of 
 reflective organs. While men remain unsettled and variable in their notions 
 of the soul they must not blame me for speaking of it in a manner they do 
 not like, or that seems contradictory to what I have spoken concerning it at 
 other times, for this will unavoidably happen so long as in compliance with 
 custom I am obliged to vary the idea belonging to the term. So then the 
 question concerning the corruptibility of Mind or Soul is a question cf lan- 
 guage rather than of fact, and may be truly answered Ay or No, according 
 to the different senses wherein you understand them. And the like question 
 capable of contrary answers may be proposed concerning Person : who does 
 not acknowledge himself mortal, that he was taken from dust and shall 
 crumble into dust again, and in a few years shall be no more ; we hear such 
 expressions used every day, and they are justly used while we consider our 
 whole human frame as ourselves. But in our seasons of abstraction, when 
 we restrain Self to the spiritual part, we change our tone, for then we 
 claim to be perpetual, unperishable, and unchangeable, to flourish in im- 
 mortal youth, unhurt amidst the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and 
 the crush of worlds. 
 
 6. Thus in disputes upon the nature of the soul, while it was defined a 
 reasoning, thinking, sentient, substance, the corporealists seem to have 
 had the advantage. For issue being joined upon its simplicity or com- 
 poundness, it seemed admitted on both sides that if compounded it was 
 material : therefore finding it uncontroverted that every compound must be 
 made up of matter, and being unable to conceive the faculties of reason, 
 thought, and sense, residing in a simple substance, they were not quite
 
 DURATION OF MIND. 315 
 
 absurd in concluding the soul to be no more than a very curious assortment 
 of corporeal particles. But if we take along with us our foregoing dis- 
 tinction between percipience and perceptivity, we may admit a sentient 
 composed of unsentient parts, yet deny that such composition could consist 
 solely of matter, but must contain one perceptive ingredient to receive the 
 notices brought by the rest. For if a grain of sand were placed where the 
 spirit resides in the most exquisite organization that can be contrived, there 
 would be no more thought or percipience in this compound than there is 
 in the Venus de Medicis. 
 
 If any one shall still make a difficulty in distinguishing between a capacity 
 and a power of perceiving, let him consider whether he does not apprehend 
 a difference between a blind man and one with good eyes shut up in a coal- 
 hole : both lie under an impossibility of seeing, yet both have not lost their 
 sight. When Ulysses stopped the ears of his crew with wax, on sailing by 
 the Syrens, he did not destroy their sense of hearing though he put it out 
 of their power to hear the enchantments. And a strong man bound hand 
 and foot becomes unable to stir, yet retains his vigour and natural ability to 
 move. So a spirit may retain its perceptivity, that is, capacity of receiving 
 perceptions whenever excited, after losing its percipience or power of per- 
 ceiving by being removed from everything which might bring objects to 
 excite them. 
 
 7. Having satisfied ourselves that our spirit or soul, if I may give that 
 appellation to the spiritual part singly, shall have a duration beyond all the 
 powers of nature to cut short, our next step will be to examine what we 
 shall carry with us upon quitting our present habitation : and we can assure 
 ourselves of no more than our two primary faculties of perceptivity and 
 activity, which being inherent in our constitution nothing can divest us of. 
 But these will avail us little of themselves, for we shall neither be able to 
 perceive nor act without something added thereto, furnishing ideas for us 
 to perceive or materials for us to act upon. Therefore, the knowledge of 
 our perpetual duration and perceptivity affords us no light to judge of our 
 condition hereafter : we know that we shall continue existent and capable 
 of receiving perceptions, but what perceptions shall accost us, whether those 
 of pleasure or pain, of sagacity or dullness, or none at all, we are utterly 
 ignorant. Nor can we tell that our percipience shall remain, nor whether 
 we may or may not carry with us that part of our organization wherein 
 our faculties of reflecting, judging, thinking, reasoning, reside. After what 
 has been said of the extreme divisibility of matter, it appears possible that 
 we may have a complete system of organs within us so small as to elude all 
 our observation, too fine to be discerned when going, or to be missed when 
 gone : so that notwithstanding all the appearances upon death, and though 
 the carcass seems to lose nothing of its weight, there may be a little body 
 composed of members fitted for sense and action which flies off unperceived. 
 But should this be the case, and should our sensitive and rational faculties 
 accompany us, they may be reduced to bare capacities without power of 
 helping ourselves to a single idea, unless some foreign aid shall befriend us. 
 For we have seen in the progress of these inquiries how the mind, in her 
 acts of recollection, of reasoning, of habit, and passion, communicates with 
 the animal circulation : how know we then that she can perform her ope- 
 rations at all when separated therefrom ? We find ourselves more or less 
 ready at those operations according to the disposition of our body, and 
 when the communication is cut off by fits or sleep we cannot perform them 
 at all. Therefore it is not impossible that the causes bringing us all our
 
 316 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 
 
 ideas may reside in the grosser parts of our body, that upon parting from 
 them we may lose our remembrance, our knowledge, and all our acquire- 
 ments, and pass into another state as much a blank paper as ever we came 
 into this, capable of taking any writing that shall be marked upon us, but 
 having all that was written before quite erased. 
 
 8. Or it may be that our whole material frame shall be dissolved, and 
 the spirit fly off naked and unattended by any organ, yet retaining its per- 
 ceptivity, we know not how it may be affected by any corporeal particle 
 into contiguity, or entering the sphere of its presence. Some have asserted 
 that our perceptions are excited, not by animal spirits or fibres, but by 
 vibrations of ether pervading their interstices : if this be true we shall not 
 want for ether wherever we go, but how the stronger vibrations of ether at 
 a distance from gross bodies shall affect us we are utterly at a loss to guess. 
 Neither can we be assured concerning the perceptibility of other spirits, 
 whether they may exhibit ideas to one another, whether such operation be 
 necessary or voluntary, nor how they may stand disposed either to comfort 
 or torment us. 
 
 9. In either case our condition will be determined by the objects accost- 
 ing us, and company we fall into. We are here luckily situated in an 
 organization enabling us to help ourselves to the conveniences and enjoy- 
 ments of life, but when turned out of this we know not where to find such 
 another, nor how to get into any other at all. Though surrounded with 
 dangers on all sides, we have sense and experience to avoid them, but 
 when divested of our sense and experience, we may be like a blind man 
 turned out into a crowded street, having nothing but chance to direct our 
 steps, insensible of mischiefs before they fall upon us, and unknowing 
 which way to escape them. We may be tossed about among the elements, 
 driven by streams of air, or whirled round in circles of fire, the little cor- 
 puscles of light may hurt us, and the ether tease us with its continual repul- 
 sion : in short, we have everything to fear and little to hope for. Thus the 
 discovery of our durable and perceptible nature affords no comfort, for 
 while we confine our contemplation to that, the prospect lies dismal, dark, 
 and uncertain before us. Let us then turn our thoughts upon external 
 nature, in order to discover what rules and powers there may be governing 
 that, in hopes of learning something how they may affect us, and in what 
 manner we are likely to be disposed of. 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 
 
 THOUGH we are all convinced of our short continuance in this present 
 state, we are well satisfied that the course of nature will not be interrupted 
 by our departue : the sun will still rise and set, the tides ebb and flow, the 
 trees continue to bear their fruits, the cattle to multiply, the earth to yield 
 her increase, and the business of mankind to go forward, after we are dead 
 and gone. But the contemplation of these things gives us no instruction 
 how to provide for our future accommodation, nor furnishes us with any 
 light to discover what accommodations may be provided to our hands. 
 Shall we heap up riches ? those we must leave behind, or could we carry 
 them with us, our money would not pass current in the other world. 
 Shall we plant gardens or breed up numerous flocks ? their produce will
 
 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 317 
 
 not suit our digestion. Shall we raise a family or spread our fame amongst 
 mankind ? we may not remember our own names, nor have an intercourse 
 with the living to know what they say of us. Shall we improve knowledge 
 and cultivate the sciences ? our ideas may be totally different, and our 
 sciences unintelligible to us. Shall we rectify our dispositions of mind, 
 and lay in store of virtues ? these are habits wherein the animal circu- 
 lation is concerned, nor can we be sure they shall continue when that is 
 removed from us. Shall we be careful to nourish the little body that is to 
 serve us for our next habitation, to invigorate its limbs and quicken its 
 organs ? we know not where they lie, nor what we can do to improve their 
 growth. And as we can do nothing of ourselves, so neither have we 
 assurance of any thing that will be done for us : we know not what nests 
 shall be provided to hatch us into life, nor what parents we shall have to 
 protect our tender infancy, and teach us the learning necessary for our con- 
 duct ; what sustenance the air may afford, or where to find it, or whether 
 we shall want any sustenance at all ; what variations of weather may pre- 
 vail in the ether answering to the pleasing warmth of a vernal sunshine, or 
 the storms and inclemencies of winter, nor how to shelter ourselves from 
 the latter. The subtile fluids causing gravitation, cohesion, electricity, and 
 magnetism, may strike our new senses instead of lights, sounds, savours, 
 and odours, and fill us with agreeable or troublesome sensations. We may 
 meet with different species of animals proportionable to our size, answering 
 to ravenous birds and beasts ot prey or such as serve for our uses in life. 
 We may fall into societies of fellow creatures among whom we may find 
 friends and enemies, who may give mutual delight by their conversation, 
 or vex one another with their contrariety of tempers and opposition of 
 interests. Since then we can find nothing certain by considering the con- 
 stitution of particluar things, let us search for the general laws prevailing 
 throughout all nature : for perhaps we may see that their influence must 
 occasion some resemblance or similar tendency in the municipal laws of the 
 several regions of nature, and we may discover some methods of conduct 
 whereby to put ourselves in a situation to receive benefit and escape damage 
 from that influence. But as those laws depend upon the causes operating 
 in the productions of nature, we must endeavour to investigate the causes 
 from their effects discernible to our senses or discoverable by our reason. 
 
 2. We may distribute our prospect of nature into three parts, primary 
 qualities, motion, and situation, which concur in every operation we see or 
 can think of. When a cannon-ball dashing into a heap of sand disperses 
 it all about, the situation into which the particles are thrown, follows from 
 their several situations in the heap and the contact or propinquity of the 
 ball when striking, from the violent motion wherewith it struck, and from 
 its solidity to give, and their own solidity to receive, an impulse. So the 
 growth of plants is owing to the near situation of nutricious particles in 
 the earth that bears them, the position of their little parts in fibres and 
 tubes fitted for containing the sap, to the action of sun and air, and to the 
 properties of matter whereon that action depends. Nor is the case different 
 with respect to the acts of free agents, which cannot proceed without a 
 close situation of that which is to be the subject of their action or object 
 of their perception, nor could their organs take a different modification 
 whereby to exhibit different ideas without a motion in their parts, nor could 
 anything be perceived or done without perceptibility and mobility in body, 
 or perceptivity and motivity in spirit. And there are three causes com- 
 monly observed in the phenomena we see, Chance, Necessity, and Design.
 
 318 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 
 
 When the wind drives about the seeds of thistles, they fall in particular 
 spots by chance ; where they light, the peculiar contexture of their parts 
 makes them necessarily produce plants of their own species ; and when we 
 cultivate and dress our ground, sow our corn, keep it weeded, and harvest 
 it, we proceed by design. 
 
 3. I shall begin with the consideration of motion without which the 
 courses of nature cannot be carried on : but this we may satisfy ourselves is 
 not a quality of body, which is a moveable but no more a moving than a 
 quiescent substance, being alike indifferent to either state, and continuing 
 in either until put out of it by some foreign force. We see bodies moved 
 by other bodies striking or shoving against them, but the mover gives no 
 more motion than it had itself before, and always loses so much as it has 
 imparted to another. And though motion sometimes seems to proceed 
 from the pressure of quiescent bodies, there is always some external im- 
 pulse occasioning the pressure ; for two bodies meeting with equal force in 
 opposite directions, after having stopped one another, will lie forever close 
 together, gently touching, but not pressing each other unless something 
 pushes or strikes against them on the outside. It is true we see motion 
 frequently produced without discerning the cause, but then experiment and 
 reason assure us that bodies never produce motion, but only transmit it by 
 an impulse arising from their natural property of persevering in a motion 
 once received. Thus, while we confine our thoughts to matter, it will ap- 
 pear that every motion is the product of some preceding motion, transferred 
 from body to body, and incapable of increase by the translation. That there 
 is an inexhaustible source of impulse somewhere, though undiscernible by our 
 senses, we may rest assured when we consider the dissolving power of men- 
 struums, the violence of fire, the strong contraction of our heart and arte- 
 ries, the stability of heavy masses held down by gravitation to the earth, 
 and the firm cohesion of metals : all which must have some prodigious 
 fund, we know not where to find, from whence to derive the force they 
 exert. It seems not improbable there may be streams of a most subtile 
 matter much finer than ether itself darting incessantly along in all direc- 
 tions with inconceivable velocity : that the solid parts of quiescent bodies lie 
 in the spaces between these streams, which likewise throw and preserve the 
 atoms in their longitudinal position of wire before supposed, that upon the 
 touch of fire thrusting any of the particles aside into the streams, it dashes 
 them about against other particles, driving these likewise upon other 
 streams, and so causes that explosion we find in gunpowder. Just as if an 
 army were marching briskly along in very wide ranks, another army in like 
 loose array might march quietly between them : but if a few men were 
 pushed into the others' ranks, it would cause a violent commotion and toss- 
 ing to and fro among them. We may help ourselves a little in this idea 
 by considering a cube of glass hung up between candles on all the six sides 
 of it, the rays would pass continually through without being stopped by the 
 glass or jolting against one another ; and this whether the glass remained 
 still or were swung to and fro ; but if by a smart blow the parts of the 
 glass were to change their position, forming a multitude of little cracks, it 
 would become opaque and not afford them a passage, in which case if the 
 streams of light were strong enough they must rend the glass into atoms 
 and keep buffetting them about until by frequent tossings they had brought 
 them to lie in the interstices between themselves. 
 
 4. It may seem at first sight impossible that such streams of subtile 
 matter should be able to run in all directions without stopping or jostling
 
 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 319 
 
 one another : but let us consider that we find by experience the same thing 
 happens in the passage of light. Hang a multitude of candles round the 
 room and you shall be able to see any one of them distinctly through the 
 light of all the rest. The stars scattered about in all parts of the upper 
 hemisphere find their way to our eyes, but they must traverse many miles 
 of thick solar radiance before they can come to that shadow of the earth 
 which makes our night : and their rays falling upon my eyes must cross 
 those falling upon the eyes of other persons a mile around me in a variety 
 of angles : yet all this without any stoppage or deviation from their course, 
 for if they were at all affected by the other rays they pass through, it must 
 cause perpetual refractions and we should see them dance about like so many 
 Will-i'the-whisps. But what makes the difficulty in this case is our con- 
 ceiving the rays of light to be so many continual streams like those of 
 water, the parts touching close upon one another, whereas it has been ob- 
 served in CHAP. III. that the corpuscles composing a ray of light may 
 possibly keep a distance of a hundred and sixty miles behind the next pre- 
 ceding them, though they follow so exceeding quick that we think their 
 impulse upon our optics continuous. Now the particles of subtile matter, 
 being much smaller and swifter than those corpuscles, their bulk may be 
 estimated to bear an infinitely less proportion to the spaces between them 
 than a ship does to the length of one hundred leagues. Let us then ima- 
 gine ships to sail from every port in Europe to America and others from 
 every port in America to Europe, each ship a hundred leagues behind that 
 which parted last from the same port, and their courses be ordered in such 
 manner as that they should cross over one particular spot of the ocean : 
 those ships would so rarely fall foul of one another as to make no perceiv- 
 able interruption in commerce : why then may not the little particles be 
 allowed to collide so seldom as to cause no disturbance or interruption in 
 the courses of nature. 
 
 Another difficulty springs from the extreme minuteness of those particles, 
 which can hardly be thought capable of holding bodies together in such 
 strong cohesion as we experience in metals : but let us remember that the 
 momentum given by all mechanical powers is found by a compound ratio 
 of their quantity of matter and velocity, so that any deficiency in the former 
 may be made up by a proportionable increase of the latter. Nor need we 
 wonder that very small agents should produce great effects, since we know 
 that the burst of a cannon will shake a whole street, but the particles of air 
 giving immediate impulse to the houses can scarce be supposed to weigh 
 many grains. The like appears in explosions of gunpowder where the 
 quantity of matter operating is a very trifle in comparison with the heavy 
 masses it raises and compact bodies it rends. I shall only remark further 
 that this subtile matter, being the cause of gravitation, cohesion, and re- 
 pulsion, in other bodies, can neither gravitate, nor cohere, nor repel itself, 
 because it will want a prior cause to give it those qualities : nor has it other 
 power than that of impinging like a stone, by virtue of the prodigious velo- 
 city wherewith it darts along. Nevertheless, we may count it the primum 
 mobile, or first material agent in all the operations of nature, as driving her 
 two main wheels of attraction and repulsion, from whence all the lesser 
 works, the power of salts, acids, alkalies, of fire, fluids, electricity, and magne- 
 tism, circulating vessels of plants and animals, spring ; glues and menstruums 
 derive their activity ; according to their several structure and position of 
 their parts fitted to turn the motion of those principal wheels upon them. 
 Nor is it hard to conceive how two bodies may be made to attract by the
 
 320 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 
 
 action of this subtile matter, because they must cover each other from so 
 much of the stream as they receive themselves, which would else have fallen 
 upon the nearest sides of the others, so that this force being wanting to 
 balance that on their opposite sides, they must necessarily be driven towards 
 each other. Then those streams which fall very obliquely, like a cannon- 
 ball bounding from the ground, will drive off other bodies lying at a certain 
 distance, from whence arises repulsion, which cannot take place between 
 bodies too near together, because in that situation they cannot receive a 
 very oblique rebound, for it must pass beside them. This likewise accounts 
 for the inequality between the two attractions, that of cohesion being found 
 stronger than that of gravitation, because bodies cohering have the whole 
 force of attraction without a competitor to keep them together, whereas 
 those at a distance repel as well as attract, so that their gravitation is 110 
 more than the difference between those two counteracting forces. 
 
 5. But wherever the sources of this fund may lie, or how copious sup- 
 plies soever they may contain, 'they cannot for ever answer all demands 
 made upon them. We see bodies continually strike against one another, 
 and when they do so, if not elastic, the motion of both ceases, or if elastic, 
 the force whereby they rebound must be drawn from some such fund as that 
 above mentioned : every time a man claps his two hands together he takes 
 something from the stock of motion which is to carry on the operations of 
 nature. But the collisions occasioned by human action are very trifles in 
 comparison with that great quantity of force spent by nature in all her 
 works : the bearing of rivers against their winding banks, the dashing of 
 seas against the shore, the opposition of winds from one another, or from 
 mountains, the systole or contraction of circulating vessels in animals and 
 plants, but above all these the gravitation of bodies to earths and suns, the 
 cohesion holding the little particles of compounds together, the opposition of 
 centripetal and centrifugal forces keeping the planets in their orbits, the re- 
 pulsion of air and ether, must make a vast consumption of motion every 
 moment. So that the largest stores of force we can suppose nature once 
 to have had must have been long since exhausted, as being subject to per- 
 petual diminution without any means of recruiting : and all matter must 
 have been reduced to a state of quiescence by this time, unless perhaps some 
 few straggling atoms which might move about in spaces where they should 
 meet with nothing to obstruct them. 
 
 6. Yet though the corporealists can find nothing to renew the decays of 
 motion, we who claim motivity as an essential property of our own may fancy 
 we find it in the action of spirit. Now should this be thought to serve for re- 
 storing motion it could not serve for beginning it at first : for we do not 
 act without causes, as well final as ideal, wherefore the activity of spirit is 
 set at work by the perceptibility of matter and the modifications it falls into 
 by the motion of its parts presenting us with the motives and guidance of 
 our proceedings. For if nothing moved without us we should have no 
 ideas brought us to perceive, and without perception there could be neither 
 inducement to exert our volition, nor direction which way to turn it. So 
 that upon either hypothesis we must needs adhere to our former conclusion, 
 that every motion is the consequence and effect of some preceding motion, 
 and that it must begin in matter before it can be produced by any such 
 spirits as we have experience of. 
 
 7. And the like may be said of situation which follows constantly from 
 some preceding situation. Matter is generally held homogeneous, and that 
 infinite variety of forms constituting the essence of bodies falling under our
 
 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 3:21 
 
 cognizance, depends upon the structure and order wherein the parts of them 
 are placed. So that the same first matter makes a stone or a metal, a plant 
 or an animal organization, according to the position wherein the several in- 
 dividuals of it are ranged. Thus all secondary qualities arise from order ; 
 neither a clock nor a tree would be what it is, nor could perform its proper 
 functions, if the wheels or the fibres were placed in any other manner than 
 they are : the faculties of sense, thought, and reason, could not subsist unless 
 the spirit resided precisely in that spot whereto all the organs of sensation and 
 reflection tend ; and the modifications exciting our several perceptions vary 
 according to the position wherein the component parts of our organs lie. 
 And that particular forms of order generate one another we may be satisfied 
 by the growth of vegetables, where the peculiar structure of the seed causes 
 it to produce a plant of its own kind : and the structure of plants occasions 
 them to yield flowers and fruits of various shapes, hues, odours, and tastes. 
 In these things we are ready enough to acknowledge an order, but as has 
 been shown in CHAP. X. of the last volume, we do not so easily admit it in 
 positions not corresponding with our trains of imagination : nevertheless, it 
 has been made appear there that strictly speaking there is no such thing as 
 disorder in nature, for every number of particles must lie in some situation 
 with respect to one another, and that is their order, however irregular it 
 may seem to our apprehension. Nor are those apparently confused positions 
 unfrequently serviceable to produce what we call order, for the particles 
 nourishing a plant lie undistinguished in the earth, the air, or the vapours, 
 yet they must have an apt position there, or the plant could never draw 
 them in to contribute to its growth. Thus in particular things their order 
 does not depend solely upon the order they had before, but partly upon 
 other things, which are or may be brought contiguous to them, or mingle 
 among them. But the Universe, having nothing external, must receive its 
 order continually from that it had in every preceding moment ; so that if 
 the position of all substances could be known precisely at any given point of 
 time, it might be determined from thence what position they would take at 
 any time hereafter. For if it were known how the air, the mountains, the 
 burning sands, the frozen seas, the subterraneous vapours and other causes 
 affecting the weather, stand disposed, we might prognosticate what weather 
 it would be to-morrow, or this day twelvemonth. Nor would the action of 
 free agents disturb the calculation in changes of position wherein they are 
 concerned ; for if we could ascertain the exact situation of objects surround- 
 ing them and structure of their organs, we might foresee what modifications 
 these organs would fall into, what ideas and motives they would present, 
 and consequently how those agents would act, and what alterations they 
 would make in the position of bodies within their reach. But then in cal- 
 culations of this sort the article of motion must not be left out of account, 
 because it is that which generates one order out of another : nor is it enough 
 to know the quantity of motion in the whole, but likewise among what par- 
 ticles it is distributed, and in what direction each of them proceeds : for it 
 is obvious that the same motion in different directions must produce very dif- 
 ferent figures. 
 
 8. Secondary qualities, resulting from the order wherein the substances 
 forming a compound lie situate, are continually destroyed and renovated 
 according to the changes made in that order by motions of the component 
 parts. But primary properties belonging to individuals admit of no change; 
 for what has no parts cannot have an order of parts: therefore these pro- 
 
 YOL. i. y
 
 322 EFFECTS AND CAUSES. 
 
 perties, being not generated by motion or situation, must remain constantly 
 the same in the subjects possessing them. Body will always continue solid 
 and spirit perceptive, whether in motion or at rest, whether in this part 
 of the world or any other, whether contiguous to other substances or 
 separate from them all. So that primary properties spring from no assign- 
 able cause among the powers of nature, as motion and situation do from 
 former motions and situations. 
 
 9. But the inquisitive mind of man looks for something further to ac- 
 count for the different properties of individuals ; we find spirit active and 
 perceptive, matter inert and incapable of sense, or should we fancy the 
 atoms sentient, it has been shown the sphere of their presence would be less 
 than that of ours ; it is natural then to ask, why there should be such a dif- 
 ference in substances ? why they are not all homogeneous and primary 
 alike ? And these properties, being inherent in their nature and insepa- 
 rable from them, must be as old as themselves, and consequently what- 
 ever occasioned the difference between them must have been the foundation 
 of their existence. Nor will the mind be satisfied without a reason limit- 
 ing the quantity of matter existing : there is no impossibility or absurdity 
 in its being double, or treble, or decuple, to what it is, for there is abun- 
 dant room for multitudes of atoms more in the empty spaces between those 
 already in being. 
 
 10. Neither will there want the like questions concerning motion and 
 order : for it will scarcely satisfy to tell us that every motion and situation 
 follows from a prior, that again from the next preceding, and so back- 
 wards throughout all eternity ; because if we contemplate a series of 
 changes following one another, there will arise an order of succession as 
 well as of position. In the effects we see produced, things pass out of one 
 form into another through several intermediate changes : a seed cannot pro- 
 duce the full-grown tree at once, but first shoots up a tender twig, which 
 then becomes a sapling, a waiver, a tellar, and at last a perfect oak laden 
 with acorns : a foetus grows through the stages of infancy, of childhood, of 
 youth, unto the full maturity of manhood : and these gradations in the 
 several productions of nature may be called their order of succession. Now 
 if the situations of all the substances in the universe have followed one ano- 
 ther for ever, there must have been an eternal order of succession prevailing 
 throughout : but if it should be asked why some other succession might 
 not as well have prevailed eternally, what shall we answer ? for I know of 
 no natural repugnance in things against taking any position or series of 
 motions, but their changes might have succeeded for ever in a manner quite 
 different from that they have done. Besides, there are some positions 
 which never generate any others, and consequently produce no order of 
 succession at all. Lucretius' atoms falling perpetually downwards with 
 equal velocity could never have changed their order without his whim of a 
 declination, for which there is no foundation either in experience or reason. 
 Actual motion is not essential to any substances we know of, which there- 
 fore might all have remained eternally quiescent in their several stations : or 
 if we will needs suppose them to move, it is most natural to conceive them 
 all moving with the same velocity and direction, in which case they could 
 perform no more feats than the Lucretian atoms. Therefore it remains to 
 seek a reason for their having an eternal motion rather than an eternal rest, 
 or for their escaping those unavailing similar motions which could produce 
 nothing, and for their having eternally taken different directions, from 
 whence flows that order of succession we call the course of nature.
 
 CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND DESIGN. 323 
 
 1 1 . Another question may arise concerning Time, why such a particular 
 point of it must be the present. To-day must follow yesterday, and precede 
 to-morrow, this I know very well, but how know I that yesterday, to-day, 
 and to-morrow, might not have been long since past, or that they might 
 not have been yet to come ? Can we fix the beginning of eternity, and 
 compute how many ages have lapsed since then, so that the year 1761 must 
 necessarily be the present year ? That year follows year and the second 
 precedes the third there is no dispute, but why might not the whole course 
 of time have been anticipated or retarded, so that it might now have been 
 the reign of Henry I. or George X. instead of George III. ? We shall look 
 in vain for a solution to this question in the properties of substances, the 
 effects of motion, or the results of order. 
 
 12. Neither can we learn anything from them to determine the original 
 stations of particular substances in the universe whereon all their succeed- 
 ing ones depend, which we shall want some cause to assign them. We 
 may think this not worth inquiry with respect to matter, for it is all one 
 whether particle A lie in the east and particle B in the west, or the con- 
 trary, the course of nature will go on the same, for either particle will an- 
 swer the same purposes in either place : but with respect to sentient beings 
 it is very material, for had I been stationed in some distant planet and some 
 other spirit here in my room, though the course of nature and business of 
 mankind would have proceeded just as it does, yet my own lot might have 
 been very different : I might have had enjoyments now out of my reach 
 or fallen into disasters I know nothing of. This consideration may put us 
 upon searching for a reason, not only why all nature wears the form and 
 follows the order of succession it does, but why each particular substance 
 possesses its own place in that order and has not the place of any other. 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND DESIGN. 
 
 THESE three have been severally assigned as the causes producing that 
 order we observe in nature, and as they convey very different and opposite 
 ideas we shall consider each of them apart. Some have laid great stress 
 upon chance, as being the original giving rise to the other two by strewing 
 the particles of matter throughout infinite space, and throwing them into 
 combinations from whence the secondary qualities of compounds necessarily 
 result, and forming others into an organization rendering them capable of 
 thought and design. And in our common discourses we speak of Chance 
 or Fortune as a power influencing the affairs of men and having a principal 
 share in the direction of all events : this is thought frequently to baffle the 
 skill of the wise, the valour of the brave, and strength of the mighty, to 
 turn the scale of victory, and determine the success of all enterprises. But 
 if we examine the proper idea of chance we shall see that it is neither agent 
 nor power, nor has any other existence except in our own ignorance, but 
 whatever is ascribed to that we might see performed by other causes if we 
 had sagacity to discern them. Even in games at cards and dice we deal 
 the one and throw the other ourselves, and both fall out according to the 
 motion and position we have given them : but as we are not so perfect 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND DESIGN. 
 
 masters of our motions as to know exactly what they will produce, it is this 
 uncertainty that makes the chance ; for there are persons who have learned 
 to pack the cards and cog the dice, and with such there is no chance what 
 hand or what cast will ensue. It is remarkable that we sometimes know 
 the exact proportion between our knowledge and our ignorance, which en- 
 ables us to calculate chances with a very great nicety : but if there were a 
 person who could discern minutely the little inequalities of the table you 
 throw upon, the roughnesses of the box, the vigour of your arm, the degree 
 of confidence or distrust with which you throw, and all the ideas rising in 
 your fancy, he would make an other-guised calculation than our common 
 gamesters. Therefore chance is relative, being greater or less, or none at 
 all, according to the degree of knowledge in different persons : an event of 
 which there is very little chance to one man, may be probable to another, 
 and inevitable to a third, according as each stands in a situation to discern 
 the causes operating to produce it. To him that sees two hands at whist, 
 there is less chance on which side the odd trick will fall than to the players : 
 if he look over all the cards, he may still give a shrewder guess ; and if he 
 knows exactly each person's manner of playing, he may compute, Avithout 
 hazard of a mistake, how much will be scored that deal. 
 
 2. What is done cannot be undone, therefore a power once executed 
 ceases with respect to that particular event, wherewith it has no longer any 
 concern : whence we may learn that the power of fortune is only ideal, be- 
 cause in many cases we suppose that remaining after determination of the 
 event imagined to depend thereupon. When a merchant risks his all upon 
 a venture to some distant part of the globe, we say he puts himself under 
 the power of fortune, because the casualties of winds and seas, of fire and 
 enemies, are supposed to lie at her disposal : but what if this merchant sells 
 his venture to another after the time lapsed in which the ship must have 
 succeeded or absolutely failed in her voyage, but before any news of her can 
 be arrived home ? does not the purchaser put himself as much under the 
 power of fortune ? But if fortune had any power during the voyage, she 
 has executed it, and has nothing more to do, nor is there any chance of the 
 success falling out otherwise than it has fallen. Nevertheless, because we 
 know not the event, we still apprehend ourselves under the power of fortune : 
 for when advice comes of the ship being arrived safe, the cargo advan- 
 tageously disposed of, and the money deposited into safe hands, then, and 
 not before, we conceive the power of fortune determined, and ourselves 
 secure against her caprices. 
 
 3. Thus chance is no cause of anything, but serves only to express our 
 ignorance or uncertainty of the manner in which other causes operate : 
 therefore may be properly applied to the most cogent necessity, or most 
 deliberate design, where we know not the tendency of the one, nor purpose 
 aimed at by the other. What is esteemed more casual than weather ? yet 
 nobody doubts of the air moving, the vapours rarifying, or the clouds con- 
 densing, according to a certain impulse received from mechanical causes : 
 but because no mathematician nor naturalist can investigate those causes, so 
 as to calculate what they will produce, therefore we say, the farmer depends 
 upon chance to bring his corn to maturity, and give him a favourable season 
 for harvesting it. So likewise to us who are not in the secret, it may be a 
 matter of fair wager whether the council will sit on such a day, whether 
 they will send more troops to Germany or agree to a cessation of arms, nor 
 would the chances alter, though the whole wisdom of the nation were to he 
 consulted in determining these points : and if our stake were very bonsider-
 
 CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND DESIGN. 325 
 
 able we should as much put ourselves under the power of fortune, as if we 
 had ventured upon the cast of a die, or a lot drawn by a child, or the choice 
 made between two crumbs of bread by a sparrow. So then an event hap- 
 pening by chance does not elude the operations of necessary causes, nor 
 the acts of free agents, nor the provisions of wisdom, for the effects of all 
 three will be casual so long as we cannot foresee them. And though it 
 must be acknowledged, that fortune has a great influence upon all our 
 affairs, no more is to be understood by this expression than that we know 
 not what causes are in act around us which may affect the success of our 
 measures. 
 
 It is not uncommon for words to take a little different signification, ac- 
 cording to the phrases wherein they stand : it is one thing to say there is a 
 chance of an event falling out so or so, and another to say it was an effect 
 of chance. How ready soever you and I might be to lay a wager upon the 
 meeting of the council, as deeming it a casual event, we shall never think 
 the members meet together by chance, taking it for granted they have some 
 reason either for going or staying away. So if we see a mathematician ousy 
 in drawing figures upon paper, though we may offer to bet with one another 
 whether he will make a circle, a parabola, or a parallelogram next, we shall 
 hardly imagine he constructs his schemes by chance. So likewise, if 
 lightning falling upon an oak should tear it into shatters, though it fell by 
 chance upon that particular tree, there was no chance against its rending 
 asunder whatever it should light upon, nor was there any chance of its not 
 bursting from the clouds when the air was in a disposition to produce it. 
 Since then among events we cannot foresee, we distinguish between those 
 happening by chance and those which do not, it will be proper to examine 
 what we understand by this distinction. In effects produced by necessary 
 agents we esteem those casual which depend upon other causes besides what 
 fall under our cognizance : when we see water poured upon a rising ground, 
 we know it must run downwards by its natural gravitation ; but into what 
 streams it may divide, or in what meanders it may wind, is casual, because 
 depending upon the inequalities of the ground, and obstacles lying in the 
 way, of which we can take no accurate account ; but still there must be water 
 poured, and gravitation pulling downward, or no stream or meander could 
 ensue> In works of design, it is common for other effects to follow 
 besides those intended : a man walks along meaning only to get from one 
 place to another, but in his passing he treads upon a snail ; this is casual, 
 because he had it not under contemplation, nor was it any part of his design; 
 but he must have had some purpose in view, or he would not have walked 
 at all, and the snail remained safe. So then in both, cases, chance has no 
 place, unless there be some agent at work, some power in act, from whose 
 operations chance may produce something that was unforeseen or unthought 
 of. Therefore those who pretend the world was made by chance, or assign 
 that for the beginning of all things, talk absurdly ; for there must always be 
 something in motion previous to chance, nor can this begin until there be 
 causes operating, of which it may be a chance in what manner they will 
 operate. Besides, if we consider the source of chance itself, we shall find 
 it always rise from the situation of things which may interfere with those at 
 any time under contemplation : for upon seeing a body move, or knowing 
 the purpose of a free agent, there is no chance what will ensue supposing all 
 obstructions removed : but we have seen in the last chapter, that every 
 situation follows upon a preceding situation, therefore, if we could know 
 completely the motions, the purposes, and situations, of all substances in the
 
 326 CHANCE, NECESSITY, AND DESIGN. 
 
 universe, we might learn from thence the order of succession, and should 
 see there is no chance of anything that could happen. 
 
 5. I proceed next to Necessity, with which I shall have less to do, as 
 being a more stable term, appropriated chiefly by the studious, and not so 
 subject to the usual variations of vulgar language. Our idea of necessity 
 we take from the action of bodies, which have no force of their own, but 
 transmit that they have received from one to another : even resistance, 
 although inherent in body, can effect nothing without an external impulse. 
 So that necessity cannot be assigned for the origin of things, because itself 
 must have a beginning in the previous condition of things from whence 
 their operations may be necessarily inferred, for no effect is necessary until 
 there are causes at work fitted to produce it : therefore, necessity is at most 
 but a channel of conveyance, transmitting efficacy from cause to effect, and 
 even this purpose it will not answer completely, having no fund to repair 
 the loss of motion, continually occasioned by the collision and pressure of 
 bodies. We may then admit this as one of the laws by which nature pre- 
 serves the tenor of her course : but can by no means employ it to account 
 for the present order of succession, be it eternal or no. taking place preferably 
 to any other, or to those unavailing situations which could have produced 
 no succession at all. 
 
 6. Nor shall we find less difficulty with Design, such as we have expe- 
 rience of, for reason requires materials to work upon, and intelligence 
 cannot subsist without objects previously existing to be understood. Some- 
 thing must suggest the design, and present ideas of the means tending 
 thereto, before we can enter upon the prosecution. So that what power 
 soever spirits may have to renew the perpetual decays of motion, and carry 
 on the order of succession, their action cannot account for there being such 
 an order : because there must have been some previous situation of matter 
 before that action begun, exciting perceptions which gave occasion to their 
 exerting this power. 
 
 7. And as we have found these three causes insufficient to account for 
 the order of succession in the situations and motions of things, so can they 
 as little account for that third part of nature, the primary properties of 
 substances : for those are not the consequences of prior properties or posi- 
 tions, but coeval with the subjects possessing them. They cannot spring 
 either from necessity or design, to both which they gave birth : for the 
 necessary agency of matter results from its solidity and inertness, as design 
 does from the perceptivity of spirit : and chance lies still further remote, 
 having no place until necessity or design have begun their work. Neither 
 will the contemplation of these causes furnish us with an answer to the 
 queries before proposed concerning the course of time, why it might not 
 have run earlier or later than it does ; nor concerning the particular stations 
 of sentient Beings, why each possesses the place it holds among the whole 
 number, and so receives that series of perceptions which might as well have 
 fallen upon another standing in its room.
 
 327 
 
 CHAP. IX. 
 
 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 THUS having examined all the powers and properties of nature, so far as 
 they fall under our cognizance and observation, we find that the contex- 
 tures, qualities, and operations of particular things, follow from prior situa- 
 tions and motions, these again upon others preceding, and so on without 
 limitation in a continued chain, whose links we cannot number, and whose 
 length we cannot measure. When we endeavour to account for the whole 
 chain, whether finite or infinite, hanging in such a particular manner rather 
 than any other, or being connected in links at all, and consider the general 
 causes hitherto assigned for that purpose, we find them ineffectual, as 
 taking their rise from the positions and qualities of substances existing 
 before, and therefore themselves the effects of some preceding cause. When 
 we reflect on -the different primary properties as substances, which are 
 essential to them and inseparable from them, and yet require a reason 
 occasioning the difference, we must conclude that the cause which made 
 that difference gave them likewise their existence, and at the same time 
 appointed them their several stations ; for these too require a cause, every 
 station being naturally indifferent to receive any particular substance equally 
 with any other, and each substance having had some station in every point 
 of its existence. But this cause we have no direct knowledge of, as we 
 see none of its operations ; wherever we look around us, we discern nothing 
 at work besides chance, necessity, and volition : neither our senses nor our 
 thoughts can pierce to the end of the chain, nor can we contain the whole 
 of it in our imagination : we have no remembrance nor experience of an 
 existence given together with primary qualities, nor of a substance which 
 had no place in nature first taking its station. From whence we may 
 rationally infer, that all the causes operating to produce the phenomena 
 within our notice are themselves effects of some prior cause, of which we 
 can know nothing more than may be gathered upon the evidence of those 
 effects. 
 
 2. There is not a more evident truth or more universally acknowledged 
 among mankind than this, That nothing can produce nothing ; therefore if 
 there ever had been a time when there was no Being in nature, there 
 could have been none now, and the bodies we daily see and handle are an 
 irrefragable evidence to us that something has existed from all eternity ; 
 because either they themselves did so, or they were called into being by 
 what was existent before them, and had nothing prior to itself. Thus we 
 must needs acknowledge there is a Being somewhere existent without a 
 cause, for till we find such an one we shall have no cause whereon to found 
 the existence of other things : and such we may safely assign for the First 
 Cause of all existencies, modes of existence, properties, and order of suc- 
 cession in the universe. To this species of existence we commonly apply 
 the terms Self-existence and Necessary-existence, rather for want of 
 properer than for their being fully expressive of the thing understood by 
 them : for self-existence literally implies something that was not, but 
 assumed a being by its own power, than which no imagination can well be 
 more absurd: but we mean by the expression a Being underived and un- 
 produced either by itself or any other, or in other words, existing per-
 
 328 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 petually without a cause. ' I will not undertake to expound the term 
 Necessary, having but a confused idea of the import it carries in this place : 
 it cannot mean a Being that has no power to lay down its existence : for in 
 this sense you and I, the dog and the chimney-piece, are necessary beings, 
 because we can none of us annihilate ourselves, or cease to be : but Neces- 
 sary, I take it, stands here in opposition to Eventual, as not depending 
 upon the concurrence or operation of other causes, and so amounts to the 
 same as I said before, a Being peqietually existing without a cause. 
 
 Nevertheless, we have observed formerly, that one may pronounce some 
 things clearly concerning confused ideas : therefore how obscure soever the 
 term may be, we may affirm without hesitation, that it cannot be local nor 
 temporary, for we cannot conceive such a difference in places or times, as 
 that a Being should be necessary in one spot or year, which is not necessary 
 elsewhere or other when. Therefore bodies are not necessarily existent 
 because we see that any place may be without them, but if there were an 
 absolute necessity, independent on any cause, that yonder rolling stone 
 should exist where it is, it could never be removed therefrom : and the 
 same necessity would require its existence in the next adjoining place, and 
 so in every other, until the whole universe became one enormous mass of 
 stone. For whatever has necessary existence at any time or anywhere, 
 must have it always and everywhere, throughout the whole extent of time 
 and space. 
 
 3. But though the existence of the First Cause be necessary, its opera- 
 tions are not so, for necessity always proceeds uniformly under the same 
 circumstances : wherefore the variations of nature may convince us, that 
 there is a choice belonging to the First Cause determining the precise 
 number of substances, allotting them their primary properties, stations, and 
 motions, assigning their positions with respect to one another, and so 
 ascertaining the particular order of succession which constitutes the course 
 of nature. For we cannot conceive otherwise of Non-existence than as 
 alike indifferent to take Being or remain in nonentity, or to receive any 
 properties and modifications that shall be given it : nor of the First Cause 
 otherwise than as proceeding by choice, determining where and in what 
 manner they shah 1 be given. This choice we must call Intelligence, for 
 want of a properer appellation, though very different from our own under- 
 standings, which how improved soever, could never act as a first cause, 
 because they do nothing without previous motives, and ideas derived else- 
 where : and from this choice or Intelligence the First Cause is denominated 
 God. For I take the point of intelligence to make the fundamental dis- 
 tinction between theists and atheists : all who hold the world and the affairs 
 of men governed by a superior wisdom and foresight, whether they conceive 
 it residing in one or in many, whether limited in their powers and prescribed 
 to by the laws of nature, or even if they suppose them generated and 
 perishable, must be allowed to believe a God. On the contrary, how highly 
 soever any may think of the eternity, self-existence, and efficacy of their 
 first mover, yet, while they ascribe its operations to unthinking chance or 
 blind necessity, they cannot escape the charge of atheism. 
 
 4. Besides, it seems incongruous to reason, to imagine that any cause 
 should give active powers, unless it has the same or greater within itself. 
 A man indeed may beget a son that shall far outstrip him in understanding 
 and quickness of parts, but then there are many other causes concurring to 
 the production of a child besides the father ; but that a sole cause working 
 on no pre-existing materials should do this, is inconceivable. Since then
 
 THE FIRST CAUSE. 329 
 
 we find a degree of intelligence, prudence, and forecast in ourselves, we can 
 with no colour deny the same to the origin from whence we sprung. He 
 that made the eye, shall not he see ? he that formed the ear, shall not he 
 hear ? and he that gave man knowledge, shall he not understand ? Our 
 own perceptions indeed come to us from without, hut we may consider per- 
 ception in the mind as a different thing from the modifications of our 
 organs immediately exciting it : we may then conceive the like and 
 other perceptions in God, without the adventitious helps we stand in need 
 of to strike them upon us ; or if he have not perceptions of the same kind 
 with ours, we must suppose him to have something else which answers the 
 purposes of them more effectually. 
 
 5. Nor is it a contemptible argument for the Being of a God which is 
 drawn from the universal consent of mankind : for our reason when pro- 
 ceeding most carefully being liable to error, we gain a greater confidence in 
 it upon finding it confirmed by the opinion of others, and the more general 
 this confimation is, the stronger assurance we shall have of our being in 
 the right. But the force of this argument has been invalidated by alleging 
 that far the greater part of mankind take their opinions upon trust, and that 
 crafty persons have found an interest in leading the world into the persuasion 
 of a superior power they did not believe themselves. Therefore to avoid 
 this objection, let us consider the sentiments of those only who have been 
 most careful to judge for themselves, and we shall find them agreed in the 
 course of their reasonings, but some few led to dissent from the rest by 
 their misapprehension of a point of fact, which I conceive may be deter- 
 mined by our experience and observation. The atheists, I believe, to a 
 man were all corporealists, holding no other substance in nature besides 
 matter : and though they could not but acknowledge a sense and under- 
 standing in themselves, which was wanting in the stones and clods of the 
 earth, and the most curious works of art, yet they supposed those to be 
 secondary qualities, resulting from an organization wherein the particles of 
 matter were disposed. The Hylozoists indeed, by Cudworth's account of 
 them, ascribed a little more to their atoms, imagining them endued with a 
 quality which, though not perception, might be styled the seed or principle 
 whereout by the junction of many of them together perception might be 
 completed. Thus both conceived perceptivity to arise from a certain com- 
 bination or aggregation of imperceptive particles, and that there was nothing 
 existent which was not originally and separately imperceptive, that is, 
 corporeal. 
 
 On the other hand, none who admitted perceptivity as a pi'imary property, 
 or held immaterial substances uncompounded of matter, ever denied a God. 
 And it may be remarked for the credit of the spiritualists, that they were 
 more unanimous upon this article than the materialists : for though the 
 stoics, according to Cudworth, must be ranked among the latter, they 
 were so far from atheism that they run into the contrary extreme and all 
 the superstition of dreams, omens, auguries, with other methods of divi- 
 nation : and indeed, if a composition of mere matter consisting of flesh, 
 blood, and fibres, may form sense and understanding in man, it will be 
 hard to show that other compositions may not do the like, or that the order 
 and composition of all matter which we call the Universe may not as well 
 produce a superior intelligence. So Bolingbroke, whom, from his deriding 
 the doctrine of spiritual substance under the name of pneumatic philosophy, 
 we may pronounce a corporealist, nevertheless acknowledges a God : for 
 catching hold of Mr. Locke's notion, he would have us believe that God
 
 330 THE FIRST CAUSE. 
 
 has annexed the faculty of thinking to that system of matter composing our 
 human frame, so that upon the dissolution of our system we must lose our 
 faculties, our existence, and our personality. But the spiritualists, how- 
 ever varying in other respects, have never disputed the being of a God : 
 some few of them, as Berkely, have denied the existence of body, the reality 
 of space, distance, time, and all external objects ; but then they attributed 
 our perceptions to an immediate act of God impressing ideas of them all 
 upon our minds. Thus we see the matter reduced to this single question, 
 whether perceptivity results from a combination of matter or is a primary 
 property in the subject possessing it : for which reason I have been the 
 more careful in the foregoing chapters to suggest what observations I 
 could think of for showing our distinct existence, individuality, and per- 
 sonality, together with the difference of primary properties between spirit 
 and body : for these facts once well established we shall have the unanimous 
 consent of all serious and thinking persons to conclude from thence that 
 there is an intelligent cause of all these things. Besides if there were 
 nothing but matter there could be no more activity than perception, for all 
 exercises of activity contain something of motion, but supposing matter to 
 have a power of moving, yet being indifferent to take any direction and 
 utterly destitute of choice, it must exert that power every day alike, which 
 consequently must destroy its own operations. A body in this case would 
 be like an iron plate, tied by many strings drawn extremely tight to all 
 sides of the wainscot, which must hang motionless in the air although con- 
 tinually pulled with a mighty force, each opposite string counteracting its 
 antagonist, unless you suddenly cut the strings on one side when it would 
 Hy violently towards the other where they remained whole. But matter 
 thus propelled to all quarters by its inherent power would want a preference 
 to cut off its impulse on all parts except one, in order to produce a motion 
 that way. Add further, that what has been offered concerning the sta- 
 tioning of substances, the appunctuation of time, and perpetual order of 
 succession, might serve to confirm the same conclusion, if it stood in need 
 of a confirmation. 
 
 6. There are people who puzzle themselves with nice speculations con- 
 cerning space, which they will needs have to be necessary because we can- 
 not conceive it non-existent, nor any portion of it removed, nor other sub- 
 stances to exist without a place to contain them. But how much soever 
 we may suppose space necessary, it does not affect the foregoing argument 
 for an active intelligent cause, for space understands nothing, does nothing, 
 and produces nothing, but is perhaps the most unmanageable idea in our 
 imagination : the most sagacious of us know not whether it be substance or 
 accident, whether finite or infinite, whether one continued thing or consisting 
 of parts, nor whether those parts be determinate points or infinitely divisible ; 
 for suppose a particle in the circumference of a large w r heel to move only 
 from one point to the next, what must the particles lying near the centre do ? 
 for they all move at the same time, but they cannot move a quarter, nor a 
 tenth, nor a hundredth of a point. The like difficulties might as well be 
 started upon time, whereof we cannot conceive an utter absence, nor can the 
 future be made to precede the past, nor can any substances nor even space 
 exist without a present moment for them to exist in. But time was never 
 yet suspected of being a substance, and though we talk of its producing great 
 events this is only a figurative expression denoting that it gives scope for 
 other agents to work in. Wherefore, these speculations concerning space 
 aud time make no advancement in our knowledge, but only serve to convince
 
 INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. 331 
 
 us of the imperfection of our faculties, which cannot fully comprehend 
 the nature of everything whereof they can entertain ideas : nor do those 
 who employ them pretend to draw any certain conclusions from them, but 
 only throw them out as a rub in the way of their adversaries. I never 
 heard of any who were converted into atheism by contemplating the neces- 
 sary existence of space, but being first prepossessed against the admission of 
 one active, intelligent, and self-existent cause, they endeavour to perplex 
 the question by suggesting another Being alike self-existent and necessary : 
 so that this is an after-thought, not weighing with them in their determi- 
 nation, but used only in the schoolmen's phrase as an argument to the man. 
 We discern neither time nor space by our senses, they being ideas of reflec- 
 tion gathered from the situation of objects and the successive changes ob- 
 servable in them. We find the idea of both necessary to the existence of 
 substances, and if we suppose those substances annihilated, still the idea of 
 that space and time wherein they might have existed remains : if we go to 
 imagine those again annihilated, it will amount to the supposition of a place 
 wherein there is no place, and a time wherein there is no time, which is con- 
 tradictory : but this depends upon our conception, which cannot penetrate so 
 thoroughly into substances but that they may exist in a manner we cannot 
 conceive. We have seen that time requires a cause to determine what par- 
 ticular point of it shall be the present : and if space be anything real or more 
 than a mode of existence in other things, it likewise requires a cause to as- 
 sign it properties distinct from those of body and spirit. Nor should I be 
 singular if I were to suppose both time and space receiving their reality from 
 the First Cause, but having so firm an establishment given them that we 
 can neither by experience discern, nor in imagination conceive, their nonex- 
 existence. 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. 
 
 PERHAPS there has been no transaction throughout all history more fre- 
 quently quoted in theological treatises than the conversation of Simonides 
 with king Hiero, who desiring him to explain what God was, Simonides 
 asked a day to consider of it ; at the end of this day, instead of giving his 
 answer, he asked for two more, and when these were expired he requested 
 four : for, says he, the more I consider the subject I find the difficulties 
 double upon me. This answer of his being so frequently taken notice of 
 shows how well it tallies with the sentiments of all who have turned their 
 thoughts upon the like contemplation. Nor is there any wonder that it 
 should, for we knowing nothing of causes unless by their effects, seeing none 
 of the immediate operations of the First Cause, and being confined to a nar- 
 row corner of nature, cannot expect to have a full comprehension of the 
 Author of Nature, from whom flow many other effects besides those falling 
 within the reach of our observation. We have just now seen insuperable 
 difficulties in the contemplation of time and space, we have before met 
 with the like in the divisibility of matter, the propagation of force from body 
 to body, and have found mysteries in the action of our own minds, which 
 must proceed always upon motives and ideas, and yet we have no idea of 
 those fibres or other parts of our organization which are the immediate sub- 
 ject of our action. Since then we lie involved in obscurity with respect to
 
 S32 INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. 
 
 our very selves and the objects most nearly surrounding us, how can -we 
 attain a perfect knowledge of that cause concerning which we know nothing 
 more than can be gathered from those materials ? The very idea of a First 
 Cause is unsuitable to our imagination, for we see all things proceed in a 
 chain wherein there is nothing first, each cause being likewise an effect of 
 others preceding. Nor can we, who are confined to certain measures in 
 our conceptions, comprehend that wherein everything is infinite, as having 
 nothing external to limit it. But since our ideas and our language are taken 
 from objects familiar to our experience, it is unavoidable that we must think 
 and speak very imperfectly of God : the terms we employ are for the most 
 part figurative, containing some remote similitude, but not fully expressive 
 of the thing we would signify. 
 
 2. We hear it currently asserted that God is a spirit, nor do I find fault 
 with the appellation, as having no properer to substitute in its room : for 
 we know of no more than two substances, Matter and Spirit, therefore 
 since we are sure he is not matter nor contains any material mixture, we 
 can call him no otherwise than spirit. But we cannot suppose this an 
 adequate term, for we may discover so much of him as to show that he is 
 as different from the spirits of men as they are from matter. We know 
 that our own spirits are moveable and passive, residing in some particular 
 station and confined to objects touching the sphere of 'our presence, receiv- 
 ing an impulse from that matter whereto We are vitally united, transferring 
 us from place to place, necessarily affected with pleasure, pain, and other 
 perceptions, by the various play of our organs, extremely scanty in our 
 knowledge, liable to error and delusion, and never exerting our activity 
 without ideas to instigate and direct us : none of which particulars can be 
 ascribed to God, whom we must therefore acknowledge a being of his own 
 kind not to be ranked in the same class with any others. 
 
 3. So likewise when we declared God intelligent, it was because we had 
 no other word to express our meaning by, for if we had declared him non- 
 intelligent, it would have conveyed the same idea we have of senseless 
 matter, acting necessarily by transmission of impulse, and therefore by no 
 means capable of being a first cause. He that made the eye, shall not he 
 see ? and he that formed the ear, shall not he hear ? but those who pro- 
 pounded these questions never intended to represent God as provided with 
 optic and auditory nerves, or receiving sound and vision in the manner we 
 do. So likewise if we go on to ask, he that gave man knowledge, shall 
 not he understand ? neither does it follow that understanding is the same 
 in him as it is in us : for the thoughts of God are not as our thoughts, nor 
 his ways like our ways. We understand by organs of sensation and reflec- 
 tion, by traces lying in our memory, and slow deductions of reason : nor 
 could we understand anything unless there were something exterior to be 
 understood ; or how much soever we may fancy ourselves containing our 
 stores of knowledge within ourselves, they were first deposited there by ob- 
 jects striking upon us from without. Divines tell us that God is a pure 
 act, by which I suppose they mean that, his acts contain no mixture of pas- 
 sion, nor require materials or instruments to make them take effect as ouis 
 do; for we cannot act without organs of motion, nor subjects to receive 
 our action, nor ideas to determine our volition : but in creation God acted 
 upon Nothing, without instruments to assist, or objects to direct him in the 
 execution. I must own this pure agency is to me an inexplicable idea, yet 
 is this no reason for rejecting it : for we have found upon a careful survey 
 of nature, that all substances and operations conceivable require a cause to
 
 INCOMPREHENSIBILITY. 233 
 
 assign their several stations, properties, and directions ; but this* cause must 
 necessarily be inconceivable, for else there would be something conceivable 
 that did not require a cause, which is contrary to the result of our survey 
 taken from experience and reason, the only two sources from whence we 
 can derive any knowledge. 
 
 4. Nor was it ever controverted among theists that God is incomprehen- 
 sible, being of a nature peculiar to himself, and different in species from all 
 other substances. It has been said that man was made after the likeness of 
 God, but this likeness prevails no otherwise than our being less dissimilar 
 than the stocks and stones we toss about ; just as the top of a mole-hill is 
 nearer the sun than the bottom, and therefore resembles that glorious 
 luminary in being raised above the surface of the earth : for we cannot 
 imagine but that the faculties and operations of man differ in kind as well 
 as degree from those of his Maker. Perhaps it might be said with more 
 strictness of truth, that the idea of God is taken from the likeness of man, 
 for our conceptions being all derived from ourselves and the objects affect- 
 ing us, we can form none other than what is made up of materials furnished 
 us by our experience and our reflection. Therefore we select whatever 
 powers and endowments we can find among ourselves, separating from 
 them all we deem a weakness and imperfection, and heightening them to 
 the utmost pitch imagination can reach ; the aggregate of all these makes 
 our idea of God : whose image it is no wonder we resemble, the features of 
 it being formed from archetypes in our own mind : nor are we without ex- 
 cuse in taking this method, as being the only one in our power to take. 
 But a similitude employed from mere necessity will not justify us in pursu- 
 ing it too far, nor drawing the conclusions we might do if we had a clear 
 and perfect knowledge of the subject. Wherefore I can see nothing in the 
 doctrine of likeness warranting those high-flown expressions used by some, 
 that the soul of man is a ray and emanation of the divinity, and that God 
 has communicated some sparks of his own perfections to us, or that the 
 divine intelligence is no more than perfect reason, proceeding in the same 
 manner with ours, but having a larger field of premises to work upon. 
 
 5 . From this inability to apprehend the divine Being, any otherwise than 
 by ideas taken from ourselves, it follows that our conception of him must be 
 very imperfect, and what is worse, frequently erroneous : for we are not 
 always competent judges of what is power or weakness, but often mistake 
 the latter for the former, which induces us to ascribe our own passions, 
 frailties, and imperfections, to God, under the notion of excellencies. And 
 this may plead some excuse in extenuation for the atheists ; for perhaps the 
 description which any man would give of the Supreme Being might be de- 
 monstrated in some parts of it impossible and inconsistent : besides that the 
 ideas sometimes inculcated by designing persons for their private ends and 
 those entertained by the vulgar are manifestly absurd. But it is no rule 
 that a thing may not be true, because some on purpose, and others by mis- 
 take, have blended it with a mixture of falsehood : wherefore it would be- 
 come such as profess a freedom of thought and due exercise of their reason, 
 to examine whether everything suggested concerning a Deity be without 
 foundation ; for there is no reason to reject the whole of an opinion, because 
 the frailty of man has grafted some inconsistencies upon it. 
 
 6. For how incomprehensible soever the divine nature may be, there are 
 some propositions we may affirm with certainty concerning it : nobody can 
 doubt that the power of God is the same in America as in Europe, the same 
 yesterday and to-morrow as to-day, that he was not born of parents, is not
 
 334 UNITY. 
 
 nourished by food, nor shall grow old and decay like ourselves ; that all 
 created substances take their stations, from whence fortune arises, by his 
 appointment ; that the order of succession, which is the course of nature, 
 proceeds according to his direction ; with many other the like assertions 
 which need only the proposing to be assented to. Let us then endeavour to 
 collect what we can discover clearly concerning the divine nature from such 
 observations as we are able to make upon the things about us upon the best 
 exercise of our reason, which though small in quantity may prove sufficient 
 for us to draw any inferences therefrom that we may want to regulate our 
 present conduct, or ascertain our future expectations; leaving all unavailing 
 speculations for the amusement of those who may want something better to 
 employ their leisure. 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 UNITY. 
 
 THERE will be little room to expatiate upon this article, it being too clear 
 to admit of a proof: for it seems a self-evident proposition, that the First 
 cause must be One, because if there were more they would want some prior 
 cause to assign them their several stations and properties. And indeed this 
 point with respect to the active cause has never been doubted of, unless by 
 Zoroaster and the Magi, together with their followers the Manicheans ; for 
 the heathen polytheism was no exception, their gods being no more than 
 celestial men with a little larger powers than those upon earth, but limited 
 in their provinces, confined in their operations, and subject to the infirmities 
 and disappointments of men. Besides, this was only a popular persuasion, 
 never gaining credit among the studious. 
 
 2. We hear the Stoics speaking of the sun, the moon, and the stars, as 
 so many gods, but then they did not understand the term in the same sense 
 as we do now ; for they held them to be animals having a superior intelli- 
 gence to man, and moving in their courses by their own energy, but created 
 Beings subordinate to the supreme God, the governor of all things, whom 
 they supposed to be the Universe. How they could imagine God a com- 
 pound consisting of so many parts as there are substances in the world, 
 which is making many to be one, we need not now inquire : for whatever 
 notions they held inconsistent with unity, they did not see the inconsistency, 
 and therefore we cannot deny them orthodox upon this article. 
 
 3. Some of the ancients assigned two causes concurring to the production 
 of all things ; Thales, Mind and Water ; Anaximenes, Mind and Fire ; the 
 Stoics, God and Matter, to which they might as well have joined Space and 
 Time if they had thought of them : but then they held their active principle 
 to be One, and the others purely passive to take such forms as should be 
 impressed upon them. Plato and the Pythagoricians asserted the eternity 
 of ideas and forms, the former of which served the Deity for a plan guiding 
 him in his works, and the latter to constitute the essences of things by being 
 applied to Substance, of which they seem to have had a more confused idea 
 than Mr. Locke or myself, for one knows not whether they conceived it as 
 having an existence of its own, or receiving it from time to time upon the 
 application of form. Our modern freethinkers talk confidently of a nature 
 of things, eternal and unalterable, controlling the Deity, so that he cannot
 
 UNITY. 335 
 
 do this or the other, but as that shall permit him. I wish they would ex- 
 plain what we are to understand by this nature of things, with which they 
 seem to be so well acquainted, as to tell us precisely what it will require 
 upon every occasion : by their manner of speaking, they seem to make it 
 another cause independent on the First ; or rather make the First Cause 
 dependent upon this for the measures it shall take ; for they say God would 
 be more beneficent and merciful than he is, delivering us from our vices 
 with the miseries consequent upon them, but the nature of things will not 
 let him. How they would avoid the imputation of two First Causes I know 
 not, for they deal altogether in objections, and are wisely cautious never to 
 give us a complete creed of their own, lest there should appear more holes 
 in it than they can pick in any other. But the ancients, holding the eter- 
 nity of forms and ideas, supposed them subsistencies inexisting within the 
 divine Mind : what is the proper import of Inexisting, or the distinction 
 between a Subsistence and a Substance, I shall not pretend to explain, 
 having no clear apprehension of it myself ; but I think the invention of these 
 terms shows that those who employed them found it agreeable to their 
 reason, that there should be nothing external to the Supreme Being which 
 was not produced by his own power, and consequently that the First Cause 
 should be one sole and simple substance. 
 
 4. The difficulty of imagining good and evil to proceed from the same 
 cause induced the Magi to suppose two principles, one to be the source of 
 either : but then greater difficulties will arise upon such a supposition. 
 For the primary properties of substance must be given them together with 
 their existence, nor can we conceive such a property superadded to what 
 had it not in its nature before : now the capacity of receiving pleasure or 
 pain, satisfaction or uneasiness, in spirits, is the foundation of all the good 
 and evil befalling them, and had they not been endued with such capacity 
 there could have been neither, but had they been rendered incapable of 
 uneasiness only, there could have been no good, or of satisfaction only, 
 there could have been no such thing as evil in the universe. But we cannot 
 suppose two opposite principles should concur in one operation, nor, could 
 they agree so far, is it conceivable creation should be the joint work of 
 several agents. I know that many workmen may join in the productions 
 of art, for these being made up of pre-existent materials, and completed by 
 piecemeal, each may take in hand some of the several parts, while others 
 work upon the rest ; but creation is a single act, instantaneous and admitting 
 no gradations, so that were there a hundred creative powers, the primary 
 qualities of each particular substance must proceed from the same cause, 
 and be received at the same time with its existence. Nor did the Maji 
 themselves imagine otherwise, for they attributed the creation of sentient 
 Beings to Oromasdes, who made them capable of happiness, wherein they 
 would have continued without intermission, unless Arimanius had intro- 
 duced disorders and mischiefs among them. But his malicious purposes 
 could have taken no effect upon Beings that had not likewise been capable 
 of misery. So then the difficulty remains entire as before, because the good 
 principle must have furnished his antagonist with fitting subjects to wreak 
 his malice upon, and concurred in the production of evil, by giving his 
 creatures a capacity of suffering by it. I do not know whether this argu- 
 ment against the quality of principles has been employed before, nor was 
 there any need of it ; for the absurdity of two first causes, which must 
 require another prior first to determine the difference of properties and 
 extent of powers between them, was so glaring, that it has quite exploded
 
 33G OMNIPRESENCE. 
 
 that notion off the stage : nor are there any now carrying their thoughts so 
 high as to a first cause, but what are satisfied of its individuality and 
 unity. 
 
 5. But our knowledge of the Being and unity of God will avail us little, 
 unless we can gather something concerning what he is. Now the knowing 
 what any substance is implies our knowing the qualities belonging thereto, 
 its manner of existence, and particularly whether it may stand so circum- 
 stanced as to affect ourselves, for else all the rest would terminate in mere 
 speculation. But qualities and modes of existence, when applied to God, 
 are termed attributes : these then I shall endeavour to investigate so far as 
 I can find a solid foundation in the phenomena of nature, and clearest 
 deductions of reason. For I do not pretend to give an exact description of 
 what is incomprehensible, nor do I design to pursue my inquiries further 
 than my own line of conception shall reach, leaving all beyond with an 
 acknowledgment of my ignorance : neither would I proceed upon a fondness 
 to gratify my curiosity, but with a sober and earnest desire of so much 
 understanding in the divine attributes, as it may concern myself and my 
 fellow- creatures to attain. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 OMNIPRESENCE. 
 
 LITTLE need be said in support of this attribute, which is inseparable 
 from the idea of necessary existence : because as we have remarked before, 
 there can be no such difference in places as that what is necessary in one 
 spot should not be so elsewhere. And this holds good as well with respect to 
 a particular substance as to a species : therefore there cannot be many neces- 
 sary substances, though of the same species, because each being absent 
 from the places occupied by the others, there is no other necessity for their 
 being where they are, unless what is brought upon them by a superior 
 cause assigning them their several stations. Therefore whatever has neces- 
 sary existence anywhere must be One in number as well as in kind, and 
 exist alike everywhere throughout all the immensity of space. Nor is there 
 any variance of opinion upon this article : all who acknowledge a God, the 
 cause and fountain of all things, believe him to be one pure, undivided, 
 unbounded substance, pervading, containing, and co-existing with all the 
 things he has created. 
 
 2. It must be owned this is an incomprehensible idea, too large for our 
 imaginations to grasp, therefore no wonder we find difficulties in it : but 
 these arise all from our narrowness of conception and not from any shadow 
 of positive proof that can be produced against it. For no man ever 
 attempted to show the limits that might circumscribe the divine essence, 
 or point the place from whence it might be absent. But it is hard for us 
 to reconcile omnipresence with individuality, because all the substances 
 falling under our cognizance having a locality, we cannot conceive the same 
 thing present at immeasurable distances unless successively by removing 
 from one place to another. Large bodies we can apprehend taking up a 
 large compass of space, but then the several parts of them occupy their 
 several points ; and body being the only object familiar to our senses we 
 take our idea of occupancy from that. Wherefore some I have met with
 
 OMNIPRESENCE. 337 
 
 object, not as an argument overthrowing omnipresence, but as a difficulty 
 wanting solution, that we seem to make God extended, and consequently 
 consisting of parts, because it is the accession of parts that extends every- 
 thing we know of into magnitude. But how are thy assured there can be 
 no extension unless by means of parts ? even in matter we have already 
 found infinite divisibility so inconceivable, and the difficulties on either side 
 so much wanting a solution, that the most sober and judicious persons have 
 forborne to decide peremptorily upon it : and in our own spirits we have 
 found an extension of another kind, for our sense assures us of our indi- 
 viduality, and daily experience furnishes us with reasons which to me carry 
 the force of demonstration evincing a sphere of presence, in every part 
 whereof we are actually existent and perceptive, because receiving sensa- 
 tions from a variety of objects at the same time ; but neither can the same 
 particle of matter conveying our sensation take various modifications at 
 once, nor can many particles act together upon a mathematical point. 
 And this experience of our own undivided extension may a little help our 
 comprehension of omnipresence, for though we cannot make a new idea we 
 may compound and enlarge those we have in store. Our own manner of 
 existence in a sphere or portion of space sufficient to receive the action of 
 many corporeal particles, we may term a totipresence throughout the 
 contents of that sphere ; we may then conceive another substance totipresent 
 in the sphere of an inch, an ell, a rod, a mile, and so rise by degrees to the 
 greatest extent we are able to contain in our imagination ; and a toti- 
 presence throughout all immensity amounts to the same as omnipresence. 
 
 3. But we are unable with our utmost efforts to conceive an immensity of 
 space, much less omnipresence wherein that idea is contained, nevertheless, 
 what we cannot apprehend at once or in the gross, we may by piecemeal : 
 whatever portion of space we fix our thoughts upon at any time we may 
 conceive God to be there, and thus soar from height to height, with a denial 
 of his absence from every point in the progress of our contemplation. And 
 this method has been recommended of old : " Whither shall I go from thy 
 spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence ? If I go up into heaven, thou 
 art there : if I make my bed in the grave, behold thou art there. If I take 
 the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even 
 there shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me." To which 
 we may add from ideas suggested by modern discoveries : If I follow the 
 planets in their orbits, I shall find thee directing their courses ; if I enter 
 the assembly of fixed stars, there art thou holding them in their stations ; 
 if I penetrate the minute fibres of vegetables or examine the little corpuscles 
 of air and ether, there art thou also marshalling their order and invigorating 
 their motions. Thus, though we cannot comprehend God absolutely every- 
 where, we may comprehend him wherever we can think of : this is an idea 
 easy to our imagination, involving us in no perplexities, of an extension 
 without parts, and this we may satisfy ourselves with as being enough to 
 answer all our useful purposes.
 
 >;/; 238 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 ETERNITY. 
 
 No proof seems requisite to establish this point, it being self-evident that 
 something must always have existed, and what can that be besides the First 
 Cause from whom all things else received their being ? Nor can we find a 
 difference in times any more than places with respect to necessary existence, 
 but what was once and anywhere necessarily existing must be so always as 
 well as everywhere. And the same rule extends to the attributes as well as 
 the existence of God ; for if there were a time when he was without any of 
 them, I know not where he could have acquired them, or from what sources 
 derived them. Therefore eternity infers immutability, nor was ever sepa- 
 rated from it in the minds of men : for all who believe a God, believe not 
 only that he always was, but likewise that he continues, without variation 
 or shadow of change, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 
 
 2. I know not how we can conceive otherwise of eternity than as a suc- 
 cession of time, with a negation of beginning or end. But the school- 
 men are not satisfied with this idea, for they look upon succession as a con- 
 tinual perishing and renewing of things existing in that manner : for I am 
 not and perceive not yesterday, the existence and perceptions I had then 
 being lost and gone, and those I have now being new ones, such as I 
 had not then, but are brought me by lapse of time ; yet my yesterday's 
 existence was the cause of my present, for if I had not been then I 
 should not have been now : which manner of existing they think un- 
 worthy to be ascribed to God, as wanting that stability and independency 
 on prior time suitable to our idea of a necessary Being. Wherefore they 
 supposed eternity a standing point with God, or a perpetual Now, so that 
 all past and future ages are as actually present before him as this instant 
 moment is with us. And we hear divines still talking in the same strain 
 of an eternity before all time, or when time was not, or when time shall be no 
 more, and asserting positively that the past is not gone, nor the future yet 
 to come with respect to God. Perhaps they pronounce too confidently upon 
 a matter whereto the human faculties cannot reach, for if we pursue our 
 abstractions to the utmost, either upon time or space, I fear we shall find 
 them both unmanageable subjects, concerning which we can determine no- 
 thing with certainty. Nevertheless, they would not want foundation for 
 what they say, if they would deliver themselves a little more reservedly, 
 arid give it only as the more probable opinion, that the efflux and succes- 
 sion of time is owing to the power and Will of God, and therefore may 
 take place only among his creatures. 
 
 3. We have already remarked there is no visible repugnancy against sup- 
 posing the course of time might have been accelerated or retarded : I do 
 not mean that twenty years might have passed in ten or taken up forty to 
 run them out, for this were a contradiction, but that the whole order of 
 them might have been removed higher or lower, so that the Augustan age, 
 or that of our remote descendants, might have been the present. In which 
 case the efflux of time would require some cause to fix it where it is : and 
 therefore must depend upon the Will of God to determine that no more or 
 no less of it should be expired. Nor are there no grounds to suspect that
 
 ETERNITY. 339 
 
 even with ourselves the present moment may contain an interval of time 
 though extremely short, for else how should we get the idea of time at all ? 
 Mr. Locke says we get it by observing a succession of ideas, and in this 
 way I can readily allow that we come by the measures of minutes, hours, 
 days, and years, which we use in computation : but succession implies a 
 previous idea of first and last before it can be attained, for a variety of 
 ideas affords us no notion of succession unless we perceive one come before 
 the other ; nor can it be imagined that their degrees of vividness or faint- 
 ness will do the business, for let a man stand with a candle in his hand be- 
 tween two looking-glasses, he will see a number of flames in the glass before 
 him, each fainter than the others, yet the whole scene will appear quies- 
 cent, nor exhibit any idea of succession. And the ideas of things in our 
 remembrance, though fainter as more remote, would do the like unless we 
 had another idea of precedence annexed to them. So then our idea of pre- 
 cedence seems to be an original, not derived from any other, but gotten by 
 our manner of existence extending to a length of time wherein there is a 
 first and a last. 
 
 4. And I may offer to the consideration of the curious whether this does 
 not stand confirmed by the evidence of our senses in their discernment of 
 motion, of which they have an immediate sensation in some velocities but 
 not in others. For you may see the motion of a stone thrown across you 
 very plainly, but you cannot see that in the short hand of your watch. If 
 indeed you look at it again an hour after, you will see that it has moved, be- 
 cause finding it in a different place from where it was before : but this is a 
 logical inference gathered from the joint testimony of your present sense 
 and your memory of the figure to which it pointed the first time : whereas 
 your knowledge of the stone moving came by direct sensation without aid 
 of the memory or reflexive faculty. Now to see a body move I apprehend 
 we must have an actual perception of it at once in two distinguishable 
 places though it cannot actually be in those two places at once, from 
 whence it seems to follow that our acts of immediate perception have a cer- 
 tain duration containing a beginning and end both present to us together, 
 and whatever moves so slow as that the spaces it passes over within that 
 duration are not distinguishable by our senses appears to us quiescent. If 
 any one shall think the discernment of motion effected by that continuance 
 of play in our sensitive organs after the impulse of objects ceasing, men- 
 tioned in the chapter on reflection, he will not find it warranted by experi- 
 ence : for a stone may be thrown very swiftly yet without drawing any trail 
 behind, though you observe it ever so carefully, and a live coal whirled 
 veiy smoothly round upon a wheel will present no idea of movement at all, 
 but appear a quiescent fiery ring. The distinction of places to our sense 
 depends, not upon the real distance between them, but upon their appa- 
 rently subtending an angle at our eye, which the same extent of latitude 
 may do when near us that cannot do it when removed farther off. There- 
 fore the moon seems to stand still when we look upon her, because the 
 change of place she makes during a single perception does not suffice to 
 subtend an angle : whereas did she hang so low as almost to touch our 
 atmosphere we should see her whisk over us with an amazing rapidity. 
 Hence if any curious person can ascertain precisely what is the least dis- 
 cernible angle and slowest visible motion, he may compute how many of 
 our moments or present times there are in a minute : for by contriving to 
 make a body move equally with that slowest pace in a circle whose centre lies 
 
 z 2
 
 340 OMNIPOTENCE. 
 
 at the eye, and casting up how many of those least discernible angles com- 
 pose an entire circle, he may reckon just so many moments in the time of 
 one circumvolution made by the body. But if we have a measurable Now 
 of our own, the whole of which is present to us together, we may augment 
 it in the same manner we did the sphere of our presence, until it stretch to 
 the utmost length we can contain in our imagination, and that will make 
 the fullest idea we can form of eternity. 
 
 5 . Many persons perhaps will not readily enter into what has been here 
 said concerning the standing point or perpetual Now, and truly if they do 
 not find it occur easily to their comprehension they may even pass it over, 
 as being scarce worth the while to take much trouble in studying it. For 
 we do not find the conception of a continual perishing and renewal of time 
 by an uninterrupted succession of moments debases our idea of God ; and 
 it would be difficult to make a common man feel the force of the school- 
 men's objection or see any hurt in supposing him to exist in that manner, 
 so long as we apprehend the succession to have had no beginning and to 
 meet with no stop. We have indeed a certain period set to our lives, and 
 therefore the lapse of every moment takes away something from the stock 
 of futurity we had in store : but eternity is an inexhaustible fund, therefore 
 time may go on continually perishing without being ever totally destroyed, 
 so that though we should imagine God existing by moments, he will never 
 want moments to exist in. And as he has been pleased to give our spirits 
 an individuality which all the powers of nature cannot dissolve, the efflux 
 of time is no loss to them, who have the same inexhaustible fund for a 
 perpetual supply. Wherefore there is no occasion to alter the common 
 conceptions of mankind upon this matter, or perplex them with objections 
 requiring an answer that few can understand. 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 OMNIPOTENCE. 
 
 THE very train of reasoning, leading us to acknowledge a God, evinces 
 his omnipotence, or rather, if I may so speak, finds omnipotence in the way 
 towards his existence : for we infer a God because we want a cause from 
 whence all the effects and powers we have any knowledge of must originally 
 proceed. Whatever is done or possible to be done must be done by some 
 agent, and the aggregate of all powers and possibilities make up omnipo- 
 tence, which we can place in no other subject than God, whom therefore 
 we justly style Almighty. It is true we find power divjded among the sub- 
 stances falling under our notice, one wanting what another has : but then 
 the powers of all must derive from some one cause, whom we cannot sup- 
 pose to want the powers he has given to other things, besides another 
 power not found in any of them, that of creating and allotting primary 
 properties and original stations. Mr. Locke tells us, that active powers 
 alone properly deserve the name, and 1 think we need make no difficulty 
 of ascribing all those we find in substances to God : for we cannot well 
 doubt that he might if he pleased resist and impel, that is, stop or confer 
 motion like body, or excite perceptions and judgments like our organs ; 
 and that he does admit like space appears manifest from the substances we 
 see, each whereof must coexist in the same place with that which is cmni-
 
 OMNIPOTENCE. 341 
 
 present throughout all immensity : nor can we any more doubt of his pos- 
 sessing in an eminent degree all the active powers discoverable in spirits. 
 And for passive powers, such as mobility, inertness, and perceptivity, par- 
 ticularly that of pain, or uneasiness, though we must not attribute them to 
 him, yet are they all effects of an active power exerted at their creation. 
 We see the course of nature proceed by second- causes having their several 
 portions of power allotted in small parcels among them, and these allot- 
 ments requiring so many operations of active power in conferring them be- 
 speak an omnipotence in the First Cause. 
 
 2. Thus the contemplation of the works of nature and all the powers we 
 can discover operating therein, gives us our first notion of omnipotence : but 
 the mind of man does not rest here, for there requires something further 
 than actual operation to complete the idea of power. We find many instances 
 in ourselves wherein we might have acted otherwise than we have done, and 
 conceive ourselves able to take another course in our future measures than 
 that we shall pursue : nor can we avoid thinking the same of God, for if we 
 were to confine his power to the works he has actually performed, we should 
 destroy that choice which distinguishes him from blind necessity, unthinking 
 chance, or whatever else has been assigned for a first cause : neither can a 
 power pinned down to one particular way of acting be properly called a 
 power. This extends our idea of power to possibilities as well as real events, 
 and what has never happened nor will ever happen is esteemed its object 
 equally with what has already or will hereafter come to pass. And now we 
 conceive omnipotence a power to do anything without those impediments 
 and restrictions which obstruct us and all created substances in our ope- 
 rations. 
 
 3. Yet still there arises another idea perplexing our imagination with the 
 suggestion of absolute impossibilities, which appear such even to omnipo- 
 tence itself, and therefore seem to restrain and limit it within a certain com- 
 pass : such as making a body exist in several places, causing two and two to 
 make five, annihilating time and space, undoing past events or producing 
 contrary ones. But all these things imply contradictions, and contradictions 
 are generally held to be no objects of power, as their possibility would infer 
 a defect rather than an enlargement of power : for if upon a power being 
 exerted to produce a particular event, another might likewise ensue, it 
 would show a deficiency in the agent as being unable to prevent another 
 issue from taking effect besides that he intended. But after all I do not 
 know why we should pronounce anything absolutely impossible, but rather 
 conclude that what appears so has been rendered impossible by those laws 
 which God has established immutably : and to suppose him acting contrary 
 to them is supposing him to do otherwise than he has determined to do, 
 which I am sure is no instance of power. He has made body local, and to 
 exist in several places it must be a different thing from what he intended it : 
 he has fixed certain relations between numbers, and to alter those relations 
 would be introducing a confusion he has not thought proper to throw upon 
 us : he has annexed the ideas of time and place to all our ideas of substances, 
 and to separate them would be giving rise to other conceptions than he has 
 thought fitting for us : he has made the past unalterable, and determined 
 that no operation shall have any more than one issue, and to suppose other- 
 wise would be supposing him to have done what he has not done. There- 
 fore, wherever there appears a palpable impossibility we may depend upon 
 the thing never happening, without ascribing the impossibility to any other
 
 342 OMNIPOTENCE. 
 
 than the appointment of God, who has established the properties of sub- 
 stances and issues of events so firmly that we cannot conceive them altered. 
 
 4. But there is another limitation of omnipotence invented by our mo- 
 derns in what they call the nature of things : for they say God could not 
 make man impeccant, could not prevent moral and physical evil, the latter 
 being a necessary consequence of the former, and that he must have a gra- 
 dation of beings in all stages from nothing up to his own perfections. For 
 my part, I can understand nothing else by the nature of things beside the 
 properties of substances, the situations given them and motions impressed 
 upon them, together with the mutual operations resulting therefrom : and 
 these being given to the substances at or after their existence, could not con- 
 trol the acts of the Almighty whereto they were posterior. It is the nature 
 of plants to vegetate, therefore before there were any plants or growing 
 bodies there could be no such thing as vegetation : it is the nature of fire to 
 burn, but before there was any fire there could be no such thing as burning. 
 In like manner physical evil began with the capacity of sentient Beings to 
 suffer by it, and moral evil depends upon this together with the constitution 
 of man occasioning perpetual struggles between reason and appetite : for if 
 he were not liable to suffering he could not take his measures amiss, and if 
 he were void of reason, he could not do wrong in following appetite, having 
 nothing else to follow. That there is a scale of Beings I know, but that it 
 reaches within one step of Divinity, I neither know nor believe : nor if it did 
 could I ascribe it to anything prior to the good pleasure of their Creator ; for 
 I can see no necessity hindering that all beings might have been made of 
 the same species. Therefore the capacity of man, his sensitive-rational 
 constitution, the various orders of beings, the properties, stations, and mo- 
 tions of substances, could not prescribe rules to the Almighty, from whose 
 power and appointment they proceeded. 
 
 5. If it be alleged that we may conceive a nature of things abstracted from 
 the things themselves, let us remember that our abstractions are all taken 
 from our observation of substances, and their mutually affecting one another, 
 and that the abstract is made by an arbitrary separation in our thoughts of 
 what nature has exhibited in the concrete. It is said the rules of natural jus- 
 tice are unalterable, and so they may, because resulting from the nature of 
 man, which does not change with time and place : for he is made a sociable 
 creature, capable of assisting or hurting his fellows, invested with reason 
 and appetite. The brutes wanting reason have no justice belonging to them : 
 nor would there be any rule of it in man had he no temptation to do wrong; 
 or were he shut up alone like a maggot in a nutshell there would be no 
 place for justice. I see no contradiction in imagining that God might have 
 placed all his sentient creatures apart by themselves without any knowledge 
 or perception of one another, in which case there would have been no such 
 thing as justice in nature : therefore when he gave man his faculties, and 
 placed him in a situation to have intercourse with his fellow-creatures, then 
 he made justice, and then the nature of it began. 
 
 6. It is said that God cannot act arbitrarily, and therefore must have 
 some rule or nature of things to guide him. If by Cannot, you mean that 
 he never does, I have no objection ; but let us consider what we understand 
 by arbitrary action in men, which is when they act upon whim, or humour, or 
 passion, all which must certainly be denied of him. But why must an action 
 be arbitrary unless confined by some restriction from taking another turn ? 
 we find many instances of the contrary in ourselves. It is true if I promise
 
 OMNIPOTENCE. 343 
 
 to meet a company upon any occasion, whether of business or pleasure, 
 though the appointment was voluntary at first, I am now under an obliga- 
 tion to keep it, so my liberty to do otherwise is gone : but this is not always 
 my case ; I sometimes lay out a plan of several places I will go to, or 
 several things I will do wherein no other mortal has any concern, and 
 having a little steadiness in my temper I pursue it accordingly, without 
 any restriction upon my liberty to depart from it at any time ; and since I 
 look upon this steadiness rather as an advantage to my character than 
 otherwise, I am willing to ascribe it in the highest degree to the Almighty, 
 the tenor of whose conduct I conceived fixed, not by law or rule, but by 
 voluntary determination. Wherefore there is no occasion for attributing 
 what we find unalterable to an antecedent nature of things limiting and 
 prescribing laws to God, because we may ground it as well upon his immu- 
 tability. This seems an idea more worthy of him, and more consistent 
 with our notion of omnipotence ; and we may draw as many good uses from 
 the opinion that he will not as that he cannot order the course of nature 
 otherwise that he has done. Provided we take along with us this caution, 
 to be very careful in our judgment of what things are unalterable : a point 
 wherein those, who talk most loudly of a nature of things, have been 
 sometimes grossly mistaken. 
 
 7. Many divines, particularly Bishop Beveridge and Dean Sherlock, 
 endeavour to heighten our idea of omnipotence by asserting that God is 
 not only the Creator, but likewise the continual support of all substances, 
 who would lose their being the moment he should withdraw his operation 
 upon them. The bishop, after his usual manner, speaks positively as if he 
 knew the thing by ocular demonstration, and uses the comparison of a book, 
 holden in one's hands, to_ explain his meaning. For, says he, if I take 
 away my hands the book will fall to the ground without any act of mine to 
 throw it down : so I myself should intantly drop into nothing, were God to 
 withdraw his sustaining power from under me, without his needing to do 
 anything for thrusting me out of Being. Whether the case be so with us 
 I shall not pretend to determine so positively as his Lordship, it being a matter 
 beyond the reach of my understanding to penetrate ; but I may say we have 
 no direct evidence of the affirmative, there being rather an appearance of 
 the contrary in the abiding quality of bodies, which, after all the divisions 
 and separations that can be made by fermentation, putrefaction, dissolution, 
 and burning, we still know are not lost out of nature. Nor does it much 
 heighten our idea of omnipotence to imagine powers not derived therefrom, 
 for substances, it seems, have an inherent power of annihilating themselves 
 if omnipotence were not constantly at work to counteract them. There 
 are inconveniences attending this hypothesis, which the Dean labours for 
 many pages to remove ; and though it may help to give us a full persuasion 
 of our intimate dependence upon the Deity, the same might as well be 
 attained by contemplation of his omnipresence. Nor would it a little 
 weaken our assurance of our own immortality, built upon the individuality 
 of spirit, to suppose individuals too perishable unless sustained by the imme- 
 diate hand of God ; for though he may still continue to support us, we 
 can never be so sure of his future acts as of those he has already done, for 
 the latter are our proofs of the former, therefore his having given us a 
 durable nature is the strongest evidence we can have from the light of 
 reason that it is his Will we should continue for ever. And it is most 
 agreeable to our ideas to conceive a permanency of existence in substances 
 which nothing less than omnipotence can destroy : the powers of nature
 
 344 OMNISCIENCE. 
 
 may form compounds, throw them into different combinations, increase, 
 diminish, alter, or entirely dissipate them again ; but cannot take existence 
 from any single particle either of material or spiritual substance : this has 
 been always esteemed a privilege reserved to omnipotence alone, and that it 
 requires an exertion of the same power to annihilate as to create. Nor 
 will our thinking in this manner lessen our apprehension of the divine 
 sovereignty ; for nobody doubts that he who made us may destroy us again 
 with a word, nor that we receive the materials for our well being, without 
 which Being were nothing worth, by his appointment, and in this sense he 
 may truly be called our continual support. 
 
 8. God is incomprehensible in all his attributes, and if we go to fathom 
 the depths of omnipotence we shall lose ourselves in darkness and perplexi- 
 ties : therefore, letting alone all the subtilities of absolute impossibilities, of 
 an independent nature of things, and of the sustentation of existence in 
 substances, let us fix our view upon a prospect we can clearly discern. Let 
 us conceive of God as performing by second causes all the mighty works 
 we see performed, and able to do whatever we can comprehend possible to 
 be done. Let us consider him giving existence to substances, solidity to 
 matter, perceptivity to spirit, and understanding to man : limiting the 
 ocean, spreading out the earth as a garment, and stretching forth the vast 
 expanse of heaven : rolling the planets in their orbits, fixing the golden 
 sun, and appointing the stars their stations : causing gravitation between 
 large bodies, cohesion between small, elasticity in air and ether : giving 
 motion to the wheels of fortune, stability to the laws of nature, and direct- 
 ing both their certain courses : forming the fibres of plants to fit them for 
 vegetation, the vessels of animals to carry on circulation, and the mental 
 organs to serve as instruments for the understanding : making the earth 
 yield her increase for our sustenance, feeding the cattle upon a thousand 
 hills for our uses, supplying us with air to breathe, water to drink, clothes 
 to put on, and innumerable objects all around to employ and entertain us : 
 commanding the issues of life and death, and having the future condition 
 of spirits at his disposal. The contemplation of these, and a multitude of 
 other things, that a little thought might easily suggest, will, I apprehend, 
 give us the fullest idea of omnipotence that we are capable of, and make us 
 sensible the Lord is our continual support, and that in him we live, and 
 move, and have our being. 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 OMNISCIENCE. 
 
 WE have remarked before, that intelligence is not the same thing in 
 God as in ourselves, for our intelligence would not suit a First Cause : we 
 cannot work without motives and ideas suggested by objects previously 
 affecting us, so that there must be something already existing from whence 
 we may receive the information necessary to conduct us in our proceedings. 
 Besides, intelligence is a particular mode of perception wherein the mind is 
 always passive, taking such judgments as are impressed upon it : for judg- 
 ment properly is the act of the objects under contemplation, and not of 
 the percipient, otherwise than by his bringing such of them into his thoughts 
 from whence some judgment may result. We may fancy but not under-
 
 OMNISCIENCE. 345 
 
 stand peaches growing upon an oak, rivers running upwards : nor in general 
 can we understand anything different from what it appears after the most 
 thorough examination. Therefore how imperfect notion soever we have of 
 pure agency, such as is generally ascribed to God, we may see clearly that 
 perception as in us being passive is incompatible with it : for we cannot 
 imagine him passive to receive impressions from the impulse of objects, nor 
 yet can we deny him understanding before there was anything external to 
 be understood, much less refuse him knowledge of the things he has created. 
 2. The vulgar have an advantage over the studious in some respects, for 
 they discern not the difficulties which perplex the others : they make no 
 boggle at creation, believing they see instances of it in striking fire, which 
 they take to be something new, not existing before, but produced by the 
 collision of flint and steel, for they think nothing of particles detached from 
 the colliding bodies, nor of a subtile matter emitted from within their pores, 
 nor of a circumambient ether, agitated by their vibrations, which being put 
 into a certain violent motion appear in the form of fire. So likewise they 
 seem to have experience of pure agency in their own meditations and volun- 
 tary reflections, wherein they imagine themselves acting within themselves, 
 without instrument or material, without other object than their own acts. 
 But our experience, that when our organs are indisposed we cannot think 
 at all, may convince us that we have instruments to employ, and materials 
 to work upon in our mental operations : and upon a closer attention -we shall 
 find that even in the most abstracted thought there must be something to 
 be perceived numerically distinct from that which perceives. And in general 
 the further we pry into the secrets of nature, we shall find her abounding in 
 mysteries that do not occur to common apprehension. Since then it is the 
 view of nature that must give us any conception of the Author of Nature, 
 the more difficulties arise in the phenomena the less able shall we be to com- 
 prehend those attributes by which they are to be accounted for : so that it 
 is no wonder Simonides asked still longer time the further he pushed his 
 inquiries upon this subject. 
 
 3. Our inability to conceive knowledge without prior means of informa- 
 tion, together with the absurdity of refusing God that knowledge he has 
 given to ourselves, obliges us to ascribe him intelligence, and at the same 
 time to acknowledge this attribute ineffable, being something of a higher 
 nature, but comprehending under it all that belongs to understanding as in 
 the mind, abstracted from the idea of any conveyance bringing it thither. 
 Since then it would be in vain to go about to describe the manner of his 
 knowing, which in the nature of it must be different from ours, and yet we 
 can form no idea of any other knowing than that we experience ourselves, 
 we are excusable because necessitated to think and speak of him in a lan- 
 guage suitable to what we have experience of. Thus we say he sees all 
 things, looks backward upon the past, and forward into the future, discerns 
 all possibilities, together with the consequences of his own immediate acts, 
 or those of second causes, to the remotest chain of events, and knows what- 
 ever is the object of knowledge. The highest term we have to employ is 
 Intuition, the same as Beholding, a term taken from our sense of vision, an I 
 serving only to exclude the slow process of reason, whereby we advanc2 
 gradually to the knowledge of what we cannet discern directly by our sense s 
 or our judgment. 
 
 4. The difficulty of apprehending any voluntary act, even that of creation, 
 to proceed without a prior intelligence, or of intelligence subsisting with- 
 out objects to be understood, has set men upon contriving objects for tliu
 
 346 OMNISCIENCE. 
 
 divine intelligence coeval with itself : for the ancients held forms, ideas, and 
 truths, to be eternal, obtaining a place from everlasting in the divine mind, 
 and I suppose these are what our moderns would understand by their un- 
 alterable nature of things. If you examine what those forms and ideas were, 
 you will find they were not God, nor attributes, nor yet distinct substances, 
 but inexistencies in him : which Inexistency was a very convenient term, 
 implying something that was both a substance and not a substance, and so 
 carrying the advantages of either ; as a substance, it was capable of eternal 
 duration, and of furnishing objects for undemanding to perceive ; as not a 
 substance, it avoided the plurality of necessary Beings, of dividing God into 
 parts, and of making substances uncreated. Nevertheless, admitting the 
 reality of inexistencies, it will be hard to comprehend an inherent eternity 
 belonging to them, for truths are propositions concerning substances, or 
 something relative thereto, therefore cannot be older than the subjects 
 whereof they are predicated : that justice is better than iniquity, springs 
 from the powers of men to benefit or endamage one another, and the con- 
 sequences resulting to them therefrom which renders actions of one sort better 
 than those of the other. We have seen that if there were no creatures capable 
 of doing good or hurt, there would be no such thing as justice in nature, 
 and if there were no such thing, there could be nothing affirmed or denied 
 concerning it. The epithet Eternal given to some truths, implies there are 
 others not so, and the very distinction made between eternal and temporary 
 truths shows their duration to depend upon that of the subjects whereto 
 they are applied. The same may be said of forms, which are only modifi- 
 cations of substances : form as denoting figure could have no place before 
 the existence of matter, nor perhaps before the combination of it, for we 
 know not whether the atoms have any figure or no : and extended to a larger 
 sense including the form of Being in other substances, it depends upon 
 their primary properties, situations, and connections, which cannot be older 
 than themselves. But it may be urged that although all external objects 
 were annihilated yet we might retain an idea of the forms they had exhi- 
 bited, therefore there is no inconsistency in supposing the like idea to sub- 
 sist in some mind before they were existent. But let us consider that the 
 ideas we discern are modifications of our organs, which are exterior to the 
 mind that discerns them : and if we distinguish the perception from the 
 idea and suppose the former in some mind without the latter, it must be a 
 pure act and of course posterior in order if not in time to the exertion of 
 some power by the agent : so that perception must be the act and produce 
 of the divine intelligence, instead of the object or fund in store giving scope 
 to it. 
 
 5. It is remarkable that those, who will not let God understand or do 
 anything without ideas, are the very persons who stickle most strenuously 
 for a liberty of iudifierency in man : so that they will not allow the supreme 
 Being to enjoy a privilege they assume to themselves. Which by the way 
 shows the inconsistency of this supposed privilege with our notions of free- 
 dom, since we cannot conceive the most powerful and uncontrollable of all 
 agents to act indifferently without making him liable to humour and arbi- 
 trary proceeding : from whence we may justly infer that what they take for 
 proofs of indifferency are rather instances of weakness and imperfection in 
 man. Perhaps I shall be asked whether I can conceive God to act in creat- 
 ing without a view to some purpose, or without a plan containing that 
 order of succession he was about to establish ; and I shall readily acknow- 
 ledge that I cannot. But when I consider why I cannot, namely, because
 
 OMNISCIENCE. 347 
 
 of the narrowness of my conception which is confined within the compass 
 of my experience, and because I can comprehend no other manner of 
 knowing than I have experienced myself, my not conceiving amounts to no 
 more than a negative proof which in a matter of this nature is no proof 
 at all. For though want of conception he a proper evidence in things 
 familiar to our observation, whose properties and operations we are well 
 acquainted with, as that a stone cannot mount upwards without an ex- 
 ternal impulse, that water alone cannot compose a vegetable, that solid 
 bodies cannot penetrate one another, and the like , yet in subjects whereof 
 we have no direct experience but only such partial knowledge as may be 
 gathered from their effects, we can expect to comprehend nothing further 
 of them than their ability to produce those effects : whence arises the dis- 
 tinction between things above reason and things contrary to reason. Since 
 then we find an understanding, such as ours in kind, though extended to the 
 highest degree, incapable of assigning properties, allotting stations and 
 directing other circumstances attending creation, but are satisfied neverthe- 
 less that all these things require an understanding, let us conclude the divine 
 intelligence a subject above our reason, and forbear to pronounce anything 
 more concerning it than that it is sufficient to work all that admirable con- 
 trivance which we discern in the works of nature. Or, if we still think 
 pre-existent ideas necessary, let us ascribe their origin to some attribute 
 yet unknown and unthought of; for we must not imagine that what little 
 we know of God comprises the whole of his essence, but there are not im- 
 probably other attributes of which the mind of man has not so much as 
 entertained a suspicion. 
 
 G. The like difficulties with that concerning prior information being ne- 
 cessary to complete understanding, may be started concerning remembrance 
 and foresight, the former being in ourselves an inspection of traces in our 
 memory, and the latter an inference from our observation of past events. 
 If the schoolmen's standing point could be made clear to our apprehension, 
 we need ascribe neither remembrance nor foresight to God, as things super- 
 fluous ; for the past and future, being alike present before him, might be 
 discerned by intuition as well as events now actually occurring. But since 
 it is not easy for us to separate time from succession, and since to common 
 apprehension it does not derogate from our idea of God to suppose him 
 existing by perpetual duration, we may without hurt imagine him to remem- 
 ber as we remember, and to foresee as we foresee events within our own 
 power by knowing our own intention, where we know perfectly what may 
 be done with the instruments and materials we have to employ: taking this 
 conception as the best we can form and not absolutely pronouncing it ade- 
 quate to the subject. 
 
 7. And indeed the fullest conception we can obtain of the attributes arises 
 from contemplation of their effects, for if we go to penetrate into nice ab- 
 stractions, we shall find them oftener obscuring than enlightening the mind, 
 oftener contracting than enlarging the prospect. Therefore, as we did be- 
 fore upon the article of omnipotence, let us now take a short survey of na- 
 ture, to find the clearest footsteps of omniscience. Let us consider the 
 Creator determining the preceise number of substances, allotting them their 
 properties and capacities necessary to complete the grand design he had in 
 view : forming a plan to make a world, which was to last for ages with infi- 
 nite varieties and successive changes, out of homogeneous matter, where 
 every particle must have its appointed station, every motion its determinate 
 velocity and direction, calculating exactly at one glance all the combinations
 
 348 OMNISCIENCE. 
 
 they will run into, the species of compounds they will produce, together 
 with the secondary qualities, operations, and mutual affections, resulting 
 therefrom. How stupendous must be that wisdom which directed infinite 
 power, and by which everything was established in number, weight, and 
 measure ! He knew the exact quantity requisite of that invisible force 
 whereon fermentation, heat, explosion, repulsion, and the four attractions 
 depend, which had it been greater or less might have produced nothing 
 but disorder in nature. He proportioned the elements that none of them 
 might predominate or fall deficient, and contrived springs for mingling them 
 together, that they might concur in forming the productions he designed. 
 He appointed the degree of influence in the sun and moon, the inequalities 
 of the earth, the rise of exhalations, the variety qf soils, and other causes 
 which bring on the change of seasons, vicissitudes of weather, and various 
 dispositions of the air, causing the earth to yield her increase in proper 
 measure, neither redundant nor wanting. He contrived the curious struc- 
 ture of vegetables, the more admirable organization of animals, where every 
 vessel, gland, and fibre, every part, performs its several office for the growth 
 and preservation of the whole. He adapted the contexture of his 
 plants to the wants of his living creatures, so that each species has its pro- 
 per food, its nests, and places of harbour, and finds uses in that which 
 is unserviceable to others. He ranged his elements in such order, as to 
 carry on the course of nature without perpetually needing his own interpo- 
 sition : so that they produce minerals and fossils below, vapours, clouds, 
 dews, and rain above, insinuate themselves into the seed to make it germi- 
 nate; and into the plant to make it bear fruits and seeds again, into the foetus 
 to bring it to maturity, and into the perfect animal, causing it to fructify 
 and renew the species. He gave various instincts to brutes and appetites 
 to man, urging both to effect purposes they do not think of themselves. He 
 allotted their several provinces to the causes of destruction, as well as thos-e 
 of formation and preservation : he maketh the storms his ministers, direct- 
 ing them what to overthrow and what to spare : he commandeth the earth- 
 quakes how far to lay waste and where to stop ; the lightning whom to 
 strike and whom to pass over. Blight, famine, and pestilence, have their 
 limits in what quarters and what extent to spread their havock, chance and 
 casualty their directions when and where to fall : and all this by the inter- 
 vention of second causes, which are so wonderfully contrived and exactly 
 adjusted as never to disturb that order of succession he has established. 
 
 8. Nor is his wisdom less conspicuous in the moral than in the natural 
 world: he has put much. into the power of free agents, and left many 
 things to their choice and management, yet he directs their choice by such 
 unseen springs, as lead them to execute his purposes when they least in- 
 tended it. He has distributed various constitutions, talents, endowment , 
 passions, and desires, among men, so that some are fitted as well in ability 
 as inclination for every office wanted in society, and all the conveniences of 
 life depending on human industry supplied. Commerce, agriculture, and 
 the mechanic arts, want not hands to carry them on, nor policy, learning, 
 and science able heads to improve them : the jarring interests and opposite 
 views of private persons serve to balance one another, and are made to 
 produce order by their proper commixture out of that which separately 
 would tend to confusion. He knows how and when to raise up peculiar 
 characters that may found empires and overthrow them, or erect new king- 
 doms upon the ruins of old ones. Nor does he only provide for the esta- 
 blishment, the security, and general welfare of nations, but so directs the
 
 OMNISCIENCE. 349 
 
 behaviour of men to one another and the dispensations of fortune, that each 
 individual shall receive the precise portion of good and evil intended him. 
 Nor are his cares confined to this sublunary stage, for we have seen that the 
 spirits of men are of a nature to endure after their dissolution from the 
 body, and we cannot suppose their primary properties given them for no- 
 thing, but that they shall receive perceptions by other channels than those 
 which convey them now : so that there must be a different set of laws for 
 the several forms of Being we are to undergo, and, as we may reasonably 
 presume, a connexion of interests between the visible world and the invisible : 
 to adjust which, requires a more stupendous wisdom than anything falling 
 under our notice can exhibit, though that is enough to excite our wonder 
 and exceed our comprehension. 
 
 9. And this consideration may help to remove some objections that have 
 been raised upon the seeming errors of nature, as that she wastes her 
 strength in unprofitable efforts and sometimes thwarts the purposes we sup- 
 posed her to have intended. Lucretius urges that the world could not 
 have been made in wisdom, being so full of defects : ravenous beasts, 
 poisonous herbs, and pestilential vapours abound, the rain falls upon the 
 sea where it can do no good, the sun shines upon barren rocks, where it 
 can produce nothing, and man is liable to continual disappointments and 
 disasters. Bat nature is not thought to work in vain when she contrives a 
 curious structure in the grains of corn fitting them for vegetation, although 
 that purpose be defeated by the corn being made into bread for the nourish- 
 ment of man : but rain falling into the sea where man receives no benefit 
 by it is exclaimed against as a want of contrivance, because we judge of 
 prudent and vain solely by what relates to ourselves ; as if nature had no- 
 thing else to do besides tending our services, and whatever was of no use 
 to us were absolutely useless. Besides that we may be mistaken in our 
 premises, for what is not of immediate use may be remotely so ; perhaps 
 the fresh water mingled with the sea may prevent its sending up exhalations 
 that might be hurtful to us, and the sun darting heat upon rocks communi- 
 cates a warmth to the ground below or air above, which does a good we 
 know not of, or at least we may allow it to influence the weather and 
 thereby affect the growth of fruits and corn. But supposing these things 
 were of no service to us, they may do service to the fish, the insects or other 
 creatures, who deserve some share in the cares of nature together with 
 ourselves. As to the disasters and disappointments befalling mankind, we 
 many times find reason afterwards to rejoice at their having happened, and 
 many more times there may be reason though we do not discern it : but if 
 there be any from which we receive no real benefit, and that the condition 
 of life were better upon the whole without them, yet they may be some way 
 serviceable to other Beings or to ourselves in another state of being. Nor 
 is it an exception against our argument that we proceed upon what may be 
 without showing what is the case, for the burden of producing evidence lies 
 upon the objector : there are innumerable marks of wisdom in many works 
 of nature, therefore a possibility of there being the like in those where we 
 cannot trace it is a sufficient defence, and whoever would arraign this 
 wisdom ought to show that the latter cannot terminate in any good effect. 
 For our not discerning the expedience in some performances of an agent does 
 not overthrow the opinion we had entertained of him from others, nor has 
 it that effect upon us in the common occurrences of life : if a man of whose 
 skill in language and knowledge we had experience were to deliver himself 
 darkly and mysteriously upon some occasions, we should not presently con-
 
 350 OMNISCIENCE. 
 
 elude he had no meaning in what he said. If we went into the workshop 
 of an artificer, where we found many things admirably contrived and put 
 together, besides others whereof we could not possibly guess the uses, we 
 should not infer from the latter that he proceeded foolishly and unthinkingly 
 in all we saw before us. In both cases we should attribute the seeming 
 uselessness of anything we saw or heard to our own want of discernment : 
 and much more ought we do so with respect to the operations of nature, 
 whose tendencies and mutual dependence we have so insufficient faculties 
 and so little opportunities to investigate. 
 
 10. When we reflect what a wilderness of thought must be requisite to 
 govern innumerable worlds and order all the particulars belonging to them, 
 we shall find it inconceivable that so much can be contained together in one 
 understanding : therefore some have made it an objection that such a bound- 
 less variety must perplex and burden even the divine intelligence. But let 
 us consider why a multitude of thoughts are perplexing and burdensome to 
 ourselves : we perceive by organs, and can have no more perceptions than 
 they from time to time excite in us, but the sphere of our presence being 
 too narrow to admit many of them to work upon us together, we are forced 
 to labour and toil in bringing such of them into play as we want, and gene- 
 rally others intrude with them which disturb their operation and perplex our 
 ideas. But how much difficulty soever we may have found in connecting a 
 chain of reasoning or forming a train of thinking, when once become fami- 
 liar to us by frequent contemplation, we find no difficulty in running it over 
 afterwards and comprehending so much of it as we can contain in one view : 
 for whatever occurs readily to our thought we discern easily and distinctly, nor 
 find any trouble or perplexity in perceiving, where the prospect lies full and 
 clear before us. If then we will needs imagine God to understand as we 
 understand, by the perception of objects, let us remember that the sphere of 
 his presence extends throughout all immensity, that he wants not the 
 ministry of organs to bring objects before him, none being ever absent from 
 him or removed out of his reach. And perceptions take up no room in the 
 thought nor interfere with one another, but it is the want of them that 
 causes perplexity. 
 
 1 1 . There are some truths, as was remarked at the end of our chapter on 
 Judgment, reputed self-evident because they strike the mind irresistibly, yet 
 we cannot trace their origin nor deduce the train of reasoning whereby we 
 arrived at them : among this class may be reckoned the Divine Happiness, 
 which we do not discover from the works of nature as we do the other attri- 
 butes. The mighty fabric of the world manifests an omnipotence, and the 
 apt concurrence of causes to answer their several uses and purposes declares 
 an omniscience : but we cannot infer the happiness of the Supreme Being 
 from that of his creatures any more than we can the contrary from their 
 miseries. For satisfaction in ourselves is a perception, it is a state the 
 mind is thrown into by the act of objects striking upon our senses or re- 
 flection, wherein we are entirely passive nor can help receiving either 
 pleasure or pain while the proper causes are operating : but we cannot 
 ascribe passivity to God nor imagine his condition to depend from time to 
 time upon the agency of anything external. Nevertheless, the very sound 
 of a miserable or an insensible Deity is shocking to the ear and repugnant 
 to all our notions, nor was there ever any one who admitted the Being of a 
 God that did not conceive him unspeakably happy. We find happiness the 
 only thing desirable, or that which renders all other things desirable, and 
 constantly employ our efforts to procure it : therefore we might suppose
 
 OMNISCIENCE. 351 
 
 that where there is almighty power and infinite wisdom, all means of hap- 
 piness would be put in practice : but God uses no means to obtain it, evil 
 cannot approach him, nor does he want objects or channels to convey him 
 happiness. He made not space for his own reception, matter for his own 
 uses, nor sentient beings for his own solace and society, but possessed in- 
 finite happiness in himself from everlasting, without receiving increase 
 therein, by the works of creation. This is what every man's judgment will 
 agree to, and we find no suspicion arise of the contrary : therefore we may 
 pronounce God ineffably happy, but that happiness in him is not just the 
 same as we feel it in ourselves. 
 
 CHAP. XVI. 
 
 GOODNESS. 
 
 OF all the divine attributes there is none concerns us more nearly, or the 
 just notion whereof is more desirable than this of Goodness ; and yet none 
 perhaps wherein we find more difficulty to form a satisfactory idea, not 
 liable to objections and inconsistencies. Infinite power and wisdom avail 
 us nothing of themselves, but are rather objects of amazement and terror 
 than of comfort and confidence : and it were better for us to live under a 
 kind beneficent governor, though a little defective in knowledge and ability, 
 than one unlimited in either, but regardless of our weal or wo : for the 
 former would procure us more good than harm, but what befel us from the 
 latter would be mere chance and accident. The contemplation of omnipo- 
 tence, omnipresence, and omniscience, without goodness, has most of any- 
 thing driven men into atheism : for they looked upon such a Being as a 
 universal spectre hovering continually over them, prying into all their 
 affairs, able and skilful to affect them in what manner he pleased ; and as 
 we are apt to expect the worst from uncouth appearances, they chose rather 
 to put themselves under the guidance of chance or necessity, therefore 
 used all their wits to persuade mankind that a notion of a God was only a 
 phantom, raised in their imagination by crafty persons who found an 
 interest in affrighting them. Thus we find the idea of goodness insepa- 
 rable from that of God in the minds of all men ; for those who could discern 
 no marks of it in the works of nature, concluded from thence that there 
 was no God, admitting that if there were, he must be good : and all who 
 have acknowledged a God, have ascribed goodness to him as an essential 
 attribute. Even the Magi, when they asserted another co-etenial principle, 
 they did it to assign a cause for some things they thought could not pro- 
 ceed from that unlimited bounty and goodness which they believed residing 
 in God. 
 
 2. But the attributes of God must all be infinite, for there is nothing 
 external, nothing prior to limit him in his powers or his operations : here 
 then arises the difficulty, for if the goodness of God be infinite, whence 
 comes there any evil in the world ? Yet that there are innumerable evils 
 the phenomena of nature sufficiently assure us : storms and tempests, 
 earthquakes and inundations, lay fields and cities desolate with all their 
 produce and inhabitants, blighting winds and pestilential vapours wither up 
 and destroy, ravenous beasts devour, villains assassinate, thieves break 
 through and steal, tyrants oppress, diseases torment, cross accidents vex,
 
 352 GOODNESS. 
 
 old age debilitates, our necessary employments fatigue, our wants interfere, 
 our very pleasures cloy, and man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upwards. 
 We are necessitated to destroy vermin that would overrun us, to slay our 
 fellow-creatures for our sustenance, to weary them out with toil and labour 
 for our uses, to press one another into wars and sea services for cur pre- 
 servation. Nay, evil is so interwoven into our nature, that the business of 
 mankind would stagnate without it, most of our cares being employed in 
 deliveriog ourselves from troubles we lie under, or warding off those that 
 threaten. If a man were placed in such a situation as that no pain or 
 mischief, no satiety or uneasiness, no loss or diminution of enjoyment 
 could befal him, he would have no inducement ever to stir a finger : but it 
 is the perishable nature of our satisfactions that urges us to a continual 
 exertion of our activity to renew them. Now it has been asked, that if 
 these unfavourable circumstances attending human nature could not be 
 prevented, where was the almighty power of God ? if he knew not how to 
 prevent them, where was his wisdom ? if he could and might have pre- 
 vented them, but would not, where was his goodness ? Nor will it suffice 
 to answer that many of the evils before mentioned tend to produce greater 
 good, and it is probable the rest of them do the like : I am so far from 
 denying this probability, that I may offer some reasons by-and-by for con- 
 firming it ; but admitting that good springs out of every evil, this must be 
 owing to the necessary connection between both in the present constitution 
 of nature ; but when we consider that nature is not only directed and 
 governed, but was originally constituted by the hand of God, the difficulty 
 still recurs. For if he wished to have given his creatures unmingled good, 
 but saw no other constitution of nature possible besides that he has estab- 
 lished, this seems to limit his power, and we are at a loss to account for 
 such limitation : if there were other constitutions possible, containing no 
 mixture of evil, this perplexes us with respect to his goodness, which we 
 cannot conceive to choose a frame of nature disagreeable to itself. 
 
 3. Several solutions have been attempted for this difficulty, none of 
 which reach to the bottom, for they stop all at second causes, without 
 reflecting that the properties and powers of second causes depend upon the 
 First : therefore, as often happens in trying to unravel an entangled thread, 
 while they loosen the knot in one place they draw it tighter in another. 
 Seneca lays the fault upon the materials, which he tells us were disobedient 
 to the artist's hand, for he says there are some sluggish elements not sus- 
 ceptible of active and lively forms : how far this assertion unravels anything 
 I leave others to find out, but it certainly supposes two first principles, a 
 blind necessity or unsentient nature to furnish materials, and work them 
 up into elements, and a divine artificer whose office was only to form such 
 combinations as they were capable of being placed in : for if he had created 
 his own materials, we may presume he would have given them qualities 
 suitable to the purposes he intended them for. Some ascribe evil to our 
 immersion into matter : I know we receive all our evil from the action, or 
 by the intervention of material causes, but so we do all our pleasures and 
 satisfactions too. This only points out the channel through which evil is 
 derived to us, but does not go to the fountain head : for why should we 
 pronounce it impossible that a matter might have been created with dif- 
 ferent properties from the present, fitted for exciting pleasant perceptions, 
 but not painful ? or what contradiction is there in spirits having a capacity 
 given them of the former without any of the latter ? or who can show the 
 necessity of an immersion into matter at all ? Might not spirits have been
 
 GOODNESS. 353 
 
 made capable of affecting one another with perceptions ? or might they not, 
 as Berkeley supposes, have received such succession of ideas as was thought 
 proper for them, by the immediate hand of God ? Others attribute all the 
 mischief in the world to the abuse of free will : if they mean a free will of 
 indifference, they ought to show there is such a power, for we have found 
 no footsteps of it in our survey of human nature ; if they mean a free will 
 choosing upon motives, this acts always according to the state of the ima- 
 gination representing distant good in fainter or equally vivid colours with 
 present pleasure : and I believe all who admit a spiritual substance, hold 
 that there are societies of spirits in nature, whose imaginations are so rec- 
 tified, that they never choose amiss, and, though they hold their happiness 
 by the tenure of their obedience, are in no danger of forfeiting it. Nor 
 how little foundation soever there may be in fact for the doctrine of irre- 
 sistible grace, can it be shown impossible in theory : for if desire, that is, 
 the prospect of satisfaction, be fixed upon the proper point, free will never 
 fails to follow it : and a prospect depends upon the objects lying in view, 
 which in this case are the modifications of our mental organs, capable cer- 
 tainly of receiving any changes from the divine operation upon them, 
 whereby our sentiments and actions may be influenced without the least im- 
 peachment or control of our liberty. Or if reason and free will must 
 unavoidably draw some mischiefs after them, who will presume to say that 
 almighty power had not other faculties to bestow not attended with the like 
 inconveniences ? Nor at most can this cause account for all the evil found 
 in the world, for the brute creation though incapable of misconduct have 
 their share of it, and though much of their sufferings springs from the 
 tyranny and capriciousness of man, all does not : for there are pains and 
 hurts, terrors and slaughters, wants and distresses, among the beasts, the 
 fowls, and the insects, in wild forests, where the foot of man never trod, 
 nor the Will of man ever interfered. 
 
 4. There are those who allege the absurdity of creatures being equally 
 perfect with their Creator, and that imperfection necessarily implies a liable- 
 ness to evil : but this consequence I cannot discern ; for there is a manifest 
 difference between actual pain and the absence or diminution of pleasure. 
 A child is less perfect than a man ; but the uneasinesses befalling a child 
 arise from diseases, ill management, or accidents, not from the imperfection 
 of its organs. A creature with dull capacity, small powers, and few ma- 
 terials of enjoyment, might nevertheless be placed in a situation to exempt 
 it from all want and trouble. The wise man of the philosophers and glorified 
 saint of the Christians, although supposed to stand above the reach of all 
 evil, are still very imperfect in comparison with the author of their Being : 
 wherefore evil is not so connected with imperfection, but that the one may 
 subsist without the other. Besides, if it were otherwise, one should expect 
 to see them always accompany one another in equal proportion, but the 
 contrary appears manifest from experience : for persons of the brightest 
 parts and most extensive knowledge are not always the freeest from, 
 troubles ; an intelligent man has no less his share of them than the foolish 
 ostrich or the stupid beetle. Nay, that quick sensibility, which is the ground- 
 work of all advances towards perfection, increases the pungency of pains 
 and vexations. Many talk of a scale of Beings which, they say, must rise 
 in a continual gradation from Nothing to the divine perfections : yet they 
 cannot deny that there is an immense gap between the highest rank of 
 creatures and their Creator, and why might not there have been a gap 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A
 
 354; GOODNESS. 
 
 between Nothing and the bottom of the scale, so as to exclude all those 
 degrees which necessarily contain a mixture of evil, if there be any such, 
 which we have just now seen cause to doubt of ? But neither do they show 
 why there must be a scale of Beings, nor what inconveniency would' ensue 
 upon the lowest being raised to the condition of the highest. Do they 
 make an attribute of curiosity, and imagine the Supreme Being like some 
 great nobleman, who will have animals of all kinds in his menagerie to 
 divert himself with looking upon them ? Or did it cost omnipotence more 
 trouble to make an angel than an oyster, so that being fatigued with working 
 up the former, the latter was undertaken by way of play and recreation ? 
 Or does one take up more room in nature than the other, and after the 
 universe was filled with Beings of the superior order, there remained space 
 only for the inferior classes in the interstices between them ? In short, it 
 seems laying a restriction upon Almighty power to imagine that things 
 could not have been constituted otherwise than they are, and to conclude 
 that because we see a scale of Beings, free will liable to abuses, pains and 
 troubles brought upon us by the action of matter, therefore God was under 
 a necessity of ordering the world after this manner. 
 
 5. Sometimes we meet with persons who in handling this subject endea- 
 vour to stop our mouths with rhetoric instead of convincing us with logic, 
 for they tell us that starting these difficulties concerning goodness is mur- 
 nauring against Heaven. Hath not the potter power over his clay to make 
 one vessel to honour and another to dishonour ? This comparison was very 
 proper for the purpose it was intended to answer, namely, to silence the 
 unreasonable clamours of such as fancied themselves injured by the dispen- 
 sations of Providence ; but by no means helps us forward in a sober inquiry 
 into the nature and extent of the attribute under consideration. For the 
 question is not what the clay has a right to expect, but what we conceive it 
 likely that a beneficent potter would do, if he knew his vessels capable of 
 enjoyment or suffering according to the mould wherein they were cast. The 
 measure of bounty is not the rights but the wants and capacities of the sub- 
 ject whereon it is exercised ; nor does bounty begin until justice ends, for 
 there is none in giving every one barely what is his due. Were there a 
 man who should provide necessaries and conveniences for his children, lead 
 them into all useful accomplishments, indulge them with variety of plea- 
 sures and amusements, they ought to think themselves happy under such a 
 parent, notwithstanding he might have some humours which were trouble- 
 some to them now and then ; yet another who were clear of this exception 
 were better. So we, when we weigh the blessings against the troubles of 
 life and find how greatly the former exceed the latter, have abundant reason 
 to be satisfied with our lot : yet when we reflect on the character of our 
 heavenly Father in whom there can be nothing of humour, or ill-will, or 
 grudging, the preponderancy of good does not account for the few evils 
 scattered up and down among men, because though we can still acknow- 
 ledge him good, we are apt -to imagine that if these were removed he would 
 be better. So that our want of title to better fortune than is allotted us 
 does not help to reconcile the phenomena of nature with oar notion of in- 
 finite goodness : for the difficulty springs from our idea of the Donor, not 
 from our own merits, nor from any exception to the value of his gifts. 
 
 6. Thus all that has been suggested to account for the origin of evil has 
 proved unsatisfactory, and it still remains an inscrutable mystery which has 
 perplexed the thoughts of men from the days of Job down to the present 
 times, and probably will continue to do so as long as there shall be men on
 
 GOODNESS. 355 
 
 earth to descant upon it. Though we have not an adequate idea of infinite 
 power so as to determine in all cases what is absolutely impossible, or im- 
 plies a contradiction, yet we may clearly see that whatever has been done 
 might have been omitted, and that the capacity of suffering is a property 
 given to creatures with their being : nor can we imagine a necessity con- 
 straining God to form a world in a manner not suitable to his intention, or 
 attended with inconveniences he would wish to have removed, without de- 
 rogating from his almighty power and without admitting two First Causes 
 interfering with one another. Therefore we must needs acknowledge that 
 God created evil as well as good, and that nothing of either happens to his 
 creatures unless by his appointment or permission : and if this seems to 
 derogate from his goodness, let us consider whether we have an adequate 
 idea of goodness, or know precisely what is belonging and what repugnant 
 to it. 
 
 7. Goodness in ourselves is the prospect of satisfaction annexed to the 
 welfare of others, so that we please them for the pleasure we receive our- 
 selves in so doing, or to avoid the uneasiness we should feel on omitting 
 it. But God is completely happy in himself, nor can his happiness receive 
 increase or diminution from anything befalling his creatures : wherefore his 
 goodness is pure disinterested bounty without any return of joy or satisfac- 
 tion to himself. Therefore it is no wonder we have imperfect notions of a 
 quality whereof we have no experience in our own nature : for we know of 
 no other love than inclination, which prompts us to gratify it in the same 
 manner as our other inclinations. In the next place let us examine our 
 idea of infinite goodness taken in the abstract before we inquire whether 
 God be good or no, and we shall find it incompatible with that of infinite 
 power : for infinite goodness, according to our apprehension, requires that 
 it should exhaust omnipotence, that it should give capacities of enjoyment 
 and confer blessings until there were no more to be conferred ; but our idea 
 of omnipotence requires that it should be inexhaustible, that nothing should 
 limit its operations so that it could do no more than it has done. There- 
 fore it is much easier to conceive an imperfect creature completely good 
 than a perfect Being, for if he pursues invariably all opportunities of doing 
 good to the utmost of his power and knowledge, he deserves that character, 
 and if there are any injuries sustained which he cannot redress, any distress 
 unrelieved which he knows not of, his weakness and ignorance are a full 
 excuse for his omission. But where there is almighty power, unlimited 
 knowledge, and perfect wisdom, we can neither conceive that infinite good- 
 ness should extend to the utmost bounds of that which has no bounds, nor 
 yet that it should stop until it can proceed no further. Since then we find 
 our understanding incapable of comprehending infinite goodness joined with 
 infinite power, we need not be surprised at finding our thoughts perplexed 
 concerning them : for no other can be expected in matters above our reach, 
 and we may presume the obscurity rises from something wrong in our 
 ideas, not from any inconsistencies in the subjects themselves. In the last 
 place, let us remember that the attributes of God are infinite, therefore if 
 he were not infinitely good he must have been infinitely malicious, for either 
 in him must be pure and original independent on further views which might 
 sometimes render one expedient and sometimes the other : but this the 
 most melancholy imagination never yet suspected of him, for there is no- 
 body so destitute of enjoyment, or so overwhelmed with pains and distresses, 
 as not to be sensible that almighty power might have made his condition 
 still worse. 2 A 2
 
 356 GOODNESS. 
 
 8. Having thus taken off the force of those objections urged against Di- 
 vine Goodness, by showing that such will naturally start up upon matters 
 whereof we cannot have a full comprehension, and that greater will arise 
 upon the contrary supposal, let us now try what clear ideas we can form of 
 it, and what evidence we can gather of its reality from our experience. And 
 we need not go far to seek for proofs ; the very air we breathe, the food we 
 eat, the relish we find in our enjoyments, the materials ministering them to 
 us, the benefits and mutual solace of society, the faculties of understanding 
 and volition, the value of life which renders it generally desirable, are so 
 many striking marks of a beneficent disposition in the Giver of all these 
 things. Even our troubles come attended with their alleviations : we have 
 remedies and assistance in diseases, comfort in distresses, and hope lies 
 ready as a salve for every sore, nor are there any in so forlorn a condition 
 but may find something to thank God for, if they will look about to seek 
 it; for he remembers mercy in judgment, and gives us a glimpse of his 
 goodness in the very seasons when he afflicts us. Epicurus, though dis- 
 posed to find all the faults he could in the system of nature, yet made it 
 one amsng his collection of Masterly Maxims, That pain if grievous was 
 short, if long it was light. Nor are the brute creatures disregarded by the 
 author of their Being : he supplies them food for their sustenance, clothing 
 of hides, feathers, or shells for their defence, harbouring places for their 
 security, appetites for their preservation and entertainment, instincts for 
 their direction : the beasts and fowls breathe his air, the fish take their 
 pastime in his waters, the reptiles live upon his bounty, and the most con- 
 temptible insects receive their portion of enjoyment from his hand. 
 
 9. The epithet Contemptible happening to occur in the last line suggests 
 a train of thought that may lead to something serviceable upon the present 
 occasion ; for nothing is contemptible in the eyes of God ; it is the vanity 
 and selfishness of man that sets him in conceit at an immense distance above 
 other creatures, and thereby renders them objects of scorn and contempt : 
 so I run the hazard of offending the delicacy of my cotemporaries by repre- 
 senting almighty power and wisdom employed in providing conyeniences 
 and enjoyments for the pismire, the earth-worm, and the mite, the ugly 
 spider, the filthy maggot, and the venomous adder. Nor might have 
 succeeded with them much better had I extended the observation no further 
 than to the human species ; for they concern themselves not with what 
 happens to the Indian, the savage, or the Hottentot, they care not for the 
 greasy ploughman or the dirty cinder-wench : persons born in a cottage 
 are thought below their notice, all who want their own knowledge and 
 politeness deemed incapable of enjoyment. So that we lose the view of all 
 the good done to objects we esteem unworthy of any regard, and when 
 things happen amiss to ourselves we forget how often they have happened 
 to our wishes. This narrowness of mind contracts our prospect of nature, 
 and as she has some dark spots upon her face, if the eye fixes upon one of 
 these, it sees nothing but gloom and despondency ; whereas were our vision 
 a little enlarged we might perceive every dark place surrounded with a 
 splendour of light, 
 
 10. It is observable that men commonly take their estimate of nature 
 from themselves and their own situation : while success attends them they 
 think they shall never meet with disappointment, and when disappointment 
 stands across their passage they think they shall never see the lucky 
 moment again : while in the vigour of youth, the constitution strong, the 
 spirits alert, desires eager, and materials of gratification continually at hand,
 
 GOODNESS. 357 
 
 they find no fault or blemish hi nature, the world is then a glorious world, 
 und pleasures expected without end : we hear of no murmurings against 
 Providence, nor mistrusts that things are not so well-ordered as they should 
 be, but they are rather apt to think God, as I may say, too good, so as to 
 wink at their miscarriages, indulge them in their follies, and suffer them to 
 do what mischief they please to their fellow-creatures without control. But 
 when pain, disease, disappointment, or distress, pinches them, the tables 
 ure tumed, they see not nor sympathize with the enjoyments abounding 
 elsewhere, but take their judgment of nature from that little spot where- 
 with they have immediate concern, and then doubts arise concerning the 
 condition of things : why was not this mischief prevented ; where was 
 almighty power that could not, or where was infinite goodness that would 
 not, prevent -it ? Thos we see that infinite goodness ebbs and flows accord- 
 ing to the state of our minds : when we are at ease in ourselves, we find no 
 difficulty in entertaining the idea of it : when dissatisfied with our present 
 condition, nothing is harder for us to comprehend. Nor is this to be 
 wondered at, for vexations -of every kind give a melancholy cast to the 
 mind, destroying the relish of those pleasures which used to delight us 
 before, so that we have nothing similar in our imagination wherewith to 
 compare the sensations of others : for our only way of estimating other 
 people's enjoyments is by imagining ourselves in their circumstances, and 
 reflecting on the joy we should receive thereby, but when the mind is so 
 disposed as to care for nothing, and find a relish in nothing, we cannot 
 readily conceive others wishing or caring fofwhat would not affect us ; and 
 therefore being unable to form a clear conception of enjoyment either in 
 ourselves or elsewhere, we lose the idea of that goodness which can be 
 apprehended only by its effects. 
 
 11. Thus we find our unfavourable suspicions of nature, owing to the 
 wrong turn or disordered condition of our imagination, when our own ill 
 management or unlucky circumstances confine our view to the least favour- 
 able of her features : for so a man may take distaste to a fine building, if 
 he be locked up in the necessary, or resolve to look upon nothing else. 
 Therefore it behoves us to take the opportunity for forming our judgment 
 when the mind is most in tranquillity, not ruffled by vexation*, nor pressed 
 by importunate desires, when the understanding is clearest, when we can 
 extend our view all around and consider everything impartially : and we 
 may help ourselves not a little towards enlarging our mind by contracting 
 a habit of benevolence. I have already taken notice in the chapter upon 
 that article, as -one of the advantages accruing from a benevolent temper, 
 that nothing contributes so much to open the heart, to enliven the imagina- 
 tion, and give a cheerful ast to the scenes around us. For what we wish 
 well to, we think well of, and if we wish well to everything, we shall be 
 attentive to the successes and pleasures that happen to everything : and by 
 turning our observation constantly that way shall find subjects to rejoice at 
 which the selfish and narrow- spirited never know. We shall cease to 
 measure others' satisfactions by our own standard, or think nothing desirable 
 to them which we would not choose for ourselves : but shall discern a variety 
 of tastes adapted to the several conditions Wherein men are placed, and 
 things which were irksome at first becoming pleasant by custom. We may 
 see that children have their plays, the vulgar their amusements, coarse 
 jokes, and may-games : even folly does not exclude pleasure, nor poverty 
 banish contentment. There is as much mirth in the kitchen as the parlour, 
 and as great diversion in a country fair or a cricket match as a card assembly
 
 353 GOODNESS. 
 
 or a ridotto. ' The cobbler whistles at his stall, the dairy maid sings while 
 she is milking, the ploughman munches his mouldy crusts with as good a 
 relish as the rich man eats his dainties, for he has that best of sauces, 
 hunger, to season his victuals. Labour purifies the blood, invigorates the 
 limbs, strengthens the digestion, insures quiet sleep, and renders the body 
 proof against changes and inclemencies of weather, all which are consider- 
 able articles in the enjoyment of life, nor can their loss be compensated by 
 any advantages of family, fortune, learning, and politeness. Nor is the 
 lowest herd incapable of that sincerest of pleasures, the consciousness of 
 acting right, for rectitude does not consist in extensiveness of knowledge, 
 but in doing the best according to the lights afforded ; and many artisans, 
 servants, and labourers, find as much satisfaction in fulfilling the duties of 
 their station, as the philosopher in his researches into Nature. Nor need 
 we stop at the human species, for the brute creation too exhibits scenes 
 agreeable for the good-natured man to look upon : he may rejoice to see 
 the cattle sporting in the fields, or hear the birds singing or chirping out 
 their joys, to behold the swallow building nests to hatch her young, the 
 ant laying in store of provisions for her future accommodation, the flies in 
 a summer evening dancing together in wanton mazes, the little pucerons in 
 water frisking nimbly about, as if delighted with their existence. 
 
 12. Whoever has a heart to enjoy such contemplations will be apt to 
 pursue them until he has satisfied himself there is a much greater quantity 
 of enjoyment than sufFering upon earth : for pleasures spring from steady 
 permanent causes, as the vigour of health, the due returns of appetite, and 
 calls of nature to exercise or rest : but pains proceed from accidents which 
 happen rarely, or diseases which are either slight or temporary. And he will 
 entertain a favourable idea of that bounty which supplies desires and means 
 of gratifying them to every species, from imperial man down to the scarce 
 perceptible insect. When he has filled his imagination with this idea, he 
 may draw comfort from it in his seasons of affliction and distress, for though 
 he finds no pleasures within his own reach, or have lost the relish of any 
 that might be offered him, he may reflect how many thousands at that mo- 
 ment are dancing and singing, marrying and giving in marriage, advancing 
 towards the accomplishment of their wishes, and pursuing all kinds of en- 
 joyment with full gust and satisfaction : how many millions of animals are 
 eating their food, providing for their accommodations, taking their pastimes, 
 or ruminating in their lurking, holes ; and this consideration may alleviate 
 his trouble. I do not mean nor expect that he should carry his benevo- 
 lence to such an unattainable height, as to make the joys he feels in sym- 
 pathizing with the joys around him stifle the smart of every evil that can 
 befal him : but he may gather this consolation from them, that there is an 
 inexhaustible spring of bounty flowing incessantly upon the world, and from 
 thence conclude that himself shall partake in due measure of the stream at 
 some time or other, if not in his present at least in some future state of 
 being. 
 
 13. For the great preponderancy of good over evil, in this part of the 
 creation lying within our view, manifests a beneficence in the character of the 
 Author, which must operate likewise no less in all other parts of his work : 
 for so we reason in matters familiar to our acquaintance. We know nothing 
 of causes unless by their effects, nor the characters of persons unless by 
 their deeds. We know that fire will burn because we see wood con- 
 sumed by it, that water is fluid because we see it fluctuate and disperse. If 
 a man has been used to cheat, we expect he will cheat again, or if he has
 
 GOODNESS. 359 
 
 fong behaved with honesty and truth, we expect the like behaviour from 
 him for the future. Thus our whole dependence upon the qualities of 
 bodies we daily handle and persons we daily converse with rests upon our 
 experience : and we have or may have, if we will take pains to acquire it, the 
 like experience of an unwearied bounty pouring blessings all around us : so 
 that we have as good ground of assurance that God will continue to do good 
 as we have that fire will burn, that the stone will resist the touch, or that 
 our bosom friend will not betray us. Were we entertained in the family of 
 some nobleman, if we found him kind and condescending to his dependents, 
 humane to his servants, careful to establish salutary orders for the regulation 
 of his household, watchful to see that even his cattle had their proper food 
 and conveniences, we should naturally conclude the same good management 
 prevailed in all his other houses. We have lived some years in this family 
 of terrestrial animals, and we may as naturally conclude that the same 
 beneficence which provides so amply for their welfare according to their 
 respective wants and capacities, extends to every other family of sentient 
 Beings throughout the universe. 
 
 14. By this means we may attain as full and clear an idea of goodness as 
 may satisfy us of a character of benevolence in the Disposer of all things : 
 but the evil we likewise experience cannot infer a defect of goodness, 
 because the attributes must be perfect and infinite ; nor yet an opposite 
 character, because our clearest judgment informs us that contradictory cha- 
 racters cannot subsist in the same subject. Therefore we must acknowledge 
 evil to be unaccountable, and unaccountable phenomena we never extend 
 further than we can see of them. It is possible that what portion of evil 
 there is in nature may be confined to the visible world and lie within the 
 regions of matter, nor need we suppose it existent elsewhere until further 
 reasons shall occur for the supposition. At least we may presume from the 
 character of goodness that the quantity of good in the universe vastly 
 exceeds that of evil, which is enough to give us an inviting prospect of our 
 condition wherever we shall go, unless there be some unfavourable circum- 
 stances particularly attending ourselves which make us liable to fear the 
 worst. 
 
 15. As to the perplexities involving our thoughts let us consider from 
 "whence they generally arise, and perhaps we shall find them not irremove- 
 able. We commonly esteem goodness to consist in a compliance with our 
 humours ; a parent that indulges us in all our desires we look upon as 
 supremely good, and if we should happen to desire what is hurtful, still we 
 should think his denial of it a severity. But desire ordinarily fixes upon 
 present satisfaction, and seldom runs along the whole line of consequences 
 from whence the real value of things ought to be estimated : so that we 
 often think ourselves hardly dealt with at the very time when we are 
 receiving good. But when the trouble is once over, and we feel the bene- 
 fits resulting therefrom, we can acknowledge that to be goodness we once 
 esteemed hardship : and so we should have done at first had we had a clear 
 discernment of the distant good and an earnest desire for it^ for then we 
 should have thought nothing a hardship that lay in the way to accomplish 
 it ; so that our discontents are owing to a misapprehension occasioned by 
 the narrowness of our views. 
 
 16. So long as things succeed currently to our wishes we entertain no 
 doubt of divine goodness : while we have the means of gratifying our 
 desires we find fault with none of the laws of nature, not even that of rest 
 after labours of the day, although sleep cuts off from above a quarter of the
 
 360 GOODNESS. 
 
 enjoyments we might have had could we subsist without it. A moderate 
 pittance of happiness contents us if we have no thoughts of anything higher, 
 nor is there a man so unreasonable as to quarrel with the Almighty for 
 making him an imperfect creature, or to think it an impeachment of good- 
 ness that he has not the capacity and enjoyments of an angel. Since then 
 imperfection of happiness in any degree is not repugnant to our idea of 
 goodness, let us consider whether this imperfection, although not neces- 
 sarily implying a liableness to evil, may not well consist with a mixture of 
 it. For the value of existence depends upon the quantity of happiness 
 received therein, and every evil is the same as a substraction from that 
 quantity : if then the good and evil compared together leave a balance of 
 the former, which if given alone would be sufficient to denominate the 
 creature happy, and be thought a gift becoming infinite goodness to bestow, 
 why should not both together be thought so too, since they are of equal 
 value ? A salary of five hundred pounds a year, chargeable with a constant 
 land tax of four shillings in the pound, is equal to four hundred without that 
 deduction : and if a friend put you in the way of making a thousand pounds 
 by laying out four hundred, you would think yourself as much obliged to 
 him as if he had helped you to a clear six hundred. So if there be a profuse 
 abundance of happiness together with a small mixture of suffering distributed 
 throughout the universe, the condition of the creatures is as valuable as if 
 the net balance of the former had been given alone : but this would have 
 been thought to denominate the giver infinitely good ; why then should the 
 state of the world, as it is, occasion any doubts to the contrary ? 
 
 17. Much of our good springs out of evil, for objects exciting pleasant 
 sensations rarely occur, but it is the amusement we find in the exercises of 
 our activity and the engagement of our pursuits that furnish us with most 
 of the enjoyments of life, and it is the desire of delivering or guarding 
 ourselves from something we do not like, that chiefly prompts us to bestir 
 ourselves : so that if there was no such thing as danger, want, or satiety, 
 we should have little to do, and life would become insipid for want of em- 
 ployment. Nor does our reflection upon the good we possess contribute 
 less than the pleasures we actually feel to that complacence of mind which 
 renders life desirable, but this reflection arises principally from the contem- 
 plation of those evils from which we are exempted : it has been constantly 
 observed that we know not the value of blessings until we lose them, and 
 those who meet with nothing to ruffle them are scarce sensible of their hap- 
 piness. For as a foil sets off a beauty, so the disappointments we have 
 experienced or distresses we behold others labour under, give us a just esti- 
 mation of our present good fortune. When we turn our thoughts to thanks- 
 giving we generally find them run upon topics relative to some wants that 
 are supplied, distresses that are relieved, dangers from which we are secured, 
 or mischiefs from which we are exempted : nor can we scarce bring our 
 rainds to thank God for the air we breathe, because it is so common : or for 
 the constant returns of spring and summer, of morning and day -light, be- 
 cause we never miss them ; and when we do discern the value of these 
 things it is by reflecting on the forlorn condition we should stand in without 
 them. A rescue from some imminent danger gives a stronger apprehension 
 of kindness than a thousand good offices, and pleasure never comes so wel- 
 come as when preceded by pain ; nay, ease alone after a deliverance from 
 trouble affords a joy that satisfies the mind without any of those amuse- 
 ments necessary to content us at any other time : most of our vexations 
 make us some returns of this kind, and many of them perhaps greater than
 
 GOODNESS. 361 
 
 the uneasiness they gave us while present. The complicated machinery of 
 our body, consisting of so many tender vessels and fibres liable to a thou- 
 sand disorders yet preserved many years entire and unhurt, the variety of 
 necessaries requisite for our food, our clothing, and our accommodation, 
 continually supplied from innumerable quarters, fill us with a higher idea 
 of the divine wisdom, care, and beneficence, than we could otherwise have 
 entertained. Thus want, weakness, imperfection, and evil, tend to display 
 goodness, and without them we should scarce have known what it was : so 
 that whatever joy and solace we receive at any time in contemplating the 
 divine goodness, we owe to that mixture of evil falling within our notice. 
 
 1 8. Having satisfied ourselves by these and many more the like considera- 
 tions which our experience may suggest, that there is a character of good- 
 ness in the Author of nature, let us now examine what we may conceive 
 agreeable or repugnant to such character, this being our only guidance to 
 judge of matters not falling under our immediate observation and experi- 
 ence : and we shall find these two inferences naturally follow from our idea 
 of goodness. That the proportion of good must greatly surpass that of evil 
 in the universe, and that good is given for its own sake, but evil never sent 
 unless as a means productive of some greater good. The former of these 
 conclusions may give us a favourable prospect of nature in general, and the 
 latter may yield us comfort in particular seasons of trouble. For we may 
 consider evil as a tax imposed, not to feed the avarice and ambition of the 
 great, but for the support and exigencies of the government ; and though 
 we do not always see the uses for which it is wanted, yet we may rest 
 assured of the application being in good hands, and that no more is levied 
 than will be disposed of to the advantage of the community ; therefore we , 
 may look upon every payment as a purchase of something more valuable 
 than the price that is paid for it, or as a call for money to be improved at 
 interest upon the best security. Whoever can possess his imagination with 
 a lively sense of suffering being a purchase, and this seems not impossible 
 to be effected by a due and habitual reflection upon the nature of goodness, 
 will be so far from being disturbed at the weight or sharpness, or continu- 
 ance of the miseries he sees among mankind, that he will regard it as an 
 evidence of some unspeakable enjoyment lying in store, which infinite 
 goodness judges worth the purchasing at so high a price. Nor need it 
 stagger him to reflect that suffering is sometimes inflicted for a punishment 
 of wrong doing, for we have seen in the last volume that a righteous man 
 will never punish unless with a view to some greater advantage accruing 
 therefrom : so that even punishment may be looked upon in the light of a 
 purchase. Neither can this representation of it give an encouragement to 
 do wrong for the sake of purchasing that greater advantage, for besides 
 that persons inclined to catch excuses for doing wrong are not likely to 
 attain the persuasion above mentioned, the purchase in case of punishment 
 either redounds to the benefit of others, or consists in an exemption from 
 those worse punishments which impunity would draw upon the delinquent. 
 
 19. Since then we find the estates of happiness in this sublunary king- 
 dom subject to taxes, we must take the whole together, the rents and profits 
 together with the disbursements. Or since evil is so interwoven with good 
 that one cannot be had without the other, we must not pick out single 
 threads but regard the whole contexture as one piece, and in this light it 
 will appear that every dispensation is good and worthy divine bounty to 
 bestow. As to the existence of evil and its being so interwoven into the 
 fortunes of creatures, we can do no otherwise than refer this to some
 
 362 EQUITY. 
 
 unknown attribute. For as has been observed before, the little we know of 
 God being drawn from those few of his works lying within our cognizance, 
 we cannot expect they should discover the whole of his nature, but there 
 may probably be other attributes belonging to him of which we can enter- 
 tain no conception. We have already found the necessity of some such in 
 the article of omniscience : for though wisdom may discern what capacities 
 and stations are requisite for completing the grand design in view, it cannot 
 determine what particular substances shall have such or such capacities, or 
 occupy such or such stations preferably to any others. So upon the present 
 article we have found it repugnant to our notions to suppose either that in- 
 finite bounty could stop until there was nothing further to bestow, or yet 
 that creatures should be raised to the perfection and ineffable happiness of 
 their creator. Therefore we must necessarily conclude there is some other 
 attribute to moderate between goodness and omnipotence, to set the pro- 
 per limits of imperfection ascertaining how near it may approach towards 
 perfection, and what distance it must always keep therefrom, and to be the 
 origin of evil : with all which we need not perplex our thoughts either to 
 raise doubts or attempt discoveries concerning them, since they spring from 
 a source whereof we can have no comprehension. 
 
 CHAP. XVII. 
 
 EQUITY. 
 
 IF this shall appear a novel title, it is so no otherwise than by making 
 that a separate article which used to be included under a more general 
 term ; Equity being a species of Justice, which has always been ascribed to 
 God in the most perfect degree. For justice is commonly divided into dis- 
 tributive and commutative, and though the latter epithet be not properly 
 applicable to the proceedings of God, with whom we have nothing to com- 
 mute in return for the blessings received at his hands, yet neither do all our 
 dealings with one another relate to matters of exchange or such wherein 
 our own interests are concerned. In apportioning the cares of a parent 
 among his children, the protection afforded by a prince to his subjects or 
 countenance given to his servants, there are certain rules which a just man 
 will observe, and these belong to that branch of justice usually styled the 
 commutative, nor can we conceive the like rule of equity disregarded by him 
 who is righteous in all his ways. 
 
 2. This attribute seems the easiest of any to our comprehension, for it is 
 no more than a perfect impartiality inclining God to be good alike to all, and 
 to spread his mercy over all his works. It involves us in none of those dif- 
 ficulties we met with before on contemplating omnipotence, omniscience, and 
 infinite goodness, which we cannot well conceive either with or without 
 bounds. For the opportunities of success given to one man must be pos- 
 sible and may be afforded to another, nor can wisdom want methods of 
 bringing about events similar to those it has already contrived, nor do we 
 see any hindrance that whatever measure of bounty is thought proper for 
 the creatures may be diffused equally among them. And it is agreeable to 
 our notions of God that it should be so, for his bounty is pure, unexcited 
 by objects, but flowing solely from himself, and we naturally expect that 
 the same cause should produce the same effect wherever it operates, unless
 
 EQUITY. 363 
 
 by reason of a difference in the subjects ; but there could be no difference of 
 one man from another in their state of nonentity : what difference lies 
 between them was of God's making, and if he has been more sparing of 
 his favours to some, we may presume he will make them amends upon 
 another occasion. Nor can we fail of being confirmed in this notion when 
 we reflect what it is that makes men partial or unequal in their good offices: 
 we perform them to those from whom we expect the like return, or in grati- 
 tude for services done us, or to gain credit and reputation in the world, or 
 for relation or intimacy sake, or because their humours suit with our own, 
 because we find a pleasure in their company, or have taken a favourable 
 liking to their persons : but the more a man improves in reason and virtue, 
 the more equal we find him in his sentiments and behaviour towards those 
 with whom he has intercourse. Thus we find the seeds of partiality iii 
 wants and weaknesses of human nature, none of which can have place iu 
 the Divine. I shall not presume to limit the authority of God, or set up a 
 claim to the like proportion of blessings that others enjoy ; for we are the 
 work of his hands, and he has not only full power but lawful right to dis- 
 pose of us as he pleases, to bestow a larger measure of his bounty upon 
 one, and less upon another : but the question here, as before, in the case of 
 goodness, is not what the creature has a right to expect, but how our idea 
 of the dispenser of all good things makes it likely he should deal with us. 
 And for my part, when I consider the nature of pure unmerited love, I can 
 see nothing that should cause it to make a difference in objects where those 
 objects have not a prior intrinsic value. Therefore we may abide by our 
 theory and conclude the love of God extended in equal measure, to all who 
 are objects of it, until we shall find our theory corrected by experience. 
 
 3. But it may be thought experience does contradict our supposition by 
 the very unequal distribution of good and evil we see prevailing among 
 mankind : some abound in superfluities, while others want even the neces- 
 saries of life : some enjoy exuberant health, while others struggle conti- 
 nually with distempers and infirmities ; some increase knowledge without 
 measure, while others scarce know their right hand from their left. For- 
 tune, honour, accomplishments, success, and ease, take up their abode with 
 a chosen few, and leave the rest of the world to labour, trouble, and anxiety. 
 But in the first place, let us examine the conditions of men narrowly, and 
 we shall find them not so very unequal as may appear at first sight, for there 
 are many unobserved joys and vexations which we do not take into account : 
 therefore we are very bad estimaters of happiness, for we judge of it by our 
 desires which fasten upon intense pleasures, and run eagerly after those 
 things which would give us the greatest joy in the acquisition, or the most 
 pungent sorrow upon losing them : but it is the continual produce of satis- 
 faction and complacence yielded by possessing, not the first transports on 
 obtaining, that constitutes the real value of things. The poor man wishes 
 for riches, the diseased and weak for health and vigour, the ignorant for 
 knowledge, and such as are possessed of those advantages would think it a 
 grievous misfortune to lose them : so that it is acknowledged by the conces- - 
 sion of all, that they are better had than gone without, nor can it be doubted 
 that the giving of them would cause extraordinary joy in the receivers, and 
 the deprivation of them as great grief and vexation in the losers. But could 
 we lay open the thoughts of those who have been used to either fortune, 
 without having ever known the opposite, and penetrate into their sentiments 
 and feelings, we should find that pleasures grow insipid, and misfortunes 
 light, by custom, that wants increase by success, and content springs out of
 
 364 EQUITY. 
 
 disappointment ; that both have their joys and their vexations, their comforts 
 and their troubles, their amusements and their dislikes, their satisfactions and 
 their uneasinesses, perhaps in nearer proportion than can easily be imagined. 
 At least, it must be admitted that all receive some share in the bounties of 
 heaven, and pay their quota to that tax of evil imposed upon human nature. 
 Nor do salubrious or pestilential airs, vernal suns, or the scorching dog- 
 star, seas or winds, make any difference between high and low, strong and 
 weak, wise and foolish. 
 
 4. In the next place let us remember, that notwithstanding we cannot, 
 with all our allowances, make the lot of all men exactly equal, the spirit 
 will remain entire after dissolution of the body, still capable of receiving 
 good and evil, of satisfaction and uneasiness ; and though all the channels 
 conveying either now should be taken away, we know not what new facul- 
 ties it may acquire, or what materials may be provided for exercising them 
 in the world whereto it is going : so that we can no more pronounce upon 
 a man's lot by that small period of his existence within our inspection, than 
 we can upon his enjoyment of life by seeing him pass a single day. For 
 what was wanting here may be made up in another state, and what was re- 
 dundant may be retrenched. Wherefore our experience is too imperfect to 
 warrant our altering the theory of this attribute, which is the clearest of 
 any to our conception. 
 
 5 . A little observation may show us how naturally men's reason may lead 
 them into an opinion of the Divine Equity. Such as do not much exercise 
 their reason conceive of God as having his favourites and his aversions, be- 
 cause they have so themselves, and value themselves upon it, for we form 
 our idea of God upon the model of what we esteem most excellent in our- 
 selves : but those who practise thought and consideration see that an equi- 
 table temper is a commendation in a man's character, and consequently 
 ascribe it in a most eminent degree to that Being which is the fountain of 
 perfection. Therefore the unequal distribution of good and evil upon earth 
 has always been made an argument to prove a future state, that the account 
 might be set even there which was left unsettled here : and opinions have 
 been embraced without other foundation than because they were thought 
 necessary to reconcile the different lots of men with the perfect equity of that 
 power by whom they are disposed. Xavier, the great apostle of the Jesuits, 
 taking for granted that the only way to happiness lay through the Roman 
 Church, and yet being sensible that thousands are born and die without ever 
 having an opportunity of being admitted into it, asserts positively that every 
 Tartar and savage has a revelation of the Romish faith made to him in the 
 very article of death. He could have no evidence to support this assertion ; 
 for who knows what passes in the departing soul after it has lost the use 
 of speech by which it might declare what it felt to the standers by ? but 
 he had recourse to this wild imagination as the only way to salve that equity 
 which he could not but acknowledge must deal alike favourably with all 
 and propose the terms of happiness to every human creature. To this 
 cause likewise we may attribute the invention of a free-will of indifference, 
 that men may make their fortunes unequal where the favours of heaven 
 bestowed on them were equal ; as a child for whom the father has made 
 an ample provision with the rest of his brethren may yet run himself into 
 poverty by his own extravagance : but if the Will were constantly deter- 
 mined by motives, it was thought the lot of every one must depend upon 
 what motives were furnished. Since then we have the concurrence of the 
 sober and considerate part of mankind in behalf of this doctrine of God
 
 TWO CHARACTERS IN GOD. 30.3 
 
 being equitable and alike good to all his intelligent creatures, and we find 
 men so firmly rooted in this persuasion as to practise all contrivances to 
 bring their particular tenets to coincide with it, we need make no scruple of 
 ranking equity among the attributes and using it as a principle whereon to 
 build what judgment we can concerning the constitution of things unseen. 
 
 6. These are all the attributes whereof we have any distinct knowledge 
 or conception, and I call them primary as being essential to the Divine 
 Nature. Nor let it be thought an omission that I have taken no notice of 
 Justice, Purity, Majesty, and Holiness, which have always been esteemed 
 attributes equally with those before mentioned : but I look upon these as 
 secondary attributes, not arising from contemplation of the Divine Nature 
 considered in itself, but in conjunction with the nature of man and consti- 
 tution of things in the universe ; upon which I shall want to make some 
 further observations before I can explain my thoughts concerning them. 
 Therefore shall postpone the consideration of these secondary attributes for 
 the present, and hope it will be left to me to choose the proper time for 
 entering upon it according to the course wherein my reasonings shall 
 carry me. 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 TWO CHARACTERS IN GOD. 
 
 WE are told that no man can see God and live, by which I do not 
 apprehend it necessary to understand that the sight of him is so terrible as 
 to destroy us, but that our faculties are incapable of a full discernment of 
 him : so that no man can see God while he lives encumbered with this veil 
 of flesh, nor until invested with a finer organization, or enabled to see 
 intuitively even as also he is seen. And we have found this truth exem- 
 plified upon our inquiry into the attributes : we saw clouds and difficulties 
 gather around us; and discovered a necessity of other unknown attributes, 
 whereof the understanding of man has never yet received a glimpse, to. 
 furnish objects for infinite wisdom, and set the measure to infinite goodness. 
 On the other hand, we may be said to see God continually before our eyes : 
 our own existence and that of the objects we behold lead us to the know- 
 ledge of his Being, the curious structure of our bodies, the wonderful 
 agility and variety of ideas in our minds declare his wisdom, the blessings 
 poured daily around us manifest his goodness, the sun that rules by day, 
 the stars that twinkle by night, the vast expanse of heaven, display his 
 power and greatness. 
 
 2. Since then God is incomprehensible, and the thought of him an un- 
 fathomable abyss where the line of reason can feel no bottom, yet at the 
 same time an object obvious to our notice, and which it is highly incumbent 
 upon us to pursue so far as our faculties can reach with clearness, let us 
 endeavour to separate what we find clear in our conceptions of him from 
 what is dark and mysterious. And I believe this may best be done by con- 
 sidering him in two capacities, as Creator, and as Governor of the world : 
 for creation being a matter whereto we find nothing similar in our expe- 
 rience, we have no idea of it, nor anything belonging to it. We know 
 that substances owe their existence and properties to an almighty power ; 
 but in what other manner they might have been created, or what others 
 might have been added to their number, or whether any or what induce-
 
 366 TWO CHARACTERS IN GOD. 
 
 ment there was for creating them, we know nothing of. All the difficulties 
 before started concerning absolute impossibilities, the necessity of previous 
 objects to serve as materials for wisdom to work upon, the limitation of 
 goodness, and origin of evil, relate to the first constitution of things ; from 
 which we had better withhold our thoughts, for the further we push them, 
 the more we shall find ourselves entangled in perplexities and contra- 
 dictions. 
 
 3. But the governance of the world lies nearer to our apprehension, as 
 proceeding upon a constitution of things already established, disposing and 
 giving motion to substances according to the properties assigned them, 
 ordering the laws of nature and directing events falling under our cogni- 
 zance, and by various structures or combinations, either of matter alone or 
 in conjunction with spirit, raising secondary qualities perceivable by our 
 senses. For our own volition being determined by motives, and our 
 actions constantly aiming at some purpose suggested either by fancy or 
 judgment, we have no conception of a power exerted without previous 
 objects to direct and guide it : which has given rise to the notion of a 
 nature of things eternal and unalterable by any Will or power whatsoever. 
 But we may escape this absurdity and bring our ideas to tally with one 
 another by considering a Governor of the universe, working upon a nature 
 of things already assigned him, and acting according to certain rules estab- 
 lished by the Creator from everlasting. I am far from intending hereby to 
 divide the Divine Unity, or deny that it is one and the same God which 
 created and still governs the world : I only propose this as an imaginary 
 division rendering the subject more suitable to our narrow faculties, which 
 may comprehend in part what they cannot compass entire. Nor do I see 
 any hurt in imagining that to be two which we know to be in reality one, 
 for we have observed formerly that our conceptions often vary from our 
 knowledge, and may find further occasion hereafter to show that it is 
 expedient they should do so. We conceive the sun to run his race every 
 day through the heavens, though we know the fact to be otherwise ; for it 
 is more convenient to speak and think of that seemingly little orb as moving 
 about, and the wide stretched earth with all the buildings and mountains 
 upon it as stationary. And so I apprehend it more convenient for our 
 imagination to conceive the world and affairs of men administered by one 
 power limited and prescribed to by another. 
 
 4. The Creator dwells in unaccessible light, where the eye of man cannot 
 approach or sees little distinctly, being dazzled by the bright effulgence. 
 We know that he is almighty, self-existent, uncaused, without beginning, 
 and unspeakably happy, and this perhaps is all we can affirm safely con- . 
 cerning him : unless that to him belong those unknown attributes of which 
 we can say nothing more than that there are such. He has established 
 some things so firmly that their existence seems almost as necessary as his 
 own : Time and Space, the imperfection of creatures, the relations between 
 numbers, lines, angels, and forms, we cannot conceive ever to have had a 
 beginning. His ways are unsearchable and his actions past finding out, 
 therefore it is in vain to attempt accounting for his proceedings. We see 
 there are substances around us, but why they were created in such numbers 
 and no more, or with such particular properties and no others, or in such 
 certain stations : why our ideas are variable and the face of nature con- 
 tinually changing ; why productions are formed and events brought about, 
 by a long chain of second causes, and not by an immediate exertion of om- 
 nipotence ; why evil was intermingled among the good, or in what exact
 
 TWO CHARACTERS IN GOD. 367 
 
 proportion ; of all these points we are utterly ignorant. Nor can we know 
 any more concerning the time than the manner of creation, or determine 
 whether the creatures may not have been co-eternal with the Creator : for 
 though they be effects requiring an efficient cause to produce them, yet an 
 effect may well be eternal where the cause is so. I could easily believe the 
 Thames to have run eternally if I could persuade myself that the springs 
 supplying it had flowed for ever : and if there had always been a sun, there 
 would have been no beginning of day-light. So, though the creation 
 depended upon a superior power for its existence, it may nevertheless have 
 subsisted from everlasting, because that power was never wanting whereon 
 it might depend. Nor let it be urged that the Will and good pleasure of 
 God must set omnipotence at work before there could be anything created : 
 for when we reflect on the immutability of the divine nature, we can no 
 more assign limits to the determination of his Will than to the exercise of 
 his power. Therefore it behoves us to know our own ignorance, for this 
 is the strongest mark of such wisdom as the frailty of human nature can 
 rise to : as it is an instance of folly to conceit oneself understanding every- 
 thing and to decide confidently upon every subject. And if we be at all 
 sensible of our ignorance, we shall be very cautious in our assertions con- 
 cerning creation or the Author of it, esteeming him an object of our admi- 
 ration and adoration rather than of our inquiry. Nor need we be disturbed 
 at the want of further knowledge, which could avail us nothing if we had 
 it ; for we must take things as we find them, our capacities and the qua- 
 lities of other substances affecting us as assigned them, nor can we expect 
 they should be altered to please us. If we know what are proper for our 
 uses, how should we be the better for knowing why they were so consti- 
 tuted ? If we can discern the sources of good and evil, this is enough to 
 direct us what to pursue and what to avoid, nor could we do it more effec- 
 tually were we able to trace those sources up to their original causes. 
 Besides, when the Creator had laid the foundation of nature he rested from 
 his works, and having once made us, retained, as I may say, no longer any 
 concern with us, but delivered us over to that Providence which governs 
 and disposes the things already created, exercises the capacities, and 
 employs the qualities already assigned. 
 
 5. But the Governor of the Universe is a more discernible object, easier 
 for our imagination to comprehend, clothed with milder rays of glory, the 
 subject of our hope and confidence as well as of our admiration. For we 
 may behold him provident, wise, gracious, and beneficent, protecting us 
 against the confusion of Chance and hard hand of Necessity, having all 
 nature under command, so that no disturbance or disorder can intrude 
 against his liking. To him belong those attributes of which we can form 
 any distinct notion : omnipotence, to give what motions and directions he 
 pleases to substances, to change their situations and throw them into what 
 combinations, or associate tnem with what company he thinks proper; 
 omniscience, to discern at one glance the whole number of substances ex- 
 istent, their capacities, qualities, and positions ; wisdom, to know exactly 
 what secondary qualities will arise and what effects shall be produced by the 
 operation and concurrence of second causes, so that among all the various 
 impulses of matter and actions of spirit, nothing shall fall out contrary to 
 his design and expectation ; omnipresence, that nothing may escape his 
 notice, but every particle of corporeal or spiritual substance be directed 
 with the same vigilance as if it were the sole object of his attention ; un- 
 wearied goodness, to. provide all the happiness for the creatures which their
 
 368 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 capacities can receive or the pre-established nature of things will admit j 
 and impartial equity, to allot the just proportion of good and evil among 
 sentient creatures, so as that none may have cause to complain at being 
 unequally or arbitrarily dealt with. These things we find no difficulty to 
 comprehend, and these are enow to assure us that the course of nature and 
 fortune is ordered for the best, and that we live under a government which 
 a prudent man would choose for himself if it were left to his option. 
 
 6. To consider God as Governor of the world is the light wherein we 
 ordinarily behold him, that which gives us the clearest conception we can 
 entertain of him, which best answers all useful purposes, and has this 
 peculiar advantage that it represents his goodness, the attribute we are 
 most interested with, in the fairest colours, as attentive to produce all the 
 happiness possible for his creatures in the nature and constitution of things. 
 This, when well calculated, satisfies the minds of the vulgar, and would 
 satisfy those of the speculative too, if they would abstain from idle ques- 
 tions concerning creation, and forbear to ask why things are not otherwise 
 constituted so that more happiness might have been produced than is now 
 possible. For if we survey so much of nature as lies within the reach of 
 our observation and reason, we shall find there is a balance of good suffi- 
 cient to content any reasonable person. 
 
 CHAP. XIX. 
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 BY Nature I understand here that disposition and order of things where- 
 in we are likely to have any concern ; so much of this as relates to ourselves 
 in our present state of Being we must discover by observation and experi- 
 ence, or learn from the information of others, as being our surest guides : 
 for no man who is going to the East Indies recurs to theology to know 
 what manner of living he may expect, but inquires of those who have been 
 there before him ; or if he find himself indisposed, applies to a physician, 
 or recollects what has done him good on the like occasion formerly. But 
 we know that this body of ours shall be dissolved, when whatever was of 
 use or solace to it shall be no longer serviceable : though the trees continue 
 to bear fruit we cannot taste it ; though the sun goes on to shine, we cannot 
 see it ; though trades and manufactures be still carried on, we can receive 
 no benefit from them. Yet the spirit shall remain entire with her two 
 faculties of perceptivity and activity ; but what organs, what instruments, 
 what materials, she shall have to exercise them, experience informs us 
 nothing of : for we have no ground to expect that anything wherewith we 
 have intercourse here shall be the object of our perception or action here- 
 after. Nevertheless, our curiosity and concern for the future naturally 
 incline us to look forward ; but we find nothing affording any glimpse of 
 light, unless in the character of that power which disposes of things visible 
 and invisible : therefore, we must content ourselves with such judgment as 
 we can form from thence of our future condition and expectations. 
 
 2. And this leads us to the consideration of final causes, which the most 
 judicious persons have always taken into account, and made the principal 
 foundation in forming their opinions concerning things invisible : for if at 
 any time we can discover what are the views of our Almighty Governor,
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 369 
 
 we may rest assured he wants not power nor wisdom to compass them. 
 Some indeed carry this argument too far, applying it to the affairs of this 
 world, and inferring what is or shall be done from what they imagine 
 should be done. Thus the Papists prove an infallible judge of controversies 
 upon earth, because they conceive it necessary there should be one : and 
 many good people expect deliverance from all distresses and injuries, or 
 that in wars and contentions the better cause will always prevail, because 
 they apprehend it agreeable to their idea of God that things should be so 
 ordered. Our murmurings and repinings against Providence arise from 
 our unwarrantable expectations, which upon rinding them disappointed, 
 tempt us to suspect the ways of Heaven unrighteous, rather than acknow- 
 ledge ourselves mistaken in our idea of what righteousness requires. But 
 our business here is to learn, not to decide, nor can we ever depend upon 
 what will happen solely by our idea of final causes, nor otherwise than by 
 remarking what has usually happened in similar cases : for our knowledge 
 of God and his proceedings is very imperfect at best, and he has given us 
 experience and a capacity of observation to correct our errors in theory 
 from time to time. But with respect to the invisible world, he has given 
 us no experience nor means of observation ; if we were ever there ourselves, 
 we have utterly lost all remembrance of it ; and those who are gone there 
 before cannot return to communicate their discoveries : but he has given 
 us some knowledge of himself discoverable in that portion of his work we 
 have seen, and this we may depend upon in matters whereof we have no 
 other evidence to direct us ; for we need not doubt that he knows how 
 to adapt his means to their intended effects, and therefore may be assured 
 the knowledge we have is sufficient to answer our purposes, until we shall 
 find him imparting further lights. It is true we cannot enter into the 
 counsels of God, nor discern his manner of proceeding with the same 
 exactness and certainty as we can the qualities of bodies and characters of 
 persons familiar to our acquaintance ; but we may reason upon them in 
 many cases with a clearness that shall work as full assurance upon the mind 
 to the exclusion of all doubt, as even experience or demonstration : pro- 
 vided we keep chiefly in generals, and do not enter too minutely into par- 
 ticulars, which we have no opportunity of knowing nor are necessary to be 
 known by us. 
 
 3. Our own final causes lie behind each other in trains, for we desire one 
 thing for its tendency to procure another, and that other because it con- 
 duces to a third ; but good, or satisfaction, stands at the end of every line, 
 recommending the whole to our pursuit ; nor can we conceive of Provi- 
 dence otherwise than as aiming its dispensations at particular purposes pro- 
 ductive of others, and those again leading to others beyond ; the business 
 then is to settle with ourselves what we may reasonably suppose to be the 
 point, answering to satisfaction in ourselves, wherein all dispensations ulti- 
 mately centre. For we may immediately discern that this cannot be satis- 
 faction, such as operates upon us ; for the desire of satisfaction implies a 
 continual want of something to better our condition, to make our lives valu- 
 able, and prevent our time from passing away unprofitably, but our clearest 
 apprehensions of the Deity will not allow us to imagine him wanting any- 
 thing of his creatures, or capable of accession to that happiness he enjoys 
 from everlasting in himself, or administering the government of the world 
 for his own amusement, to pass his time more agreeably, to provide com- 
 pany for his conversation, or produce pleasures from whence he might re- 
 
 VOL. i. 2 B
 
 370 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 ceive a moment's entertainment. This consideration overthrows the suppo- 
 sition of Glory, which some have made a predominant attribute and ulti- 
 mate end of the divine views ; for they say God created and still orders all 
 things solely for his own Glory. But when we consider that a fondness for 
 applause is a weakness in human nature, engendering pride, vanity, and 
 affectation, which denote a little mind : that the sounder a man's judgment 
 is, the less solicitous we find him to display his accomplishments to others, 
 and that honour at best is but an expedient to supply the shortness of our 
 views, and lead us into those courses which we want discernment to see the 
 prudence of ; we shall think it unbecoming to ascribe this motive to the most 
 perfect of all Beings, with whom there can be no weakness or frailty, no 
 concern lest he should miss his due tribute of praise, no loss or disappoint- 
 ment if it be not regularly paid. Nor do the phenomena of Nature agree 
 with the supposition of such a principle, for of all the innumerable variety 
 of creatures upon earth, man alone is made capable of acknowledging his 
 Maker, and among men, how few are there that rise to conceptions worthy 
 of him ! far the greater part being drawn off by their occupations and ne- 
 cessary engagements in life from that attention they might else have given 
 to his excellencies, and those few best furnished with opportunities of know- 
 ing him, how imperfect is their knowledge ! perplexed with doubts and dif- 
 ficulties which they are forced to solve by their own incapacity and want of 
 discernment. Nevertheless, I do not deny that God is extremely jealous of 
 his glory, and does all things for that end, because he knows his glory is of 
 the utmost consequence to his intelligent creatures : for entertaining un- 
 worthy notions of him would fill them with darkness and despair, lead them 
 into vices and fatal errors, induce them to break those laws he has estab- 
 lished for their happiness, and introduce a general disorder and confusion : 
 so that glory is a secondary end subservient to goodness, not an original 
 principle, but springing from the love he bears to the works of his hand. 
 
 4. Wherefore goodness remains as the ultimate principle beyond that of 
 glory, and though we have supposed an unknown attribute to set the mea- 
 sure to goodness, and restrain it from exhausting omnipotence, this belongs 
 to the Creator whose ways are unsearchable, and concerning whom we can 
 pronounce nothing safely : but the Governor of the Universe we may ap- 
 prehend as infinitely good, and if there should be any higher source of his 
 actions, we cannot trace it out, therefore must refer to this as the first mo- 
 tive of all his dispensations, and if there be anything repugnant to good- 
 ness, we may be sure it will not be permitted. For we may conceive him 
 producing all the happiness possible in the nature and constitution of things : 
 only we must not expect his goodness should regard ourselves alone ; for 
 the nature of it requires it to flow where the greatest numbers may receive 
 benefit by it, where there are the highest capacities for enjoying it, and 
 where it may be attended with the fewest inconveniences. For we may 
 observe that good and evil often generate one another, but it is the whole 
 design in view that denominates the action : he that mingles poison with a 
 palatable dish acts maliciously, though he does all in his power to enhance 
 the present pleasure ; and the surgeon who performs a cure by some painful 
 operation acts kindly, though he gives a present pain. And sometimes 
 consequences of both kinds follow each other in succession, but they must 
 all be taken into account, in order to determine the quality of the action : 
 the physician who sweetens an emetic for a child does not act unkindly 
 though he entices him thereby to drink that which will make him sick as 
 stomach, because he intends the removal of a disorder by bringing on that
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 371 
 
 sickness. So the seventies that befall us, or the pleasures that lead unwa- 
 rilv into trouble, may be instances of kindness, if in their whole conse- 
 quences they tend to greater advantage than detriment : and that they do 
 so, we may justly conclude from the character of goodness, which requires 
 that every evil should terminate in good somewhere or other ; and that if 
 there be any which yield no fruits in this present state, they should pro- 
 duce a plentiful crop elsewhere, which will abundantly repay the trouble 
 sustained by them here. 
 
 5. For, from the unity of the Divine Nature, we may justly infer, that the 
 universe is one immense kingdom governed and administered by the same 
 legislative and executive power : and though this consideration alone will 
 not hinder but that it may be divided into many distinct principalities, each 
 separate within itself, and having no communication with the rest, yet, when 
 we reflect upon the mutual dependence of things in this world, and how 
 much their interests are interwoven, we shall find reason to believe there is 
 a like connection of interests running throughout the whole. We com- 
 monly say, that all things were made for man, and so we well may, pro- 
 vided we do not add, for man alone, but allow him likewise to be made for 
 other creatures. The sheep and oxen feed upon his pastures ; the horse re- 
 ceives provender and tendence from his hands ; the birds eat the grain he 
 sows ; the little mouse shares in the provisions of his table ; the swallow 
 nestles under his roof; the mastiff and spaniel earn their wages in his 
 service ; the flea and the gnat regale on his blood ; the harvest-bug bur- 
 rows in his flesh ; and his carcass breeds and nourishes the worm and the 
 maggot. He employs his cares and reason to provide for the uses of ani- 
 mals subservient to his uses, and those of others he provides for in providing 
 for his own. And there is a constant intercourse between the animal and 
 the vegetable kingdoms : man sows the corn that is the staff to support his 
 life, plants and prunes the trees that yield him fruit, cultivates the flax that 
 serves him for clothing : the cattle manure the pastures that feed them, the 
 birds carry about the seeds that grow up to supply their future occasions. It 
 is thought the misletoe would be lost out of nature if it were not continu- 
 ally propagated from tree to tree by the thrush. And every species of living 
 creatures has an interest in the curious structure and alimentary qualities of 
 those plants which furnish them respectively with proper sustenance. Nor 
 are the properties and courses of the elements, the subterraneous works of 
 nature in forming minerals, fossils, exhalations, and vapours, of little con- 
 sequence to the things upon her surface : the blights that bring disease 
 upon corn and trees threaten us with famine, that unknown vegetative prin- 
 ciple promoting their growth, and making the difference between one soil 
 or one season and another, fills us with plenty : the docility and capacities 
 of brutes furnish employment and uses for man ; the various passions and 
 characters of mankind affect one another ; and that long and intricate chain 
 of events we call Chance or Fortune, determines the time and condition of 
 our birth, and influences us in every part of our lives. 
 
 6. Thus nothing stands alone, but each depends for its preservation and 
 welfare upon many others around, with which it stands in some respect or 
 other connected. From hence we may gather a little more knowledge of na- 
 ture than we could by a bare contemplation of the final cause : for goodness 
 would have been equally satisfied whether the due measure of happiness had 
 been dealt out to the creature directly by an immediate act of omnipotence, 
 or conveyed by the intervention of second causes, or how many soever of 
 
 2 B 2
 
 372 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 them had intervened to operate upon one another. But since we find that 
 God governs by a long subordination of second causes in this spot of nature 
 exhibited to us for a spectacle, we may reasonably presume he takes the like 
 method in other parts of his dominion. And we may observe, that he not 
 only employs a concurrence of causes to produce one effect, but likewise pro- 
 duces various effects from one and the same cause. The air that supplies 
 us with breath assists the growtli of vegetables, sustains the clouds and va- 
 pours, and purifies the earth with its continual agitations : the sea that con- 
 tains the stores of rain and dew, that wafts our ships from coast to coast, 
 serves likewise as an element for the fishes : and there are seldom any events 
 befalling among mankind, which concern no more than a single person. 
 From hence we may infer the probability of there being other uses in the 
 works of nature, besides those we discern, much more that there are uses 
 where we cannot discern any. 
 
 7. It is this manner of proceeding by second causes that discovers the 
 divine wisdom, which could not so well be manifested by a direct exertion, 
 of omnipotence : the raining manna from heaven might display power, and 
 a kind concern for the wants of mankind ; but it would not give evidence of 
 wisdom like the admirable contrivance in a grain of corn, made to protect 
 and nourish the tender germ, fitted with little tubes for straining such earthy 
 particles as are proper for our sustenance. If almighty power were em- 
 ployed at every turn, there would be no room for wisdom, because nothing 
 more would be requisite than to choose what should be done, and to do it 
 accordingly ; as a man who carries a bowl in his hand wants no skill to 
 place it where he has a mind : but if he rolls it along the turf, he ought to 
 know exactly the inequalities of the ground, and what force and direction 
 must be given to make it rest just in the spot where he would have it lie : 
 much more when a mulitude of causes are set in motion to produce a variety 
 of effects, does it require a consummate wisdom to adjust them so nicely as 
 that nothing may fall out contrary to intention. And the subordination of 
 causes gives admittance to subordinate ends, wherein we may sometimes 
 discover a wisdom and contrivance in the manner of compassing them, 
 though we cannot trace their tendency to the ultimate end : for we may dis- 
 cern a curious contexture in the parts of weeds and noxious plants, of 
 toadstools and moss, of pyrites and other useless productions of the earth, 
 though we cannot see wherein they promote the benefit of any sentient 
 creature. 
 
 8. But wisdom cannot be disjoined from goodness, for it must have some 
 purpose to proceed upon, and none other can be conceived worthy of it ; it 
 may direct to proper means, and so far furnish itself with employment in 
 supplying other means to procure them, but must receive its ultimate end 
 from some other quality. Wherefore the most considerate of makind have 
 laid down as an incontestable maxim, That nature does nothing, in vain, by 
 which must be understood unproductive of good, either directly or remotely, 
 for this would be vain with respect to the point it has ultimately in view. 
 And Plato, with some others, carried this notion so far as to say, that if any 
 single event had happened otherwise than it did, the whole universe would 
 have been damaged thereby. Whether we may run such length as to assert 
 that every creature has some concern in every dispensation that happens, 
 there is no occasion to examine ; but our idea of infinite goodness warrants 
 us to suppose that the course of nature or fortune could not be altered in any 
 particular, without a loss of happiness somewhere or other : and this suppo- 
 sition will necessarilv infer an intercourse of interests between the known
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 373 
 
 world and the unknown. For we find nature often defeated of the purposes 
 she seems principally to have intended ; she forms her grains of corn in a 
 manner fitted for producing plants of their different kinds, but how few of 
 them ever attain that end ? Such as man employs in his uses make no dif- 
 ficulty, for we suppose her to have had the service of man in view equally 
 with the continuation of the vegetable species : but what quantities are de- 
 stroyed by blights, by mildews, by storms, or scattered about by accident, 
 where they neither grow up to fill the reaper's hand, nor yield a sustenance 
 to any creature ! She forms the eggs of birds with curious integuments, one 
 within another, to foment and nourish the growing foetus : for such of them 
 as man converts to his uses we think her pains not ill bestowed ; but how 
 many of them are addled, chilled, or broken, unprofitable either for the 
 nest or market ! What multitudes of fruits of all kinds fall to the ground, 
 where they decay and perish without being of service either to man or 
 beast ! What quantities of fertile soil are annually driven down into the 
 sea ! What havoc do tempests, inundations, and earthquakes make, as well 
 among the works of nature as of human industry ! In short there seems to 
 be a general waste around us, a great deal of pains and contrivance thrown 
 away, and half the provisions that are made fall short of their destined pur- 
 pose. If we turn our thoughts to man himself we shall find, that after all 
 the wonderful cares of nature to form children in the womb, many of them 
 never come to the birth ; of those that do, one half are cut off by diseases, 
 accident, or ill management, before they arrive at the use of reason. Sleep 
 renders a considerable part of our time useless ; many of our waking hours 
 pass irksome and insipid, unprofitable to others, and unpleasurable to our- 
 selves. Ignorance and error frustrate half our undertakings ; infirmities, 
 passions, and fantastic humours, make us troublesome to one another. Such 
 observations as these have tempted men to deny a Providence ; and Lucre- 
 tius urged it as an argument that the world could not be made in wis- 
 dom, being so full of faults. But we have too many proofs of a superin- 
 tending vigilance in the many provisions actually tending to our preserva- 
 tion, our sustenance, our accommodation, and our enjoyment, to be 
 overthrown by these negative ones to the contrary ; from which we may 
 more safely infer, that Providence has something else to take care of besides 
 ourselves ; therefore all cares are not thrown away which do not turn to our 
 particular account. 
 
 9. I know that such as set themselves impartially to examine the ways of 
 nature, daily find more and more uses in things that at first appeared nuga- 
 tory ; but some of the phenomena are of such a kind as not to be applied 
 with any colour to the benefit of man, and many, wherefrom we do receive 
 some use, are of too noble a fabric for us to claim them as our sole property. 
 
 Man has no further concern with this earth than a few fathom under his 
 feet : was then the whole solid globe beneath made only for a foundation to 
 support the slender shell he treads upon ? Do the magnetic effluvia course 
 incessantly over land and sea, only to turn here and there a mariner's com- 
 pass ? Are those immense bodies the fixed stars hung up for nothing but to 
 twinkle in our eyes by night, or find employment for a few astronomers ? 
 Is that prodigious effusion of light darted every way throughout the expanse 
 of heaven for no other purpose than to enlighten and cherish two or three 
 little planets ? Does the vast profundity of space contain no more inhabi- 
 tants than we see crawling about us, or may conjecture abiding on other 
 earths like ours ? Surely he must have an overweening conceit of man's 
 importance, who can imagine this stupendous frame of the universe f 1 ii-
 
 374 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 cated for him alone : and he must be too partial an admirer of visible na- 
 ture, or entertain too mean an opinion of infinite wisdom, that can persuade 
 himself things could not have been contrived better for the accommodation 
 and happiness of man, had he been the sole object of divine attention. To 
 consider only the turns of the human Will, which constantly follows present 
 motives and judgments, would anybody deny that man's understanding could 
 have been more illumined, and his imagination rectified, so as clearly to 
 discern, and strongly to desire, his truest interests, and this alone might 
 have made a paradise upon earth without changing the face of nature. 
 
 10. Nevertheless, we may so far acknowledge all things made for man 
 as that his uses are regarded conjointly with those of other creatures, and 
 that he has an interest in everything reaching his notice, either for the 
 sustentation of his body, the improvement of his mind, or entertainment of 
 his thoughts. We know he has some concern with the remotest objects ; 
 the satellites, that turn the night of Jupiter into day, assist him in ascertain- 
 ing the longitude, and measure for him the velocity of light : the mighty 
 Sun, that like a giant holds the planets and comets in their orbits, enlightens 
 him with its splendour, and cherishes him with its warmth ; the distant 
 stars, whose attraction probably confines other planets within their vortices, 
 direct his courses over the boundless sea and the inhospitable desert, and 
 display the magnificence of that power which stationed them. Nor can we 
 suppose him forgotten in the laws respecting other worlds, which are so 
 framed as not to interfere with his interests, or infringe upon that measure 
 of good thought proper to be allotted him : for the omnipresent vigilance of 
 our Governor overlooks nothing, and his wisdom is so consummate as to 
 form his several systems complete, without their disturbing or breaking in 
 upon one another. 
 
 11. But it is the narrowness of our understandings, confined to work 
 upon such materials as are thrown in by the senses, that makes it difficult 
 to conceive there should be creatures totally different from those falling 
 under our observation for Providence to take care of, and therefore we 
 expect that every provision of nature should be calculated solely for our 
 uses. For many ages this little spot of earth was thought the only habit- 
 able part of the universe, nothing else being deemed capable of receiving a 
 colony. Xenophanes was laughed to scorn for asserting the Moon bigger 
 than all Peloponesus, as an absurd and extravagant notion : and though 
 later discoveries have persuaded many persons of the Planets being habitable 
 earths like ours, yet they think no further than of peopling the surfaces of 
 them conformably to what we see in this of our own, and even this appears 
 a wild imagination to common apprehensions, which cannot deviate a step 
 from the track whereto they have been accustomed. Epicurus insisted 
 there could not be intelligence out of the human shape, because he had never 
 seen a reasonable creature of any other : and we cannot comprehend an 
 animal without muscles, fibres, vessels, and organs, such as we find in those 
 we are acquainted with. I suppose if we had never known of fishes we 
 should have been positive that life could not subsist without air to breathe, 
 or that there could be generation without sexes if we had never heard ac- 
 counts of the Polypus. But who can set bounds to Almighty power or 
 reckon up all the varieties that infinite wisdom can contrive, or show the 
 impossibility of orginizations dissimilar to any within our experience ? 
 Who knows what cavities may lie within the earth, or what living creatures 
 they may contain, endued with senses to us unknown, to whom the streams 
 of magnetism may serve instead of light, and those of electricity affect them
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 875 
 
 as sensibly as sounds and odours do ourselves ? Why should we pronounce 
 it impossible there should be bodies formed to endure the burning Sun, to 
 whom fire may be the natural element, whose bones and muscles are com- 
 posed of fixed earth, their blood and juices of molten metals ? or others suited 
 to bear the frozen regions of Saturn, having their circulation carried on by 
 fluids more subtile than the highest rectified spirits raised by chymistry ? 
 
 How does it appear necessary that sensation must come by that long train 
 of channels leading into one another through which we receive it ? The light 
 strikes upon the corneous tunicle of the eye, thence passes on through the 
 aqueous, the crystalline, the vitreous humours, till it falls upon the retina, there 
 it excites tremulous motions, which are propagated onwards in winding mazes 
 along the optic nerves quite to the brain, causing it to excite the sensation 
 of sight. The mind receives her notices from particles penetrating or lying 
 contiguous to her : such as their modifications are, such from time to time 
 are her perceptions ; and why may not they take various modifications from 
 the action of external objects without that tedious process of organization 
 employed in terrestrial animals ? Hartly and some others pretend to de- 
 monstrate that sensations and all our ideas are produced by an ether lodged 
 in the interstices of our brain : if the case be so, when disengaged from the 
 grosser parts of our machinery, we shall have a denser ether surrounding 
 us, which might excite stronger sensations and of other kinds than any we 
 now experience. May there not be bodies fitted for the purposes of sensa- 
 tion and reflection, consisting of simpler organs, and lying within a narrower 
 compass than anything we can imagine, all eye and ear without, all memory 
 and understanding within, small enough to permeate the densest metals 
 with the same ease as we walk about in a grove of trees, too minute for 
 wind to take hold of or fire to penetrate and rend asunder, which may ex- 
 patiate in the boundless fields of ether and find a pabulum there to support 
 them, or have such contexture as not to be liable to continual waste, and 
 consequently needing no recruit ? Or who will undertake to demonstrate 
 that spirits may not act and perceive without any organs at all, finding ob- 
 jects for one faculty to discern, and subjects whereon to exercise the other, 
 in the particles passing perpetually through the sphere of their presence ? or 
 that they may not affect one another with perceptions in greater variety and 
 vigour than we receive them from the play of our organs ? not vitally united 
 to any system of matter, but joining themselves occasionally to whatever 
 falls within their reach, whereby, if locomotion be expedient, they may 
 transport themselves easily from place to place ; for considering the swift 
 and incessant fluctuation of many subtile fluids in all directions, they need 
 never want a conveyance to carry them whithersoever they desire. 
 
 12. It is true these are all no more than possibilities, nor do we pretend 
 to bring evidence in proof of their being fact ; but the suggestion of a pos- 
 sibility which cannot be contradicted is enough to convince us that we have 
 not the whole extent of almighty power in our view, nor all that nature 
 can perform exhibited in the scenes she has displayed before us : for we 
 find there are other ways of proceeding feasible, and if she has chosen none 
 ol them, it may be because she has still others in store whereof we cannot 
 form the most distant imagination. But that she has other methods of 
 supporting life and dispensing enjoyment unknown to us, we may satisfy 
 ourselves from the vast profusion of second causes she puts in act, yielding 
 no proportionable benefit to the reptiles on this lump of dirt, nor any others 
 we can reach with our glasses or our conjectures. So that in our Father's 
 house are manv mansions, many not only in number, but in variety of plan
 
 376 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 and disposition, built partly of the same kind of stone and timber, but fitted 
 up diversely according to the occasions of the respective inhabitants, and 
 serving for little else than ornament to the rest. Since then there are 
 mighty works fabricated which contribute little to our uses, but we must 
 conclude from the principle of nothing made in vain, that they contribute 
 more largely to those of other creatures, this evidences a connection between 
 the two worlds in having so many things the benefit whereof they share in 
 common. Nor is it probable only that the several systems of Beings have 
 partly the same materials supplying their conveniences and enjoyments, but 
 likewise that their actions in the consequences of them mutually affect one 
 another. It were mere guess-work to go about explaining in what parti- 
 culars this happens ; all that we can pronoimce assuredly is that we are 
 equally incapable of discerning whether what passes among other Beings 
 does or does not concern the affairs of men : whether, as toads and adders 
 suck up the poison from the earth, there may be some invisible animals 
 which purify the air, or else prepare it for our respiration as milk is prepared 
 for our nourishment by passing through the bodies of cattle ; whether the 
 emission of rays from the sun be owing to the action of some creatures upon 
 his surface ; or whether the ministry of substances purely spiritual be em- 
 ployed in the four attractions and putting other laws of matter in execution. 
 
 13. But there is one respect wherein it cannot be doubted that other 
 Beings have concern in what happens among us. Whoever admits the 
 doctrine of final causes and nothing made in vain, will scarce imagine that 
 our two faculties of perceptivity and activity were given us only for a few 
 years' employment upon this sublunary stage, to lie buried ever afterwards 
 in eternal sleep, but that the soul upon quitting this country passes into 
 some other, whose districts are continually peopled by colonies sent from 
 hence. Now when we reflect how much the births and deaths of human 
 creatures depend upon the constitution of nature and disposition of affairs 
 here, how men increase and multiply more or less, and their lives are length- 
 ened or shortened by the condition of the air, fertility of the soil, concur- 
 rence of accidents, regulations of states, introduction or decay of arts and 
 sciences, manners and customs, humours and fancies, virtues and vices, pre- 
 vailing among them, it will appear that the inhabitants of the other world 
 are interested in all these things, to have them so disposed as that our 
 annual exports may just answer their demands. Nor is it likely they are 
 concerned only with the numbers and times of our migrations, but likewise 
 with the qualities and characters of the new comers to be incorporated 
 amongst them. We see that nature forms none of her productions at once, 
 but brings them slowly to perfection by many gradations rising upon one 
 another : the seed shoots up a little bud, from thence springs forth a slender 
 twig, which by degrees hardens into a stem, spreading in branches and 
 leaves until it becomes a full-grown tree : the little animal comes into the 
 world small and feeble, but grows through several stages to full stature and 
 vigour : our judgment takes forty years in maturing by the rudiments of 
 infancy, the improvements of education, converse, and experience. When 
 the plant has stricken root, the seed that before involved it rots and 
 perishes ; when the chicken is hatched, the shell and other remains of the 
 egg crumble and moulder away : so we may presume that this gross body of 
 ours, which will decay and return to dust, is an integument to preserve and 
 form the embryo of some future animal. 
 
 We know of but one pre-existent state, I mean that of the womb, and 
 though it be not clear, what Hartley's German friend, Stahl, affirms, that
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 377 
 
 all the automatic motions of the heart, the arteries, the glands, the diges- 
 tion, were originally voluntary actions of the child, yet we must needs ac- 
 knowledge that upon what passes there depend our constitution, our strength, 
 the acuteness of our senses, the quickness of our parts, the retentiveness of 
 our memory, much of our passions, desires, and tempers : and by parity of 
 reason we may infer that upon what befalls us here depend our constitution 
 and all that may be called the natural endowments we shall be born with 
 into another state. Some skip over life entirely, passing directly from the 
 womb into the other world ; some are allowed but just a taste of it, being 
 snatched away in their infancy, conversant only with a few objects striking 
 their senses, unexercised in their understandings and unpractised in the 
 ways of men : and of those who fill up their full term of years, how various 
 are their professions, their manners of living, and ways of thinking ! From 
 whence it follows that not only this life in general is preparatory to the next, 
 but each man's particular fortune is calculated to fit him for the functions he 
 is to fulfil hereafter, and that there is a society wherein the talents of indi- 
 viduals are given for the sen-ice of the whole ; so that, like the Israelites 
 gathering manna, he who carries little away with him has no lack, and he 
 who carries much has nothing over. Nor is it necessary the consequences 
 of human action should be confined to himself or his future compatriots ; for 
 nature works several uses by the same spring. The sheep applies diligently 
 to his pasture, and thereby fattens his flesh and lengthens his wool for the 
 service of man : the silk-worm weaves her web for a safeguard to herself, 
 arid at the same time furnishes us with materials for our clothing and orna- 
 ment : the fly injects her juices into the oak-leaf, to raise an apple for hatch- 
 ing her young, and therein supplies us with ink for our correspondence and 
 improvement. So man by his ploughing, his planting, his felling, his 
 burning, his draining, his mining, his manufacturing, may be reckoned 
 among the second causes operating upon matter wherein the invisible world 
 has some concern : nor are there wanting Beings to whom his joys and 
 sorrows, successes and disappointments, frailties and miscarriages, may 
 serve for a spectacle, an instruction, and a warning. 
 
 14. In short, the more we contemplate the complication of interests, of 
 causes and effects in the visible world, the more ready we shall find our- 
 selves to take this for a sample of the whole : and the more we reflect on 
 the character of goodness and wisdom, the more easily we shall persuade 
 ourselves that every provision terminates in good worthy the largeness and 
 extent of it ; that whatever brings evil, or little advantage, or none at all 
 to man, redounds to the greater benefit of something else ; and whatever 
 appears unaccountable, either in the works of nature or courses of fortune, 
 has a purpose which it does not fail to answer. Thus we may look upon 
 corn and cattle as made for the uses of man, because he receives his uses 
 largely from them, but the central earth which serves him only for a basis 
 to support the ground he stands on, the vast effusion of light whereof a 
 few rays only reach his eyes, the wide-extended constellations which furnish 
 him with nothing more than a spectacle to admire, must be designed chiefly, 
 and those more distant stars beyond the reach of human ken solely, for the 
 service of other creatures : and man himself, much of whose time is lost in 
 sleep, whose actions are in great part unavailing or even hurtful to 
 himself, must be supposed set at work for the benefit of some invisible 
 Beings. Yet as the brutes have their enjoyments while employed in the 
 service of man, the ox indulges his appetite in fattening flesh for his mas- 
 ter's table ; the hen gratifies her desires in hatching and breeding up chickens
 
 378 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 for the larder : so care is taken that man shall enjoy all the accommodations 
 and happiness consistent with the services he is destined to perform. 
 
 15. Thus the dispensations given to the several sets of creatures regard 
 partly themselves and partly the interests of other species, and it may 
 naturally be expected that those of the highest class should be preferred : 
 for mischief falls lightest upon the dullest capacities, and the interruptions 
 occasioned by pain make the least loss of time to those who have the least 
 important and delectable employments, therefore wisdom and goodness 
 require that evil should be lodged there where it does the smallest hurt. 
 When we consider how much of skin, bone, and tunicle, how much of vital 
 juices, flesh, and parenchyma, enters into the composition of all terrestrial 
 animals, we may look upon them as upon a man encumbered with a load of 
 clothes, who cannot have so quick a feeling through them as he might upon 
 his naked body. An organization framed all of nerve and fibre must strike 
 stronger sensations, and unembodied spirits receiving their notices from 
 one another must have more numerous, clearer, and livelier perceptions 
 than any we experience. So that man, although the highest actor upon 
 this sublunary stage, has perhaps the lowest stage to act upon in the whole 
 theatre of the universe. From these considerations joined to our idea of 
 infinite goodness we may reasonably conclude that evil, although here bear- 
 ing an inconsiderable proportion to the good, is still more thinly scattered 
 in other regions of nature ; and the most thinking and considerate persons, 
 from earliest antiquity, have been persuaded that there are some states of 
 Being abounding in unmingled happiness, without any tincture of uneasi- 
 ness or suffering. 
 
 16. We have observed before, that some have ascribed the origin of evil 
 to our immersion into matter, and to the ill use of our active powers ; but 
 though these cannot be assigned to account for the first origin, they may 
 well be the channels through which it is dispersed among sentient Beings : 
 and the last, as has appeared upon our examination of human nature, is 
 consequent upon the first, for it is the obstinacy of our habits, and tur- 
 bulency of our passions, deriving their strength and violence from the state 
 of our organs or courses of our animal circulation, that raise those inordinate 
 desires continually leading us astray. But the inhabitants of the visible 
 world, being more deeply immersed in matter than any others we can ima- 
 gine, and having many parts in their frame not subject to the action of the 
 mind, must be supposed to receive more copiously of the noxious stream 
 flowing from that channel. 
 
 1 7 . But when we consider what is probably the use of evil, namely, to 
 excite the mind to bestir herself in avoiding it, there does not appear a 
 necessity it should be dispersed everywhere, to answer that purpose. 
 Satisfaction and uneasiness are the two hinges whereon our actions turn, 
 nor can we conceive any creatures so constituted as to proceed upon other 
 motives : if there were no mischiefs to be feared, and no loss of satisfaction 
 to be incurred, there would be little inducement to act at all, for why need 
 a man do anything who is in a state of complacence from whence he can 
 never be removed ? He that should have no notion of danger would run 
 among horses and carts into the fire, and all kinds of mischief : and he that 
 should think his pleasures could never depart from him would take no pains 
 to secure them. But though the knowledge and apprehension of evil will 
 suffice to put us in motion without feeling it ourselves, there must be real 
 suffering somewhere to raise that apprehension. Yet a little actual evil 
 may spread the idea of it very wide : if one man hurt himself grievously
 
 EXTERNAL NATURE. 379 
 
 by his carelessness or obstinacy, it may make thousands sensible of the 
 danger attending such a behaviour ; and the mischiefs befalling one set of 
 creatures may inspire others with a caution to guard against their approach. 
 For the avoidance of evil having so large a share in the action of spirits, 
 may justly persuade us, that those placed in the best conditioned state 
 are liable to innumerable mischiefs, but such as they can easily escape, 
 and therefore make no diminution of their happiness ; but the idea of 
 danger, prompting them to take measures for escaping it, they receive from 
 the contemplation of actual suffering among inferior Beings, not from an 
 experience of it in themselves. Since then a few objects may suffice to 
 furnish matter for that contemplation, we may suppose them exhibited by 
 creatures deeply immersed in matter : and that there may not want samples 
 of evil in all the regions of the universe, the stars are stationed at immense 
 distances, which, by themselves or the planets rolling round them, are fitted 
 for the reception of such creatures. The repugnance of evil to our ideas of 
 goodness I think will warrant our extending the supposition of it no further 
 than necessity requires, and we see this necessity does not hinder our con- 
 fining it to the regions of gross matter, which will reduce it within a very 
 narrow compass : for if everything corporeal, within the orbit of the furthest 
 Comet, were compressed into a perfect solid, I suppose it would not form a 
 mass bigger than the body of the Sun ; then the proportion this bears to 
 the whole solar vortex will exceed the proportion of evil in nature to good, 
 because even embodied creatures have their balance of enjoyment in life. 
 Nay, we might have grounds to hope that this gross corporeal state is the 
 only seat of evil in nature, and from the moment we get rid of it we shall 
 continue exempt from all mixture of uneasiness ; but we shall find reasons 
 by-and-by to caution us against too great security, for that there are states 
 of suffering elsewhere, into which we may plunge ourselves by carelessness 
 and ill-management. 
 
 18. Nevertheless there is no reason to imagine from anything occurring 
 either to our observation or our thoughts, but that there are more states of 
 complete happiness than of suffering, or those containing a mixture of both ; 
 or else that the former are infinitely fuller stocked with inhabitants : for this 
 idea agrees best with our notion of infinite goodness, which we must take 
 for the foundation of our theory in matters whereof experience gives no in- 
 formation. But what measure of evil is found necessary in nature stands 
 confined to particular forms of Being, so that a few regions share the whole 
 of it amongst them : nor will this appear an unequal distribution since the 
 same inhabitants migrate from one region into another, whereby every one 
 has an opportunity of taking his full share in the good as well as in the 
 evil ; and many glorified spirits have attained the height of happiness by 
 passing through the vale of misery. If such Beings are totally disjoined 
 from matter, and receive their perceptions by communication from one ano- 
 ther, we may reasonably suppose them equal in their condition and their 
 enjoyments ; for we know of no difference in the capacities and primary 
 properties of spirits, and cannot well imagine them partial in their dealings 
 among themselves. Hence it follows there must be one or more interme- 
 diate states to pass through, wherein the lot of individuals is unequal ; for 
 inequalities here require the like inequalities elsewhere, that every one's ac- 
 count may be set even at some time or other. But this consideration alone 
 does not make it necessary that evil should extend beyond this terrestrial 
 mansion, for the balance may be brought even, as well by an abatement of 
 jjood as by actual suffering. He that has struggled here with disease, mis-
 
 380 EXTERNAL NATURE. 
 
 fortune, and distress, may have ample amends made him in his next state, 
 by receiving a larger share of bounty than others around him, although the 
 portion allotted them be not alloyed with any pain or uneasiness. For .an 
 increase of enjoyment will repay actual suffering; and so we often judge 
 ourselves, when we choose to pass one day disagreeably, for the sake of 
 more than ordinary pleasure in the next, rather than pass both in our com- 
 mon amusements. 
 
 19. Nor is it a contemptible argument of this terrene habitation being 
 the lowest part of the creation, that so little value appears to be set upon 
 life by him who is the best judge of what is valuable : every one takes no- 
 tice upon how slender a thread it hangs, daily liable to be snapped short by 
 a thousand accidents. Few complete their full term of years ; one-half 
 never arrive at manhood ; and multitudes are denied an entrance into the 
 world at all. We may observe nature almost as careful to provide for means 
 of destruction as of preservation : ravenous beasts, venomous animals, and 
 poisonous herbs, are fitted for the instruments of death ; diseases, famines, 
 wars, damps, suffocating vapours, and pestilential airs, sweep away by num- 
 bers : appetite urges men to pernicious excesses : many necessary occupa- 
 tions run them into dangers ; folly leads them into fatal errors ; vice plunges 
 them into destructive courses ; even virtue sometimes drives them upon ha- 
 zardous enterprises. So that life seems to be given, not for the benefit of 
 the individual, but for some service done therein to the whole : and those 
 enjoyments poured plentifully upon it proceed from that unbounded good- 
 ness which appoints wages to every service, and comforts to render the bur- 
 den of it easy ; and one might be almost tempted to believe, with some of 
 the ancient sages, that the luckiest thing could have befallen us was never 
 to have been born, and the next lucky, to have been taken away again im- 
 mediately. 
 
 20. Now to sum up the whole of what has been offered in this chapter ; 
 we may gather from the perishable nature of our bodies and durable nature 
 of our minds, and little use appearing in many extensive and operose pro- 
 ductions observable around us, that there are forms of Being besides this, 
 wherewith we are invested : from the method constantly taken by nature of 
 bringing her works to perfection slowly through several stages, of genera- 
 ting one thing by the corruption of another, and the mutual dependence be- 
 tween the several parts of this visible world, that there is a like connection of 
 interests running throughout the whole : from the gross composition of our 
 frame taking in notices only through a few very complicated channels, that 
 we may be capable of stronger, clearer, and more variety of conceptions than 
 any we now experience : from the nature of the mind that it was designed 
 for action : from the nature of action that evil is a necessary inducement to 
 excite it ; and from the nature of judgment which renders the idea of hurt 
 without actual suffering a motive urging to avoid it, that a very little quan- 
 tity of evil may suffice to set the spiritual world in motion. Thus far we 
 discover what may be, but not so fully as to satisfy us in the main point we 
 want, for the quicker sensibility of a refined state may render us liable to 
 acuter pains as well as more exalted pleasures, and the greater variety of 
 perceptions may give room for more of the irksome as well as the agreeable 
 kind, nor can we see enough of second causes to discern what proportion of 
 evil they tend to produce. But when we raise our thoughts to the First 
 Cause, and contemplate the character of wisdom and goodness therein, ma- 
 nifested by the works of which we have familiar knowledge and experience, 
 our possibility turns into assurance : for they will not suffer us to entertain a
 
 HYPOTHESES. 381 
 
 suspicion of evil being inflicted needlessly, or dispersed in greater quantities 
 than the welfare and good order of the whole creation require. Therefore 
 we may look upon the enjoyments dispensed in every state of Being as given 
 for the sake of the members, but the troubles and uneasinesses annexed as a 
 means conducive to the far greater benefit of some others. 
 
 21. Nor need we perplex our thoughts with inquiring whether things 
 might not have been originally so constituted as that evil should not be 
 necessary for the production of any good : for if every hurt yield a greater 
 advantage elsewhere and we ourselves have an interest in whatever redounds 
 to the good of the whole, this may make us contented under it as long as 
 we can retain a firm and lively persuasion of its so doing. I do not expect 
 that this should entirely take off the smart of every violent pain, or weight 
 of every pressing uneasiness : for evil were no evil, nor the good purposes 
 intended by it answered, if a remedy were constantly afforded to prevent it 
 from hurting : but whenever we have the free use of our thoughts, these 
 reflections may give us a favourable opinion of the universe, whose regu- 
 lations are all established in loving mercy and kindness, and a reasonable 
 expectation of exchanging our present condition for a better ; provided we 
 do not, by our own ill conduct, cast ourselves upon those few inhospitable 
 spots, which are the sink of nature, as draining away all the evil from the 
 rest. But our hope and dependence rests solely upon the character of our 
 Governor, not upon anything we can discern in the tendency of second 
 causes to our advantage : yet this need not disturb us ; for if we receive 
 good it is no matter of what sort, or by what instruments or channels we 
 receive it. He that should be assured of an ample supply from a wise and 
 indulgent parent need not be anxious whether it were to come by the post, 
 or the carrier, or an express messenger ; whether in money, or negotiable 
 notes, or marketable wares. Therefore we may content ourselves with the 
 assurance of happiness in general, having no clue to direct us to the par- 
 ticulars whereof it consists. Our reflections and sensations here come to 
 us by corporeal organs, which we must expect to leave behind, and without 
 them there can be neither eating nor drinking, marrying nor giving in 
 marriage, gardens nor prospects, writing nor language, but everything to- 
 tally dissimilar from what we now experience : and the occupations and 
 enjoyments of another state, as well in kind as degree, such as eye hath not 
 seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. 
 
 CHAP. XX. 
 
 HYPOTHESES. 
 
 NEVERTHELESS, the heart of man finds little scope for contemplation, 
 without a prospect of something it can conceive ; for imagination wants a 
 ground more solid than mere abstraction to walk upon. Though complacence 
 be the only thing valuable to the mind, we can never obtain it without some 
 other perception to usher it in, nor can we be pleased without some agree- 
 able sight, or sound, or taste, or event, or reflection, to please us ; and 
 when we go to frame the idea of pleasure, we find ourselves unable to do it 
 unless by recalling another idea of those things that used to introduce it. 
 Therefore, as men turn their thoughts upon another state they find ideas 
 rise bearing a similitude to what they have known in the present ; and
 
 382 HYPOTHESES. 
 
 moralists comply with the bent of human nature in this respect, leading 
 imagination in such tracks as she is capable of pursuing ; for finding naked 
 happiness too thin for the mind to lay hold of, they represent it under such 
 veils as may render it discernible. Hence arises the so common use of 
 figure, allegory, fable, and parable, which shadow forth things unknown, 
 by allusion to things well known and familiar ; and are not intended as an 
 exact description of what shall happen, but only to give an idea of the joys 
 that shall be received by comparing them with those we should receive in 
 the circumstances represented. Therefore, when we are told of sitting in 
 white robes with palms in our hands near the throne of glory, this is not 
 to be understood literally, but only to signify that the pleasure to be 
 expected will not fall short of that a common man would feel, if honoured 
 with such array and such a situation. Therefore, those are to blame who 
 draw conclusions concerning the manner of existence in other forms of 
 Being, from the expressions used in parables : and those who employ 
 figures ought to be very careful in choosing such as may not hurt the ima- 
 gination by leading into gross ideas that will have a bad influence upon the 
 conduct. 
 
 2. But figure and parable being employed occasionally, and often varied 
 as occasion requires, men of thought and contemplation, desirous of forming 
 their ideas into a regular plan which may serve them upon all occasions, 
 invent hypotheses comprising in one system all that they can imagine con- 
 cerning things unknown. So that Hypothesis is a kind of continual 
 allegory, connected in all its parts, calculated to answer all the purposes 
 intended by it, and formed upon one uniform design. It differs from 
 Fable and Parable in this respect, that fable represents an action impossible 
 to have been performed, parable one that is possible and similar to those 
 frequently happening, but not proposed to our belief as an historical fact ; 
 whereas hypothesis exhibits such a representation of things as may be the 
 real case for anything that can be shown to the contrary. It requires no 
 positive evidence to build it upon, the framer of it always being looked 
 upon as a defendant, and the burden of proof lying upon him tbat would 
 overthrow it : but its strength lies in the consistency and mutual depend- 
 ence of its several branches upon one another, its not contradicting any 
 known phenomena or received principles, its helping to join into a regular 
 body those which before were detached and independent ; and is thought to 
 receive great confirmation if it can be made appear an improvement or 
 explanation of former hypotheses embraced by men of judgment and repu- 
 tation. Your hypothesis makers are commonly so fond of their schemes as 
 to take them for demonstrations, and try the truth of every thing else by its 
 conformity therewith : but this is an abuse, for hypothesis requiring no 
 certain proof, nor anything more than plausibility, cannot justly be offered 
 to prove anything certainly ; nevertheless I think it may be brought in 
 support of truths for which we have a solid foundation elsewhere, to make 
 them more clearly apprehended and more readily received. For as the law 
 admits of parole evidence in favour of an heir or an executor, but not 
 against them, so the tissues of imagination may be employed to adorn an'd 
 illustrate what solid reason has established, but not to cover it over nor as 
 a foundation to support any superstructures of itself: they may rather be 
 looked upon as engines of rhetoric to familiarize and persuade, than as 
 weapons of logic to overthrow and convince ; yet in this capacity may per- 
 form excellent service, by turning the conviction of important truths into 
 an habitual persuasion.
 
 HYPOTHESES. 383 
 
 3. Nor should there be caution wanting against throwing- in too many 
 particulars, for the more of them there are to maintain, the more difficult 
 it will be to ward off the attacks of an adversary, and if he can undermine 
 any of them it will bring a disrepute upon the whole. The general laws 
 of nature affecting all her inhabitants can be supposed but few, nor can 
 there be many instances of resemblance imagined between the visible 
 world and the invisible. For most of our employments and ideas must be 
 peculiar to ourselves, as springing from the constitution of our present 
 frame, composed of complicated organs affected by our animal circulation, and 
 a gross body subject to many wants requiring materials and long prepara- 
 tions to supply them. The vibrations of air are not likely to effect us with 
 sounds, nor the rays of light with colours ; nor savours, odours, or tangible 
 objects, to operate upon us in the same manner they do now. The cares 
 we take for clothing our backs, the provisions we daily make for our 
 stomachs, will be no longer needful. Honours, preferments, estates, 
 trades, professions, that now take up the time and thought of men, will 
 cease : nor will there be room for the arts and sciences, which find their 
 encouragement in the uses and conveniences they procure for life : neither 
 can we converse together in the manner we do nowi after having lost the 
 organs of speech. And when we consider how much our organs of reflec- 
 tion are affected by the state of our bodies, how much our knowledge 
 depends upon the traces remaining fresh in our memory, we cannot expect 
 to carry our mental acquisitions with us, nor to think and reason in the 
 manner we do at present. Therefore we can hope at most to frame but an 
 imperfect and partial account of matters wholly unknown to us, and if we 
 can do this so far as to give a general idea that there may be methods of 
 employment and objects productive of happiness, it will suffice for the pur- 
 pose intended. 
 
 4. Nevertheless, it can scarce be doubted there are some general laws 
 running throughout the creation, which to distinguish from the municipal, 
 prevailing only in the regions we inhabit, seems the proper province or 
 philosophy. We receive all our perceptions here from the action of body, 
 they varying as that is variously modified : the like source then may be 
 presumed to supply us with perceptions in another state, perhaps by modi- 
 fications very different, exciting in us sensations and reflections whereof we 
 have no knowledge now. The pleasures of life for the most part lie 
 in exercises of our activity, nor is there cause to deny this general law 
 which will never leave us destitute of employment, in providing for our 
 benefit and avoiding our hurt, how much soever the goods, and evils, and 
 measures, respecting them shall then be dissimilar from those which engage 
 our attention at present. We have a curious contexture of organs, serving 
 as a medium or channel of conveyance for the impulse of external objects, 
 which cannot come near enough to operate upon us directly; and though 
 we know this will be dissolved, what should hinder but that another may 
 be provided for us which shall perform the same office more perfectly, 
 without that long transmission of objects from one vessel to another, 
 whereby their appearance may be altered, and we made to discern them 
 otherwise than they are. We have risen here from the mere vegetative 
 condition of a foetus to the helpless simplicity of an infant, and afterwards 
 by many gradations to the maturity of manhood ; from whence many judi- 
 cious persons have augurated that we are in the ascending part of our 
 orbit, expectant of further improvement in the next stage assigned us : 
 not by advancing onward in the progress we have already begun, for our
 
 384 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 present knowledge and habits scarce seem likely to prove of future use to 
 us, but by being endowed with quicker parts and higher faculties capable 
 of making larger acquisitions than any known among the sons of men. 
 Thus by observing what circumstances of our present situation are not 
 necessarily confined thereto, we may rise from them in framing a sys- 
 tem, which may be such as shall receive a good countenance from them 
 though perhaps not an infallible proof. 
 
 5. Since the method of hypothesis has been fallen into more or less by 
 most who have attempted to treat of the unknown state, and since there is 
 a good use to be made of it, why should I be debarred the liberty of trying 
 my hand as well as another? But I shall use my liberty sparingly, observ- 
 ing the rules and cautions before laid down, regarding use rather than 
 curiosity, and forbearing to launch into minute particulars which may be 
 either unwarranted or inexpedient. For imagination may be lawfully em- 
 ployed in the services of reason, but ought to be restrained from all sallies 
 which those services do not require. I have endeavoured all along to draw 
 my reasonings from observation and experience in as close a deduction as 
 I was able, and intend adhering to the like method for the future : there- 
 fore, if I should be catched hereafter at proving anything from hypothesis, 
 it must be looked upon as an inadvertency, for I expect no more therefrom 
 than to render those truths more intelligible that have their foundation 
 elsewhere. We have already seen reason to conclude from the contempla- 
 tion of that Power which governs both worlds, that they stand connected 
 in interest with another, and that what befalls us in this will affect our 
 condition in the next ; and I propose no more now than to draw a slight 
 sketch, which may make us more sensible how this may be effected : for a 
 general idea of mutual dependence weighs but little upon the mind, unless 
 we can imagine some particular ties whereof it consists ; and as physicians 
 mingle their subtiler medicines with more solid ingredients that they may 
 not be lost in the mouth, so our abstracted ideas must be clothed with 
 others more sensible to make them sink down into the imagination. 
 
 CHAP. XXI. 
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 WHEN death puts an end to the animal circulation, we see the body 
 remains a mere lump of sluggish matter, showing no signs either of per- 
 ception or activity, from whence we naturally conclude that the spirit is 
 departed from her : but whether or no it carries anything away with it we 
 are wholly uncertain ; we see nothing fly off upon the last groan, but our 
 senses are not acute enough to assure us that nothing does fly off. There- 
 fore, by virtue of the privilege constantly claimed in making an hypothesis, 
 I may fairly assume, what nobody can disprove, that the spirit, upon quit- 
 ting her present mansion, does not go out naked, nor entirely disengaged 
 from matter, but carries away with her an integument from among those 
 wherewith she was before invested. And I am far from being singular in 
 this notion, for many wiser men have assigned a fine vehicle for the habi- 
 tation of the spirit, after its being divested of flesh and blood ; and the 
 ancients generally painted the soul of Psyche with butterflies' wings, to 
 represent that she came out with a new body as a butterfly docs from thr
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 385 
 
 shrysalis : nor do I want the best established authority in my support, for 
 the apostle Paul compares the body to a seed which rots and perishes in 
 the ground, nevertheless a germ survives producing another plant bearing 
 some resemblance to that which generated the seed. 
 
 2. But we must suppose this vehicle extremely small, so that the nicest 
 eye may not discern it when going, nor the finest scales discover an abate- 
 ment of weight in what remains after it is gone : yet it must contain an 
 organization capable of exhibiting a greater variety of ideas than we now 
 experience. No doubt it will appear strange and extravagant to the gene- 
 rality to imagine, that so many organs of sensation and reflection/ and 
 instruments of action, as a man possesses in his present condition can ever 
 be contained in a body so small as to be undiscoverable by the finest balance 
 or the most piercing eye ; for so must everything appear that differs widely, 
 whether in size or composition, from the objects we have been constantly 
 conversant with. The young fellow, who has never been in a nursery since 
 he left his own, the first time he sees a new-born babe is apt to wonder 
 at its littleness : and if he dips into a treatise on the formation of a foetus, 
 can scarce believe the lineaments of a human body could be comprised 
 within so narrow a compass as he sees there described. Thus every further 
 reduction of size gives a fresh shock to his imagination, until familiarized 
 thereto by frequent contemplation ; for things are no longer strange than 
 while new to the thought, For which reason I was willing to prepare for 
 my present subject in the third chapter of this volume,* where I have en- 
 deavoured to put the reader upon reflecting on the great divisibility of matter, 
 and to show that the least conceivable particle is capable of containing as 
 great a variety of parts and machinery, as the whole human body. But 
 what clogs our comprehension in these minute divisions is, that we com- 
 monly think of making them by dividing the whole without dividing the 
 parts, which must certainly spoil the composition. If St. Paul's Church 
 were cut in halves, each half would not be a church ; if into quarters or lesser 
 portions, they would still be more remote from the plan of the architect ; 
 but were all the stones, the timbers, the ornaments proportionably lessened, 
 the whole form, disposition, and symmetry might still remain the same, 
 though reduced to the bigness of a nut-shell. This indeed is what the 
 clumsy hand of man could never do, but nature is a finer artificer than man, 
 and I doubt not might succeed if she would undertake it. So if she were to 
 waste away one half of a man from the head downward, without destroying 
 his vital and animal functions, yet he would have but one arm and one leg, 
 and must lose many of his powers : but if she lessened all his component parts, 
 his bones, his muscles, his fibres, the globules of his blood and other juices 
 in equal degree, he might still continue a man, how small soever reduced, 
 with the same variety of powers and faculties as before. He could not 
 indeed exercise them upon the same objects he used, but she wants not 
 means of furnishing him with other materials, useless and unknown to him 
 before, but suitable to the condition she has thrown him into. And it may 
 be presumed he would be better able to manage them, his strength not de r 
 creasing in proportion to his size, because small bodies are more compact 
 and solid than the larger made up of them, for composition always adds to 
 the quantity of pore in the cpmpound. A bushel of peas has less specific 
 gravity than the single peas it contains, because there will be hollow spaces 
 between each pea and its neighbours, besides the pores within their sub- 
 * Vol. I. p. 286 of this edition. 
 
 2c
 
 386 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 stance? : ami if a multitude of bushels be packed up ih% room, there will 
 be vacancies between them, besides those among their contents. Therefore 
 the finer parts a body contains, the fewer atoms they must severally consist 
 of (for these cannot be divided), the less of pore there will be among them, 
 and consequently its nerves and sinews will be so much tougher and 
 stronger. 
 
 3. And as the limbs and instruments of action in such a little body will 
 be stronger with respect to the materials they have to deal with, so like- 
 wise must they be more agile and pliant : for this we find to be the case 
 between animals of similar make, whose motions are commonly more un- 
 wieldly in proportion to their largeness. A little horse shifts its legs quicker 
 than a, tall one ^ the vulture and the eagle cannot nutter their wings so fast 
 as the sparrow ; nor did you ever see a hornet crawl so nimbly along the 
 table as a fly ; and little men are generally the quickest in their motions. 
 Imagine a race of giants as big as Hampstead-hill, placed on an earth 
 which, with all its animals, fruits, corn, trees, and vegetables, should be 
 proportionably vast : they might then have the same accommodations as we 
 have, but could not find the same uses and convenience in them, by reason 
 of the tediousness of their motions. Consider how long they must be at 
 dinner ; if they sat down at eight in the morning they would scarce finish 
 their repast by night, having a mile to carry every morsel from their plate 
 to their mouths ; when they went to bed, it must take an hour to get up 
 stairs, and after having unbuttoned their coat, they must give their arm a 
 swing of two or three miles round to pull down the sleeve behind ; when 
 they talked together it would require four or five seconds for their voices to 
 reach one another's ears ; and as it may be supposed their mental organs 
 are conformable in size to their bodily, if you asked what's o'clock, it 
 might be necessary to consider half an hour before they could think of the 
 proper answer. In short, they must needs be a slow, solemn, and heavy 
 generation, without any spark of wit or liveliness belonging to them. If 
 one of us were migrated into their enormous hulks, should we not, think 
 ye, wish ardently to get back again into our less than six-foot bodies ? 
 And by parity of reason it may be presumed, that when delivered from, 
 our present cumbersome bodies, if we remember anything of our situation, 
 therein, we shall be as much rejoiced to find ourselves in a body propor- 
 tionably less and proportionably more alert and vigorous, wherein we may 
 despatch as much business in a minute as we can now in an hour, and 
 perhaps be able to read through Guicciardine in the time we are now poring 
 over all the nothings in a four- columned newspaper. Nor do there want 
 objections against the supposal of bodies equally large with those we pos- 
 sess : for besides that it may be asked, how comes it we never see them ? 
 if they are gross, bodies, composed of flesh, blood, and bones, like ours, 
 where shall they inhabit ? They cannot live in the fields of ether, for they 
 must have food to support them, solid ground to walk upon, an atmosphere 
 to breath, and to keep their veins from bursting by its pressure, or to buoy 
 them up if you should fancy them provided with wings. They cannot live 
 under ground where no corn can grow, no pasture to feed their cattle, 
 n light can reach them, and the air, if any, must be too dense for 
 their respiration. In what other earths then will you dispose of them ? 
 for they will want more than one, considering the vast multitudes that have 
 incorporated among them since Adam : what planets are there among those 
 we know of, that will not either melt them to oil, or freeze them to statues ? 
 or could you find a commodious habitation, how would you get them thither
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 387 
 
 without a miracle ? But if you suppose them hollow skins, or mere sur- 
 faces, ns vulgarly fancied of ghosts or apparitions, they can have no 
 strength nor firmness in their limhs, no consistency of parts to prevent 
 their being torn in pieces by winds, no solidity to keep them steady 
 from being blown about by every breeze of air, nor power of motion, 
 being unable to overcome the resistance of whatever medium they may 
 have to pass through. Therefore, when we reflect on the endless divisibility 
 of matter, the extreme porosity of solids, the vast spaces lying between the 
 particles of all fluids, it seems easier to comprehend our vehicles so sized 
 us to slip between such corpuscles as, are too bulky for them to cope with, 
 rather than empty shadows or gross composures of flesh and blood like 
 ourselves. 
 
 4. I have hitherto spoken of vehicles as little diminutive men with arms, 
 legs, and so forth, such as we have ; but I do not think so narrowly of 
 nature as to pronounce with Epicurus, that she cannot form a reasonable 
 creature unless in a human shape. It seems to me more agreeable to rear 
 son, at least more soothing to the imagination and better suited to our 
 expectations of exchanging this present mansion for a more commodious, 
 to suppose them not made in the shape nor provided with the limbs of any 
 animal whatever, but consisting all of muscle and fibre, tough and strong, 
 but extremely flexible and obedient to the Will, susceptible of any shape, 
 and in every part capable of being cast into any member of any animal, of 
 being made soft as a feather or hard as a bone. We have some few im- 
 perfect samples of this changeableness in our own composition : our tongue 
 lies round and yielding in our mouths, yet we can thrust it out to a consi- 
 derable length, make it push with some force or support a small weight 
 hung upon it by a string. If a man not very fat sits resting his leg care- 
 lessly upon a stool, his calf will hang flabby like the handkerchief in your 
 pocket, let him stand upright with a burden upon his shoulders as much as 
 he can well bear, and you will find his calves hardened into very bones. 
 We can open our hands into five moveable fingers for any nice or nimble 
 work, or we can close them into a kind of hammer for striking, or bend 
 them in rigid hooks for pulling. We have but one windpipe to sing, to 
 talk, to whine, to rant, to scold with ; nevertheless, we can cast this single 
 instrument into as many various forms as there are voices and tones o r f 
 voice we utter : whereas were it necessary to have a different pipe for every 
 articulate sound, our throats must have been made bigger than a chamber 
 organ. Thus we see how great advantage and convenience must accrue 
 upon the members being convertible to many uses : and at the same time 
 this may lessen our amazement at the multitude of powers we suppose com- 
 prised within so narrow a compass, for there may be more powers of action 
 without requiring more works than we have in our present machinery ; 
 especially if the works be simpler, not consisting of a multitude of parts 
 whose operations must be propagated from one tq another, and all concur 
 to perform every single action, whereby the variety of our motions must 
 needs be greatly contracted. You may have a bell-handle hanging by your 
 chimney side with which by means of strings and pulleys you may ring a 
 bell at the other end of the house : but you can only jerk it towards you, 
 and cannot give it so many shakes up and down, to and fro, quick and 
 gentle, as if you held the bell itself in your hand. In like manner we act 
 upon external bodies with gross members lying at an immense distance 
 from the seat of our activity, requiring a long contrivance of strings and 
 
 2 c 2
 
 388 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 pulleys to give us any command of them ; we move our limbs by our bones, 
 the bones by tendons, the tendons by muscles, the muscles by nerves, and 
 the nerves perhaps by a series of imperceptible fibres which no anatomy 
 can investigate : whereas were the externals needful for our uses so sized 
 as that we could apply our first fibres immediately to them, we might ma- 
 nage them a hundred times more handily, expeditiously, and cleverly. 
 
 5. And the same advantage, accruing from the great flexibility of fibres 
 to cast themselves into the form of any limb occasionally as shall be wanted 
 may be extended likewise to the organs of sensation, which are only so 
 many textures of network variously woven from similar threads. The retina 
 of the eye, whereon all our visible objects are painted, takes it name from 
 a net; the auditory nerves are represented to us by anatomists as expanded 
 in a reticular form at the bottom of the ear ; the like is told us of the 
 olfactory nerves spread over the lamellae composing the ossa spongiosa of 
 the nose ; of the gustatory papillae of the tongue and tactile papillae of 
 the fingers and all the rest of our body. Now if we had the power of 
 changing the position of our threads, what should hinder but that we might 
 cast them into any texture fitted to receive the vibrations exciting any sen- 
 sation we pleased ; so as to see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or feel with the 
 same organ, according to the qualities of external objects striking upon it ? 
 Here I must beg indulgence from modern delicacy to allow me a childish 
 experiment for explaining my idea : boys almost fit for school have an in- 
 genious play they call cat's cradle ; one ties the two ends of a packthread 
 together, and then winds it about his fingers, another with both hands 
 takes it off perhaps in the shape of a gridiron, the first takes it from him 
 again in another form, and so on alternately changing the packtread into a 
 multitude of figures whose names I forget, it being so many years since I 
 played at it myself. If then we should be enabled to erect the interior 
 fibres of our little body like so many fingers, we might take off the exterior 
 therewith, still shifting them from one set of fingers to another, sometimes 
 in retinas, sometimes in auditory or olfactory expansions, or perhaps others 
 capable of conveying new sensations whereof n.ow we have no conception. 
 Nor let it be objected that the retina cannot perform its office without an 
 eye-ball consisting of cornea, uva, the three humours aqueous, crystalline, 
 and vitreous, before it ; nor the auditory nerve without an ear containing a 
 meatus auditorius, a tympanum with its malleus, a cochlea and fenestra 
 ovalis with its stapes : for these are only wonderful contrivances to gather 
 the rays of light into pencils, or modulate the vibrations of air, that 
 they may be compact and vigorous enough to affect our gross and dull 
 organs ; but the finer vehicular fibres may be so agile and sensible as to 
 take an impulse from single corpuscles of whatever shall serve them in- 
 stead of lights and sounds, without needing a long process of refracting 
 media or winding ducts to marshal numbers of them in a proper, order for 
 their reception. 
 
 6. Such little bodies likewise must be directly under the action of the 
 mind in more of their parts, without needing the complicated machinery of 
 strings or engines to propagate it to them : for the mind's immediate ac- 
 tivity reaches no further than the sphere of her presence, which can never 
 be enlarged* therefore the smaller body she inhabits, the greater proportion 
 of it will fall within her presence and subject to her command. But the 
 sphere of presence must be extremely minute because the bodies capable of 
 containing it are found to be so, for nobody will doubt that every spirit 
 vitally united to a corporeal organization is wholly surrounded and covered
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 389 
 
 thereby. The great Bocrhave assures us that the human foetus was once 
 no bigger than an ant, that the doctrine of animalcules is generally re- 
 ceived among the moderns, that he has seen them himself, that his friend 
 Leuwenhoek has demonstrated them to be ten thousand times, and believes 
 them ten million times less than a grain of sand. Who then can doubt 
 that this ant and this animalcule were our very selves, or that that living 
 principle, appearing to actuate the animalcule with great vigour and spright- 
 liness, is the same perceptive individual which afterwards acts, and feels, 
 and understands, in the full grown man ? If we would seek for the place 
 where this individual resides in our human composition, there seems no 
 likelier method to find it than by tracing the channels of conveyance 
 through which sensation is transmitted from external objects to our notice ; 
 for they, one would think, must all conduct to some one spot, which is the 
 royal presence chamber, where their messages are ultimately delivered : but 
 no investigations by dissections, by microscopes, and by ceraceous injec- 
 tions, have yet been able to discover this chamber, for they all lose their 
 clue before they can be supposed to reach the mind herself. Those channels 
 are now generally agreed to be the nerves, propagating the impulse of ex- 
 ternal objects to the brain, and others of them carry back from thence the 
 voluntary motion by which we move our limbs. The same Boerhave tells 
 us, they are innumerable in multitude, all conducting to the brain, whose 
 medullary substance is made up of them : that each has its distinct office, 
 for the optic nerve is not capable of conveying sound, nor the auditory of 
 colours, and so of all the rest ; therefore they must all have some communi- 
 cation with the mind, for else we could not receive the variety of sensations 
 we do by their ministry : that they all terminate in the two anterior ven- 
 tricles of the cerebrum or brain, where their last operation is performed, 
 and of whose arched surface they are the component parts ; which surface 
 he therefore calls the sensoiy, or place of our ideas. Jn section 574 of his 
 lectures, he has these words : " The spirits must have a free course [through 
 the nerves] from their origin in the brain, from every point thereof, even 
 to those muscles which are under influence of the Will. Hence follows, 
 that the sensory is a part of the brain, where all those points are collected 
 
 together. The sensorium is that part of the body where the action of 
 
 all the sensitive nerves terminate, and from thence the influence of the 
 Will first begins to operate upon certain muscles. This common sensory 
 seems to be seated where the ultimate lymphatic arteries unite with, and 
 fill the beginnings of the nerves with spirits through all the ventricles and 
 inequalities of the brain. But the territories or limits of this sensory seem 
 to be very large and various, so that each nerve has its particular part 
 where those ideas dwell, which are conveyed by the same : the ideas of 
 odours about the termination of the olfactory nerves, of colours about that of 
 the optic nerves, and of motion about the nerves subservient to voluntary 
 muscles, &c. It cannot be in the pineal gland, for so many thousand nerves 
 can never take their origin from so small a particle, 'but in the arched me- 
 dulla encompassing the cavity of the ventricles." This cavity then we 
 may take leave to entitle the palace of the mind, where she keeps her 
 constant residence, but can with no propriety be styled the royal apartment, 
 as being by much too large for her personal occupancy : for that sphere of 
 presence which once lay enclosed in the ant-like foetus or diminutive ani- 
 malcule can never fill the whole circumference of so spacious a building. 
 Therefore there must necessarily be some connecting medium between, and 
 from hence we may draw no feeble argument for the reality of or vehicle.
 
 390 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 whose imperceptible fibres we may reckon her domestic servants, who con- 
 tinually bring her the messages they receive at the doors and windows of 
 her palace from the medullary nerves, and carry back her orders to the like 
 nerves for them to forward to the muscles. Thus the mind lies enveloped 
 with two bodies, the inner, or vehicle, which I beg leave to style the 
 Ethereal, not that I pretend to know it is made of ether, but to distinguish 
 it from the gross outer body, which I would call the Elementary, as being 
 taken from the dust of the ground aptly mingled with the three other known 
 elements of fire, air, and water. 
 
 7. We learn likewise from the above cited lectures, that the little animal- 
 cule gets into the ovum through the fresh wound of the calyx or stalk newly 
 broken off from the ovary. If this animalcule has a slender elementary body 
 (as it may be presumed no animal is without one), we may suppose it pre- 
 sently to dissolve, and the pieces discharged back again at the same aperture 
 of the calyx, upon which the vehicle being left naked may adhere to the 
 ovum in many points, which, as that grows and expands, are drawn out 
 thereby into strings, until in process of time they take the form of a spider's 
 web, stretching throughout the whole compass of Boerhave's sensory or 
 arched vault of the ventricles in the brain. For that interior part of the 
 ovum whereto the vehicle coalesces may be counted an incipient brain, be- 
 cause it is observable that the formation of all animals begins by a brain ; 
 from thence grow the cerebellum and spinal marrow, from them the heart, 
 arteries, and bowels, then the muscles, tendons, gristles, and lastly the 
 bones. For all parts of an animal are 'nothing else than bundles of exceed- 
 ing fine threads or fibres, variously knit together; which in their loosest 
 texture compose nerves ; when a little more compact they form muscular 
 flesh, glands, and membranes ; as closer and closer bound they make ten- 
 dons, sinews, vascular coats, cartilages, and when tightest become bones, in 
 one of which, the os petrosum or rock-bone of the ear, they grow into a 
 substance hard as steel. This web-like expansion of the ethereal strings 
 being an unnatural state, it may be presumed that when upon death they 
 get loose from the medullary fibres, they will contract into their main body, 
 like the horns of a snail upon your touching them : but it is not impossible 
 they may carry with them some particles from the grosser nerves whereto they 
 had adhered, whereof may be formed another slender elementary body 
 minuter than that which invested them before in the animalcule. It is easy 
 'to comprehend that the vehicle lying so long enclosed in the body where- 
 with it is connected, to whose action it must be perpetually subject, may 
 receive some alteration in its make and texture therefrom ; and thus every 
 form of being it undergoes may affect its condition m the next. It will 
 appear evident that the animalcular state has an influence upon the human, 
 when we reflect how much children take after their fathers, as well in their 
 outward lineaments as in the temper of their minds : but the father con- 
 tributes nothing more to the composition of his child than by furnishing the 
 animalcule. Therefore there seems ground to imagine that the animalcule, 
 differently constituted according to the humours of the body wherein it was 
 bred, either moulds the little ethereal inhabitant enclosed in it variously ; 
 or when having nestled in the ovum, breaks in different places and so causes 
 it to catch hold of different fibres thereof. From hence may be understood 
 how the course of this life may naturally have an influence upon the next ; 
 for the vehicle may be differently affected according to the manner wherein 
 it stands connected with the gross body, receiving some change of dispo- 
 sition from the deeds, and words, and thoughts passing during its conjunction
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 391 
 
 therewith, more especially from the settled habits of acting and thinking 
 practised therein. And since the laws of nature are all established in per- 
 fect wisdom, tending unerringly to good and holy purposes, it seetns more 
 than likely that vicious courses will endamage the little ethereal body ; in- 
 crustating its fibres with terrene concretions so as to render them stiff and 
 useless ; or fixing too many and too gross elementary particles upon them, 
 which when drawn into their main body, will prove grievous hindrances and 
 painful disturbances there ; or stretching them beyond their strength with 
 the eagerness of sensual appetites, which will reeder them feeble like a 
 strained sinew or flaccid like a. .paralytic muscle : whereas the practice of 
 virtue will strengthen, supple, and mature them, and suffer no more elemen- 
 tary matter to adhere than will grow into an agile healthy body adapted and 
 subservient to all their uses. 
 
 8. There is one stumbling-block that may lie in the way of many against 
 admitting the doctrine of animalctrles, because for one that finds entrance 
 into an ovum there must be millions that perish : but let us consider "that 
 when they perish (as we call it) they are not annihilated, they are only cast 
 into the same condition with every soul just then departed, that lias lived 
 fifty, or eighty, or a hundred years. For death levels all, not only the prince 
 arid the beggar, but the frisking animalcule, the sleepy foetus, the sucking 
 child, the wanton schoolboy, the positive strippling, the state-mending 
 citizen, the doating great-grandsire, and the longevous antediluvian : all 
 go into the same world and all partake in the same form of Being, only 
 with different constitutions according to the length and circumstances of 
 the corporeal stages they have passed through. Which if it be a better 
 world than ours, best fares it with him who can soonest get admittance into 
 it : so that as before observed, it may be true what some ancient sages have 
 affirmed, that the luckiest thing could have befallen a man was never to 
 have been born. Nevertheless this ought not to lessen the due cares of 
 our self-preservation, for life considered in itself is undoubtedly a blessing 
 for which we have abundant reason to be thankful, and if it be a misfortune 
 it is only comparatively so by detaining us from a happier state : yet even 
 in this light we ought to value it as believing ourselves stationed here for 
 some service accruing therefrom to the community whither we are going ; 
 and to resign it willingly upon summons, because that is an evidence that 
 the necessary service is performed, and we are called to receive the wages 
 earned thereby. Therefore we cannot do better than follow Milton's ad- 
 vice, What thou liv'st, live well : how long or short permit to heaven. 
 
 9. But small as these ethereal vehicles are, we need not apprehend lest 
 their slender bodies should be driven to and fro by storms, or tossed about 
 in whirlwinds, for whoever pleases may imagine them conveyed by some law 
 of nature to the fields of ether where -all is calm and serene : or taking 
 shelter in the pores of solid bodies as we do in our houses until the tempest 
 is blown over. But these expedients are not requisite, for their own minute- 
 ness will preserve them against such like injuries. We are told by na- 
 turalists, the particles of air lie at a great distance in proportion to their 
 bulk, so that there is room enough for them to pass on each side of those 
 little bodies without touching, as we know the rays of light from innume- 
 rable stars cross one another in all directions without interfering : or if any 
 one of them should happen to strike, it would do them no more hurt, con- 
 sidering their lightness, than a stone thrown against a feather hanging loose 
 in the air. 
 
 10. Perhaps it may give disturbance to some folks to think of being
 
 392 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 reduced to such contemptible animals, tenderer than a worm and weaker 
 than a flea : but let them consider that the strongest creatures upon earth 
 are not the most favoured by nature ; the mighty elephant, the vigorous 
 horse, and the unwearied ox, are governed by man, and among our own 
 species the most robust and athletic are generally of the lowest rank. If 
 strength be desirable, why do our fine gentlemen throw away what they 
 might have of it by intemperance, sloth, and effeminacy ? But the strength 
 of creatures need only be proportioned to their wants of it : what would 
 the ant be better for the vigour of the horse, or the polypus for the mighty 
 sinews of the whale ? those insects have force sufficient to carry in their 
 provisions and draw in their prey, and more would only make them danger- 
 ous to one another. We in our present state have large works to do in 
 providing for our sustenance, our clothing, our habitation, and accommoda- 
 tions of life, powerful enemies to cope with, and great beasts to employ in 
 our services, all which we could not manage without a consistency of flesh 
 and bones, and some competency of bodily strength : but the vehicular 
 people have no such bulky wares to move about, such massive stones to 
 heave, such beasts of prey to contend with, nor such beasts of burden to 
 break to labour : therefore, though their strength be trifling in comparison 
 with ours, it is greater in proportion to the objects they have to deal with, 
 and sufficient to serve them in the employments and amusements suited to 
 their station. Or if it were a little defective, they may supply their want 
 of force by their greater sagacity and agility. 
 
 11. For their bodies contain nothing superfluous, nor that number of 
 vessels concerned in our animal circulation, but consist chiefly of sensory 
 and motory fibres ; so that every part lies within the observation and under 
 command of the mind. If anything insinuate into their composition which 
 might create diseases, they can remove it as easily as we can wash the dirt 
 off from our hands : their faculties are more piercing, their understanding 
 better furnished with materials, and less liable to be overclouded than ours : 
 and they can throw their vehicle occasionally into such form as to receive 
 what kind of sensation they choose from external objects, so as to make 
 it all eye or all ear, or some other sense we know nothing of, or a mixture 
 of several. Nor need we fear, lest a multiplicity of ideas should perplex 
 and confound them, for perceptions take up no room in the mind, nor does 
 she ever find herself unable to receive as many as her organs can excite. 
 Confusion springs from the darkness and imperfection of our ideas, not 
 from an incapacity in the mind to perceive such as are presented clear and 
 distinct. And as they are fitted for discerning minuter objects than we can 
 distinguish, they will have an opportunity of observing the motions of 
 those subtile fluids whereon gravitation, cohesion, magnetism, electricity, 
 heat, explosion, vegetation, muscular motion, and sensation, depend, which 
 will furnish them with sciences to us unknown. We find that light dis- 
 covers to us the form and situation of bodies at an immense distance, and 
 when we reflect how extremely moveable and elastic the ether is known to 
 be, we may conclude that no single particle of gross matter can stir without 
 affecting its vibrations to a prodigious distance : this then may answer their 
 purposes better than light does ours, and inform them accurately of the 
 positions, the distances, the magnitudes, the motions, of all the visible 
 universe. By which means they will have a full display of nature before 
 them, from the most magnificent of her works to the most curious and 
 minute : nor can they fail of rising from thence to a completer knowledge 
 ef the Author of Nature, his greatness, his wisdom, his goodness, than we
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 393 
 
 ('an attain. And perhaps they may fathom that to us inscrutable mystery, 
 the origin of evil, so as to reconcile it perfectly with their ideas of unlimited 
 power and infinite goodness. 
 
 12. Nor can we deny them the means of discourse and correspondence 
 with one another : ours we know is carried on by arbitrary signs, either of 
 sounds or letters, and any other marks that might be exhibited with equal 
 facility, variety, and distinctness, would do as well : therefore we cannot 
 but suppose that such agile creatures, all nerve and sensory, may form 
 characters upon their vehicle, or throw off little particles of the fluids sur- 
 rounding them, or find twenty other ways of communicating their thoughts. 
 Nor can we deny them methods of transporting themselves from place to 
 place, not in the manner we walk, by pushing our feet against the stable 
 ground, but rather like the steerage of a ship, whose sails are set before or 
 sidelong to the wind, receiving the direct or oblique impulse of the little 
 streams passing continually on all sides of them, with such dexterous 
 management as not to be thrown aside from their intended course. It 
 would be in vain to conjecture what are their common employments and 
 amusements, but enough has been suggested to show they do not want 
 for either, and perhaps we may find more subjects to occupy their time 
 than these : but amid the variety of objects and ideas continually presenting, 
 it cannot be doubted there will be some of the agreeable and disagreeable 
 kind, which will demand their care to procure the one and avoid the other, 
 or to assist one another upon occasion, from whence will arise desires and 
 aims, prudential maxims and rules of conduct, the one perpetually instigating 
 their activity, the other directing their measures. And if the idea of evil 
 be requisite to action, they will not want samples of actual suffering in 
 some of their compatriots, who will come infirm and maimed into their 
 world by reason of hurts received in ours. 
 
 13. But how much soever they abound in methods of business and enjoy- 
 ment, sciences and accomplishments, we must imagine them totally dissimilar 
 from those which occupy and entertain us here, for our ways of thinking 
 and acting would neither be of use nor could be practised among them. 
 What service could our knowledge of agriculture, of manufactures, of paint- 
 ing, of politics, of navigation, do them, or what materials could they find to 
 exercise it upon ! Where is there room for optics among those to whom 
 the corpuscles of light are so gross as to be objects of touch rather than of 
 sight ? of mathematical lines and angles among bodies continually moving ? 
 of our virtues when the passions they restrain solicit no longer? of our 
 moral theory, when human nature is exchanged for another ? of our natural 
 religion to those who may quickly strike out a better from the fuller display 
 of nature lying before them ? Nor are our mental acquisitions of a kind to 
 be portable with us upon our departure hence ; our first stock of materials 
 is all thrown in by the senses, nor have we anything else but what is made 
 up by working upon them : our abstractions have all some reference to 
 sensible objects of their motions or changes, or actions upon them. Our 
 imagination we find connects with the animal machinery, and so does our 
 memory, the foundation and repository of all our knowledge ; for the images 
 and traces in both appear stronger or fainter, or not at all, according to the 
 temperature and disposition of the body, according to the stages of infancy, 
 manhood, and old age; and that fatigue, that briskness or lowness of spirits, 
 that earnestness or flushing of the face, that tremor of the nerves, brought 
 upon the grosser part of our frame by our several courses of thinking, make 
 it more than probable that not a thought stirs in the mind without some
 
 394 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 corresponding movement in the vital circulation. Therefore the springs 
 employed in working all our various turns of thought heing removed, we 
 can expect to have no more of the same ideas return : and we shall be 
 better without them, as they would be troublesome to us, by continually 
 raising wants that could not be satisfied, and putting us upon methods of 
 exerting our power that would not be feasible, as not having the same 
 limbs nor instruments, nor materials nor objects, as are provided for us 
 here. 
 
 14. We have shown in CHAP. VI. that percipience and rationality are se- 
 condary qualities, resulting from a composition of fine matter curiously orga- 
 nised, together with a perceptive spirit vitally united thereto, and this spirit 
 so circumstanced is what we understand in common discourse by the rational 
 soul. For we are currently held to be born reasonable creatures, that is, 
 capable of reason or having the rational faculty, for we do not attain the use 
 aad exercise of reason, until some years have passed over our heads, wherein 
 experience has furnished us with materials to think and reason upon. So 
 then this vehicle or inner sensory constituting us rational creatures we re- 
 ceived before our birth : it continues with us during our lives, enabling us 
 to perceive and understand the notices brought from external objects by our 
 bodily organs, the traces lying in our memory and all those stores of know- 
 ledge contained in the repository of our ideas : it remains entire after disso- 
 lution of the body, and though it can neither think nor reason after losing 
 all its former ideas and materials to work upon, yet retains its rationality 
 and cogitative faculty ready to be exercised upon whatever objects a fresh 
 set of senses shall throw in or new experience supply. Nor let it be ob- 
 jected that I make the memory one of those parts that shall be left behind, 
 so that the naked soul how quick soever its perceptions may be, will have no 
 retention ; for though I have supposed the vehicle almost all nerve and fibre, 
 .it may contain a small mixture of other parts capable of working into traces, 
 or those parts which are kept soft by their present covering may harden 
 upon being more exposed and become stiff enough to retain impressions, or 
 new particles adhering from without may form a membrane fitted for the 
 .like purpose. But without troubling ourselves to conjecture the particular 
 manner, we may depend upon that wisdom, by which all the laws of nature 
 are established, to provide means of exercising so necessary a faculty without 
 which there can be neither understanding nor reason, neither prudence not 
 judgment. Thus we may conclude that the soul will be born into another 
 life as much a blank paper as ever she came into this, having all the charac- 
 ters formerly written upon her totally expunged but capable of receiving 
 aoiy new ones that shall be written from thenceforward. And though we 
 shall not be wholly disengaged from matter, it will be of a very different 
 frame and texture from our present : for we are told there is a carnal body 
 and there is a spiritual body, and that what grows from the seed is not that 
 body which was sown, but God giveth it another body. And this he gives, 
 not with his own hand, but by the stated laws of nature and instrumentality 
 of second causes. 
 
 15. But this vehicle, lying so long enclosed in the human body, cannot 
 fail of receiving some little changes in its texture from the continual play of 
 our sensitive organs and action of our animal circulation thereupon : for 
 every sensation and every suggestion from our memory or reflection passes 
 through that in its way to the mind, and though each singly may affect it no 
 longer than for the moment of its passage, yet by .being frequently repeated 
 they will work a durable effect. Just us if you press your nail upon the
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. '395 
 
 back of your hand, the flesh will return to its smoothness as soon as you take 
 it off, but if you do this for hours together every day, the skin will part 
 asunder and leave a dent between. The variety of our ideas can be owing 
 to nothing else than the various figures or modifications of the organs exhi- 
 biting them, and as they act upon the sensory, this during their action must 
 correspond with those modifications : so that every time a man sees a colour 
 his sensory takes one modification, when he hears a sound another, when he 
 meets with something to make him laugh another, when he meditates se- 
 riously another ; so when he is angry, affrighted, afflicted, or joyful, every 
 affection gives a different disposition to his sensory. And as we have each 
 of us particular courses of thinking, wherein we are led to travel more fre- 
 quently than in any others by our several habits, our passions, our desires, 
 our education, our situation in life, and the objects most familiar to our 
 senses, the ideas passing almost continually in the same track will work the 
 tender sensory thinner in some places, and leave it thicker in others, sepa- 
 rate the fibres or drive them closer together, stretch or contract them, 
 and cause various alterations in their condition and texture. So that 
 every man goes out of the world with a differently modelled vehicle, ac- 
 cording as he has been a soldier or a scholar, a merchant or a mecha- 
 nic, a gentleman or a labourer ; according to the pursuits and expecta- 
 tions that have taken up his thoughts, the successes and disappointments, 
 the joys and afflictions, that have hung upon his mind, the occupations 
 and amusements that have filled up his time. 
 
 1 6. Nobody can help observing how much the condition and tenor of our 
 lives depends upon the constitution we bring into the world with us, upon 
 the strength and health of our body, the sagacity and natural talents of our 
 mind ; and we must acknowledge these affected by what passes in the 
 womb : it is there the eyes and ears, the legs and hands, the lungs, the in- 
 struments of speech, the tablet of the memory, the organs of reflection, are 
 formed, all which arc of no use to the foetus but of necessary use to the 
 living man. Nor can we well avoid concluding from the similitude disco- 
 verable in the ways of nature, that we carry about within us a little foetus 
 continually forming and fashioning by the gross body wherein it lies en- 
 closed ; that according to the nourishment and action received therefrom 
 will be its future lineaments and character, constitution and quickness of 
 parts ; and that as men are said to be born here poets or painters, politi- 
 cians, mathematicians, navigators, or mechanics, so they will be born here- 
 after with talents fitted for particular acquisitions and employments. Nei- 
 ther must we imagine the forming foetus uninfluenced by our manner of 
 conduct in our several professions and stations : the practice of virtue invi- 
 gorates and supplies the little limbs, strengthens the senses, quickens the 
 faculties, improves that small mixture of unfibrous matter which may serve 
 as an integument or instrument for the uses of the soul. Whereas vice de- 
 bilitates, distorts, overclouds, and benumbs the soul, and fixes too much of 
 the terrene concretion so as to disturb the operations of the nobler parts. 
 As opposition is not my favorite passion, I shall not dispute that punishment 
 may be inflicted by the immediate hand of Heaven, or the ministry of devils 
 employed to torment those who are judged objects of the divine wrath : but 
 I think the same purposes may as well be answered by supposing misery the 
 natural consequence of wickedness. For who but God holds the reins of 
 nature in his hand, establishes her laws, and ordains her courses? so that 
 whatever they bring forth is as much his doing as what is done by other in- 
 struments : nor is there the less discouragement to sin if evil follow inevita-
 
 39G VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 bly upon it, whether this be brought about by the operation of necessary oY 
 voluntary agents. But that a mighty weight of suffering may be thrown 
 on in the way I have assigned, we may easily comprehend when we reflect 
 on the miserable condition of those wretches who are born into this world, 
 diseased, maimed, and imperfect, and how small a quantity of foreign mat- 
 ter in our bodily frame causes great inconveniences and disturbances. A 
 grain or two of sand gives racking pain in the kidneys, and a much le:-s 
 concretion of terrene particles is likely to give acuter anguish in the more 
 sensible vehicle : a drop of rheum in our joints disables us from using them, 
 and the like obstruction in a finer body would render it incapable of helping 
 itself against impending dangers, so that it might incessantly be rapt in 
 whirlwinds or buffeted about by the agitations of fire for want of power to 
 extricate itself; a little thickness of blood in our brain fixes an incurable 
 madness, and a similar foulness in the naked sensory might overwhelm the 
 soul with perpetual delusion and perplexity, tormenting fears and jealousies, 
 intolerable horror and despair. 
 
 17. Thus we work out our future fortunes by our present behaviour, 
 and fit ourselves unknowingly for the several parts we are to act upon the 
 next stage by practising those assigned us in this ; so that we may look 
 upon life as a necessary preparation to qualify us for the employments of 
 another state. And when I consider the vast variety of engagements and 
 amusements among mankind, the very different characters and employments 
 of the several nations upon earth, the many unavailing hours passing over 
 our heads, the great loss of time in sleep, all which cannot be accounted for 
 from their uses here, I should regard this conclusion as more than hypothe- 
 tical if it were not for one objection occurring, which is, the multitudes of 
 human souls passing directly into another state, without touching upon this, 
 and so capable of receiving no preparation thereby. From this observation 
 we may gather that the rational soul is completely formed in all its es- 
 sential parts before entrance into the human body, and that the fashion and 
 lineaments it afterwards takes by long habitation therein are not necessary 
 for its subsistence in the vehicular state, but preparations fitting it for some 
 particular functions useful or convenient there. Perhaps the arts and sci- 
 ences, the rules of public and private conduct, may be struck out or quicker 
 attained by souls who go thus prepared, and the others may enter into 
 their new life in a state of infancy similar to that they would have been 
 born in here. I know we reckon children more docible than grown per- 
 sons, but then it is of such childish instructions as are forgotten again 
 afterwards, and serve only to give the mind a firmness for the reception of 
 more solid knowledge. But those who want this preparatory firmness ac- 
 quired by the exercise of their faculties upon earth will have a singular ad- 
 vantage in another respect, for they will be free from that terrene concretion 
 and remains of the carnal part bringing on the inconveniences, disabilities, 
 pains, and mental disorders, spoken of in the last section ; and as they can 
 do nothing to improve their future condition, so neither can they do any- 
 thing to hurt or incommode it. 
 
 1 8. And if the next life begins for the most part like the present in ten- 
 der infancy, this will require the care of the old inhabitants to overlook and 
 cherish it : so that the business of nurture, education, and parental fondness, 
 will be no less considerable sources of employment and amusement among 
 them than among us. For there being neither marriage nor generation in 
 that country, they will provide themselves families by a kind of adop- 
 tion out of the new comers continually, flocking in upon them. Nor will
 
 VEHICULAR STATE. 397 
 
 they want means to direct them in their choice : for though we have denied 
 them all remembrance of what passed during their abode here, there are 
 other ways of discovering former relations and connections beside that of 
 inspecting the traces in our memory. If it were not so common among us 
 we should be astonished to think how a man by looking upon a few scratches 
 upon paper, according to the shapes in which they are drawn, shall come to 
 the knowledge of what his senses and his experience could not have in- 
 formed him. By this way my friend at a hundred miles' distance may know 
 where I was yesterday, what I was doing, and what I thought of in my 
 most retired meditations : and by this way we know what was done two 
 thousand years ago in the days of Hannibal and Scipio. But though this 
 be accomplished by the consent of mankind affixing certain ideas to certain 
 characters, let us consider whether the like intelligible writing may not be 
 exhibited by nature in the dependence of effects upon their causes ; so that 
 disembodied souls, having acuter faculties than ours, and improved them by 
 long application and exercise, may acquire a dexterity at investigating 
 causes from their effects, know precisely what has happened from what they 
 see happening, discover their own pre-existence, trace out all that has be- 
 fallen them in their former state, become acquainted with the history of 
 mankind, learn by the manner and condition wherein the new comers arrive 
 from what parts they must come, and discern from a resemblance of features 
 that the same causes must have operated upon them which have affected 
 themselves. By these marks they may find out a wife, a child, a brother, 
 a friend, a neighbour, a compatriot, and what is more than we could do with 
 our remembrance, may distinguish their descendants who never came to the 
 birth or were snatched away from their cradle. The endearments arising 
 from these discoveries must double their diligence in the tendency of those 
 who come helpless and relief of those who come contaminated with such im- 
 pure mixtures of their former composition as can possibly be removed. 
 Nor if particular inducements were wanting, would they want the spur of 
 general benevolence to the rational species which is ever more glowing 
 in proportion to the clearness of judgment and extensiveness of under- 
 standing. 
 
 19. Upon this view of the two worlds it appears there is a mutual con- 
 nection of interests between them : for we are interested in what befals us 
 here, not only as it affects our present condition, but our constitution and 
 talents hereafter ; and likewise with what befals other people in distant 
 corners of the earth, with whom, though we have no dealings now, we are 
 likely to have in time to come. And the people of the invisible world have 
 an interest in all that happens among us, as it tends to form the genius, 
 abilities, and characters, wanted for future services among them. Nor yet 
 need we fear their interfering in our affairs, for their forces are too small to 
 set masses of matter in motion capable of affecting any of our senses : or 
 were they able, they have something else to do than to amuse us with idle 
 dreams or terrify us with ghastly apparitions : neither can we suppose them 
 so imprudent as to disturb the courses of nature and fortune, which they 
 must be sensible are wisely provided with regard to the benefit of their own 
 community. 
 
 20. For that a community they have we cannot well doubt when we re- 
 flect on the variety of dispositions wherein we quit our present mansion to 
 take up our abode in theirs. For if we were to live single and apart from 
 each other, one kind of preparation would serve us all ; but the great differ- 
 ence among us in our manner of living and dying indicates a like difference
 
 3.98 VEHICULAR STATE. 
 
 of occupation in the country whereto we are going : and as a nation cannot 
 subsist here without a variety of professions to supply the wants and conve- 
 niences of the whole, so there will be a public interest there to be served by 
 members variously qualified, contributing their several parts to the general 
 emolument. For where one individual wants what another can supply, this 
 will naturally lead them to seek each other's assistance, and unite them into 
 a regular society. 
 
 21. But though the rational soul or vehicle survive the body, we cannot 
 conclude from thence that it will live for ever : on the contrary, the numbers 
 daily pouring in from hence upon the next world, seem to require a propor- 
 tionable drain somewhere or other, for else the country might be over- 
 stocked : but where to dispose of their superfluous members is the question. 
 Some have supposed the soul to migrate to and fro between the two worlds, 
 and that after passing some ages in the other, it shall return back into a 
 fresh body, and so be born again, as at first, in the usual manner of gene- 
 ration. But this notion prevailed no longer than while the thoughts of men 
 were narrow, while this globe of earth, with the atmosphere surrounding it, 
 was esteemed the whole of nature, while the most enlarged understandings 
 could conceive the sun and moon as little bigger than Peloponesus, and the 
 stars as fiery meteors rolling round the upper regions of air : so that the 
 soul could never soar above the reach of terrene exhalations, which, ad- 
 hering and gathering round it, might weigh it down again to the earth from 
 whence it rose. And perhaps after all, the doctrine of transmigration was 
 never seriously held by those who taught it, but employed only as an hypo- 
 thesis, to make the future advantages of a virtuous life more intelligible and 
 striking to such as could conceive no other enjoyment or suffering than what 
 may be conveyed through bodily organs. Nor is it likely the soul should 
 return again to her former confinement : for we see everything that has life 
 grows therein, animals as well as plants, and whatever lay enclosed in inter 
 guments bursts forth too large to be contained in them any more : the 
 little silk-worm, just crawled from its egg, or the moth from her chrysalis, 
 could not creep into them again, nor could any art replace the seeds of ve- 
 getables in their husks. But if the vehicle be not sustained by nutriment, 
 which might increase its growth, nor swell instantly upon coming out of its 
 case, nevertheless it may gradually expand by the continual action of the 
 spirit within, so as to be no more capable of lying within its former receptacle 
 than a man is of re-entering his mother's womb. And this expansion can- 
 not fail of introducing stages into the vehicular life similar to those of youth, 
 maturity, and age ; the last not indeed attended with the pains and infir- 
 mities accompanying it here, but distending and separating the fibres of the 
 vehicle, until at last they open and let loose the enclosed spirit, which will 
 then fly off naked and alone. But though the spirit, no longer vitally 
 united to any corporeal particles, either ethereal or elementary, which used 
 to serve for a conveyance of ideas and instrument of volition, must lose its 
 rationality, percipience, and active powers, it will retain its two primary 
 faculties of perceptivity and activity : and whoever admits the doctrine of 
 final causes, and nothing made in vain, can hardly suppose they can lie 
 overwhelmed in eternal sleep, or that means shall ever be wanting of exer- 
 cising them. But what means of perceiving and acting we can imagine 
 supplied to pure spirit, totally disengaged from matter, and divested of all 
 organization whatever, we shall reserve for the subject of the ensuing 
 chapter.
 
 3i)9 
 
 CHAP. XXII. 
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 WHEN I consider Bishop Berkley's notion of the non-existence of all 
 bodies, and that the appearances they seein to exhibit are only perceptions 
 raised in our imagination by the Divine power, I cannot help wondering 
 that he did not go on to deny the existence of all spirits too ; for we have 
 no better evidence of the latter than of the former. How know I there are 
 any other persons in the world, unless by seeing them before me or hearing 
 them speak ? and if they have no real bodies, nor there be any real air, 
 whose vibrations bring the sound of their discourses to mine ears, what 
 reasons have I to believe there are any real Beings, whose action occasions 
 the motions of those bodies, or that air, which are purely imaginary ? So 
 that if when I see the sun rise in the morning, ascend to the meridian, and 
 set again in the evening, trees buffeted about by winds, or rivers rolling 
 along their foamy waves, the whole be nothing else than a succession of 
 ideas in my own mind : by the same rule, when I behold my friend enter 
 the room, and hear him talk to me of various subjects, perhaps I am alone 
 all the while, and what I take for the sound of his voice is nothing else 
 than a like succession of perceptions excited in me by the same power that 
 excited those of the sun, the trees, and the rivers, before mentioned. 
 From hence it will follow, that possibly there may be no more than two 
 Beings in nature, God and myself. Thus, if we give way to the sugges- 
 tions of a lively fancy, and think ourselves warranted to take anything for 
 certain the contrary whereof cannot be mathematically demonstrated, we 
 shall never know where to stop. But as these notions are apt to hang 
 upon the minds of the speculative, I know of no better receipt to cure our- 
 selves entirely of them, than by setting up opposite notions equally possible, 
 and equally incapable of being demonstratively disproved. If it cannot be 
 ma^de appear with absolute certainty that there is that multitude of objects, 
 existing without us, which we daily see and handle, neither can it be made 
 appear with the like certainty that there are not multitudes of sentient 
 Beings in the composition of every man. We know so little the nature of 
 spirits, that we cannot tell how a number of them, lying contiguous together, 
 without any bars of flesh intervening, would affect one another : perhaps a 
 perception raised in any one of them, by some particle of matter, would run 
 instantly through them all quicker than fire does among the grains of gun- 
 powder. If this be the case, for aught we know, there may be many 
 spirits contained in one sensory : nor is there any need the corporeal organs 
 should operate upon them all, for whatever sensations, judgments, or ideas, 
 are exhibited to each of them, will immediately be apprehended by the 
 whole number. I have shown in CHAP. V. 9. that every time we look 
 upon a chess-board, covered with double sets of men, we have at least 
 sixty-four particles of matter operating upon us at once, and considering 
 how many corpuscles of light are requisite to give the sight of every single 
 piece ; if I had said sixty -four thousand I had been likely to come nearer 
 the mark : now if there be the like number of spirits in the human soul, 
 each may receive the action of one particle, and yet, their perceptions 
 being communicated, every one will have a distinct sight of the whole
 
 400 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 chess-board. Thus, instead of being the sole inhabitant of the universe, as 
 I might persuade myself upon Berkley's principles, I shall not be the sole 
 inhabitant of my own pericranium, but one member only of a most numerous 
 family lodged there. 
 
 Nor let it be objected that it is much I should know nothing of my 
 fellow lodgers, if there were such multitudes of us together in one chamber ; 
 for I know nothing of those inner ends of my organs which impress sen- 
 sations upon me : besides that, receiving no other perceptions from my 
 companions than they first received from matter, I have no mark whereby 
 to distinguish them therefrom. Neither can it be urged that there would 
 often arise an opposition among us, some would be for walking while others 
 chose to sit still, some would want to stretch out the hands while others 
 had rather keep them folded in the bosom : for if there be a variance of 
 opinions in all numerous assemblies of mankind, it arises from their 
 having their several views, designs, and judgments, and seeing things in 
 different lights ; but we coparceners of the same sensory should constantly 
 have the same ideas, the same appearances, the same motives, exhibited to 
 us, and discern satisfaction resting upon the same point. When our stomach 
 grevv empty, we should all at the same instant feel its cravings ; if a well- 
 spread table were set before us, we should all be guided by the same palate 
 to stretch out our hands towards the same dish : and thus we should pro- 
 ceed in all our measures with such jerfect conformity that each would 
 think himself the sole author of our actions, and our every motion appear 
 to bystanders as actuated by one agent. It is pity somebody did not hit 
 upon this thought, at the time when disputes ran high upon original sin : 
 he must certainly have made his fortune by it, and perhaps risen to be a 
 cardinal, for he might have demonstrated (as a little matter will amount to 
 demonstration on the right side) that the spirits of all men were contained 
 in Adam's pericranium, and of all women in that of Eve, and so were 
 actual partakers of their transgression ; which would have overthrown the 
 objection of infidels against the punishment of descendants for the sin of 
 their primogenitors. But as such a notion now-a-days is not likely to 
 raise one to preferment, I may even reject it as an idle fancy, fit only to be 
 opposed against the no less idle fancy of Berkley's, that all about us is 
 nothing but idea and delusion. Nevertheless, I have received this benefit 
 from letting my thoughts roam a little upon it, that the communication of 
 perceptions among spirits, whereby many of them may discern ideas ex- 
 hibited by one sensory, has furnished me with a hint for understanding 
 that old notion of a Soul of the World, in such manner as to make it a fit 
 receptacle wherein those who depart from the vehicular state may be 
 absorbed. I shall now pursue my ideas upon that subject, not barely as a 
 commentator, expounding what has been said aforetime, but taking the 
 liberty to new model it in some few particulars, which I think may render 
 it more intelligible and answerable to pur present purpose. 
 
 2. The doctrine of a Soul of the World, otherwise called the Mundane 
 or Universal Soul, must be acknowledged of very ancient date, as old at 
 least as the Ionic philosophy ; and seems to have been generally embraced 
 by the most eminent sages of antiquity. They held it eternal, immutable, 
 completely wise and happy, extended throughout the universe, penetrating 
 and invigorating all things, the maker of the world and all creatures therein, 
 the fountain of sense, life, and motion, from whence the souls of men and 
 animals were discerped, and, after dissolution of their bodies, absorbed 
 thereinto again ; and they gave it the appellation of God. Their calling it
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 401 
 
 by this name has made it generally believed that they meant thereby the 
 Supreme Being : so Pope understood them when he talked of one stupen- 
 dous Whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul ; so likewise many of 
 their followers understood them, which gave occasion to those pompous 
 expressions of the human soul being a ray of the Divinity, an efflux or 
 emanation from the substance of God himself : expressions which have no 
 other foundation than in human vanity and arrogance. The doctrine thus 
 interpreted became liable to just objections ; as that it made God to con- 
 sist of parts, some of which might be discerped from him, and that the 
 Divine substance, being clothed in body, might become imperfect, passive, 
 weak, ignorant, susceptible of error, sin, pain, and misery. 
 
 3. But I apprehend the mundane soul originally was not intended to be 
 understood of the Supreme Being, but a created God dependent on him for 
 its existence and faculties, produced from everlasting by his almighty power 
 and good pleasure : and though it was supposed the maker, it was not sup- 
 posed the Creator of all things, but to have formed the world out of pre- 
 existent materials according to a plan assigned it. The ancients, even 
 those who held the unity of the First Cause, did not, like us, appropriate 
 the term God to him alone, bat applied it to other Beings of an order and 
 intelligence superior to man. Seneca speaks of the Sun, the Moon, and the 
 Planets, as Gods, and I suppose he would have called the four elements so 
 too, for he ascribes sense and understanding to them ; yet he acknowledges 
 one supreme God over all, whom he styles the Rector of the universe : and 
 we read in our bibles that there be Gods many and Lords many. Therefore 
 when we find the ancients talking of God, we must not always take them in 
 that restrained sense wherein we now use the word : and that it is not to 
 l)e so restrained, when applied to the mundane soul, may appear from the 
 Timseus of Plato. 
 
 4. By this exposition we escape the objections afore mentioned, for the 
 human souls being now no longer thought parts of the Divine substance, 
 may be supposed capable of pain and weakness without the absurdity fol- 
 lowing upon the former construction. Yet there still remains another ob- 
 jection arising from the individuality of the mundane soul, which we find 
 spoken of as one entire thing, one Mind, and therefore cannot, like com- 
 pound bodies, consist of distinguishable and separable parts to be discerped 
 from it. Besides that this doctrine seems to confound and destroy the 
 distinction and personality of particular souls, for they were not created 
 upon their discerption, the substance of them being already existent in the 
 universal soul, but before any of them were discerped, there was but one 
 created mind in nature, therefore they were then the same person with that 
 mind and consequently with one another : yet upon their immersion into 
 matter we see they are distinct persons and things, one doing and perceiv- 
 ing what the others do not and perceive not : again, upon their separation 
 from body they will lose their personality and distinction, being absorbed 
 and resolved into their original principle. The ancients pernaps did not 
 think themselves affected by this objection, having no correcter notions of 
 individuality and substantial identity than our modern vulgar, who imagine 
 that even bodies may impart something from their substance without dimi- 
 nution of the mass from whence it issued, if they perceived no visible altera- 
 tion therein. Thus the vapours rising from the sea were part of its sub- 
 stance and drawn up therefrom, but when formed into clouds we deem them 
 distinct substances, nevertheless we consider the sea as remaining always the 
 
 VOL. i. 2 D
 
 402 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 same body of waters notwithstanning the vast quantities continually exhaled 
 by the Sun. In like manner the rivers seem to have a being of their own 
 no longer than while running in their channels, for when intermingled with 
 the sea, we look upon them as lost and swallowed up in that, which never- 
 theless we apprehend to be the same substance it was before their influx. 
 
 5. But it has been observed in the beginning of this volume that com- 
 pounds are creatures of the imagination, nature making all things by indi- 
 viduals, therefore compounds having an ideal existence only may well 
 preserve their identity notwithstanding an increase of diminution or change 
 of their component parts, provided those changes be made imperceptibly, 
 and do not work any change of appearance in the whole. Thus the Thames 
 is always esteemed the same river, because we always see waters running 
 between the same banks, although the waters running to-day are not the 
 same that ran there yesterday : and if in a summer's evening we see a mist 
 rise up out of the Thames, the mist exhibits a new idea we did not discern 
 before, therefore we conceive it a new Being produced from the substance 
 of the river, which yet we suppose remaining the same without diminution 
 because we do not find it abated in its fullness. So likewise if we throw a 
 handful of salt into the river, we lose the appearance of salt we had before, 
 and apprehend it destroyed by being diffused among the substance of the 
 water. But when we turn our thoughts upon individuals, the only real 
 existences in nature, we cannot reconcile them to any transmutation of sub- 
 stance or production of one thing out of another. We have made appear 
 in CHAP. III. that there are atoms actually, if not potentially, indivisible, 
 and each of them, however disposed of, or wherever placed, whether in a 
 drop of rain, in a river, or in the sea, must always continue identically the 
 same, numerically distinct from all others how closely soever united to 
 them, or how indiscriminately soever mingled among them. And with 
 respect to spirits, the case is stronger, for they have a personality annexed 
 from which they cannot be divested without losing their existence. I have 
 been a child and am now a man ; I have been in joys and in troubles : I 
 may imagine myself transformed into a lion, a sheep, or an ostrich, inhabit- 
 ing the vehicular state, or wholly disengaged from matter and mingled 
 among similar spirits : yet in all these changes I should still continue to be 
 myself, for from the moment I began to exist I must have been myself, and 
 must remain so until I cease to be at all. Nor is it possible to understand 
 that what was once another person should become me, or I should become 
 or be contained in another person : that there could ever have been percep- 
 tions in this substance which is me without my perceiving them, or actions 
 performed thereby which I did not do. 
 
 6. Now without troubling ourselves to conjecture how the ancients would 
 have removed this objection, or resolving to understand their theory in all 
 parts precisely as they did, let us endeavour to explain in a manner con- 
 formable to our ideas, whether discordant from theirs or no. And in this 
 view I shall lay down that the mundane soul is one no otherwise than as 
 the sea is one, by a similitude and contiguity of parts, being composed of 
 an innumerable host of distinct spirits as that is of aqueous particles : and 
 as the rivers continually discharge into the sea, so the vehicular people upon 
 the disruption of their vehicles discharge and incorporate into that ocean of 
 spirits making the mundane soul. As for the discerption of souls from 
 thence to inhabit human bodies I have no concern with that, the doctrine 
 of pre-existence being now universally exploded : for every good woman 
 knows for certain that we were created some little time before our birth, for
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 403 
 
 this plain reason, because if we had existed a hundred years before, some 
 or other of us to be sure must have remembered what passed with us in our 
 former state. And since many learned divines admit an intermediate state 
 between death and the final consummation of all things, I hope that what has 
 been offered in the last chapter concerning the vehicular people will not be 
 counted heterodox. Nor let it be objected that the mundane soul, already 
 full and not having a proportionable discharge, cannot contain the fresh 
 supplies continually poured in upon it : for some have supposed that the 
 fallen angels have actually occasioned a considerable discharge therefrom. 
 Or if this will not satisfy, let us consider that since creation is currently es- 
 teemed so common as to be practised every day in furnishing souls for 
 children in the womb, we may as well suppose the same creative power con- 
 stantly employed in producing new spaces, extending the bounds of the 
 universe, and giving room for the mundane soul to expand according to 
 the new members it continually receives. 
 
 7. We have found reason to conclude in the course of this work, that all 
 created spirit, as well as all matter, is homogeneous, and as bodies receive 
 their difference and secondary qualities from the various forms and combi- 
 nations whereinto the similar atoms composing them are thrown, so spirits 
 derive their characters, their percipience, their rationality, their powers and 
 faculties, from the organizations whereto they are united, or means of con- 
 veying perceptions supplied them : so that the spirit of an angel, a politician, 
 a shoe-cleaner, an ideot, a man, and a child, are intrinsically the same, dif- 
 fering only in their being variously lodged and circumstanced. From hence 
 it follows that the spirits composing the universal soul are all of similar na- 
 ture, having the same capacities, the same primary properties of percep- 
 tivity and activity, and altogether such as ourselves, except these bonds of 
 flesh wherein we lie imprisoned. But since we receive all our perceptions 
 from our corporeal organization, and have no other sensations than what 
 come to us through the windows of our prison, it remains to inquire what 
 sensations or reflections they can have after being disunited from all material 
 composition whatsoever. As we live here separate and alone, each immured 
 within liis several cell, we have nothing to discern besides the modifications 
 of the organs in our sensory, nor can we converse together unless by the 
 intervention of some bodily medium, as of sounds or letters ; but if we could 
 have immediate intercourse with one another, who can say how much more 
 expeditely, easily, and clearly, we might carry on our conversations ? Sup- 
 pose any two of us could thrust out that centre of our ethereal cobweb, 
 which is the royal apartment or presence-chamber of the mind, through the 
 pores of our cranium quite to the outside of our head, without hurting our- 
 selves or cutting off its communication with the bodily senses, and then 
 laying our two heads together could, by opening some door of the said 
 chamber, bring our spirits into immediate contiguity with one another, who 
 can tell what would ensue ? Perhaps whatever either of us saw or heard 
 or apprehended, by any of our senses, or rose up in our imagination, might 
 instantly be discerned by the other. Perhaps this might not be a necessary 
 consequence, but the effect of choice, for both being possessed of volition, 
 we might select what perceptions we thought proper to impart, and keep 
 the others to ourselves ; as in conversation, a man is not obliged to utter all 
 he knows, but selects such of his thoughts as he judges worth hearing by 
 the company : so that if I were eating apple-pye and cheese, and knew my 
 companion had an aversion to the latter, I should communicate the one
 
 404 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 taste but suppress the other. We will now if you please draw in our ethereal 
 web again for fear of its catching cold, and suppose one of us intending to 
 partake in the diversions of Scarborough while the other stays in London : 
 as soon as he is gotten there, we will suppose a string of spirits reaching 
 from him to me. As they are mighty little folks, and perhaps penetrable 
 by body, they can easily insinuate themselves into our presence-chamber 
 without our feeling them, so that one end of the string might lie in con- 
 tact with his perceptive part and the other with mine. Having this chan- 
 nel of conveyance ready at hand, we should despise the tedious method of 
 correspondence by the post, wherein we might sometimes be misappre- 
 hended or imperfectly understood, or at best could give but a partial account 
 of what had happened to us : for our intermediate friends in the line of 
 communication might transmit all that either of us saw or heard in either 
 place, together with our judgments and observations thereupon, with a 
 precision, clearness, and vigour, equal to that wherewith we discerned them 
 ourselves. Imagine further that we had a friend at Plymouth, another at 
 Paris, another at Amsterdam, and that there were the like spiritual strings 
 of communication from every one to every one : we should then all five have 
 immediate knowledge of all that was worth knowing in the five places, by 
 perceptions continually transmitted along those conveyances. 
 
 8. I will not undertake to prove, logically, that perceptions may be thus 
 imparted from spirit to spirit, when all corporeal obstacles are removed from 
 between them, having no positive evidence, that I remember, within the 
 compass of my experience, whereon to build an argument, nor ever con- 
 versed with another person, unless by the usual means of discourse or 
 writing, or significant looks and gestures ; but on the other hand it would 
 be a bold undertaking for any one to prove the contrary, for I suppose no- 
 body remembers his having ever been in contiguity with other spirits, and 
 attempted an intercourse of perceptions but without effect. Therefore in a 
 matter so uncertain I may lawfully take the privilege annexed to an hypo- 
 thesis and assume the affirmative. Having laid down this basis I must pro- 
 ceed to one assumption more, wherein I am as safe against confutation as I 
 was in the former, and this is that all space not occupied by matter is re- 
 plete with spiritual substance called the mundane soul, each part whereof, 
 that is each component spirit, lies contiguous to others : so that there runs 
 a continuity throughout the whole as there does throughout the waters of 
 the ocean ; for lines might be drawn from any drop in the Atlantic sea to 
 every spot in the European, African, or American shores surrounding it, 
 which should pass over rows of drops contiguous to one another. This 
 being premised it will follow that by the mutual communication of percep- 
 tions every one may have those arising in every other. But though I have 
 assumed a power of imparting perceptions I cannot assume that of making 
 them, for this would be running counter to experience. We cannot impart 
 more knowledge than we have first ourselves, nor can the mind call up a 
 single thought without employing some instrument to introduce it : for in 
 all perception we are purely passive, receiving such from time to time aa 
 the modifications of our organs excite in us. Since then such is the nature 
 of our minds we must conclude that all perception must begin by the action 
 of matter, how much soever it may be carried on by a spiritual substance : 
 and as although a man may come to the knowledge of transactions he never 
 saw by information from other people, yet somebody must have been pre- 
 sent at the transactions to begin the relation ; so neither can the mundane 
 soul perceive anything without an object exhibited to some of its parts. But
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 406 
 
 this need make no difficulty, for when we consider how the stars with their 
 several systems of planets are dispersed up and down, how light, ether, 
 and perhaps many other subtile fluids we know nothing of, are diffused 
 everywhere, and that all these bodies, great and small, must lie contiguous 
 to some parts of the mundane soul, we shall see there will not want ob- 
 jects for it to perceive. And as our sensations, reflections, and judgments, 
 are impressed upon us by the configuration or motion of the particles in 
 our sensory, so the bodies floating about in the mundane soul may exhibit 
 a greater variety of ideas thereto, whereby it may discern them all, their 
 combinations and modifications, together with the comparisons and other 
 relations resulting therefrom. 
 
 9. If we suppose every component spirit to perceive all that every other 
 does, it will appear impossible that so vast an infinitude of knowledge can 
 be contained in any created mind ; and we find a multitude of objects, 
 although distinct in themselves, confounds us merely by their number ; but 
 this is owing to the scantiness of our organs, for according as they are 
 more copious in one person than another, we find the same number of ideas 
 appear clear or confused. Caesar could dictate to three amanuenses at once, 
 and call all the Roman citizens by their names ; and if it would perplex 
 any of us to attempt the like, it is because we have not the same quickness 
 of parts, that is, the same fineness of organization. When we have so 
 many visible objects before us that we could not admit another without 
 confusion, we may still apprehend a sound or idea from any other sense 
 distinctly. So that in our present condition, it is our organs that set the 
 limits to our understanding, nor do we know what our mental capacity is, 
 our sources being too scanty ever to fill the vessel. We may possibly be 
 capable of twenty senses, but being provided with inlets only for five, have 
 no more conception of the others than a blind man has of light. Therefore 
 we have no reason to confine the extent of the mundane understanding to 
 the narrowness of our own, but rather to believe it much larger than any- 
 thing we have experienced or can imagine. Nevertheless, large as it is, 
 we have no need to suppose it infinite, or that the objects discerned by every 
 part are communicated to every other, for this communication being not a 
 necessary but voluntary act, each spirit may impart such perceptions to his 
 neighbour as he knows will be of use or entertainment to him, suppressing 
 the rest : and thus every one having all the knowledge he wants or can 
 be serviceable, may be styled completely knowing, although he does not 
 absolutely know everything. Thus the parts of the universal soul will 
 serve for organs to each other, conveying perceptions instantaneously 
 from the most distant regions of nature, distributing to every one what- 
 ever information it concerns him to receive : for we know of nothing so 
 quick as thought, nor that it takes up any time in its progress. And their 
 knowledge being derived from one common fund, they will all have the same 
 sentiments, the same motives and rules of conduct : not that I imagine 
 they will all have the same parts to act, for these must vary according to 
 their several situations and the bodies falling within the sphere of their 
 activity, but they will contribute their respective shares in perfect concert 
 and unanimity towards carrying on one general plan. For we are not to 
 think they have nothing else to do than transmit perceptions to and fro : but 
 since we ourselves have a power of giving motion to our limbs, we may 
 allow them the exercise of the like power, although they have no limbs to 
 move, for the bodies dispersed among them may serve for subjects of their 
 activity instead of limbs.
 
 406 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 10. Now in order to find what work there may be for them to do, let us 
 cast our eye upon two known laws of matter, Gravitation and Cohesion. 
 Sir Isaac Newton, who best understood them, declares that they are not 
 inherent properties of matter, but effects of some external force, which he 
 supposes to be the repulsion of ether, acting by different rules in the pro- 
 duction of either. This ether, he tells us, is more dense, and consequently 
 more elastic, in proportion to the distance whereat it lies from any gross 
 body: therefore the ether on the most distant sides of any two bodies being 
 stronger than that lying between them, drives them together, and so causes 
 their gravitation, and makes them seem to attract one another. Therefore 
 weight is made by the differential, not the absolute pressure of ether ; for 
 this, like all other elastic fluids, expands equally on all sides, pressing up- 
 wards as well as downwards : so that the ether beneath whatever we have 
 put into a scale heaves it up, but the ether above, being a little further 
 from the earth, impels it more forcibly downwards. Wherefore the weight 
 we find it have measures to us the excess of force wherewith one ether sur- 
 passes the other, but discovers nothing of the precise force belonging to 
 either. It may seem astonishing that so small a difference of distance from 
 the earth, as between the upper and under side of a common leaden weight 
 in the grocer's shop, should increase the density of ether in so sensible a 
 degree that it may be felt by taking the lead into one's hand : but since 
 there are many astonishing things in nature, we will make no objection of 
 this, but try to form some notion of what the absolute force of ether must 
 be. If we could make an ether-pump, as we do air-pumps, we might 
 ascertain by experiment what is the pressure on all sides of an exhausted 
 receiver ; but this being impossible, let us seek for some expedient to sup- 
 ply the place of it as well as we can : and though I am afraid we shall find 
 none that will enable us to make an exact computation of the strength of 
 ether, we may hit upon such as shall convince us it must be exceeding great. 
 If we toss a guinea upon the ground, we know that it weighs there about 
 a quarter of an ounce, therefore there is that pressure of ether upon it : but 
 the ether repelling equally on all sides, if another guinea be laid upon the 
 former, will heave that up with the like force wherewith it pressed the 
 other down. Nevertheless we know this other guinea gravitates likewise 
 downwards with the weight of a quarter of an ounce, therefore the super- 
 incumbent ether must press with the force of half an ounce, the weight 
 arising from the different repulsion of the two ethers. By the same rule, 
 if you put on a third guinea, it will have a pressure upon it of three quar- 
 ters of an ounce: and so on, how high soever you raise the pile, the upper- 
 most guinea will always be pressed down with a force equal to the weight 
 of the whole pile. Let us now imagine a hole drilled in the ground quite 
 down to the centre of the earth, and then filled up with guineas, how many 
 would it contain ? To take whole numbers, I shall suppose twenty to 
 fill up an inch, and the semidiameter of the earth to be just four thousand 
 miles : upon these data we shall make the whole number of guineas amount 
 to five thousand sixty-eight million eight hundred thousand. But we must 
 not reckon all these guineas to have their full weight, for whatever is car- 
 ried under ground loses of its weight in exact proportion as it approaches 
 the centre, and when it comes there, weighs nothing at all. But arithme- 
 ticians know that where numbers decrease in arithmetical progression down 
 to nothing, the sum of them all is just half what it would be if they were 
 all of the highest number ; therefore our column of guineas would weigh 
 what half their number, that is, two thousand five hundred thirty-four
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 407 
 
 million four hundred thousand, weigh in a scale above ground. Our next 
 step will be to compute the weight of that prodigious sum. I have been 
 told that at the mint they cut out a pound of gold into forty-four guineas 
 and a half: upon this footing we shall find our column amount to the 
 weight of twenty-eight thousand four hundred seventy-six tons troy. Sup- 
 posing then the pressure of ether at the centre nothing, which cannot be 
 certainly inferred from the want of weight in things there, which is thought 
 owing rather to the contrary attractions of the several parts of the earth 
 around them balancing one another than to their having no attraction at 
 all ; but supposing the pressure nothing at the centre, still that of our ether 
 at the surface of the earth must act with a force equal to above twenty- 
 eight thousand tons within so small a compass as the superficies of a single 
 guinea. 
 
 1 1 . Having found such an amazing force in ether, we might think it 
 sufficient to account for the attraction of cohesion too, which may well be 
 stronger than that of gravitation, although depending upon the same cause : 
 for the latter results only from the differential strength wherewith the 
 upper ether exceeds the lower, whereas particles in actual contact can have 
 nothing between to thrust them asunder, therefore will be held together by 
 the absolute pressure against their outsides, which we have found is more 
 than enough to make them cohere stronger than any substances we know 
 of; for I suppose a bar of any metal whatever, equal in thickness to the 
 breadth of a guinea, would be broke asunder by a weight of twenty-eight 
 thousand tons suspended at the end of it. But there is this difficulty in 
 deriving gravitation and cohesion from the same source, that since the den- 
 sity of ether increases so fast as we have found it to do upon receding from 
 the earth, things would cohere much more tenaciously at considerable 
 heights than they do near the ground, and a wire upon the Peak of Tene- 
 riffe would support a greater weight than might suffice to break it here 
 below : but I never heard of its being found to do so by any experiment. 
 Indeed the difference upon examination will not come out so great as at 
 first sight one might expect, for the highest mountains being, I think, not 
 above four miles above the level of the sea, the cohesion there will bear 
 the proportion only of five hundred and one to five hundred compared with 
 the cohesion here below ; a difference too small to be discovered by any 
 experiments upon the strength of strings or wires. But then, on the other 
 hand, it is found that attraction prevails between particles very near toge- 
 ther, though not in actual contact : in this case ether must find room to 
 rush in between and push them asunder, therefore their attraction will de- 
 pend upon the differential, not the absolute, pressure of external ether, and 
 cohesion become gravitation, which we are told is not strong enough to 
 exert the efforts made by the other. This brings us back again to Newton's 
 position, That the two attractions result, if not from different causes, yet 
 from different operations of the same cause. And we may conclude the 
 same of fire, heat, muscular motion, and sensation, wherein he likewise 
 suspects ether to have a hand ; but it seems to operate differently in pro- 
 ducing those several effects : which indicates a kind of choice and discern- 
 ment not to be found in the motions of matter, unless where directed by 
 some understanding ; and this direction it may receive from the action of 
 the mundane soul. 
 
 12. But how much soever we may resolve attraction into repulsion, this 
 will not put an end to our inquiries ; for repulsion is no more an inherent 
 property of matter than attraction was. The learned tell us, that the par-
 
 408 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 tides of ether do not touch, but keep one another always at a distance : but 
 it is an established maxim, obvious even to common sense upon a little 
 attentive use of it, that no substance can act where it is not, nor operate 
 upon anything at the least distance from the place where it exists, there- 
 fore there must be some medium between the particles of ether pushing 
 them asunder. Thus we shall be reduced to the condition of the Indian 
 philosopher, who asserted that the earth was supported upon the back of a 
 huge elephant, and the elephant stood upon a tortoise, but what the tortoise 
 rested upon he could not tell : so after having demonstrated that all motions 
 we see result from attraction and that from repulsion, what if we should be 
 asked for the cause of this latter ? for a cause it certainly requires, as matter 
 cannot exert it by its own energy. We have observed before, that there is 
 a prodigious consumption of force every moment, occasioned by the colli- 
 sion and pressure of bodies throughout the universe : and where shall we 
 seek for a fund from whence to draw supplies for repairing the continual 
 decays of motion ? The shortest way would be to recur to Almighty Power, 
 which certainly does not want efficacy to complete whatever is wanted to be 
 performed by it ; and I know that how far soever we may trace our chain 
 of second causes, we must come sooner or later to the First. But it is the 
 mark of a weak mind to be forward in ascribing events to the divine ope- 
 ration which cannot presently be accounted for otherwise : and the soundest 
 philosophers have made it a rule never to call in Omnipotence without ab- 
 solute necessity. Since then we experience in ourselves a power of giving 
 impulse to matter, and there is none of it but must lie within the reach of 
 some spirit contiguous thereto, why need we scruple to believe it liable to 
 the like action therefrom, as we exert upon our motory fibres ? Thus we 
 may assign spiritual substance for the first of second causes, from whose 
 action the repulsion of ether, whence all other material agents derive their 
 vigour, begins ; by whose ministry the laws of nature are executed, the 
 continual decay of motion repaired, the world and all things therein kept in 
 order. Nor will the admission of such a power derogate from our idea of 
 the Supreme Being. For since all, both material and spiritual substance, 
 received their existence, their powers, and properties from him, and not a 
 particle of either stirs unless by his permission or appointment, they are to 
 be regarded only as instruments in his hands, and whatever mighty works 
 they perform ascribed ultimately to him. 
 
 13. As to the force a spirit is able to exert, we have no measures in our 
 own experience to determine it by : for though we can lift heavy weights, 
 it has been shown in the former part of this work that we do not this by 
 our own strength, for we receive considerable assistance from our animal 
 circulation : yet we must begin the motion upon some little nerve or fibre 
 to pull up the valve for letting in the vital stream upon our muscles, but 
 what momentum we impart thereto I know of no method to ascertain. Our 
 power must certainly be confined to very narrow limits because the sphere 
 of our presence is so, for as nothing can act where it is not, we can act 
 only upon such particles as may be drawn within that compass, and conse- 
 quently can give no greater momentum than those little particles are capa- 
 ble of receiving. Yet for aught we know our strength may be very great 
 in proportion to our sphere of activity, nor can we tell what limits to set 
 it : therefore a multitude of us acting together might perform mighty feats 
 upon huge masses of matter. If cohesion depend upon the action of 
 spiritual substance, let us consider what weight a bar of iron as thick as 
 the breadth of a guinea would sustain, and if the theory of gravitation be-
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 409 
 
 fore laid down be right, we have seen how vast a pressure lies upon bodies 
 of the same dimensions : this then will be the force exerted by so much of 
 that substance whose presence can extend throughout the surface of a 
 guinea. And the same force that can hold the particles of bodies so 
 strongly together, may suffice to dart them along, when detached from one 
 another, with a proportionable rapidity : so that we shall not want a cause 
 for the velocity of light, vibrations of ether, or other the swiftest motions 
 that human sagacity has yet discovered. 
 
 14. If anybody objects that by giving a spirit extent of presence I ascribe 
 it bulk, and consequently a consistency of parts ; I shall desire him to 
 resolve me two questions, Whether he denies God to be present throughout 
 all immensity, and whether he conceives him to have bulk or to consist of 
 distinguishable parts ? And I shall refer him further to CHAP. IV, V. 
 where I have made it evident, at least to my own apprehension, that we 
 are individuals not consisting of parts, nevertheless that there is a certain 
 portion of space throughout which we are totipresent, because we can 
 receive the action of many corporeal particles at once which cannot be 
 brought into contact with a mathematical point. Since then we have each 
 of us a certain sphere of presence, a multitude of these spheres may extend 
 to any magnitude in proportion to the numbers of them, and the spirits 
 residing in them, having a communication of ideas, will join in exerting 
 their activity throughout the whole magnitude composed of their spheres. 
 Thus though the strength of each singly, by reason of the narrowness of 
 their presence, be very trifling, perhaps scarce able to lift a mote in the sun- 
 beams ; yet by their united force they may perform more stupendous ex- 
 ploits than Milton's angels, and without the trouble of loosening to and 
 fro, from their foundations may pluck the seated hills with all their load, 
 rocks, waters, woods, and by their bases broad uplifting rear them high in 
 air, or toss with rapid whirl o'er ocean's furthest bourne. For we know 
 the efficacy of union to produce strength out of weakness, as well in the 
 works of human industry as ot nature. When a number of men are dis- 
 ciplined to act at one signal, or obey one command, what masses cannot 
 they move, what performances cannot they achieve ! We know of few 
 tilings weaker than water, or more yielding than air : yet what havoc and 
 devastation do storms and inundations make by the combined force of little 
 corpuscles, thousands of which one might blow away with a breath ! How 
 feebly does one grain of sand attract another ? so that we cannot discover 
 it by the nicest experiment : yet it is the aggregate of such attractions 
 from all the grains in all the earth that holds down the moon in her orbit. 
 But the mundane spirits, intimately persuaded of the benefit of unanimity, 
 and by their mutual participation of perceptions having the same under- 
 standing, the same motives and apprehensions of things, enow of them will 
 always be ready to concur in completing every work that shall be discerned 
 expedient. 
 
 15. An objection may be started here against the possibility of our 
 spirits doing the mighty things ascribed to them above notwithstanding 
 their strength and unanimity : for action and re-action being reciprocal 
 and opposite, whenever a spirit goes to impel a particle of matter he will 
 thrust himself backward with equal force, and though he may have some 
 good friend behind to keep him steady, he will thereby impart the same 
 force to him, who will likewise transmit it to the next beyond, and so on 
 until the thrust be propagated to the outermost bounds of the mundane 
 soul, which expanding by degrees, the parts of it must open, and thereby
 
 410 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 losing their contiguity with either corporeal or spiritual substance, must 
 lose both their percipience and active powers for want of materials to 
 exercise either within their reach. But though we find re-action constantly 
 prevailing between bodies, it does not necessarily follow from thence tha't 
 the like prevails between body and spirit, one acting by impulse and the 
 other by volition : nor have we reason to think it does from anything 
 happening to us in our common actions. We feel our limbs move and the 
 outer parts of our body, but we feel no resistance from the inner fibres we 
 employ in moving them : in short, we are so little affected by those first 
 instruments of our action, and have so little notice of them, that Hartley 
 and some others have denied that we ever move them at all, but insist 
 upon their being moved mechanically by the vibratiuncles bringing us our 
 perceptions. And this consideration may obviate a difficulty concerning the 
 laboriousness of those tasks we have assigned the mundane spirits in exert- 
 ing their utmost strength incessantly to produce repulsion, cohesion, and 
 gravitation in matter, which may be thought incompatible with that happi- 
 ness we have supposed them to enjoy. For there is nothing operose or 
 toilsome in volition, our limbs indeed tire upon being over worked because 
 they can bear no more than a certain measure of exercise, our reflections 
 satiate by a constant repetition of the same ideas, because our organs lose 
 their relish and return us uneasy perceptions instead of the agreeable ones 
 they gave at first : but if we can find employment for a fresh set of muscles, 
 or bring a fresh set of objects to our imagination, we find as much amuse- 
 ment in them as if we had done or contemplated nothing before. The mind 
 is never tired of commanding from morning to night, so long as the instru- 
 ments are not tired of executing ; therefore the actions of spirit are always 
 performed easily without either weariness or satiety. 
 
 16. As we have supposed all space replete with material or spiritual 
 substance, it may be doubted whether in that case there could be any motion 
 of either, because there would be no vacant place for them to move into. 
 But it is the more generally received opinion that spirit is penetrable by 
 body, therefore can oppose no obstruction against the motions of that : and 
 as I never heard it determined even by conjecture whether spirit be pene- 
 trable by spirit, it remains wholly uncertain whether they will obstruct one 
 another. But admitting them neither penetrable by one another nor by 
 body, though I have supposed them contiguous I have not supposed them 
 present in every point of space ; for the waters of the sea lie contiguous, 
 yet are there many pores and vacant spaces between them : therefore 
 spiritual substance may be considered as an extreme subtile fluid, continually 
 at motion within itself, and admitting bodies to pass through it with more 
 ease than fishes swim through the water. But this is offered only upon 
 supposition of their being impenetrable, which I have before declared my 
 sentiments that they are not ; and of locomotion being necessary for them, 
 which is more than I know to be the fact : for as they will have percep- 
 tions brought from every quarter, they will hardly want to change their 
 situation in order to change their scene, and examine objects they could 
 not discern before. But if locomotion be requisite, I do not imagine they 
 can move themselves nor one another : but as we are vitally united to some 
 part of our body which carries us about with it wherever it gues, so they 
 may join themselves occasionally to some particle of matter, which is going 
 the way they desire. Nor need it be wondered that the courses of nature 
 should go on so steadily as they do, if guided by voluntary agents, some of 
 whom we might imagine would proceed in a different manner from others
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 411 
 
 because we find them do so among ourselves : whereas bodies gravitate and 
 cohere, air condenses and rarefies, light reflects and refracts, always exactly 
 in the same manner under the same circumstances. But when we consider 
 that our own contrariety and changeableness of behaviour springs from the 
 ideas starting up in our imagination, which each man has peculiar to him- 
 self, nor does his neighbour discern or stand affected by them, and that in 
 proportion as every man possesses a more enlarged understanding and 
 judgment we find him more steady and uniform in his conduct, we shall 
 cease to wonder that these spirits, whose knowledge by their participation 
 of ideas must extend much wider than ours, not liable to overlook things 
 which when discovered must alter their judgment, should pursue constantly 
 the same tenor of conduct ; that what appears expedient to one should 
 appear so to all, and what they judge proper to do at one time they should 
 adhere to at all others without variation. 
 
 1 7 . This entire unanimity of sentiment and perfect harmony of action 
 may well warrant us to look upon the whole as one thing, to which the 
 material world will serve as a sensory exciting sensations and reflections, 
 and exhibiting ideas, and the spiritual part as a percipient to receive them 
 and a vivifying principle to invigorate and actuate the motions of the other ; 
 having in a manner one understanding, one design, and one volition, mak- 
 ing all together one compound as the human soul and body make one man. 
 So that with the Stoics we may call the universe an immense animal, or say 
 with Pope, All are but parts of one stupendous Whole, whose body nature 
 is, and God, not the Almighty, but this created god we have been speaking 
 of, the soul. This god, or animal, or glorified man containing all men 
 (for it matters not what name we use so our ideas be clear) which is the 
 world, will have a full discernment of all his parts with their combinations, 
 proportions, symmetries, situations, and uses : nor will anything minute 
 escape his notice, for being not confined like us to one little cell in the 
 brain, where we know nothing of the many secretions, circulations, and 
 other transactions, passing in our frame, but his spirit, insinuating and pe- 
 netrating everywhere, not an atom can stir without his knowledge and ob- 
 servation. Nor must we imagine him to receive sensations only from 
 all these objects, for as the modifications of our organs furnish us with 
 judgments, relations, abstractions, and other ideas of reflection, resulting 
 from the notices of our senses, so his sensory the material world will supply 
 him with the like in far greater abundance, free from that disorder and per- 
 plexity attending them in us, as being selected and purified in their passage 
 through spiritual substance by the channel of communication : so that he 
 will be all intelligence, perfect reason, and unerring judgment. And though 
 we must needs admit him passive in perception, he will have such absolute , 
 command over the causes and instruments of perception that no thought 
 can intrude against his liking. Yet we must not imagine him subject to 
 those sudden starts and wanton sallies which too often hit our own fancy, 
 for this would occasion strange irregularities in the visible world, but best 
 pleased with that regular scene of contemplation exhibited by the stated 
 laws and steady courses of nature, and therefore constantly employing his 
 activity to execute and preserve them in order. For his activity being co- 
 extensive with his intelligence, every limb of his immense body will be under 
 his immediate government, so that all the motions therein will be voluntary : 
 nothing automatic, or at least the automatic be exactly directed by the vo- 
 luntary : and ether, whose various repulsions are the grand springs of all 
 natural movements, may be considered as performing the office of nerves
 
 412 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 nnd muscles in moving the larger members. By his strength he rolls the 
 huge planets along the boundless sky ; by his agility he dashes the light 
 on all sides with inconceivable velocity ; by his energy he produces gravi- 
 tation, cohesion, heat, explosion, fluidity, contraction, and dilatation of the 
 circulating vessels in plants and animals, and all other operations discernible 
 throughout the visible world. 
 
 18. In him as parts are contained all the powers that men can imagine 
 concerned in the phenomena of nature or affairs of mankind ; for we might 
 style the god or angel of the sun, the god of the moon, of Saturn, Jupiter, 
 or the other planets, so much of his substance as actuates their motions and 
 operations, and so much of it as surrounds every particular man may be 
 called his guardian angel or demon : so that by this theory one might almost 
 reconcile the pagan theology with sound reason and probability. Yet I would 
 not suppose the same particles of spiritual substance to attend tbe moving 
 bodies throughout their progress, but transmit them to others having the 
 same dispositions, purposes, and activity, whereby there will be no variation 
 nor irregularity in their courses. For we divide the ocean into seas, gulphs, 
 and bays, the waters whereof continually change, so that those which com- 
 pose the German Sea to-day may make the British Channel to-morrow, 
 the Bay of Biscay the next day, and afterwards the Mediterranean. And 
 as the wake of a ship, by which I think the sailors understand the stream 
 drawn after the stern by its motion, follows the ship throughout her voyage, 
 yet consists every moment of different waters : so wherever a man goes he 
 may always have his guardian angel about him, the same in kind and quality, 
 in character and ability, but not a minute together the same in personal 
 identity. Nor can it be doubted that this spiritual substance, having so 
 minute a discernment and perfect command over the particles of matter, 
 might form them into any shapes or appearances he had a mind ; or by 
 throwing our sensory into proper modifications impart any knowledge, even 
 such as could not naturally enter into the human imagination. Not that I 
 mean to decide whether such things have or have not been done, but who- 
 ever believes they have, may find here a fit agent by whose ministry any 
 commands of the Almighty may be executed, as well ordinary as extraordi- 
 nary. For without such command, or some very substantial reason, we may 
 rest assured he will not deviate a step from his usual method of proceeding. 
 Therefore we need not fear any fantastic surprises nor hurts from him ; not 
 for the same reason which secured us against the vehicular people, because 
 they were too feeble to affect any of our senses, for he wants neither skill 
 nor ability to raise dreadful phantoms or rattle chains or terrify us with 
 horrid dreams as well in broad sunshine as at midnight, nor to work all the 
 feats of witchcraft and magic : but because such more than childish pranks 
 are inconsistent with his consummate wisdom and importance of character. 
 To entertain these apprehensions of him would be as idle a fear as if, upon 
 our friend of the best credit and character coming into the house, we should 
 disturb ourselves lest he might steal a silver spoon, or take some sly oppor- 
 tunity to slit holes in our furniture : and we ought to be as backward in 
 giving credit to reports of that kind as we should be in believing anybody 
 who told us he saw a group of persons of the highest dignity and most ve- 
 nerable character playing at taw together in the street, or robbing an or- 
 chard, or practising the little mischievous tricks of an unlucky school-boy. 
 
 19. But as we are perpetually sustained and protected, and the springs 
 from whence we receive our uses and enjoyments actuated, by the mundane 
 soul, so it may be presumed that we are likewise of some use to him. For
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 413 
 
 embodied spirits, each confined within his several cell and having no ideas 
 unless what his particular sensory exhibits, must be allowed to operate dif- 
 ferently upon the matter environing them from those which lie at large in 
 the mundane substance, and thereby diversify the scene, presenting ideas he 
 could not find elsewhere. For though I do not suppose him contiguous 
 with our spirits, because then we should become one with him and partici- 
 pate of his knowledge, yet he may be so with the outside of our sensories, 
 and by observing the motions there and knowing from what operations of 
 spirit they must proceed, he may read our thoughts as currently as we read 
 one another's thoughts in a letter. And if evil be necessary in nature, as 
 we must conclude from its having admission therein, it may be dispersed 
 among the corporeal and vehicular states that the inhabitants of the mun- 
 dane, by applying to the sensories of the other two, may attain the knowledge 
 of evil without actual suffering. Thus our pains and displeasures, our vex- 
 ations and disappointments, our errors and follies, which we look upon as 
 oversights or neglects in nature, promote the service of more exalted Beings, 
 doing them more good than hurt to ourselves. Our various constitutions, 
 talents, passions, desires, professions and fortunes, all the transactions and 
 dispensations befalling us, which we regard only as they affect our present 
 condition, have a twofold use besides : as they prepare us for our several func- 
 tions in the vehicular life, and as they present objects wanted for the pur- 
 poses of the universal soul whereon his happiness in some measure" depends. 
 Perhaps our interests may furnish him with a principal part of his employ- 
 ment, for being completely happy and placed out of the reach of evil, he may 
 have nothing to desire for himself, and nothing to do but exert his power 
 and contrivance in lessening the burdens and enhancing the enjoyments of 
 animal life as much as possible : so that for aught we know, the most glo- 
 rified Beings may be constantly attendant upon the services of man, not for 
 the greatness of his importance, but because he is the only poor creature 
 that wants their cares. 
 
 20. Having given the fullest explication I could of that exalted Being 
 the universal soul, the head and principal of creatures, let us now consider 
 how well he may deserve the glorious things said of him in former times. 
 And first we need not scruple to admit him for maker of the world, that is, 
 the agent employed in executing that stupendous work : for penetrating into 
 every pore of material substance, being all intelligence and activity through- 
 out, he might discern all the particles in Chaos, if ever there was one, 
 know what they were severally fit for, assort them into elements, and of 
 them compose habitable earths. Upon the word given, Let there be light, 
 he might twist the sevenfold rays and dart them about in all directions, or 
 upon a second word collect the main body of them into a Sun. He might 
 give the heavy planets their tangential motion by one strong and exactly 
 poised stroke. He might gather the waters from the dry land, having first 
 scooped the capacious bed of ocean, and raised the equatorial parts, lest the 
 diurnal rotation should cast up the sea above them. He might give the 
 earth a twirl as easily as a child twirls round his whirligig, to produce the 
 vicissitudes of day and night. He might thrust the poles askance twice 
 ten degrees and more, that summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, 
 should never fail. He might draw out strings of viscous juices from the 
 ground, and perforating them into tubes, and interlacing them artfully to- 
 gether, compose therewith the tree yielding fruit after his kind and the herb 
 after his kind, whose seed is in itself. He might form the dust of the earth 
 into animal organizations with proper members for walking or flying, or
 
 414 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 creeping or swimming, as soon as the breath of life should be breathed into 
 them : and extracting the finer particles from the grosser, might work them 
 into mental organs and sensories, fit for the reception of perceptive spirits 
 who should be created for them to begin the race of men upon earth. And 
 as he went on completing his task, the Lord Almighty looked forth from 
 heaven, and saw every handy work of his minister, and behold, it was very 
 good. The six days' formation being ended, though God rested from com'- 
 manding, his agent did not rest from acting ; for his reason could now direct 
 him how to proceed in sustaining the work he had been taught to make. 
 He still continued to turn the grand wheel of repulsion, that first mover in 
 the wondrous machine of visible nature, all whose movements follow one 
 another uninterruptedly for ages according to stated laws and in regular 
 courses without failure or disorder in any single wheel. Until the fulness 
 of time being come, or the signal given from the throne of Glory, the same 
 agent turning the wheel of repulsion the contrary way, will rend the mighty 
 fabric asunder, throw the parts of compounds out of their order, dissipate 
 them with a sudden explosion, and reduce all into Chaos again. From 
 whence upon a new plan assigned, new systems may be formed, new earths 
 stretched out, new vegetables and animals produced to cover and inhabit 
 them. 
 
 21. I think offence cannot be taken against our ascribing the generation 
 and sustentation of the world to a created Being, as it seems rather to raise 
 than depress our idea of the divine majesty ; and everything done by the 
 deputy commissioned for that particular purpose is always esteemed the 
 act of the principal. The very expression commonly used that God made 
 all things by his word warrants our supposition of an intelligent agent who 
 should understand and obey the word when spoken ; and those writings 
 which speak of supernatural effects many times declare them performed by 
 the ministry of an inferior hand. It was not the Lord himself, but the 
 angel of the Lord, who smote 'the host of Sennacherib : and when a pro- 
 mise is made of peculiar protection to some particular person, it is said that 
 God shall send his angel to direct thy steps that thou hurt not thy foot 
 against a stone. Nor do I apprehend any danger in removing the divine 
 power as far as possible from those operations we see or know of, pro- 
 vided that we bear constantly in mind that all other powers must be referred 
 originally thereto. Therefore how mighty works soever are performed, so 
 long as we can conceive God having a minister in his kingdom capable of 
 executing them, we need not call in omnipotence : reserving only to that 
 the prerogative of giving the powers and lights requisite for obeying his 
 orders. and fulfilling his word. 
 
 22. The 'powers and operations of the universal soul being settled, we 
 will proceed next to consider his state and condition within himself : and 
 we may agree with the ancient sages in pronouncing him immortal, un- 
 changable, completely intelligent, wise, and happy. For having nothing 
 external, he will be secure against dangers and accidents from without : 
 being not vitally united to systems of matter, their dissolution can affect him 
 no otherwise than a change of objects or of one thing for another taken 
 into our hands does us : and consisting of similar parts, whose qualities do 
 not depend upon their order or combinations, he will not suffer by their 
 taking new positions, as we should do upon the misplacing an eye or an 
 ear or any little fibre in our bodies ; for every component spirit would be 
 able to perform the same office with that into whose place it succeeded. 
 Or if anything were to happen in his immense body tending to his damage,
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 415 
 
 being active and discerning throughout, he would know how to prevent the 
 mischief in time. The extensiveness of his intelligence communicated per- 
 petually from every part to every part, must render him universally knowing 
 in all the combinations of matter, their situations, order, motions, and 
 secondary qualities, together with the judgments, reflections, and sciences 
 resulting, or consequences and uses expectant, therefrom. All this, together 
 with his exemption from passion and error, must make his wisdom con- 
 summate to provide effectually for his own interests and those of inferior 
 creatures committed to his charge. For if hi a multitude of counsellors 
 there is wisdom, how great must the wisdom be of this innumerable host 
 of spirits mutually imparting their lights from all quarters of the universe ! 
 Therefore he will act invariably right, doing always that which virtue 
 requires, though without any other virtue than that of prudence ; because 
 he will want none other. For to us the virtues are necessary marks direct- 
 ing to that happiness we want clearness of sight to discover, and strength 
 of mind to pursue : but he having a foresight of remotest consequence?, 
 and an intuitive discernment of their just amount, will see clearly what is 
 best, and need no spur to instigate nor mark to direct him in the pursuit of 
 it. The clearness and largeness of his understanding will secure him 
 against all partial views and unsteadiness of conduct ; for it is folly and 
 ignorance that makes us capricious, changeable, and inconsistent with our- 
 selves ; but wisdom is ever uniform and the same throughout ; therefore he 
 will have no variableness in his sentiments, his designs, or his measures, 
 but approach as near to the divine immutability as can be conceived possible 
 for created substance. 
 
 23. With all these accomplishments and perfections, we cannot doubt of 
 his being unspeakably happy ; and if any sparks of evil should be sprinkled 
 upon him by contemplation of the miserable wretches in the two embodied 
 states, they would be so overwhelmed with the joys flowing from elsewhere, 
 that he would feel no more disturbance thereat than a man, having just 
 received news of some great good fortune befallen him, would feel upon 
 happening to break a China saucer. Nor need we apprehend his being 
 satiated with the samenes of his prospect, having no other objects beside 
 his own immense body to entertain him, with which, being long since per- 
 fectly acquainted, he can make no new discoveries for his amusement. For 
 though pleasure cannot subsist without novelty in ourselves, because our 
 bodily organs, losing their quickness upon repetition of the same objects, 
 will not continue the relish they gave at first : yet where the spirits serve 
 as organs to one another, it is not certain the same inconvenience must 
 ensue. But supposing variety of objects and employments necessary to 
 happiness, he will not want for plenty of either : for his immense body^ the 
 universe, though but one, and he have nothing external to gaze at, consists 
 of numberless systems, each containing a multitude of under parts, whose 
 incessant movements perpetually change the face of nature and exhibit a 
 diversity of scenes as well among the larger members as in the minuter 
 particles. Nor is it necessary that every component spirit should have the 
 whole in contemplation at once ; for large as their capacity may be we have 
 never represented it as infinite ; therefore their streams of communication 
 may be varied by the pouring sometimes one kind of perceptions upon each 
 other and sometimes another ; or they may travel to and fro to visit different 
 regions and take a nearer view of objects that lay at a distance from them 
 before. Add to this, that the follies, the passions, and miscarriages of em- 
 bodied creatures will probably furnish them with new scenes unknown td
 
 416 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 wisdom, and dissimilar to anything of her production. Nor need we fear 
 their want of employment to engage them, for considering the vast con- 
 sumption of motion everywhere, which requires their continual efforts to 
 renew it, besides the mutual communication of perceptions, and choice of 
 those proper to be communicated, they will constantly have enough to do in 
 giving impulse to the matter falling within their reach. For as they do 
 not ruTi along with the bodies they actuate, but hand them on to one 
 another, they will have different functions to execute : sometimes busied in 
 pushing forward the corpuscles of light, spreading the tails of comets, or 
 regulating the vibrations of ether according to their proximity or distance 
 from masses of gross matter : sometimes in gravitating heavy weights to 
 earths, or holding the parts of metals in cohesion, or giving fluidity to 
 liquors, or agitating the particles of fire, or contracting and dilating the 
 circulating vessels in plants and animals. 
 
 24. We have heard talk of a beatific vision supposed to constitute or 
 enhance the happiness of disembodied spirits, nor shall I attempt to disprove 
 the possibility of such a supposition, for we know not the extent of our 
 perceptivity. We may be capable of new senses, higher faculties, and sub- 
 limer reflections, than our present organization can exercise. When totally 
 disengaged from the veil of matter enwrapping us, we may be able to see 
 even as also we are seen, and discern sensibly that glorious object which no 
 man can behold and live. But without this extraordinary privilege we may 
 well imagine the universal soul must attain a completer knowledge of God 
 than we can, though by the same way that we do, namely, by the contem- 
 plation of his works. For having the whole book of nature constantly open 
 before him, and by the largeness of his understanding and mutual communi- 
 cation of perceptions throughout his substance, being able to comprehend 
 the spacious pages at one glance, he will read there the whole divine economy, 
 discerning the uses and wisdom of those parts which to us appear super- 
 fluous or mischievous, and forming a clear conception of the divine attributes, 
 not excepting those unknown and inscrutable to man. Nor will it lessen 
 his adoration to know, as from the account herein before given it may be 
 inferred he must know, that nature is the work of his own hands and the 
 regularity of her courses carried on by his own energy : for as a man who 
 has done extraordinary things, if he thinks justly, will derive from thence a 
 greater veneration for the power which gave him the sagacity and talents 
 enabling him to perform them ; so the universal agent will always bear in 
 mind that he is but a minister and instrument in the hand of a superior upon 
 whom he continually depends. For if God were to withdraw his material 
 world for a moment, the spiritual would instantly lose its percipience and 
 action, having neither object to discern, nor subject to act upon, nor means 
 of communicating perceptions where none were excited. Nor can he forget 
 that how well soever he may continue the order of succession in the courses 
 of nature, his operations must have had a beginning, his intelligence some pre- 
 mises furnished for it to work upon, and there must have been some original 
 order and position in matter to be the basis and foundation of his resolutions 
 before he could make or act in pursuance of them. The existence of evil, 
 which proves to us a stumbling-block, would teach him a useful lesson, for 
 we may presume he would not admit it willingly in any part of the universe 
 under his care : but the necessity of its being scattered somewhere must 
 convince him that he is not omnipotent, but under control of a higher 
 power by whom that necessity was imposed. And if the courses of nature 
 are sometimes to be changed, new systems to be formed, he will perceive
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 417 
 
 modifications in his sensory directing them, thoughts and designs occurring 
 there which he did not introduce himself. With all this we cannot doubt 
 of his having as full an insight into the divine nature as is possible or requi- 
 site for created Being : he will find no perplexities in his ideas of the attri- 
 butes, nor appearance of their clashing one with another: he will clearly 
 comprehend the nature of infinite goodness, and be able to reconcile the 
 permission of evil therewith : therefore will apply himself heartily to every 
 task assigned him, well knowing that all are calculated for the benefit of 
 the creature. He will be so intimately penetrated with the idea of the divine 
 equity, that there will arise no opposition nor struggle for preference among 
 the component parts of his substance : for each discerning that no hurt can 
 befall another but what must redound to his own damage, the general in- 
 terest will actuate them all, and self-love become benevolence. That sole 
 virtue which accompanies us in the last stage of our existence, when the 
 persuasions of reason shall be lost in intuition, and the expectation of future 
 good swallowed up in the fruition of present. 
 
 25. This host of happy spirits called by one name, the universal soul, from 
 their uniformity of action and sentiment, we suppose the receptacle for par- 
 ticular spirits as they can disengage themselves from their vital union with 
 matter ; and that upon disruption of a vehicle, the perceptive inhabitant 
 will be discharged therein and incorporated therewith : whereby the com- 
 munication with spiritual substance being opened, it will instantly partake 
 of all the knowledge and designs of its neighbours, and immediately take its 
 share in their operations according to the station wherein it happens to fall. 
 And though leaving the traces of its former memory behind, it will have the 
 records of the universal sensory to inspect, wherein is preserved the remem- 
 brance of events happening throughout nature more exactly and fully than 
 can be comprised in any animal organization. Thus, in this state, there 
 will be no infancy nor growth of faculties or advancement in learning, but 
 the new comers upon their first arrival will stand upon the same footing 
 with the old members, as if they had resided among them from everlasting. 
 As they act in concert carrying on one plan of operation, the act of all will 
 seem the act of every one, and each feel a kind of consciousness of what is 
 performed by the whole company. For as among men concurring heartily 
 in one undertaking, all claim the credit to themselves ; the majority at an 
 election exult as much as if the choice had depended upon their single votes, 
 and a tradesman at a coffee- house triumphs in a victory and thinks himself 
 entitled to say, We have beat the enemy, because he pays some trifle towards 
 the supplies, or is a member of the nation whose quarrel it is ; so the mem- 
 bers of this mighty agent, the universal soul, although singly feeble, will 
 partake in the joy of those stupendous works carried on by their united 
 strength. For all contributing their activity to roll the celestial orbs in 
 their appointed courses, to diffuse light throughout the vast expanse, to 
 keep the elements in order, to distribute all things upon earth by number, 
 weight, and measure, to produce and preserve the several species of plants 
 and animals, to direct the affairs of men and turn the wheels of fortune, to 
 fulfil invariably the Will of God and execute the/mighty plan assigned them, 
 the pleasure of the performance will redound entire to every one as if he 
 had been the sole agent employed. 
 
 26. With all these sources of enjoyment, the contemplation of universal 
 nature, the science of all operations as well in the largest as the minutest 
 bodies, the possession of an enlarged understanding and perfect reason, the 
 
 VOL. i. '2s
 
 418 MUNDANE SOUL. 
 
 assurance of an immortality and unchangeableness of character, the constant 
 occupation without labour or difficulty in the most magnificent, delightful, 
 and important works., the consciousness of acting invariably right, and the 
 clear conception of the divine attributes, we may well admit this the hap- 
 piest state created substance can be placed in, therefore we need seek no 
 higher, but may take this for our idea of the kingdom of heaven. In 
 that kingdom almost everything is the very reverse to what we find it upon 
 earth : here we live single spirits vitally united to unwieldy masses of 
 matter which but ill perform our services, for most of the parts of our 
 composition lying out of our notice we have no command over them, their 
 motions are for the most part mechanical and automatic, nor can we prevent 
 diseases and disorders from gathering among them, nor passions, habits, 
 and thoughts, cast upon us involuntarily from them ; we depend upon things 
 external for our uses and enjoyments and the sustentation of our bodies, 
 therefore are liable to continual wants, disappointments, and accidents. 
 There the spiritual substance being diffused everywhere has no more of 
 matter to deal with than it can manage, directs the movements of every 
 limb and fibre in this immense body, which containing everything requisite 
 for his uses and enjoyments within itself, and being subject to no decay, 
 needs nothing external ; and each corporeal particle by the communication 
 of perceptions serves the purposes of many spirits. Here we have the 
 whole portion of actual evil distributed among us in all its various forms of 
 pain, disease, disappointment, vexation, trouble, and uneasiness : there 
 they have only the idea of it, which perhaps they find necessary to their 
 happiness ; for perception being transient and momentary, and probably 
 not excited without some motion in matter, if they had not an apprehen- 
 sion of damage to ensue upon their forbearance, they would have no in- 
 ducement to exert themselves in giving those motions to bodies from whence 
 they receive all their perceptions. The narrowness of our views occasions 
 private aims and contrariety of interests, so that half our cares are laid out 
 in opposing one another's designs, whereby much of the power we might 
 have is lost : but they, using one common understanding, proceed with 
 perfect harmony, so that their strength, though singly far inferior to ours, 
 becomes immense by their unanimity. We follow the gratification of our de- 
 sires thinking of nothing further, and God works out his own purposes from 
 them, giving an issue to our endeavours contrary to what we intended : 
 they keep their eye steadily fixed upon the Will of God which it is their 
 constant desire and delight to fulfil, therefore as nothing can happen any- 
 where contrary to that Will, nothing can happen contrary to their wishes. 
 We labour for the most part to serve ourselves, not much regarding what 
 ensues therefrom to our neighbours, nor can we do otherwise in many of 
 our actions wherein nobody else has any concern : they pursue always the 
 general good, so that love, pure judicious love, actuates all their motions, 
 displaying itself in a cordial obedience to the fountain of blessings and 
 sincere attachment to one another's interests. 
 
 27 . This spiritual community being heaven and all space not occupied by 
 matter being replete with spiritual substance, it follows that heaven is not 
 local but everywhere, all around, above, below, on each side, and within us, 
 filling, not only the starry regions, but likewise the air, the earth, and the 
 seas, and permeating the pores of all compound bodies. Therefore that we 
 are out of heaven, is not owing to any distance we stand at from thence, 
 but to our being pent up in walls of flesh which cut off our communication 
 with the blessed spirits, and shut us out from all participation in their light
 
 MUNDANE SOUL. 419 
 
 and their joys. We are like persons inclosed each in a sentry-box having 
 all the chinks and crannies stopped that might let in the least light or 
 sound, and in this condition set down among the splendid throng in a full 
 Ridotto : they would he alone in the midst of company, as knowing nothing 
 of the gaiety and diversions passing round them. If they had strings 
 reaching to one another's boxes they might make signs by them, learn in 
 time to understand one another's motions, and carry on a sort of conversa- 
 tion together ; but very imperfect in comparison of what they could do if 
 let out and permitted to converse like other people. So we, while impri- 
 soned in these earthly tabernacles, see little and know little of all that 
 passes around us, and converse together imperfectly by the corporeal me- 
 diums of sights and sounds. Upon the dissolution of this gross body, we 
 may find an inner integument still clinging round us ; but when the ap- 
 pointed time shall deliver us from this too, we shall not have far to travel 
 before we join our company : for wherever our vehicle leaves us, there we 
 shall find heaven, and take our place and occupation therein immediately 
 without any of that surprise, or awkwardness, or agitation, usually thrown 
 upon our corporeal organs by scenes wholly new, but with the same readi- 
 ness and familiarity as a man coming off a journey, having his own house, 
 his own family, his own furniture and conveniences about him ; for we shall 
 then understand and apprehend, not by our old ideas, but by those of the 
 universal mind, and partake in the expertness and fall-digested remembrance 
 belonging to that. 
 
 28. Though this notion of the mundane soul was first broached by the 
 old philosophers, I hope the moderns will not be offended with me for 
 attempting to revive it, since I have brought it at least to my own thinking 
 compatible with some of the most important articles now received among 
 us. For one cannot well imagine a more intimate communion of saints 
 than that above described : the exemption from evil implies a release from 
 punishment, and full forgiveness of sins : the unchangeableness and immor- 
 tality of this soul are but other words to express a life everlasting : our in- 
 corporation thereinto, whereby we shall have the whole frame of material 
 nature to supply us with objects and serve as instruments for us to act with, 
 may be reckoned a resurrection of the body ; for though this body were 
 existent before, yet we may be said to rise again upon our admission into it, 
 by being restored to our percipience and animal functions. Indeed, the 
 vehicular state is a resurrection too, therefore that may be reckoned the 
 first, or resurrection into the kingdom of Christ, and this of the mundane 
 state of the second, when he shall deliver up all power to the Father ; and 
 whereas we are taught to expect a spiritual body on our rising again, we 
 cannot thereby understand one composed of spirit, for that were a contra- 
 diction in terms, nor can any material composition better deserve such 
 epithet than that whose every member, limb, and fibre is actuated by spirit. 
 As to the vulgar notion of a resurrection in the same form and substance 
 we carry about at present, the various ways in which it has been expounded, 
 and many difficulties raised upon them all, sufficiently declare it unten- 
 able : and the reason ordinarily given, because the body being partaker 
 in the deed ought to share in the reward, as well requires a resurrection 
 of the sword a man murders with, or the Bank note he gives to charitable 
 uses ; for our mind is the sole agent, and our hands are as much instru- 
 ments as anything we hold in them. But since the mind can neither 
 perceive nor act without matter, there must be a resurrection in some 
 
 2 E 2
 
 420 THE VISION. 
 
 sense or other, that is, a re-instating in some composition answering 
 the purposes of a body, to render her capable of another life. Lastly, the 
 occupation proposed for us there is the glorifying our Maker, which cannot 
 better be performed than by steadily fulfilling his Will, constantly attend- 
 ing his services, carrying on his appointed courses, executing his laws of 
 nature, and heartily concurring in his beloved work, the general good and 
 happiness of his creatures. This seems a more acceptable praise than sing- 
 ing hymns and psalms to all eternity : for obedience is better than sacrifice, 
 and to do the Will of God than the fat of lambs. 
 
 29. I know of but one exception can be taken against the idea here given 
 of heaven, which is, that it leaves no room for the blessed spirits to differ 
 in their degrees of happiness as one star differeth from another star in 
 glory. But since the communication of perceptions which constitutes their 
 happiness is voluntary, whoso pleases may suppose them communicated in 
 greater or less measure to every one according to his deserts, as we give 
 more or less countenance to different persons in the same company accord- 
 ing to our esteem of them. Yet it being customary to consider no more 
 than one world besides this sublunary, and to speak promiscuously of the 
 intermediate and final states, I should rather choose to interpret whatever is 
 said of the different degrees of happiness as relating to the former, than 
 admit a partiality and particular favour among the most perfect of created 
 Beings. 
 
 30. I have now offered what I can conceive may be the condition of our 
 intermediate and final states after we shall leave this world and be seen no 
 more. My intention herein was to give a livelier idea of some important 
 truths, which I think discoverable from our observation of nature and 
 knowledge of the Divine Attributes, than could be entertained while they 
 remained in abstract and general terms : namely, that there may be life, en- 
 joyment, and action, out of this body; that there are other beings to whom 
 what appears useless to us may be serviceable ; that there is a connection 
 of uses and interests throughout the whole creation ; and that whatever be- 
 falls us here, though seeming nugatory or hurtful, will turn to our account 
 some time or other. So far as any one shall find what I have here suggested 
 answer this purpose, and impress stronger upon his imagination or display 
 in more sensible colours what he knew before to be true, I shall be glad he 
 will attend to me : for I did not propose it as an article of faith, and pre- 
 tend to prove nothing by hypothesis, nor am so wedded thereto, but that if 
 anything therein shall be made appear contradictory to the judgments of 
 sound reasons, or hurtful to the mind or good manners, I shall be the fore- 
 most to reject it. 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 Speciosa dehinc miracula promat, 
 Anliphaten, Scyllamque, et cum Cyclope Charybdin. 
 
 ONE day, after having my thoughts intent all the morning upon the 
 subject of the two foregoing chapters, I went out in the evening to a 
 neighbour's house to recreate myself with a game at cards. After some 
 time spent in this amusement, we sat down to supper, during which, 
 according to the English custom, we began to settle the affairs of the
 
 THE VISION. 421 
 
 nation, particularly that important point now in agitation, a Spanish war, 
 whereon we could not come to a satisfactory determination. For though 
 we depended upon the valour of our fleets and armies to take Portohel, 
 Carthagene, and the Havannah, at one compaign, we could not be sure 
 that would end the war, and were a little doubtful how long we might be 
 able to continue raising twelve millions a year, and conveniently pay the 
 taxes necessary for the interest of sucb enormous sums. Under this diffi- 
 culty, and finding that our own politicians could not agree, we wished for 
 some of those to extricate us, of whom we had read wonders in former 
 times, the Godolphins, the Burleighs, and the Walsinghams : and some of 
 the company, who held that mankind degenerates every age, as well in 
 bodily strength as in mental sagacity, wanted to conjure up the souls of 
 Julius Caesar or Philip of Macedon. This latter thought turned the dis- 
 course upon necromancy, and leaving the national concerns, which we be- 
 lieved would go on full as well without us, ever) 7 one fell to consider how 
 he might best gratify his curiosity if he were possessed of that art, what 
 persons he should evoke from the shades, and what questions he should put 
 to them. One was for seeing his relations and friends again, another for a 
 tete-a-tete conference with Elizabeth or Mary of Scots, others for Calling 
 up Belisarius, Cicero, Archimedes, Alexander, and the heroes of antiquity : 
 till I happening to say, I had read somewhere that Socrates learned to play 
 upon the fiddle at threescore, that Plato made love-verses in his youth, and 
 putting them in mind that they had all heard how Orpheus used to draw 
 the trees and beasts after him by his music, the ladies declared they should 
 be vastly delighted to hear a solo on the violin by a philosopher, or hoped 
 his scholar would accompany him with an amorous sonnet of his own com- 
 posing, and that the entertainment might conclude with a dance of forests 
 full of lions, bears, and tigers, to a jig of the Thracian harper. Being thus 
 drawn to think of the ancient sages, we proceeded to some of their pecu- 
 liar doctrines, wishing to hear them explained by themselves, as likewise to 
 know some particulars concerning their occupations and manner of living in 
 the regions where they nowiinhabit. With conversation of this kind, partly 
 serious, but mostly jocose, we passed the time until the company parted, 
 which they did pretty early, some of them having a great way to go. When 
 I came home, finding it not my hour of bed time, and being unwilling 
 to fatigue my spirits with anything that might be called study, I walked to 
 and fro in my chamber, giving my thoughts a liberty to run as they listed. 
 I found ideas start up promiscuously from what I had thought of in the 
 morning or heard in the evening, each introducing the next by any slight 
 connection in that transient variety and wanton assemblage customary with 
 imagination when judgment throws the reins upon her neck. In this man- 
 ner I continued to be amused while undressing, and until laid upon my 
 pillow : when having neither crudities, nor crying sins, nor debts, nor hopes 
 of preferment, nor schemes of cajoling a county, or buying a borough, 
 to break my rest, I presently fell fast asleep. 
 
 2. I cannot tell how soon afterwards it happened, but methought some- 
 thing broke on a sudden in my head, in the manner I have heard described in 
 an apoplectic fit. Instantly I found my limbs and all my outer parts benumbed 
 so that I had no feeling in them, yet I had still a feeling of my muscles, 
 whose motions I could distinguish plainer than before : for I could perceive 
 myself swell them in thickness and contract them in length, thereby drawing 
 the tendons fastened to them, but what these tendons drew I could not per- 
 ceive, having no knowledge of anything beyond. But this lasted only for
 
 422 THE VISION. 
 
 a moment, for the muscles quickly lost their feeling too, and I could per- 
 ceive no further than the nerves or strings of bladders hy which I injected 
 a subtile fluid into them. Thus my sense seemed gradually to retire in- 
 wards, and as it withdrew, sensation seemed always to reside in the extre- 
 mities of those parts wherewith I still retained a connection, and to convey 
 notices from them which it had not done while it had any to convey from 
 others beyond them. Just as a man straining to look at a distant prospect, 
 overlooks things close before him, but if clouds intercept his sight from the 
 remoter scenes, his eye contracts and presents him with a distinct view of 
 those lying nearer. At the next step, my perception was confined to the 
 valves closing the orifices of my nerves, which I could open and then feel 
 the animal spirits rush in like the stream of a river when one pulls up a 
 floodgate. At length I found myself reduced to my censory, where I could 
 discern ideas of reflection and abstraction like pictures hanging round the 
 walls of a room; or rather like those machines shown about for a sight, 
 where the images continually change their places, or vanish, and others are 
 made to start up by unseen springs : but I had not leisure to observe their 
 motions, for the whole of what I have related passed in less time than I have 
 been relating. The last thing I perceived was that I seemed clinging to 
 something hard like a stick, much in the condition of a man who hangs by 
 both his hands clasped round the bough of a tree, only with this difference, 
 that the bough I clung to moved with a prodigious swiftness and dragged 
 me along after it. Not liking to be hurried on, I knew not whither, with 
 such impetuosity, I let go my hold, when instantly the stick slipping away 
 left me behind utterly destitute of all sense and perception whatever 
 
 3. How long I remained in this state of total insensibility I know nOv, 
 but was first roused out of it by something brushing along nimbly by me : 
 1 felt it touch me gently as it passed sometimes on one side and sometimes 
 on the other. These sensations set my ideas afloat again, and though 
 they appeared very obscure and confused, like those of a man not half 
 awake, I had discernment enough to persuade me that I was now a de- 
 funct : that the stick I had clung to was that part of my human composition 
 whereto I had been vitally united, which, as I afterwards learnt, being car- 
 ried on with the annual motion of the earth after the rate of about nine 
 hundred miles in a minute, had departed from me upon my quitting my hold : 
 or in other words that I was actually departed into the other world. I re- 
 joiced, however, to find I still retained my existence and perceptivity, and 
 having been piously educated, cast up a short but fervent ejaculation to that 
 power who governs both worlds, with an assured confidence of his being 
 alike able and willing to provide for me in this as well as he had done in 
 the former : but knowing that we have no title to expect assistance until 
 having done the best we can by our own strength, I resolved not to be 
 wanting to myself ; for I presumed my activity remained with me too, but 
 how to exert it was the question, for I knew of no limb or organ of sensa- 
 tion belonging to me, nor could find any muscle or instrument to act with. 
 However, I determined to use my endeavours, and believing that the 
 brushes I received were to be the first rudiments for laying the foundation 
 of my future understanding. I made one strong effort at random with an 
 eager desire of catching hold of whatever occasioned them, that I might 
 feel what it was made of. Immtdiately I seemed to etreteh out a hundred 
 arms all around me, but with no better success than a man who should 
 thrust his arms out at window, while the bricklayers are sweeping down 
 tilesherds, brickbats, and pieces of mortar, from the gutters above him :
 
 THE VISION. 423 
 
 for I felt my limbs knocked about incessantly by a shower of hard balls, 
 which besides hurting me grievously, turned me round and round by the 
 violence of their strokes, as a chaff is whisked about in a whirlwind. This 
 made me the more earnest to grope about for some stay which might 
 keep me steady, but the more I strove the worse it proved, for no stay 
 could I find. I do not know what might have bean the consequence if I 
 had not presently perceived something hold me and draw me aside from 
 the troublesome stream of bullets : but as some of them still struck against 
 my fingers, I judged it prudent to draw in my arms and give myself to the 
 management of my new protector. 
 
 4. I now lay quiet and easy awhile, well pleased to find I had no 
 bruises remaining, and that my blows smarted no longer than just in the 
 instant of striking : but soon a new desire started up in my mind of see- 
 ing what it was that took so friendly care of me. As I did not know 
 whether I had any eyes nor where they lay, I cast my attention every 
 way in hopes of finding a peep-hole : upon this effort I presently saw 
 little flashes of light sparkling and vanishing again on all sides of me, 
 together with various objects, but all indistinct : being now satisfied I had 
 the faculty of seeing, I attributed the little use I could make of it to my 
 own hurry and want of management ; so resolving to proceed with more 
 calmness and caution, I confined my endeavours to a part near that that I 
 was held by. After repeated trials I found I could form a set of optics, but 
 they would return back again, almost as soon as I had thrust them out ; till 
 by a little further practice I learned to keep them steady so as to observe 
 anything before me. I then beheld a kind of sack or bag filled out like a 
 bladder with air, uniform everywhere excepting that from one place there 
 came out the arm which held me, and from another a longish neck 
 with a head upon it, having a meagre lank-jawed face, very like the 
 prints I have seen before some editions of Locke's works. It looked 
 upon me steadfastly with a mild and benign aspect, and the lips moved as in 
 speaking. This made me quite impatient to hear what was said, but I was as 
 deaf as a post : however, having already found myself provided with hands 
 enow, and eyes enow, I did not despair of finding plenty of ears too, if I 
 could but tell how to open them. My whole attention and desire being 
 now bent upon hearing, my eyes sunk in directly and left me in the dark, 
 but I heard a confused jumble of whispers, short, broken, and inarticulate 
 at first, yet that did not discourage me, believing I should manage better 
 by degrees as I had done in the use of my sight. Accordingly I could soon 
 distinguish my own name repeated, which surprised me agreeably to find I 
 was among friends. How's this ! thinks I to myself, that the retired Ned 
 Search, scarce known to twenty people in the other world, should be so 
 well known here that the first person he meets accosts him by name ! It 
 must certainly be some old acquaintance whose face I have forgotten de- 
 parted hither before me. Sure it can never be really John Locke himself 
 sewn up here in a sack for his sins, for he died before I was born. After 
 this soliloquy, reflecting that the more haste the worse speed, I moderated 
 my impatience, and observing my motions carefully and minutely, it was 
 not long before I formed a complete ear, with drum and everything requi- 
 site for the auditory function. 
 
 5. My good friend perceiving me prepared for an audience addressed me 
 as follows. Welcome, Ned Search, into the vehicular state : you are in 
 the hands of one who is not an utter stranger to you, though not your co- 
 temporary : for know that I am John Locke, with whose writings you are
 
 424 THE VISION. 
 
 not unacquainted. I have observed a faint resemblance in your way o^ 
 thinking with mine, which, though mingled with a great diversity of cha- 
 racter, has given me a family kindness for you. I was apprized of your be- 
 ing to make a visit here, and came this way on purpose to assist you. I 
 have already given you a seasonable relief when you were tossed about 
 among those flying balls yonder, and am ready to do you further service 
 in any way you shall want. Consider you are but a baby just born into 
 this new world, and may find it expedient to put yourself under some 
 tuition. It is natural to suppose I wanted very much to thank him for 
 his kind assistance and offers of continuing it : and to declare my wil- 
 lingness to submit to his guidance until he should teach me how to 
 manage without giving him that trouble ; but I knew not how to express 
 myself. The business now was to attain the use of speech, which I no 
 sooner attempted than I felt myself hung round with mouths and tongues 
 innumerable. I was yet so inexpert in my faculties that I could exer 
 cise no more than one at a time : if I went to look I could hear nothing, 
 if I listened I could see nothing, and now I tried to talk I could neither see 
 nor hear : so wanting the guidance of my ears to direct me in the formation 
 of my words, I strained all my mouths to make as much noise as possible 
 that I might be sure of being heard ; like those disputants who make 
 up for their want of sense by their vehemence of vociferation. After some 
 little time spent in this violent exercise, I returned to listening again, for 
 suspecting my pronunciation might be somewhat defective I did not doubt 
 my good tutor would set me right. I heard him laugh most immode- 
 rately, and when his mirth was over, Prithee, Ned, says he, what didst 
 thou make those hideous mouths at me for ? If you could have seen 
 yourself you would have been frighted. Why you made a worse figure 
 than the picture of Fame in a folio Virgil. I guessed at your meaning 
 by your gaping, that you wanted to speak to me, but not a single sound 
 did you utter. Don't you consider that though you do not want for tongue 
 you have neithsr lungs nor respiration, and without breath the other organs 
 of speech are useless. We do not talk by the mouth in this country, and 
 if I showed you one in my face, it was only to put you upon exerting your- 
 self, by exciting a desire of conversing with me, because I knew you had no 
 notion of any other way of speaking. Look at me once more and observe 
 how I manage : but contrive if you can to hold out an ear at the same time, 
 
 for else you will not believe but that I play you tricks. 1 endeavoured 
 
 to do as I was bid, and as use makes perfectness, after two or three unsuc- 
 cessful trials, I learned to see and hear together. I then saw his face had 
 no mouth nor opening below the nose, but from thence downward was all 
 enormous chin : nevertheless I could hear him speak distinctly. I took no- 
 tice indeed that his voice was something different from the human, having a 
 little twang like that of string music. Nay, says he, do not stand star- 
 ing me in the face, you will learn nothing there : look down upon my ve- 
 hicle. 1 did so, and observed little fibres bouncing up with great strength 
 
 and agility in a kind of net- work, consisting of various shaped meshes. I 
 can liken them to nothing so well as the little wrinkles continually changing 
 their form in the skin on top of warm milk set in the window to cool, 
 
 only they moved much quicker, and with a more tremulous motion. 
 
 There, says he, that is our way of talking : now try if you can copy the 
 style. 
 
 6. I tried and tried again with might and main, but all to no purpose ; 
 for though I found myself all over in agitation, like a Quaker when the
 
 THE VISION. 425 
 
 spirit pours plentifully upon him, yet not a single sound or whisper could I 
 get out : so that I began to despair of ever making progress in this new- 
 fashion string language. My good patron saw my distress and laid a little 
 innocent plot to relieve me. Your strokes, says he, are too gentle, and have 
 too long intervals between. Do not you know the strings of a harpsichord 
 will shake a long while after they cease to give any sound ? such feeble 
 quiverings will do no good : you must make your pulsations a great deal 
 stronger, with nimble jerks following instantly upon one another. But I find 
 you do not care to exert yourself : nay, if you grow idle, I must take another 
 
 course with you. On a sudden his head changed to the form of a lion's, 
 
 with great gaping jaws full of monstrous fangs, and he shot out twenty 
 paws armed with claws pointed as sharp as a needle. I'was horribly fright- 
 ened at this unexpected freak, in a friend and a philosopher, which I took 
 for a fit of frenzy that had seized him. But not knowing how either to get 
 out of his way, or defend myself, I exerted all my strength, and cried out 
 O ! with a more violent scream than that wherewith Belinda rent the 
 affrighted skies when the rape was made upon her lock. Very well, says 
 he with a smile, having instantly resumed his human benign countenance, 
 now we have broken the ice we shall go on swimmingly ; I did not intend 
 to hurt you : do not be angry with me for frightening you into a scholar 
 when I could not make you one by instruction. But do me the favour to 
 try whether you cannot repeat your O, without being in a passion : you 
 need not brawl it out quite so vehemently as you did just now. My terror 
 had left so strong an impression upon my fancy that I had a clear idea of 
 every little motion it had occasioned within me : wi^h this help I found I 
 could say O, in cool blood, as often as I pleased, and with as careless a 
 tone as a very polite congregation, while adjusting their dress or thinking 
 of their routs, when that little particle occurs in the responses of the litany. 
 Courage ! my boy, says the preceptor : now you are perfect in O, we 
 shall soon teach you A, E, I, and U : but mind me, child, you must ply 
 close to your lesson and follow my directions, they will make your learning 
 the easier. Ay, thinks I, that I shall with a willing mind, for I long 
 mightily to be asking you questions. 
 
 You know, continues he, that our faculties assist one another : therefore 
 try now to thrust out a neck and head, with a pair of eyes and ears to it, 
 that you may see yourself speak. I obeyed orders, and turning my face 
 downwards, saw that I was made just like my neighbour : both like two 
 tortoises, only inclosed in bags instead of shells. I did not think of amusing 
 myself with brandishing arms and legs about, for being overjoyed at having 
 recovered my speech, though as yet consisting only of one simple sound, I 
 kept plying my O's with great delight in all pitches of voice from the highest 
 to the lowest, all the while diligently watching the little fibres as they jumped 
 and vibrated upon my skin. Bravely done ! says Locke. Why, you per- 
 form as dexterously as if you had served an apprenticeship : it is not every 
 body can bend his neck so easily the first time. This is an advantage at- 
 tending us who have used ourselves to reflection, for most of those who 
 come from the other world have a great stiffness in their necks, they can 
 see anything sooner than themselves. But since you have such a facility at 
 retrospection, I would recommend to you to pull in your head, and examine 
 what passes within your vehicle while you perform any of the functions you 
 are already master of. By following this admonition, I discovered that my 
 bag or case was lined all over on the inside with little hairs like the nap of 
 velvet, which were the first instruments for me to act upon : for by squeezing
 
 426 THE VISION. 
 
 any one or more of them, as one squeezes the kernel of an apple between 
 finger and thumb, I could shoot them out, and in this manner performed 
 all my actions ; and I observed that many of them produced no external 
 motion, but -served only to present me with ideas of reflection. But my 
 discovery of such a multitude of springs I had to employ, subjected me to one 
 inconvenience : for those of different uses being promiscuously intermingled 
 together, and every use requiring several of them to concur in operating 
 towards it, I made frequent mistakes by touching the wrong springs. If I 
 went to stretch out an arm, I should sometimes loll out a long tongue ; if I 
 wanted to form an ear, I should kick with a foot : if I endeavoured to look 
 earnestly at an object, I should find a mathematical problem start up in my 
 imagination. So I resolved to have recourse to my instructor to teach me 
 the proper command of my faculties, and I did not doubt but he would begin 
 with that of speech, which was what I wanted most earnestly to attain. 
 
 7. It would be tedious to relate all the particular lessons he gave me; let it 
 suffice to say that he proceeded much in the same manner we teach children to 
 read, instructing me first how to form the sound of letters, then syllables, 
 and afterwards words. But I found the most difficulty with diphthongs, 
 vowels preceding one another, and syllables having as much vowel as con- 
 sonant. I could not say Chariot nor Extraordinary, but Charrit and Ex- 
 todny, like the ladies, nor Beloved or Moveth, but Blovd and Moves, like 
 most young parsons in reading the exhortation : nor could I presently get 
 the knack of joining my words into one continued sentence, for in my first 
 essays, making a kind of stoccato music, there seemed a stop between every 
 sound ; so he was forced to begin with sentences that we should account 
 the most harsh. The first he tried me upon was that line of Ausonius, Sic 
 mihi mix, nox, nix, nex fuit ante diem : then we went to Drayton's Court 
 of Fayrie, Hop and Mop and Drop so clear, Pip and Trip and Skip, that 
 were to Mab their sovereign ever dear, her special maids of honour. Fib 
 and Tib, and Pinck and Pin, Tick and Quick, and Jill and Jin, Tit and Nit, 
 and Wap and Win, the train that wait upon her. But he brought me 
 pretty soon to Pope's harmonious versification, While melting music steals 
 upon the sky, and softened sounds along the waters die, Smooth flow the 
 waves, the breezes gently play, Belinda smiles, and all the world is gay : 
 then to the Italian of Tasso, Ed al pavone spiegar la pompa de 1' occhiute 
 piume : Virgil's Avertens, rosea cervice refulsit, ambrosiaeque comae divinum 
 vertice odorem spiravere ; pedes vestis defluxit ad imos, et vera incessu 
 patuit Dea : and lastly to some flowing Greek words, as Genet argurioio 
 bioio, and Met okeanoio roaoon. 
 
 But, says he, we have another language among us we call the Sentient, 
 in distinction from the Vocal, wherein I have been speaking to you. This 
 is carried on by applying our vehicles close to one another, and raising cer- 
 tain figures or motions on our outsides, which communicate the like to our 
 neighbour, and thereby excite in him the same ideas that gave rise to them 
 in ourselves,, making him, as it were, feel our thoughts. This is a much 
 completer way of conversing, being not liable to misapprehension, provided 
 the recipient takes care to remove all his own ideas, that none of them may 
 confound or interfere with those delivered : but to do that effectually, re- 
 quires great dexterity and long practice, therefore I will not attempt to 
 teach you. You have gotten one language and that may serve your purpose 
 while you stay here, so you be careful to employ it well. 
 
 8. It is easy to guess what was the first use I ought to make of my voice, 
 as soon as I had attained a competent skill in the management of it : the
 
 THE VISION. 427 
 
 polite Reader's own imagination may suggest, better than I can relate, what 
 fine speeches I made to thank my benefactor for the pains he had graciously 
 bestowed upon me, to express the joy I felt on hearing that I had a parti- 
 cular share in his favour, and to assure him it should always be my utmost 
 ambition to improve those features wherein he was pleased to say I bore 
 him some faint resemblance. Truce with your compliments, says he ; we 
 deal but little with that coin in this land of sincerity : we find an imme- 
 diate pleasure in doing a good-natured thing, so want not the spur of ap- 
 plause to instigate us : we follow virtue for its own sake, that is, for the 
 secret complacence of mind constantly attending it. But lest you should 
 think the liking I have taken to you only a sudden fancy that may wear off 
 again presently, be assured I look upon you as a relation. You know I had 
 no children upon earth I beg pardon, says I, for interrupting you : but 
 though you left no issue of your body, you had a more prolific head than 
 Jupiter, for he brought forth one single Minerva, but you have a most nu- 
 merous family : the whole body of sound reasoners in the nation I came 
 from, of which I should be proud to be admitted an unworthy member, de- 
 rives from you. He smiled at this conceit. No, no, says he, it is not that 
 way I make out the kindred ; I trace it from a higher stock : it is but since 
 your arrival here I consider you as my child, before I regarded you only as 
 my cousin. I had no descendants below, and we being here Isangeloi, 
 without marriage or sex, have no means of raising up any. Such of us as 
 stand so circumstanced, especially those who have been tired out with the 
 comfortless state of an old bachelor, provide themselves families by adoption, 
 wherein we commonly choose among those of the same lineage with our- 
 selves : for similitude of sentiments conciliates affection, and it has been 
 observed in the race I am going to speak of, that the same turn and dispo- 
 sition of mind runs through the whole line. 
 
 You must have read that in the early ages such as applied themselves to 
 the study of nature were reputed conjurers by the vulgar, thought knowing 
 and expert in everything, and dignified with the appellation of wise men : 
 not that they ever assumed this title to themselves, as being more sensible 
 than anybody how little human science deserved it, but they could not help 
 what other people called them. At length Pythagoras prevailed to have the 
 name of wise man changed into that of admirer of wisdom, by which he 
 intended to take upon himself the character of a person assiduously employed 
 in the search of knowledge, without ever pretending to have attained it 
 completely. Thus he became the founder and father of Philosophy, and his 
 descendants for a while preserved the same tenor of conduct and temper 
 of mind ; always inquisitive, always improving, sensible their greatest wisdom 
 lay in the knowledge of their ignorance, and unsolicitous to conceal it. But 
 in process of time another set of persons mingled among them, whether 
 really of the family, but tainted with a corrupt mixture of foreign blood, or 
 whether a spurious issue gaining admittance through the negligence of the 
 heralds. These folks, finding how great submission had been paid to the 
 ipse dixit of the founder, and from thence supposing he delivered his doc- 
 trines as oracular truths, never to be controverted or examined, thought 
 to prove themselves his offspring by an air of positiveness and self suffi- 
 ciency : so they set up. for oracles too, issued their ipse dixits like the edict 
 of an emperor, and re-assumed that claim to wisdom which he had taken 
 so much pains to reject. 
 
 From thenceforward the family became parted into two branches, the 
 Searches and the Knowals. The former, retaining the spirit of their an-
 
 428 THE VISION. 
 
 ccstor, were perpetually searching after knowledge without ever thinking 
 they had enough, pursuing always the useful rather than the curious or 
 regarding the latter only as it might be made subservient to the former. 
 Diffident of their understanding they examined their premises carefully be- 
 fore they built upon them, and submitted their deductions to a review upon 
 proper occasions : and though despairing of absolute certainty in anything, 
 they wanted not moral assurance to keep them steady in following the best 
 lights of their judgment. In their intercourse with others they were docible, 
 humble, and modest, willing to learn of anybody, and ready to communi- 
 cate what they had were it ever so small : desirous of reputation only as it 
 might gain them the better hearing, wishing to be believed no further than 
 as they could offer reasons convincing to the hearer : lovers of unity and 
 reconcilement rather than opposition, striving to interpret a different opinion 
 so as to bring it compatible with their own rather than to overthrow it. 
 
 On the contrary, the Knowals, confident in their abilities, soon thought 
 themselves masters of whatever they undertook : they scorned to examine 
 their principles minutely as betraying a want of genius and penetration, so 
 they commonly took up their tenets at hap-hazard, and then pleased them- 
 selves with showing how dexterously they could maintain them : more 
 solicitous to gain the applause than promote the benefit of mankind : assum- 
 ing, peremptory, and overbearing, proving everything by demonstration, or 
 expecting their word should be taken in lieu of demonstration : impatient of 
 contradiction themselves and delighted to overthrow all who but seemed to 
 differ from them. This branch produced the Sophists of Greece, the Aca- 
 demics of after times who would maintain the pro and con upon any subject 
 proposed, the schoolmen and popish doctors in the dark ages of Chris- 
 tianity. According to the humour of the times they lived in, they would 
 brag being skilful in all arts whatever, even to making the shoes upon their 
 feet arid ring upon their finger ; or of running ye off two hundred lines 
 while they stood upon one leg ; or of writing a gallop and furnishing sheets 
 for the press faster than they could be printed off. In modern days there 
 have been two off-sets sprung out from them ; the Methodists, who pretend 
 to know the secrets of Heaven and deliver all their fancies with a Thus saitli 
 the Lord : and the Freethinkers, who though sole masters of reason, do not 
 use it for the information of mankind but only to pick holes in the works of 
 others, and if they can make themselves laugh esteem it the same as making 
 an adversary submit. 
 
 The Search branch, not fond of putting themselves forward, have scarce 
 ever composed a visible Church, but lie dispersed up and down, minding 
 their own business quietly according to their several talents and stations. 
 To this branch belong those who have made any real improvement, not only 
 in philosophy, but in any art or science conducive to the benefit of man- 
 kind, and those who, wanting ability to strike out improvements of their 
 own, endeavour fairly to understand and make a good use of those imparted 
 to them by others. For many of the Searches have very moderate parts, 
 but then they do the best that is to be done with them : on the other hand 
 we often find shining talents among the Knowals, but then they seek no 
 more than to shine with them, and it is well if they do not turn them to 
 mischievous purposes. 
 
 9. As I was a Search myself it is natural for me to favour my own rela- 
 tions, and I need not use flattery to persuade you of your being one : for 
 it is not brightness of parts nor extensiveness of learning, but an honest, 
 industrious temper, a cautious freedom of inquiry, a sobriety of mind, and
 
 THE VISION. 429 
 
 humility of disposition, that characterize our line. If I had found no other 
 mark I should have known you for a true Search by the pliableness of your 
 neck. The Knowals have a wonderful stiffness in the vertebrae, therefore 
 they judge of their size by the noise they make, and having most of them 
 pretty loud voices they despise the rest of us as so many pigmies. Pray 
 now did you not fancy yourself bigger than you are before I made you thrust 
 out a head to look ? Very true, says I, and I wondered how such a shrimp 
 as you could drag about such a great carcass as mine : but that was not the 
 first time I have found the benefit of retrospection. When I first set out 
 to pursue the Light of Nature, I thought myself a stout fellow capable of 
 mighty things, till having thrust out half my body and surveyed my person 
 exclusive of the clothing, I found it strangely dwindled into a button. If 
 you can contrive, says he, to work a few golden threads into your button it 
 will be better worth than a bladder full of air. 
 
 But to speak my mind freely, you have worked up your button in a man- 
 ner not very suitable to my taste ; you have a great many more flights 
 than ever I pretended to. I should never have thought of likening the 
 human machine sometimes to a mill, sometimes to a study hung round 
 with bells, sometimes to a chamber organ ; nor of proving by a chess- 
 board that the sphere of a spirit's presence is wide enough to contain 
 sixty-four particles of matter, nor of computing the corpuscles of light in 
 a grain of wax, or absolute pressure of ether upon a guinea : much less 
 should I have ventured to introduce Hatchet the carpenter, or the cook 
 making plum-pudding into a metaphysical discourse, or bring a cat to 
 assist in an optical experiment. Therefore I told you before that you 
 have some resemblance mixed with a great deal of diversity : but whatever 
 other features you have, since I discern the attentive prying eye, the modest 
 brow, the serenely serious countenance, and flexible neck of the Searches, 
 and find you here in the helpless condition of a new-born babe, it raises a 
 kind of paternal extinct towards you. And I, says I, feel myself possessed 
 with a filial reverence and dependence. I begin to wish I had not taken 
 notice of your annexing the faculty of thinking to a system of matter, I am 
 afraid you think me an ungracious boy, but indeed it was nothing but my 
 zeal to defend the spirituality of the mind, which that position of yours had 
 been employed to overthrow, that drew me in to contradict you. Oh ! says 
 he, you need no apologies : we Searches are the last people in both worlds 
 to take offence at anybody for differing from us. As we desire nothing but 
 truth, whatever liberties are taken with us out of an honest regard to that, 
 if they do not convince, neither do they displease us. I assure you I do not 
 think a whit the worse of you upon that account, nor for your battling my 
 doctrine of consciousness and the uneasiness of desire. I see plainly you did 
 not go out of your way to meddle with me nor dispute in the Knowal spirit 
 of opposition and rivalship, by the pains you take to explain the forbear- 
 ance and continuance of action, and to distinguish between want and 
 desire, so as that we might both retain our opinions consistently with each 
 other. 
 
 Neither do I absolutely blame you for your sallies of imagination, for I 
 know every one must follow the bent of his genius ; to do otherwise would 
 be like dancing in fetters : but I doubt you have been dabbling with the 
 French and Italian authors. Take care you do not catch the grimace and 
 levity of the one, the quaintness and marvellous of the other. Thank you, 
 Papa, says I, for your kind advice. As to the French and Italians I never 
 had much notion of them, I endeavour rather to take my taste in matters
 
 430 THE VISION. 
 
 of humour from our cousin Addison. But I cannot yet be quite out of 
 conceit with my flightiness, because but for that perhaps I had not enjoyed 
 the pleasure of your conversation here, nor ever seen that lion's face of 
 yours, which first made me a spokesman in this vehicular language. Be- 
 sides, if I remember right, many of our ancestors have soared upon eagle's 
 wings before now. Your great uncle Plato gives large scope to imagination 
 especially in his Phsedrus and Timaeus, and introduces images as low as the 
 carpenter, the cook, or the cat, in many of his dialogues. Nay, I have been 
 told by Prince Maurice's parrot, who you know deserves credit, being a 
 rational animal, that you yourself were not utterly averse to the familiar 
 and the marvellous. You are a saucy Jack, says he, smiling, to come over 
 me thus with my parrot. But I related no more than I believed myself : 
 you tell stories that no mortal can believe. So did uncle Esop, says I, 
 Hesiod, Homer, and even great grandpapa himself when he talked of his 
 golden thigh, and having fought Menelaus at the Trojan war. 
 
 10. But, continued I, though I suppose the true reason of my blending 
 the serious and the trifling, the useful and the curious, might be the turn 
 of my imagination drawing me so to do, yet with submission I seem to 
 have found a good reason to justify me in following the bias. You 
 know everything is not proper to be said to everybody, therefore our pre- 
 decessors had their esoterics and exoterics, and delivering their lectures by 
 word of mouth, adapted their discourses to their audience : but we moderns, 
 having no other channel to convey our thoughts than the press, cannot 
 pick and choose our company, but must pour out meat and milk into the 
 same dish ; leaving it to the men and the babes to help themselves, by 
 which means some of the latter might swallow viands that would not only 
 offend their palates but might really prejudice them in their healths. Now 
 if we can cook up our messes of both sorts in such Frenchifyed manner as 
 that the eye cannot presently distinguish which is which, our guests must cull 
 and carve for themselves, and taste before they eat, each taking what suits 
 his palate and digestion, looking upon the hard and odd tasted bits as 
 intended only for garnish of the dish. I have said so much in recommen- 
 dation of virtue, that I hope nobody believes I ever intended to lessen her 
 influence in the least, but as the same observations seem to weaken it in the 
 minds of some, which tend to establish it more firmly in those of others, I 
 endeavour to mingle jest and earnest, speculation and argument, promis- 
 cuously, wishing that one man might take me in jest in those very places 
 where another understands me in sober sadness. Therefore, if anybody 
 finds anything that appears to overthrow the common rules of religion or 
 morality, let him suppose that I am only amusing the speculative, or that 
 he does not comprehend my drift ; or that I have no other than to exercise 
 my talents, or show how dexterously I can walk in slippery places, or any- 
 thing rather than he should mind me seriously. Well, says he, I can 
 absolve you for your uprightness of intention, and honest care to avoid 
 hurting the scrupulous. Perhaps I might have taken the like method had I 
 had a more lively vein of fancy ; but then I should have studied to imitate 
 our progenitors, who were never superficial though they sometimes showed 
 a sparkling outside. When they talked the most familiarly, it was to gain 
 the readier attention to some important truths. If they introduced coarse 
 and vulgar images, there was always some valuable substance within. 
 While they seemed only to set their hearers agape with an idle story of a 
 cock and a bull, they would slily steal in some solid reflection one might be 
 glad to remember. They were wanton with discretion, and careless by
 
 THE VISION. 431 
 
 design. Therefore I will not enjoin you against following their example, 
 provided you follow it throughout : do not trifle for trifling sake, nor unless 
 
 you have some good purpose to attain by it. If my execution, says I, 
 
 shall prove answerable to my design, I dare undertake to satisfy you : but 
 I can promise only for my endeavours, the success is not in my power. 
 
 1 1 . But that I may not degenerate from the worthy ancestors you tell 
 me I am descended from, let me give way to the inquisitive temper of the 
 Searches who want to be informed of every particular they think worth 
 inquiry. And since I have learned from you to seek for knowledge from 
 contemplation of the phenomena exhibited, give me leave to ask some 
 questions concerning those I have already experienced. I found an easy 
 passage from the' other world, one momentary pang I felt upon the break- 
 ing of some vessel in my head, but afterwards my senses retired still 
 further and further inward until I lost them quite without pain or uneasiness. 
 Pray, is the stroke of death always so gentle, or was I favoured in a par- 
 ticular manner ? I have read in grave authors that the soul cannot be torn 
 from the body without more pungent anguish than drawing all the teeth 
 from one's jaws or tearing the skin from one's flesh : and the poets describe 
 the gates of death as surrounded with terrors, pains, regrets, and despon^ 
 dencies. Prithee, says my patron, do not mind either of those gentlemen ; 
 they pronounce confidently upon things they know nothing of: but you 
 must distinguish between the gates of death and the avenues leading 
 thereto. Men are generally brought to their end by some violent dis- 
 temper or grievous wound or bruise, and these are certainly painful, but so 
 are they to those who recover from them. I remember, says I, to have 
 heard an eminent physician, now with you, say, that a man who recovers 
 from a bad fever suffers more than him that dies of it. The doctor, says he, 
 was in the right : for it is the struggle between nature and the disease that 
 makes the pain ; when either ceases to resist, the patient finds ease. It 
 requires as much vigour in the organs of sensation to give pain as pleasure, 
 and when they have lost their tone, they can excite neither. The same may 
 be said of those of reflection, for when imagination is become stupefied it 
 can no more exhibit ideas of terror and melancholy than it can those of joy 
 and content. As for the convulsions called the agonies of death, they are 
 merely mechanical, not expressions of uneasiness, but like the twitchings 
 we sometimes feel in our limbs, or habits men get of cutting faces. There- 
 fore, wnoever has gone through a painful, dangerous distemper, and given 
 himself over as past recovery, knows the worst : nor has death itself, 
 abstracted from the harbingers of it, anything terrible. I am glad to hear 
 you say so, says I, for the sake of those who are to take the same passage 
 after me. 
 
 12. But how came I among that river of stones? what are they, and 
 who threw them at me so violently ? Upon quitting your vital hold, says 
 he, which you might have done at any time before, but for want of knowing 
 what kind of action to exert, for you know we can do nothing without an 
 idea of the thing we are to do, your body, carried along by the Earth's 
 motion, left you behind : while the nocturnal shadow protected you, you 
 remained insensible and quiet, but that soon departing too exposed you to 
 the rays of light, which follow one another in several lines, leaving large 
 spaces between, and you being of very light substance, they only shoved 
 you gently from one line to another by very oblique strokes, which gave 
 you those brushes you first felt and awakened your ideas : until upon thrust- 
 ing your arms directly into the stream, they buffeted you about in the
 
 432 THE VISION. 
 
 manner I found you. So the streams you complain of, are no other than 
 the corpuscles of light, darted incessantly from the Sun and Stars. Nay, 
 now, Papa, says I, you treat me like a child indeed. Am I to swallow this, 
 or is it an esoteric, that we babes are to take for garnish of the dish ? Sure 
 the light of this country must be a vastly grosser element than ours in old 
 England : instead of being fit to enter the tender tunicles of the eye without 
 hurting, it is enough to knock out one's brains. I am sure I found no 
 colours, nor anything but bumps, and bangs, amid the bright effulgence 
 poured round me. You forget, says he, your own doctrine, that all mag- 
 nitude is relative. The light here is the very same with that below, but you 
 are not the man you was. You are but an atom in respect of your former 
 body, and that makes you think the corpuscles of light so much bigger, by 
 comparison with yourself. Truly, says I, I seem to myself a good proper 
 sized person : what though I am but a bag and not a man, methinks, I could 
 hold two good Winchester bushels of corn, without bursting. No no. says 
 he, little gentleman, thousands such as you might creep into a single grain. 
 But your present composition being much finer than your former, that 
 which before was the object of vision becomes now an object of touch. 
 
 Touch, indeed, quoth I, with a witness ! if we have nothing softer to 
 
 touch I shall never desire to use my fingers again as long as I am a 
 vehicle. 
 
 13. Since then, continued I, we can only feel the light, how come we to 
 see one another so plainly ? Is ether such a jack of all trades, as to serve 
 for light, and sound, and everything? Our ether, says he, contains various 
 mixtures, though you folks below use to call it all by one general name, be- 
 cause you cannot distinguish them. And so you do water and air, yet you 
 may know by the different tastes and sediments of the clearest waters, and 
 the substances extracted from them by chymistry, that they are not homo- 
 geneous. The same you may know of air, by the clouds, vapours, light- 
 nings, and meteors formed there, by the dust falling upon your furniture, 
 the concretions gathering upon tops of walls and bark of trees. In like 
 manner ether consists of many dissimilar fluids respectively performing the 
 office of light, sounds, flavours, odours, and objects of other senses you know 
 nothing of. It supplies us likewise with a pabulum for our sustenance. Will 
 you taste it ? I think you look a little faintish as if you wanted refreshment. 
 Now you put it in my head, says I, I do find myself very hungry, though 
 I was so busy in attending to you I did not perceive it before. Come, says 
 he, put out an arm at one end of your vehicle for me to pull you along, for 
 our pasture does not grow everywhere, it comes from the tails of comets, 
 dispersed up and down in long gleams throughout the vortices. I know of 
 a very good layer aboui, a hundred miles off ; we shall be there in an instant. 
 No sooner said than done : he set me down in the stream, and bid me 
 open my mouths, but not gape so wide as I had done before. But, says I, 
 mayn't I overeat myself? Now I have left my old cravings behind, I 
 should be sorry to let any new ones get the better of me. Never fear, says 
 he, you will contract no vices here, if you have not brought any with you. 
 Upon opening my lips, I found a delicious clamminess hang about my 
 tongues and palates, and though I could not swallow, I felt it insinuate into 
 my pores, as the vivifying spirit of air does into a man's lungs, and refresh 
 me prodigiously. As soon as I had enough it would cling no longer, but I 
 perceived my mouths empty. Well, says Locke, how do you like our ce- 
 lestial ambrosia ? Charmingly, quoth I. It is better than all the sauces of 
 a French cook ; better than venison, turtle, or even than a slice of good
 
 THE VISION. 433 
 
 mutton after a whole morning's air and exercise ; and which is best of all to 
 a Search, one may indulge freely without danger of excess. 
 
 14. We came back as quick as we went, and I, all life and spirits, with- 
 out any of that heat or listlessness usual upon a plentiful meal of earthly 
 cates, began to throw my legs and arms about and exercise all my faculties 
 with more dexterity and alertness than I had done yet. I was so pleased 
 with my pastime that I could not help crying out, Methinks I perform a 
 multitude of feats for such a little fellow ; I like this agile body hugely : it 
 is a thousand times better than that great clumsy carcass I was stifled up in 
 upon earth. 
 
 But if I am really the minute insect you would persuade me, thousands 
 of whom might creep into a grain of corn, how is there room for that 
 variety of parts I contain ? I have arms, and legs, and eyes, and ears, and 
 mouths all around me, every one of these must have muscles and fibres to 
 move them, besides organs of reflection, vocal fibres, and those numberless 
 springs, composing the velvet nap in my inside, by which I move every- 
 thing else. You forget again, says he, your chapter upon the divisi- 
 bility of matter, and that the smallest conceivable particle may contain as 
 great variety of works as the whole human machinery. But you multiply 
 the parts of your composition too fast : do not you know that all matter is 
 homogenous, and the secondary qualities of compounds result from their 
 form ? The same texture may form an eye, or an ear, or any other organ, 
 according as the threads of it are variously disposed, provided the agent 
 have a command over every particular thread to hold it in what posture he 
 thinks proper. We have a little mixture of flesh with vessels fitted for 
 vital circulation, carried on mechanically, but this is very little in propor- 
 tion to our system of sensory and motory nerves, which lying within a small 
 compass, our spirit, bearing as large a share in our whole composition as 
 our body, is present throughout the greatest part of them, and operates 
 almost immediately without that long string of channels beyond one ano- 
 ther, propagating motion to the human members. 
 
 Not that you have acquired any new instruments of action upon coming 
 hither, for you had all you now possess before you left your terrestrial 
 mansion, but the gross veils encompassing you there were an impediment 
 to your functions : all the velvet springs that did not communicate with 
 some nerve of your outer frame being wholly useless to you. Upon being 
 delivered from our corporeal manacles, we have the command of every part 
 belonging to us as soon as we have learnt the ready use of them by com- 
 petent practice. You shall see me now throw myself into a variety of 
 shapes to satisfy you of what I say. At this word he played all the pranks 
 of a Proteus, first a man, then a horse, an eagle, a dolphin, a serpent, a 
 stream of water, a flame of fire, a Briareus, an Argos, a Virgilian Fame, a 
 polypus. Upon my word, says I, this is very pretty sport : you can never 
 want divertisement, being such a nation of Harlequins. We do not amuse 
 ourselves with these gambols, says he, we have something else to do : I 
 only played them now to show you what you are capable of. 
 
 We have another slight of hand we are more fond of practising : we 
 have our imagination as perfectly under command as our limbs, so can raise 
 passions and desires of any sort we find expedient. Passion you know 
 assists greatly in the exertion of activity, and you have found a secret un- 
 known to former moralists, that happiness consists chiefly in the gratifica- 
 tion of desire ; therefore it may be said of passion and desire, as of fire and 
 
 VOL. i. 2 P
 
 434 THE VISION. 
 
 water, that they are excellent servants, but very bad masters. We never 
 let them get the mastery over us ; as we take them up we can lay them 
 down again the moment we please, so to adopt your distinction, never have 
 any wants though we abound in desires. O, charming! cries I, this is a 
 most desirable accomplishment. Pray, dear good father and tutor, cannot 
 you instruct me in this art ? I had rather you would begin to teach me 
 this than put me in the way of exerting those new senses you spoke of. 
 
 15. You will not have time, replied he, to make much progress : it is a 
 difficult lesson, not to be learned presently. As to more senses, you have 
 enow already : the two of sight and hearing, together with the vocal 
 language you have acquired, will suffice for all you have to do during your 
 
 short stay among us. Alas ! alas ! cries I. Now you strike me quite 
 
 down. What, then ! Am I to be snatched away from this new life in my 
 cradle ? I was in hopes I was settled here for two or three thousand years 
 
 at least. 1 tell you, says my tutor, you are not come now to reside 
 
 among us, but only upon a visit, in order to carry back an idea of this 
 place and people to your countrymen. It will not be many years before 
 we shall have you here again to take up your abode among us, and the 
 manner of it will depend very much upon your conduct below. Possess 
 your mind with becoming sentiments of that power who presides over both 
 worlds, and do all the good you can to your fellow-creatures : no matter 
 how small your powers be, the part you are to act is of divine appointment, 
 it is your business to act it well. Endeavour what you can towards mo- 
 derating your passions, and bending desire to the ply of reason : it will 
 make you apter to learn that science when you come here again. We have 
 many regions in this country : perhaps upon your return you may not find 
 everything just as you have seen it now, nor may I be in the way to assist 
 you : but wherever you fall, if you come rightly prepared, God will find 
 you a protector, and a commodious habitation, fitted for a life of happiness. 
 I listened attentively to his advice, hoped to retain it strongly in memory, 
 and that the idea he had already given me of things here would instigate 
 me to follow it. And am I then, says I," to travel back the irremeable 
 way ? I thought nature had opposed indissoluble bars against the return of 
 
 a departed soul to its old habitation. Your present journey, says he, is 
 
 supernatural, so being out of the course of nature, I will not pretend to 
 account for it. The like has never happened within my remembrance nor 
 that of any I have conversed with. That stroke you felt in your head was 
 not a real apoplexy, for your body lies below as sound and entire as before 
 you fell asleep, without rupture or disorder in any of its vessels, still per- 
 forming its vital circulations and secretions, though destitute of all thought 
 and sensation. 
 
 16. And you came her differently accoutred from other travellers, for 
 you have brought away your memory and imagination along with you ; not 
 that they have not the tablets of those faculties too, but without any writing 
 or figures whatsoever upon them ; all their old traces, their science, their 
 sentiments, their habits, their desires, their experience, and in general their 
 ideas, totally effaced : so they come into this world as much a blank paper 
 as ever they were born into the last, ignorant and helpless, and having 
 everything to learn. Sensation begins the fresh writing upon them, from 
 whence grow ideas of reflection running into combinations and associations, 
 generating comparisons, distinctions, and relations, and at length forming 
 judgment and understanding : thus they rise to knowledge slowly and 
 gradually, in the manner they did in their former state. Some or other of
 
 THE VISION. 435 
 
 us are constantly near at hand ready to undertake their nurture, to lead 
 them into the ambrosial streams as they have occasion, to assist in opening 
 their new faculties, and instil instruction into them as they can receive it. 
 With your leave, says I, good master, I would beg your information con- 
 cerning two difficulties that occur upon this theory of the blank paper. 
 One is, how you can remember what you knew below so well as I find you 
 do : the other, how your condition here can be affected by your former 
 deportment, if you leave all your old sentiments, habits, and passions, be- 
 hind you. Is there any judicature to assign your several fortunes according 
 to your merits. 
 
 17. He replied, let us consider your difficulties one at a* time: but we 
 will begin with the last, because that may help to explain the former, 
 We receive not our portions by the decision of any visible judicature, but 
 all things fall out among us according to the operation of natural causes : 
 nevertheless, we know that nature does not work by chance, but her courses 
 are established in wisdom and justice, so as by a chain of inevitable conse- 
 quences to answer the purpose of a strict and impartial judicature. Our 
 vehicles, by lying so long enclosed in human bodies, receive a change in 
 their texture from the continual action thereof, so that we come out di- 
 versely modified with different talents, natural parts and genius, according 
 to the way of life we had followed before ; we leave indeed all our old 
 acquisitions behind, but bring with us a particular aptness to make new 
 ones similar to those we possessed before. The laws of nature are so pro- 
 vided, that vice weakens the animal powers, distorts the mental crgans, and 
 introduces particles of gross matter into the delicate body, which give rack- 
 ing pains and cause grievous disorders of mind. Whereas the practice of 
 virtue strengthens the constitution, purifies the faculties, and gives a happy 
 facility to acquire the same virtues again. As no man is perfectly virtuous, 
 none arrives here without a mixture of terrene concretion, which proves 
 very troublesome and a hindrance to his operations. In some it is so 
 deeply infixed as never to be moved, so as to be forced to abandon those 
 poor wretches to misery and despair : the rest furnish us with a great part 
 of our employment to clear them of their obstructions, which requires much 
 time and pains, the more or less of both and attended with the greater or 
 less inconvenience to them in the mean while according to the degrees of 
 foulness they have contracted. Thus every man receives the just reward or 
 punishment of his actions by the ministry of second causes without needing 
 a formal trial and judgment. 
 
 18. To come now to your other difficulty : it is easy to comprehend from 
 what has been said upon the first, that we may know by the condition a 
 new comer appears in, what have been his courses of behaviour, his way of 
 living, the company he has consorted, or objects he has conversed with, 
 and consequently the particular country he came from supplying him with. 
 them : and by tracing back our own residence in like manner we may dis- 
 cover who has been our relation, our friend, or our compatriot. You may 
 suppose likewise that ether being extremely voluble and elastic, not a dust 
 can stir upon earth but must affect its vibrations and disposition of its par- 
 ticles here : and we, having a very piercing sight to discern the minutest 
 objects together with a great readiness at investigating causes from effects, 
 can read in the situation of the fluids composing ether all that passes or has 
 passed below. But as I doubt it will be difficult to make you sensible how 
 we can do this, I shall pass on to another method you may more easily 
 
 2 F 2
 
 436 THE VISION. 
 
 comprehend. You remember I told you of our sentient language, wherein, 
 by withdrawing our own ideas, we can perceive those arising in any other 
 vehicle applied close to our side : now we can do the same with respect to 
 living men, for by applying ourselves close to their sensor ies, though their 
 coats being thicker they would hear nothing of us if we were to speak to 
 them, yet we can discern all they know or remember or think on. We 
 are not very fond of this employment, the sublunary air being not agreeable 
 to us, but some of us go down from time to time to bring accounts for the 
 benefit of the rest. As other vehicles have played the same game with us 
 formerly while we were alive, they can inform us of particulars happening 
 or relating to ourselves which we had utterly forgotten. And thus I may 
 be said to remember occurrences I am not conscious of, as you cculd re- 
 member the transactions of ancient times which you had read in history. 
 When you come to converse with our people you will find that, notwith- 
 standing their coming here a mere blank paper, they have since got written 
 upon it an exact memorial of their past life and conversation. 
 
 19. I readily apprehend, says I, this last method of recovering your 
 former traces, though I cannot say the same of the other two. But if these 
 new-born vehicles advance so slowly in their learning, how came I to make 
 such a rapid progress as I seem to have done ? You do not consider, says 
 he, you brought your imagination with you and old stock of ideas, so had 
 little more to do. I needed only lead you to the exertion of your new 
 senses, you had judgments and reflections in store, by which you could 
 make use of their notices ; only bring you to your voice, for you had matter 
 ready for utterance as soon as you could pronounce it. And let me tell you 
 your progress has been more rapid than you think of. How long do you 
 
 imagine you have been among us ? Why, I cannot tell exactly, says I, 
 
 having observed no distinction of days and nights : but by the many trials 
 I made before I could get the tolerable management of my faculties, and the 
 many lectures you have favoured me with, I should guess myself about a fort- 
 night or three weeks old. What sort of time, says he, do you reckon by ? 
 
 Time ! says I. I do not understand you : I know but one sort where- 
 in sixty minutes go to an hour, and twenty-four hours to a day. -Ay, 
 
 but, says he, I mean celestial or sublunary time. You know, I have told 
 you below, that we measure time by the succession of ideas : now our ideas 
 here flow in so much quicker succession than those of heavy mortals upon 
 earth, that we pass a great deal more time between sun and sun. The 
 clocks you left at home have gone but one hour, forty-two minutes, and 
 fourteen seconds, since I first found you boxing with the corpuscles of 
 light. Surprising! says I. Now this ends another wonder of mine, that 
 I never felt myself drowsy all this while. No more would you, says he, if 
 you were to stay ever so long. We never sleep, nor ever find the want 
 of it. Then, says I, how do you find employment for your time of which 
 you have so much more than other people ? Does it never hang heavy 
 upon your hands ? 
 
 20. Never in the least, says he. We have an inexhaustible variety of 
 employments : when we have enough of one, we find others ready at hand 
 to which we can turn with fresh relish : you do not know what a field we 
 have to expatiate in. There is the nurture and education of our adopted fami- 
 lies, the providing instruments to pick out the terrene concretion gotten into 
 them : these we procure from the planetary systems, for you know that 
 Newton tells you, that air is an extract of little particles from the most 
 fcolid bodies, so it furnishes us with fine spicuke of steel, silver, gold, or any
 
 THE VISION. 437 
 
 other hard substance we want. The dividing the ambrosial streams to dis- 
 perse them about more equally, as you disperse your New River water for the 
 uses of the several quarters of the town. The journey down to earth, to 
 learn what passes there. Studying or practising that art of reading I men>- 
 tioned before, by the disposition of ethereal fluids, and investigation of causes 
 from effects. Observing one another's talents and characters, which we 
 may call the knowledge of the world. Purifying ourselves from any faeces 
 remaining within us, or removing any new concretions that might gather : 
 for we have the seeds of diseases among us, though we suffer none of them 
 to grow, because we can expel them almost as easily as you could have 
 washed the soil off your body. Besides the benefit of conversation by our 
 sentient language, wherein we can mutually impart and receive information 
 of all kinds, and from all quarters, with the greatest readiness and preci- 
 sion. Then we can travel with incredible swiftness to distant regions of the 
 world, follow the motions of the heavenly bodies, study the systems o nature 
 and economy of Providence, and from thence rise to the Divine Attributes : 
 which let me tell you afford larger scope for contemplation and delightful 
 wonder than I can explain to you in a manner suitable to your conception. 
 
 These are noble occupations well worthy the attention of a rational crea- 
 ture and copious enough in their several branches to engage our attention 
 incessantly : if we had any vacancies, we should not want means of filling 
 them up with divertisement, for we could gather materials of all sorts from 
 the several atmospheres, and as those little particles, which repel so strongly 
 at a small distance, would cohere as strongly if brought into contact, we 
 might practise the mechanic arts, fabricate various machines, and weave 
 curious textures for our entertainment ; but we have no use for those things 
 and no leisure to throw away upon trifles. Add to this the great agility and 
 pliancy of our bodies, of which I have given you ocular demonstration, and 
 our absolute command over desire. We have none of that sullenness and 
 perverseness which often sets you mortals against things in themselves agree- 
 able : on the contrary we can turn desire on the most insipid objects or make 
 those pleasant which naturally had nothing alluring, upon proper occasion, 
 if nothing more inviting or important should offer. I was as much pleased in 
 running through those metamorphoses I showed you a little while ago as 
 you could be in the novelty of the sight, and could this instant, if there 
 were good reason for it, apply as eagerly to a game at push pin as any 
 child of four years old. With all these advantages you may well conceive 
 we have work enough before us to take up an eternity without weariness or 
 satiety. 
 
 21. What then, says I, are you to live for ever in this vehicular state? 
 Not so, answered he, we are longevous, but not eternal : yet we reckon 
 ourselves immortal because we do not look upon our departure as a death. 
 We have not all the same length of life allotted to us, some depart sooner, 
 others later, but we all wear out our natural terms, having neither diseases 
 nor wounds nor destructive accidents among us ; for the threads of our tex- 
 ture, though extremely pliable, are of so tough a nature that nothing car* 
 break them : when the appointed time comes, our vehicles, worn thin by 
 age in some particular part, suddenly burst and let loose the inclosed spirit. 
 Those who have gone through the most arduous and painful trials below 
 commonly go first : next to them such as have died before their birth or in 
 their tender infancy : but none were ever known to be advanced, for so we 
 term our departure, before they have entirely purged themselves from all 
 remains of their terrene concretions. By our thorough insight into nature,-
 
 438 THE VISION. 
 
 we know assuredly that there is still a third world beyond this, a world of 
 purer love, stricter harmony, higher capacities, and more exalted happiness, 
 than we now possess, replete with spiritual substance wherein we shall be 
 absorbed : therefore, instead of condoling, we congratulate one another upon 
 discovering signs of an approaching dissolution. Nevertheless, being so 
 amply provided here, we live perfectly well satisfied with our present condi- 
 tion, content to stay here forever if it so pleased God, yet desirous and glad 
 to be advanced upon receiving the summons to a higher station. 
 
 22. You give me, says I, a most inviting description of your situation 
 and way of life : methinks it is worth any pains I can take, for the time I 
 am still to grovel upon the earth below, to fit myself for a state so abound- 
 ing in sources of present enjoyment, with such glorious expectations beyond. 
 But since you have mentioned conversation as one of your principal amuse- 
 ments, pray where do you find your company ? I suppose they gather to- 
 gether in cities, and we are here in some remote desert, out of the way of 
 any road, for I have not seen a soul besides yourself since I could use my 
 eyes. That is, says he, because you have not made the full use of them. 
 Put me out twenty now all on one side, and direct them upon the same 
 point : then look about ye and observe what you can see. Oh ! now I see, 
 says I, a multitude of long lank bags flitting by me like shadows ; but they 
 all go the same way. Have they any wings ? for I protest I cannot discern. 
 They whisk along so nimbly I cannot get a distinct view of them. And now 
 I recollect, when you carried me to the ambrosial fountain, you kept kicking 
 behind you all the way, like a dab-chick in diving, with a pair of sprawling 
 legs, one on each side of me. But I cannot guess what you did with them ; 
 lor though I can sprawl out legs too, I feel neither ground to tread on, nor 
 water to push against, and I am afraid to stretch them out too far, for fear 
 of those plaguy rays of light knocking against my shins. 
 
 Those very rays, says he, so formidable to you, are the springs to con- 
 vey us on all our journeys. Do not you know that in mills, watches, and 
 other complicated machines, one power is made to produce various move- 
 ments ? The stream, for instance, driving a throwing mill, runs always 
 directly forward one way, yet the artist finds means of turning this force 
 laterally or obliquely, or circularly, upon any of the works. In like manner 
 we make a more simple machine of ourselves, for thrusting a leg against 
 some corpuscle of light, we take any momentum we please therefrom, and 
 any direction within the compass of a quadrant. You are sensible it is 
 expedient for ' our speed that we should take a very oblique direction, 
 making as small an angle as possible with the line of the ray : but as this 
 must still throw us away from it, in time, we quickly find another ray on 
 our other side, from whence we take with another leg a direction equally 
 oblique, but turned the contrary way. Thus we pass along between two 
 rays, one for right foot, and the other for left, much in the same manner 
 as a Dutchman skating upon the ice. Our motion indeed is a little serpen- 
 tine, but the rays being no more than one thousandth of an inch apart, and 
 we going about ten miles at a step when we are in haste, this small undula- 
 tion may well pass for a right line. As the ether makes resistance against 
 our light bodies, we throw out lengthways in the form of worms when we 
 go forwards, and draw ourselves out dish fashion when we would stop. 
 Oh pretty ! says I. Be so kind as teach me to skate a little. I am loth to 
 give you the trouble of lugging me always about, like a beggar's brat. Be 
 content, says he, since I do not grudge the trouble. Think with yourself 
 how much time and dexterity is requisite to practise this art : for we must
 
 THE VISION. 
 
 give our touches with the nicest exactness imaginable, the least mistake 
 would carry us out of our course, or throw us into the middle of those 
 streams you 'found so troublesome. Therefore, this is the last thing we learn 
 to be perfect in ; there are some among us have been here these two hundred 
 years, and can scarce waddle yet. 
 
 Those who were bigots below, being always used to leading strings, come 
 on very slowly : they will let us carry them about where we please, and tell 
 them anything, but it is the hardest matter in the world to get them to help 
 themselves, or try to find their feet. On the other hand, the Knowals will 
 not submit to be shown anything, so they kick and cuff about at random, 
 and get themselves tossed from ray to ray, without ever learning a step. It 
 is well our vehicular flesh is of so healing a temper, or they would be beaten 
 to mummies before they had made any progress. Ay but, quoth I, you do- 
 not consider what an apt child I am, having brought my imagination and 
 memory entire with me. Besides, as I am a Search, I shall have the benefit 
 of my own reason and other people's experience too. No, no, says he, I 
 tell you the difficulty and danger of the attempt is greater than you appre- 
 hend. Are there no go-carts in this country ? quoth I. Do, nurse Locke, 
 get me one if there is such a thing to be had. You understand the mechanic 
 arts, and are there no wooden particles in the air of which you might make 
 me a pretty one now ? I would willingly learn to creep if I cannot run. 
 Prithee, child, says he, be patient : I never knew a Search urge things so 
 pressingly before. Besides there is another art necessary to qualify you for 
 practising this : if you were now to take a strong impulse 'with your foot, 
 you would find yourself doubled in like a nightcap, and your knee driven 
 through your body, would bump up against your head : therefore when we 
 go to receive a stroke, we at the same time give a rigidness to every fibre of 
 our vehicle, which makes us compact like a body of steel, and the whole of 
 us moves together. 
 
 I beg pardon, says I, for my eagerness : but if I must not think of the 
 practice, may not I wish to understand the theory of your motions ? I took 
 notice before that all the travellers I saw were passing the same way, and 
 as the rays keep continually flowing from the Sun, I can easily comprehend 
 how you may skate along them, quite to the regions of the comets : but 
 how do you contrive to get back again ? Can you strive against the stream, 
 or sail like a ship with the wind before the mast ? There is no occasion, 
 says he, for we never want favourable gales which way soever we are 
 bound. Do not you consider that there flow rays from the stars too as well 
 as from the sun, and as they come in all directions we never fail to find 
 some or other of them that fit our purpose to a hair. But then, says I, you 
 must go very slow, for their feeble impulse cannot carry you near so fast as 
 the vigorous solar rays. Pardon me there, says he : you know the inert 
 force of matter by which a body would move on for ever with the same 
 swiftness, unless stopped by something else ; therefore these transverse rays 
 do not abate at all of their pace for their immense distance from the star 
 whereout they issued. You below see the sun brighter than any other lu- 
 minary, because more of its rays enter your eye together, but each ray taken 
 singly, whether of solar, or stellar, or culinary light, moves with the same 
 strength and velocity. Indeed the stellar rays being wider asunder, make 
 our path a little more serpentine, and our progress slower, but this is a 
 trifling difference not worth taking notice of : and we are obliged to be a little 
 more circumspect in crossing the sun's rays, that we do not dash against 
 them. He then drew uie a little aside to a place where I could see tra-
 
 440 THE VISION. 
 
 vellers hasting several ways by help of different rays : and it delighted me 
 to admire how, though they went at a prodigious rate, they managed with 
 such amazing dexterity as never to touch the crossing streams of light, nor 
 jostle one another. 
 
 23. While I was entertaining myself with this spectacle, I heard my 
 friend call out with a loud voice that almost stunned me. Holla ! here we 
 are. Presently there came up a vehicle that stood and stared at me wist- 
 fully as I did at him again : he then entered into close conference with 
 Locke in the sentient language ; after which he surveyed me a second time 
 from top to toe, and having perused me as much as he liked, I saw him 
 strike his foot against a solar ray, which wafted him over to a stellar, from 
 whence he took a direction almost at right angles with the former, and was 
 instantly gone out of sight. Pray, says I, who might that very curious 
 gentleman be ? He should be a Search by his prying eye, but methinks he 
 looks like a weak brother. He examined me all over so strictly, that if I 
 had not heard you call to him, I should have suspected he had some design 
 upon us. So he has, says Locke, but no bad one. You cannot know his 
 face, he having been dead above a thousand years ago, but you have read 
 his compositions. He is Aulus Gellius, author, or rather collector of the 
 Attic night's entertainment ; for having a very moderate capacity, he could 
 produce little of his own, but made it his business to pick up and gather the 
 scraps of his oracle Favorinus : however, as he was a diligent honest crea- 
 ture, we acknowledge him for one of our line. You find him often quoted by 
 the learned, for though his writings contain nothing of much importance, 
 yet such minute matters as he has recorded are sometimes turned to good 
 use by others. I am glad of that, says I, for the sake of my microscope : 
 for if I am not useful myself, I may be the cause of other people's being 
 useful. As industry and exactness, continued he, are his talents, we put 
 him upon employments here wherein those qualities only are requisite. He 
 is now gone down to earth, upon an errand of that sort for you. I thank 
 him kindly, says I : but what service can he do me there ? He cannot carry 
 news of me to my family, for you told me you could not make your sentient 
 language understood by the living. No, says Locke, it is a business rela- 
 ting to your own proper person. You have now no intercourse with your 
 body, so can leave no traces there of all you do or see : now he is gone to 
 engrave traces of every particular in your sensory with a fine pencil or style 
 he will pick out of the air as he goes along ; for else when you awoke you 
 would think you had slept sound all night, without anything extraordinary 
 happening to you. I gave him an exact account just now of all that has 
 passed hitherto, and shall take care to send down intelligence from time to 
 time of what further shall fall in our way. I hope, says I, you will sup- 
 press what we have just said of the gentleman : he might have reason to 
 take it amiss that we have spoken so freely of his character and perform- 
 ances, especially at the very time when he is doing us a friendly office. 
 Never disturb yourself about that, says my patron ; we have none of that 
 vanity clinging more or less to all mortals, and which is the first speck of 
 terrene concretion we endeavour to pick out of them, as being the most 
 troublesome. We value ourselves here not upon our talents but the appli- 
 cation of them : natural infirmity and shallowness of capacity are no dis- 
 graces among us, therefore he is not ashamed of having them, nor will be 
 offended with us for taking notice of them. So I shall suppress nothing, 
 neither will he, but you will find a completer narrative of your journey than 
 if you had pen, ink, and paper, to set down everything as you go along.
 
 THE VISION. 441 
 
 That pleases me much, replied I, for I would not lose a tittle of all the very 
 remarkable occurrences befalling me here. 
 
 24. But with your good leave, Master, I would beg your explanation of 
 one or two particulars relating to this errand of my cousin Gellius. As I 
 have my memory with me, and actually remember all that has passed since 
 my arrival, cannot I recollect it again when I go back without troubling my 
 cousin to write it down for me ? Then if I have brought away the tablet 
 of my memory, what is there left for him to write upon ? And how can 
 you, or anybody, send him intelligence of my private thoughts ? I will 
 tell you, says he, how the case stands. The human memory consists of 
 several membranes lined one within another : the innermost are softest and 
 quickest to take impressions ; the outer are tough and more retentive. The 
 former serve you for common occasions, as in ordinary discourse, where 
 you only want just to remember what was said last till you have given a 
 proper answer, and then forget it again instantly. This membrane being 
 extremely pliant, conforms readily to the impressions in the others, which 
 enables you to recollect things recorded there many years ago. Now you 
 have gotten only the innermost pellicle of all here, which answers your 
 purpose well enough, while there is no outer stamp to dress upon it ; but 
 when you come to have it squeezed again into your old sensory, your 
 present traces would be quite smoothed out, like a rumpled muslin upon 
 being ironed, and all you know now vanish like an idle tale, if our indus- 
 trious friend were not to work correspondent channels, fitted exactly to 
 receive them in the outer coats. So much for your two first objections ; 
 the third you must remove yourself, by telling me all your thoughts : we 
 shall have time enough to send after him, for he is a little tedious in his 
 motions, and scrupulously exact : I warrant ye now he will be puzzling 
 about in the atmosphere a whole day of vehicular time, before he will find 
 a style to his mind. 
 
 25. But I cannot trust to any narrative you -will give me by voice, you 
 may overlook or omit something ; I must have it in the sentient language. 
 Lack-a-day ! quoth I, you know very well I cannot talk a syllable in 
 that. I know very well, says he, on the contrary, that you cannot help 
 talking if you would never so fain ; the whole art here lies in the hearer, 
 and you may trust me for that. Come, hold your head still, and put out a 
 pair of ears below : I may have occasion to speak to you at intervals. So 
 saying, he thrust out a couple of broad arms, or rather slappers, something 
 like the tails of Turkey sheep, with which he muffled up my head all round, 
 as with the hood of a great-coat. I knew my business was only to ruminate 
 on all that had passed in my thoughts from my first arrival, for he would 
 feel the ideas as they rose. In this guise he held me some tune, feeling 
 and speaking alternately in a kind of dialogue, wherein himself was the 
 
 sole talker, after the following manner. Ay, but how did you feel 
 
 yourself on first withdrawing from your body ? What were your first 
 
 sensations on coming here ? What were your thoughts when you could 
 
 hear me speak before you had gotten your voice ? Hay ! Let's have 
 
 that over again. Well, now I have your history perfect enough. But 
 
 I find you have some wishes you were shy of disclosing. Do not endeavour 
 to conceal anything from me, you know I am your friend : and besides, it 
 would be in vain, for I should ferret you out. Oh ! you want to hear 
 something of your relations : and your wife is uppermost in your thoughts. 
 
 1 commend you however for thinking of your father and mother, 
 
 though they came hither when you was a little baby, incapable of knowing
 
 442 THE VISION. 
 
 them : ana your guardian and the others who took care of your education. 
 They are all among us, employed in ways suited to their respective cha- 
 racters and inclinations. No, you cannot see them ; they are all a vast way 
 off, dispersed up and down in different regions, for having but lately 
 attained the art of skating, they are gone to make themselves acquainted 
 with the country. Well, well, you shall hear more of your dearee pre- 
 sently. We seldom meet with husbands so anxious about their wives, 
 unless now and then a Search that has happened to match with one of the 
 
 same blood. Nonpareil ! Ay, so they are all, either the best or worst 
 
 that ever man had.- Yes, yes, I know she was a Search : we all look 
 
 upon her as such, and bear her a brotherly affection. We had very 
 
 little trouble with her, as she brought few terrene concretions, and those 
 are in a great measure cleared away, 'as she was very patient and desirous 
 to have them removed. Having a soft hand and great tenderness of 
 temper, we employ her in picking out the spots from prudes, demireps, and 
 ladies of fashion who have lived in a continual round of genteel diversions, 
 
 doing neither good nor harm. Ay, ay, she would come to see you with 
 
 all her heart, but consider she is but seven years old in this world and has 
 not yet learned to go. But what would you say now if I should carry you 
 to visit her ? She plies close to her picking trade with some of the finest 
 nerial needles we can get for her, not above fifty thousand miles off, we 
 may skate there easily upon a couple of rays of Spica Virginis in two 
 hours vehicular time. Nay, none of your coaxing and cajoling, your Pray 
 Sirs, and Do Sirs : when I offer a thing, I do it readily without needing to 
 
 be pressed.- He then unmuffled and let me go : I durst not speak before 
 
 for fear of putting him out of humour, but now thought I might open, yet 
 was forced to moderate my joy by his last rebuke. So believing a short 
 speech was best, Thank ye, thank ye, says I, dear kind patron : she was 
 the most agreeable if not the most valuable gift heaven bestowed upon ir.e 
 below, and fhis offer is the most acceptable I could have wished You 
 have taken pains for my good and instruction before, but this instance 
 shows your benevolence here is tender and indulgent as well as judicious. 
 I then presently stretched out an arm for him to take me by. Hold, hokl 
 a moment, says he, till I give you some instructions for your conduct upon 
 this visit. 
 
 26. We gave her an inkling some time ago of your coming to visit her 
 in the shades like another Orpheus. Ever since she has taken it into her 
 heard to call herself Euridice, for we have our innocent fancies, allegories,, 
 and fables here as well as you mortals. We were willing to humour her, 
 so she passes currently by that name and you must mind to call her by none 
 other. Oh ! anything, quoth I, that will please her best. Euridice ! 
 methinks it is a pretty name, and I am sure the real Euridice could not 
 better deserve such a journey after her. In the next place, says my in- 
 structer, she is not a woman here, so you must consider her as an intimate 
 friend, not as a wife. Let us have no kissings nor embracings, no raptures 
 nor transports : remember your own distinction between love and fondness, 
 and what I have told you already that we are here all Isangeloi, therefore 
 your love must be pure, sedate, and angelical. I will try my utmost, says 
 I, to satisfy you, and hope to succeed the better because I always endea- 
 voured below to make my love as refined and sentimental as possible. And 
 indeed I found no great difficulty in the task, for she had so many angelic 
 qualities when a woman, that she was fitted to captivate the understanding 
 as well as the heart. But we waste time : two long hours seem a tedious
 
 THE VISION. 443 
 
 while. He then took hold of my arm and we went on swimmingly, after 
 the rate of forty thousand miles in a minute of Paul's clock. He clasped 
 me fust round the wrist, nevertheless I clung round his too like a drown- 
 ing man to a bough. I was in high spirits all the way, as you may suppose, 
 more alert and joyful than on the morning of my wedding day, for in the 
 lottery of marriage there is always a hazard, let a man take what care he 
 can. I can give no account of all we met or passed hy, for my whole 
 thoughts were taken up with one object, so that I had not a glance to spare 
 for anything else. At length we stopped, and I beheld a vehicle intent on 
 picking out the dross from another with a needle. My friend whispered 
 something to it in the sentient language, when instantly there shot out the 
 dear, well-known face, not that of the blooming bride which enchanted my 
 youthful eyes, but that of the serenely cheerful matron endeared by eighteen 
 years' cohabitation, when we used to take sweet counsel together upon the 
 measures of our conduct, the economy of our affairs, the education of our 
 children ; or remark to one another the growing seeds of sagacity appearing 
 in their little contrivances and prattle as they played around us. 
 
 27. My dear, dear Euridice, says I, do I see that face once more which 
 used to be a continual feast to mine eyes ! expressive of a most amiable and 
 valuable character within, innocence, sweetness, sincerity, constancy, pene- 
 tration, judgment, discretion, affability, politeness, easiness, sprightliness : 
 my pleasure at hame and my credit abroad. I never knew'what a happy 
 life was till you taught it me, and have never felt it completely since your 
 departure. Welcome, thrice welcome, says she, to these happy mansions, 
 my sincerest, tenderest, truest, best-beloved friend. How happy is it we 
 can thus meet without reflection of having done anything which might 
 make one another unfit for this place ! We lived in harmony and love, 
 contented within ourselves, yet not forgetful of the duties we owed to others, 
 delighted to please each other even in trifles without neglecting our more 
 important concerns, enjoying the present moment, but careful to enjoy it in 
 such manner as might leave no remorse behind. Thanks to you, my Euri- 
 dice, says I, that I have no more to reflect upon with remorse. Your 
 sprightly temper gave me spirits, enabling me to improve my faculties, and 
 your innocent gaiety taught me to make some use of them, by rendering me 
 more sociable and active. I hope to come here one day with the less ter- 
 rene concretion, for having had the benefit of your company. You can 
 scarce have brought any here, you were all innocence and unreserved good- 
 ness. And indeed I see by the serene satisfaction in your countenance, 
 that you have nothing to trouble you. Oh ! how charmingly different 
 does it look from that I saw last in convulsions and agonies ! 
 
 Name them not, my Search, says she : the avenues of death were grievous, 
 beset with pains, restlessness, and regrets, at leaving my husband and 
 children : but they quickly end in a quiet sleep, from whence we awake to 
 new life and enjoyment. Everything is new to us, yet nothing appears 
 strange, because we remember nothing of our former scenes. We soon dis- 
 cover that we are in a society, and it is not long before we learn to converse 
 among them. By means of our sentient language, which your friend tells 
 me you do not understand, we quickly receive information of what we have 
 been, what we have done, and what we have gone through : and believe me, 
 my Orphy (your friend will permit me to call you so), the troubles we have 
 undergone appear as nothing in comparison of the state they lead into. We 
 have here an infinite variety of enjoyments, without anything to disturb us 
 except the dross we bring from below, and though the clearing it away be
 
 444 THE VISION. 
 
 painful, we submit gladly for the greater suppleness of our limbs and com- 
 mand of our faculties we have upon getting rid of it. The people ^of this 
 country are universally obliging and benevolent: everybody is helpful to- 
 me, and I have the pleasure of being helpful to others. Though I am yet 
 as a child, unable to stir, they carry me about wherever I desire, so I make 
 visits more entertaining and improving than those merely harmless ones I 
 used to make below : for instead of dress and trifle, the discourse runs upon 
 the characters and occupations of the inhabitants here, the quickest and 
 easiest methods of picking out terrene concretions, the intelligences con- 
 tinually received from earth, the creatures, productions, and histories, of the 
 other planets ; and in such an ample field we always find something new, 
 interesting, and instructive. Your conversation has prepared me for a relish 
 of the deeper sciences. I can attend to lectures of philosophy, upon the laws 
 of nature, the courses of the planets, the various particles of air, the com- 
 mixtures of ethereal fluids, the systems of Providence, and the glorious At- 
 tributes of God. O, Search ! could you discern these Attributes as fully 
 as they are discerned here, you would always fear but never be afraid of 
 him, you would look upon his commands as advices kindly given for your 
 interest, you would possess a sure and glowing hope which would prove a 
 feheath to every natural evil and an effectual bar against every moral evil. 
 But with all these engagements you may well think I have no temptations 
 to the vapours, no vacant or insipid time; nor had I more than one thing 
 to wish, and am thankful it is now granted me though but for a moment. 
 Heaven send it may be granted me one time or other for a long, long con- 
 tinuance. 
 
 Amen, amen, says I, may we meet in such happiness as you have given 
 me the idea of, never to part again. Your remembrance is my continual 
 solace from morning to night*: the image of my Kiddy goes with me into 
 company, attends me in business ; entertains me in my walks, and steals in 
 upon my studies. Heaven made us the principal instruments of one another's 
 happiness upon earth, and I think the prospect or even possibility of our 
 being so again adds to my diligence in the prosecution of those duties that 
 lead to a better state. It was with that view, says she, I suggested the 
 thought. You know I always wished your good most ardently and cor- 
 dially : the same desire possesses me still, and directs me in employing the 
 few moments we have together. While the thought of Riddy does you any 
 real service, indulge it ; but let it not interfere to interrupt you in anything 
 you ought to do. You call me yours and I call you mine, but we were only 
 lent, not given, to one another, as we now find by sad experience. There-- 
 fore your only chance of having the loan returned is by making yourself 
 agreeable to the lender. For know, Orphy, that our works follow us, not 
 indeed in themselves but in their certain consequences. We rise with dif- 
 ferent talents and capacities according as our little bodies have been formed 
 and fashioned in the mould wherein they have lain enclosed. You cannot 
 know directly what effect your outward actions will have upon the growing 
 foetus within you, but the same power which gave laws to man, established 
 likewise those of nature, and has made them both so to correspond, that 
 while you fulfil your duty, you will unknowingly furnish yourself with powers 
 for your use and enjoyment hereafter. Therefore serve God by doing ser- 
 vice to his creatures : endeavour to make such acquisitions as will be most 
 useful to them, for those will be most useful to your own main purpose ; 
 nor suffer any fond indulgence to retard you in completing the remainder of 
 that work vou have still to do.
 
 THE VISION 445 
 
 My kind benefactress, says I, you were born to do me solid good as well 
 as to give me delight. Your advice was never wanting if at any time I hap- 
 pened to forget myself. Your example taught me to be more obliging and 
 tender to others. You encouraged and assisted me in anything laudable 
 and becoming a reasonable creature. The happiness conveyed me by your 
 means was one topic of my thanksgivings, and I used to join more heartily 
 in the public prayers as knowing that Riddy was one of the congregation. 
 Shall then the remembrance of my Riddy do me a prejudice when she her- 
 self was incapable of doing any ? Your loss was a heavy and grievous 
 stroke upon me, but I strove and struggled rather to thank Heaven for the 
 gracious loan I had had, than to repine at its being withdrawn. I then re- 
 flected it was not wholly withdrawn, for I beheld your likeness in your two 
 girls, and began to cast about how I might exert my love for you in my 
 cares and contrivances for the benefit of your children. I still call them 
 yours, for I love them better in that light than while I consider them only 
 as my own. They answer my cares as I could wish, and the poor things 
 do what they can to repay them by their observance and tenderness : but 
 nothing upon earth can fully compensate for the want of you. 
 
 28. I hear very good accounts of your girls, says she, for I call them 
 yours for the same reason you call them mine. Somebody or other in the 
 neighbourhood is going down continually, and I told you we were very 
 sociable, so scarce a day passes but I hear of you all. It is one of our 
 amusements to communicate all the good news we can pick up of each 
 other's friends and relations : but ill news quickly stagnates, for we have 
 no taste for scandal, nor are we solicitous to inquire after things we cannot 
 remedy. Unless when any one recovers from his evil courses, for then we 
 have them all displayed to us in full colours, and you cannot imagine what 
 congratulations there are among us upon such occasions : there is more joy for 
 a while than over ninety and nine just persons who needed no repentance. 
 I hope, says I, your children will never deviate into those bye-paths which 
 must be trodden before they can give that extraordinary joy: you will be 
 better pleased with the continual calm satisfaction of hearing they persevere 
 in the road you have set them into. Undoubtedly, says she, for you know 
 we always used ourselves to prefer a lasting complacence of mind before a 
 sudden transport. But since it has been known you were to come here, 
 nobody would tell me a word of our family, for they said they would 
 not anticipate the pleasure I should receive in hearing the relation from 
 yourself. 
 
 But how in the name of goodness, says I, could they know that ? for my 
 good patron Locke has told me that my journey was extraordinary, and did 
 not depend upon natural causes, by which they might investigate it. No 
 matter for that, says she : you do not know what discoveries our people 
 can make by their understanding the sentient language : they can discern 
 your secret thoughts and motives, better than you can yourselves, and know 
 by the state of your imagination what future imaginations it will produce. 
 When you mentioned me in your argument upon the uneasiness of desire in 
 your chapter on Satisfaction, they foresaw you would never be quiet till 
 you had contrived one way or other to have some converse with me. So 
 I know nothing of your history for that two years and a half. 
 
 Why, says I, it has run much in the same tenor with that you have 
 already been informed of. Your girls go on in such improvements as I 
 can give or procure for them, and in forming their characters to make them- 
 selves useful and agreeable, though in different ways. Serena has the
 
 446 THE VISION. 
 
 modest brow, the flexible neck, attentive eye, and true countenance of a 
 Search. Sparkler, you know, we used to call little Mamma, and she still 
 preserves your likeness : the same sprightly look, the same lively action, 
 and the same inoffensive archness of tongue. I would instruct them in the 
 foundations of religion and morality, but my notions are so abstracted, that 
 though they may do tolerably for myself, they are unfit for common use. 
 When I act like other people it is seldom upon the same grounds, my prin- 
 ciples are so selfish, I dare not own them ; even virtue with me is self- 
 interest, for I endeavour to practise it, not because I must, nor because I 
 ought, nor because it is good in itself, nor to gain credit or escape censure 
 of others, but because I believe it the surest way to procure my own advan- 
 tage. So I scarce ever give them any documents, but as I am much with 
 them, attend to their prattle, and endeavour to lead their thoughts gently 
 into such trains as may tend to their improvement. If they let drop any 
 inconsistencies, I take notice of them with a smiling air ; if they consider a 
 thing partially, I turn it about for them in various lights, and by short ob- 
 servations, similies, and examples, apposite to the occasion, I strive insensi- 
 bly to make their reasonings just and connected, their views clear and full, 
 their aims directed rather to the useful than the showy; and not so much 
 to teach as show them how to strike out lights for themselves. As they 
 delight in figure and allegory, I tell them the family arms of the Searches 
 are a microscope and a balance, with a bit of gold in one scale outweighing 
 a gaudy plume of feathers in the other, in a field of natural green, inter- 
 spersed with common flowers, and a bee extracting honey from any that 
 falls in his way : the motto for the men, Esse quam videri, To be than to 
 appear, and for the women, Be merry and wise. That the Knowal arms are 
 a concave mirror, placed near the eye, to see itself in, and an inverted 
 telescope to look at everything else, upon a brazen shield, ornamented with 
 butterflies, and trophies of victory: the male motto, Veni, vidi, vici, I came, 
 I saw, I conquered ; the female, None so pretty. 
 
 With these little helps, your girls have acquired for themselves as much 
 soundness of judgment and considerateness of thought as may content a 
 parent. They carry an unaffected openness and gaiety upon their counte- 
 nance, a watchful observance and discretion in their hearts. They have 
 just sentiments of their Maker, esteeming him as their sole benefactor, as 
 an indulgent but not fond parent, who gives his commands for their benefit, 
 but will not suffer them to be disobeyed with impunity. They are careful to 
 remember his blessings with thanksgiving, persuaded that every evil termi- 
 nates ultimately in some good ; assiduous, not scrupulous in their devotions, 
 strict, not superstitious in their religion. They can sympathize with the 
 distressed, rejoice sincerely with the prosperous, and are glad to assist in 
 any good office within their power. They can conform their minds readily 
 to the circumstances of their situation, pass whole winter months with me 
 alone in a retired country, without vapours of discontent, or hankering after 
 company, and then enter into all the innocent diversions of the town, with- 
 out being fond of any; can find resources in themselves, without cards, 
 or plays, or foreign aids, or can enjoy the busy world without being en- 
 slaved by it. 
 
 You delight my heart, says she, with this charming account of my babes : 
 their welfare makes one of my joys in this place, and it is no small comfort 
 to reflect that I have done my poor endeavours towards setting them into 
 the right way that leads hither. God grant they may persevere in it to 
 the last, and escape every inordinate passion and evil habit that might fix a
 
 THE VISION". 447, 
 
 terrene concretion upon them. Those foul remains of our former state, my 
 Search, are exceeding trouhlesome and a long while before we get entirely 
 rid of them ; in the mean time they prove grievous hindrances to us in all 
 our operations, both of body and mind. But I have still one anxiety for 
 my children : as they are now women grown, they may probably ere long 
 come into other hands ; and what changes that may make in their tenor of 
 life and conduct cannot be foreseen. This, my Riddy, says I, is my greatest 
 difficulty : I cannot help them so well as I would, my knowledge lying 
 more among books than men. Never did I want my Riddy more than at 
 this juncture : you could have assisted me with your counsels : your con- 
 verse would have given a freer issue to my own thoughts. But I miss you 
 every day at home and abroad, in business and in amusement, in my troubles 
 and my successes. O ! that it were permitted to take you down with me 
 to make a paradise again upon earth ! O ! that I might accompany you 
 here in your improving visits, attend you in your lectures, and learn of you 
 the sciences I used to teach ! The laws of this place lay a severe restraint 
 upon the fondness of love, a love pure and innocent, like that David bare 
 Jonathan, surpassing the love of women. My rigid tutor here has forbid 
 me one civil salute : am I not allowed to take your hand, whose soft touch 
 used to steal a thrilling joy into my heart ? 
 
 At this the dear eves seemed ready to overflow with tears of joy and love. 
 There came out a taper arm and pretty hand, having on one of the fingers 
 the semblance of our wedding ring, that pledge of our plighted troth and 
 seal of our union. I shot forth half a dozen eager arms to take hold of it : 
 and now perhaps had eagerly grasped it so fast that nothing could have 
 parted us without disruption of our vehicles, and perhaps the course of fate 
 had been broken, had not that severe, relentless pedagogue, that hard- 
 hearted old bachelor, Locke, who never knew the tenderness of love, been 
 too nimble for me. For he darted out a great brawny arm and mutton 
 fist, with which he catched up the skin of my vehicle, as one catches up a 
 dog by the nape of his neck, and away we fiew with incredible swiftness. 
 
 29. As soon as he let me go, I began to lament and expostulate after a 
 woful rate. Prithee, says he, do not pretend to be angry with me, when 
 you were to blame yourself. Did not you promise me to be more discreet ? 
 to make your love pure and angelical ? instead of that you have burst out 
 into all the flames and raptures of an earthly passion. I told you we em- 
 ploy our passions here as servants, but never let them become our masters, 
 nor slip a moment out of the hand of reason : for the very best of them is 
 not to be trusted. An injudicious love often has the effect of malice. What 
 a wish was there, to carry her back with you ! Was that your kindness to 
 wish her grovelling again in the filthy mire of earth, liable to womanish 
 fears, bodily distempers, infirmities of old age, and the hazard of being 
 disabled from ever regaining these blissful seats ? Then you do not con- 
 sider what an injury you were doing her if I had not prevented you : we 
 have almost cleared her of her concretions, the only one remaining was a 
 little too much fondness for you, and this you would have fixed deeper in 
 her again by your indiscretion. Did not you observe her swimming eyes, 
 which showed a womanish weakness stealing upon her ? I stand corrected, 
 good Master, says I, and am convinced you favoured my wishes most when 
 you seemed most to thwart them : for I would not do her a prejudice, no, 
 not the least momentary hurt, for all the pleasures in the world. But 
 what must the dear creature think of me for leaving her so abruptly ? 
 Never trouble yourself about that, says he : she saw plainly enough you
 
 448 THE VISION. 
 
 could not help it, and before this time is sensible I acted kindly : she would 
 presently recover herself, and go again to her needlework. Do you apply 
 yourself to improve the state of your own mind : the news of that will be 
 the greatest pleasure you are now capable of giving her, and the purer you 
 come up, the sooner you will be fit for her company. I perceive you have 
 store of concretions about you, and to them were owing your intemperances : 
 we shall have some work with you when you return, and you must undergo 
 some discipline. Do, my boy, while upon earth, strive to lessen the need 
 of it as much as possible. Take my word for it, the practice of virtue, the 
 moderation of all your desires, and vigilance against evil habits, will save 
 you a great deal of inconvenience, vexation, and self-reproach, by-and-by. 
 But I must leave you a moment, to send the particulars of our last adven- 
 ture to Gellius. I see nobody within call going down. I shall find some- 
 body or other before I have gone five hundred miles. I will be with you 
 again presently. 
 
 30. Being left alone, my thoughts ran again upon the dear object of my 
 wishes. I endeavoured to moderate my fondness with as much care as 
 possible, yet perhaps indulged it a little too freely. While I was in this 
 amusement, I felt myself on a sudden seized all over by something hard, 
 rough, and scorching, a hundred cords seemed to wring me round, a thou- 
 sand points stuck into my flesh, and I felt rough teeth grinding upon my 
 skin. Ideas of resentment, cruelty, avarice, injustice, lewdness, debauchery, 
 blasphemy, terror, shame, regret, and despair, poured upon my imagination, 
 and pierced me to the very soul. I found myself tempted to all kinds of 
 wickedness, to snatch the bread from the hungry, tear out the bowels of 
 children, pluck out the eyes of my dearest friends, dash out my own brains 
 against a stone, wallow in all the impurities of a brothel, rebel against the 
 throne of heaven, and worship the devil. I struggled, with all my powers 
 of body and mind, to deliver myself from my distresses in both, and call 
 up ideas opposite to those that oppressed me. Upon the first effort I found 
 myself relieved, the cause of my grievances was removed, but though I was 
 free from pain, it left a strange dismay and uneasiness upon my mind. 
 My good friend came up instantly to me. What's the matter ? says he, 
 you seem all over agitation and disorder. God bless me, says I, I never 
 was in such a taking in all my lives. All pain, smart, and burnings with- 
 out, rage, horror, anxiety, despair, and torment within. Sure these are not 
 fits occasioned by the terrene concretions. Heaven save me from any 
 more returns of them : I would not undergo such another moment for all 
 the pleasures in the universe. No, no, says he, thank Heaven your con- 
 cretions are not so bad as that. Oh ! now I see it. Look yonder : there is 
 the enemy that has done you all this mischief. I looked the way he pointed, 
 and saw a black bottled spider as big as myself, sprawling and cuffing with 
 his nasty claws against three or four vehicles, who thrust out arms as long 
 again as usual, to push him away : how T ever, they managed him pretty 
 easily, and drove him before them to some tellar rays that pointed directly 
 down to earth. Pray, says I, what hideous monster is that? The very 
 sight of him, though so far off, makes me shudder, and almost renews the 
 pains I suffered from him. That, says be, is one of those wretched vehi- 
 cles I told you of before ; his name, while upon earth, was Caesar Borgia. 
 I do not know how he came to stroll up here from the regions of darkness, 
 for they very rarely appear among us. Rarely, says I, is too often : I shall 
 be afraid of them as long as I stay here. 
 
 My dear good friend, pray never leave me alone again. Do not be
 
 THE VISION. 449 
 
 frighted, child, says he ; we seldom see them ; they are afraid of the rays of 
 light which they know not how to deal with cleverly, and when they do 
 come, they never meddle with us : nor would he with you if you had fol- 
 lowed my precepts. I am confident now that the moment iny hack was 
 turned, you gave a loose to your passion again, for he would never have 
 dared touch you if he had not ohserved you under some impotence of mind. 
 Therefore for the future keep your desires in order, your reason sound, your 
 mind pure ; and you may defy the devil and all his imps. But how, says I, 
 could he overspread my imagination with such a dreadful cloud of foul 
 thoughts, which never entered there before ? There, says Locke, you had 
 a specimen of the sentient language : I am sorry you took your first lesson 
 under so bad a master. By applying himself close on all sides of you, he 
 threw in his own sentiments : it was well you exerted yourself in raising up 
 contrary sentiments that made him glad to quit you immediately, for those 
 evil spirits feel an envy against everything better than themselves, which in- 
 creases their torment. Heaven defend me, says I, from the venom of these 
 spiders. The dread and remembrance of it hangs still upon me. I have 
 no command of my thoughts. I shall never be myself again. Come, says 
 he, let us try what a second lesson under a gentler master will do. We will 
 endeavour to cure you in the same way by which you were hurt. Come, 
 flatten your side a little, that we may have as large a contact as possible. 
 He then applied himself close to my side, and though I could discern no- 
 thing distinctly for want of skill in the language, felt such a general gleam 
 of piety, sound reason, benevolence, courage, temperance, cheerfulness, 
 quiet, and satisfaction, spread over my imagination, as dissipated all mv 
 troubles, aud restored me perfectly to myself again. Thank ye, says I, in- 
 comparable master, I find you can assist, instruct, reprove, soothe, and 
 everything just as is proper. This is an excellent language when spoken by 
 a good orator : would I could learn to talk like you, or at least to under- 
 stand your eloquence completely, so as to let none of it fall to the ground. 
 
 31. But now I have the spirit of sobriety upon me, with your permission 
 I would fain receive some instructions which might prevent those mistakes 
 that occasioned my failing in it before. I have always been told that love 
 was a virtue, and though this be understood in the first place of a general 
 benevolence to all rational creatures, yet I never knew we were restrained 
 from fixing a larger portion of it upon some particular objects. Husbands 
 love your wives, is one precept of the Gospel, and all the Searches of name 
 have recommended an affection to our relations, friends, and benefactors. 
 I know this is best exerted in doing them service while they are with us : 
 but are we to forget them as soon as they are gone out of our sight ? or 
 how are we to distinguish the virtue from the passion of love, so as to re- 
 tain the one without touching upon the other ? Truly, says he, I am not so 
 well qualified to descant upon that particular branch of love, which I know 
 you. are most solicitous to understand, having never had experience of it my- 
 self. I will only say this, that true love of any kind forbears everything 
 detrimental to the party beloved, and never urges to things inconsistent 
 with the interests of any other kind. But there is Plato yonder, who having 
 composed amorous sonnets in his younger days, knows more of that sub- 
 ject than me ; and as he has a lively imagination, will talk to you in a 
 manner more suitable to your own turn. I can carry you to him if you 
 will : he is not a vast way off, we may be with him soon, provided we make 
 haste. I shall be very much obliged to you, says I, for the favour : I long 
 VOL. i. 2 a
 
 450 THE VISION. 
 
 to see that venerable founder of the Academy. Do not expect, says he, to 
 see a formal old Doctor in him ; he lived so long at the court of Syracuse, 
 in intimate familiarity with the king and ministers there, that he is quite a 
 fine gentleman. 
 
 32. Pray, says I, is it necessary we should travel so fast as we have done 
 in our journeys hitherto ? As my time here is to be short, I would willingly 
 make the most of it, and not lose the benefit of your conversation upon the 
 way ; but though I tried several times to talk to you, I could not hear my- 
 self speak ; for we outstripped the vibrations of ether conveying the sound : 
 I suppose anybody a mile behind might have heard me plainly, for I took 
 notice that the passengers sometimes called to one another as they went 
 along. You mistake the case, says he, for we never travelled so fast as the 
 rays we went upon, and Newton has told you that the vibrations of ether 
 overtake the light. The truth is that you did not speak when you fancied 
 yourself talking, for the swiftness of our motion, causing a draught of ether 
 against your sides, hindered the play of your vocal fibres, just as a man 
 riding a race-horse finds his breath stopped by the wind. As we have 
 gotten a stronger tone to our fibres by exercise, we can make ourselves 
 heard notwithstanding ; and so perhaps may you too if we abate a little of 
 our pace, but then you must exert yourself as if you were hallooing to some- 
 body at a distance. He then took me by the hand, and we went on at a 
 less violent rate than before. 
 
 33. As we proceeded I began to try my talent at vociferation, wherein I 
 found the more difficulty, for having never been used to speak in public, 
 and perhaps had not succeeded at all, had I not been conversant with some 
 deaf and inattentive people below, who forced me to prepare myself for 
 this exercise, which, though laborious and painful for the time, left no 
 fatigue or faintness the moment I desisted : however, I made shift to be 
 heard just enough for him to comprehend my meaning. After apologizing 
 for the curiosity natural to the Searches which his goodness hitherto had 
 encouraged me to indulge, I begged to know where lay those regions of 
 darkness wherein he said the unhappy vehicles resided. In the pores and 
 caverns of earth, says he, or the atmospheres surrounding them. For the 
 foggy vapours, abounding there, a little stupify their faculties, and make 
 them less sensible of their torments. When they rise above ground, they 
 keep in the nocturnal hemisphere, and if by great chance they mount up 
 into ether, it is always along the shadowy cone of night, which leaving 
 them exposed to the thick solar effulgence, they are buffeted about, not 
 knowing which way to go, until some of us drive them down again. Pray, 
 says I, are they made like other vehicles ? Exactly, says he, and have the 
 same natural powers and faculties that we possess, for nature designed us 
 all for the occupations and enjoyments of this delightful country : but they 
 have debilitated themselves by the vast quantity of terrene concretions 
 worked into them. For these gross particles of heterogeneous matter prick 
 their flesh incessantly like so many needles, feel like worms boring into 
 their vitals, obstruct their circulation, thereby raising feverish scorchings, 
 and distort their imagination, laying it open to all unruly passions, and 
 rendering it incapable of a pleasing or a comfortable thought. Imagine 
 only with yourself what a man must suffer who should have thorns buried 
 all over in his body, worms gnawing his entrails, the foulness of a dis- 
 temper filling his flesh with burning heats, and his head with melancholy, 
 frightful phantoms, and horror. Terrible, indeed! says I. But you told 
 me, that our vehicles lie enclosed in our mortal bodies ; how comes it they
 
 THE VISION. 451 
 
 do not feel inconveniences from their concretions while alive ? So they do, 
 says he, sometimes in the mental part : but I told you likewise that the 
 vehicle, while enclosed in the body, can exercise its functions only where it 
 communicates with some nerve of the outer machine, the rest is covered 
 and kept motionless by the gross body whereto it adheres. But when the 
 percipient soul (to use your words) comes out naked, and begins to exert 
 all her powers without external impediment, at every motion she makes she 
 finds the sharp concretions standing cruelly in her way. Just as a child in 
 the womb might bear a load of phlegm upon the lungs without inconveni- 
 ence, but immediately upon birth, when the lungs began to play, it would 
 give great pain and trouble. And as volition never ceases working, they 
 never cease being tormented : so that the boring worm dieth not, and the 
 feverish fire is not quenched. You may remember I told you we abounded 
 in desires, but had no wants : their desires are all wants. They are restless 
 and impetuous, but never satisfied, always eager in action but to no pur- 
 pose, perpetually flying from one evil into another as bad. Add to this, 
 that instead of alleviating one another's miseries, they strive to increase 
 them : continually in broils and quarrels, actuated solely by envy, spite, and 
 rancour ; melancholy and distracted with their own thoughts when alone, 
 teazed, abused, and plagued in one another's company. Do you never, 
 says I, try to deliver them from their concretions ? It has been tried, says 
 he, but without effect : for there is no possibility of removing a moral con- 
 cretion, unless the patient will do something to help himself ; we can only 
 open the fibres with our needles to give it passage, but he must discharge 
 it at the aperture by an effort of his own. But these poor creatures are so 
 perverse, they fight and struggle against us whenever we go to assist them : 
 so we are forced to abandon them to their wretched fate. Does not the 
 thought of their miserable condition, says I, stir up a compassion in you 
 sometimes that abates your enjoyments ? I told you before, says he, we 
 never suffer any passion, not even love or pity, to intrude upon us without 
 leave : when there is room for any relief to the distressed, we can raise a 
 strong sentiment of compassion to invigorate our endeavours in adminis- 
 tering it, but when we know compassion is wholly unavailing, productive 
 of no good to others, but of uneasiness to ourselves, we can utterly throw 
 it aside as a weakness. Happy temper, says I. But since I have not 
 attained it, permit me to hope that, as you say these wretches have a con- 
 tinual burning fever upon them, the violence of that will in time unhinge 
 their constitution, and deliver them from this loathsome prison. That can- 
 not be, says he. I have told you already, that the threads of our compo- 
 sition are so strongly spun, nothing can dissolve them before they wear 
 away of themselves at the appointed time : outward accidents may hurt, 
 inward foulnesses distend, distempers may disorder, but none of them can 
 destroy us. 
 
 34. What then, says I, is their misery eternal ? for I remember you said 
 the disruption of a vehicle was never known before all concretions were 
 entirely purged away. That is a point, says he, which I cannot resolve 
 you with certainty. There are different opinions among us, none founded 
 upon experience of facts : for as we avoid all intercourse with them, we 
 know not whether their numbers lessen or no. I can only say, their con- 
 tinuance in this condition is very long, at least seventeen hundred years, 
 for it was but the other day that Nero was seen here kicking among the 
 solar rays, trying to raise a combustion, by throwing them against one 
 
 2c2
 
 452 THE VISION. 
 
 another, and so set the world on fire. But divines generally hold the 
 affirmative. Some heretical doctors maintain that they will be advanced, 
 as well as ourselves, after a certain period : for they say, the disruption of 
 our vehicles never happening hefore an entire clearance of the concretions, 
 is at most only a negative proof of the contrary, and they do not imagine 
 that any material composition is made to last for ever. Many of the phi- 
 losophers suppose they will be reinstated in mortal bodies, wherein the dis- 
 tempered parts being kept quiet and motionless, the old concretions will 
 work out of themselves, and they will return pure if they do not contract 
 new ones by their ill conduct. However the truth be, their present condi- 
 tion is the same to them as if it were eternal, for they have no prospect or 
 notion of any deliverance, so have not the least glimpse of hope, that last 
 refuge of mortals and cordial for every trouble. 
 
 35. What principles then, says I, do your disputants build upon, since 
 they have not the foundation of facts ? The Divine Attributes, says he, the 
 only foundation for our reasoning upon matters where experience affords us 
 no lights to direct them. Pray, says I, if I may be so bold, how do the main- 
 tainers of the affirmative reconcile their opinion with the divine goodness 
 and mercy ? The counsels of God, says he, are unsearchable, even to the 
 most intelligent of creatures, and his Attributes incomprehensible. We 
 agree unanimously, that God is equal in his dealings, and righteous in all 
 his ways, that his goodness is infinite, and his mercy over all his works : 
 nevertheless, we are sensible that we are not competent judges to determine 
 precisely what belongs to equity, goodness, and mercy. Yet thus much we 
 assure ourselves of, that the purposes of God never terminate ultimately in 
 evil, neither does he punish in anger, nor unless for some greater good to 
 result therefrom. Perhaps we should grow remiss and thoughtless in these 
 scenes of continual ease and delight, if we had not those dismal spectacles 
 to rouse and alarm us : perhaps their sufferings are some way or other ne- 
 cessary to secure the happiness of the blessed spirits above. Some young 
 vehicles talk largely of a free-will of indifference, but they are little regarded 
 here ; for we know of no merit in ourselves, arid acknowledge those virtues 
 and happy dispositions of mind which brought us hither to be the pure 
 bounty of Heaven : for though we worked out our own happiness for our- 
 selves, it was God who gave us the powers to work with, the springs and 
 motives determining us to employ them. According to the opinion most 
 generally prevailing, we regard the state of these wretches as eternal, never 
 to be remedied by natural causes : nevertheless, there is an Almighty Power 
 which can alter the course of nature, and may interpose in their favour, but 
 when or in what manner we do not pretend even to conjecture. Thus as the 
 recovery of fallen man was a mystery to our predecessors which they de- 
 sired to look into, so the deliverance of these unhappy victims of divine 
 vengeance remains a mystery with us, which we still desire to look into. 
 
 36. I thanked my instructer, and added, that as this was a melancholy 
 subject I should be glad to divert my thoughts, if he pleased, during the 
 remainder of our journey, with looking about me upon the objects occurring 
 in our passage. I saw travellers passing along upon other solar rays near 
 me on the right hand and the left, others upon stellar rays crossing above, 
 below, before, and behind me : an<? the ethereal fluids running into various 
 commixtures by their perpetual undulations. I beheld the moving scene 
 with more pleasure than a citizn escaped five miles from the hurry of 
 business into a summer-house hanging over some dusty turnpike road. I 
 could retire within myself when I pleased, and enjoy my thoughts secluded
 
 THE VISION. 45* 
 
 from all external objects, which is more than the citizen can do, for when 
 he has not his senses to entertain him he falls asleep. But my curiosity to 
 make new discoveries soon drew me from this merely amusing prospect to 
 observe the rays of light as they whisked by me. I found that by carrying 
 my eye along with some of the corpuscles, I could discern them pretty dis- 
 tinctly. They appeared to me something like the chain or cross bar shot 
 used in sea engagements, only instead of a bar between, the whole con- 
 sisted of seven balls, flatted on the sides, by which they adhered to one 
 another. I wished to see a refraction but could not, so can only suppose 
 their flatness makes them more apt to rejoin when collected by a Lens after 
 refraction, and unite again into a white ray. I perceived the vibrations of 
 ether overtake them, and when they were in the back part of a wave, their 
 motion was retarded, which put them into that state, called by Newton 
 their fits of easy reflection ; as when in the fore-part, they were in fits of 
 easy transmission. But rny greatest pleasure was to observe the expertness 
 of my conductor : he did not skate with a stump leg, as I had imagined 
 before, but put out a broad foot with which he could have a good flat tread 
 upon the corpuscles, and though they moved with different velocities ac- 
 cording to their fits of reflection or transmission, yet he so humoured their 
 motions by the pliancy of his joints as always to take just the force he 
 wanted to direct his step with such exact nicety, that when we came over to 
 the opposite ray, we never fell into a vacant space but always close upon 
 some corpuscle which served us for our next step. My curiosity being sa- 
 tisfied, my mirth began to operate. Methought I made a very ridiculous 
 figure dangling behind him. 1 fancied myself like a bone that some unlucky 
 boy has tied to a dog's tail and then turned him into the street. However, 
 my merriment was all to myself, for the passengers, used I suppose to such 
 phenomena, took no more notice of me than we should on meeting a good 
 woman carrying along a child in her arms. 
 
 37. While employed in these amusements, which entirely dispersed all 
 my gloomy thoughts and gave a cheerful turn to my mind, I found we 
 stopped. There lay a vehicle before us wholly collected within his bag, and 
 seeming wrapped in profound meditation. My conductor gave him a gentle 
 tap, when presently there came out the honest, open, lively, but sensible 
 countenance and broad shoulders of the first Academic. Hah ! says he, my 
 good English cousin Locke, I am always heartily glad to see you. I shall 
 never forget the honour you have done my Ideas by bringing them into 
 greater repute in the Tin Islands than ever I could do in Athens. But who 
 is this honest looking young spark you have gotten with you ? Have I ever 
 seen him before ? I beg pardon if I have forgotten his face. A countryman 
 of mine, says Locke, just arrived among us, and a distant relation, of an 
 under branch of the Searches. He is ambitious, it seems, of imitating my 
 seriousness and your vivacity, and I have made bold to bring him to re- 
 quest a favour of you. With all my heart, says Plato, anything in the 
 world I can oblige my cousin in. Pray, young Englishman, what are your 
 commands ? You must know, says Locke, he is a disconsolate turtle that 
 has lost his mate, and since he cannot get her out of his head, he wishes to 
 have a lecture from you upon the subject of love, that he may learn to love 
 like a philosopher. The polite founder of the Academy very readily enr 
 gaged to recollect what he could upon that head, that he had learned from 
 his master Socrates. 
 
 38. My master, says he, used to tell us there were two Venuses, distin- 
 guished by the names of Thalassia and Urania. The former sprung from
 
 454 THE VISION. 
 
 the foam produced in the sea by an oily mud, driven into it by torrents. 
 She is completely formed for enchanting the eyes of mortals : her cheeks 
 smooth and blooming, her lips moist and pouting, her aspect sprightly and 
 engaging, her round neck and swelling bosom generally bare, her shape 
 neat and elegant, her limbs delicate and pliant, her vestments loose and 
 flowing, brocaded with cooing doves and sportive Cupids. She glides in 
 easy swimming motions, or trips lightly along with wanton airs and win- 
 ning graces. Her eyes are bright and striking, but a little short sighted, 
 so she follows the pleasures nearest at hand, seeing nothing of those at a 
 distance, nor of the pains sometimes close at your elbows. She plays a 
 thousand little artful tricks, dissembles, casts herself into any form, to gain 
 her ends, but incapable of laying an extensive well-concerted plan. Urania, 
 heaven-born Fair, offspring of almighty Jove, Father of Gods and men, is 
 his best beloved daughter. She carries a dignity in her aspect, blended 
 with mildness and benignity, commanding at once both love and respect. 
 Her motions are graceful and easy, her deportment majestic and uniform, 
 her clothing magnificent but not gaudy, being a rich tissue woven of threads, 
 covered with two celestial metals called Prepon and Kalon. Her eyes are 
 strong, clear, and piercing, though she follows pleasures too, she discerns 
 the remotest on all quarters, and counts the pains mingled among them : 
 she looks backward upon the past and forward to the future, and extends her 
 influence upon everything around her. Her face and person cannot be par- 
 ticularly described because she comes down always in a veil, so that mortal, 
 eye can scarce obtain a glimpse of her ; but it is said, if we could fully dis- 
 cern her beauties, we should be so enamored with them as never to think 
 anything beautiful beside. She was present with her father when he made 
 the worlds, and the blessings he poured forth upon them passed through 
 her hands : she Still moves him to shower down his mercies from time to 
 time upon mortals, and solicits him for leave to descend herself to rescue 
 them from their miseries and errors. But they cannot approach her unless 
 introduced by some inferior Goddess, of whom the Thalassian Venus is best 
 qualified to perform that office ; yet neither do the inferior powers take con- 
 duct of them upon their entrance into life, nor until arrived at some matu- 
 rity in their faculties. 
 
 39. For when Psyche first falls from the unknown regions, she lies help- 
 less and grovelling upon the ground ; the dust of the earth gathers round 
 her and forms a case, which would wrap her in perpetual sleep, but that 
 there grow little hairs or stumps of feathers in all parts of it : these being 
 brushed against by external objects and appetites continually rolling over 
 her, prick, and stimulate, and awaken her out of her lethargy. She then 
 starts up and plays about within a small enclosure surrounding her, called 
 the garden of Self. Everything is new to her, everything engaging : she 
 admires the wild plants growing there, which quickly shoot up large and 
 vigorous stems, bearing flowers alluring to her sight, and fruit suitable to 
 her taste. If anybody controls or endeavours to guide her motions, she re- 
 gists, and frets, and breaks from them as soon as possible to run to the gar- 
 dener Selfish, who indulges her desires, finds her abundance of diversions, 
 and makes her store of pretty playthings. The last of these is a neat, light, 
 and easy car to be drawn by two horses, called Concupiscible and Irascible, 
 which the gardener takes care to feed and pamper continually with his own 
 hand. With this she courses about the smooth walks of the garden without 
 much damage, only now and then a slight bruise or gentle overturn. 
 But in a little while the garden gates fly open, and Psyche upon her car
 
 THE VISION. 4.)5 
 
 launches forth into the wide world. She finds an open champaign before 
 her, and the passengers obliging to give her way. The horses gambol about 
 without rule or guidance, for she knows not how to manage them, but looks 
 back to the gardener upon the foot board behind, who knows as little how 
 to manage as she. He has gotten a basket of his wild fruits, with which he 
 wantonly pelts the people on each side. They find them harsh to their taste, 
 and some are hurt by their hardness. This makes them clamorous, upon 
 which the horses are frighted, grow rampant and quickly overturn the car, 
 dragging poor Psyche along until she is torn to pieces, unless some con- 
 ductor luckily step in to her rescue. Happy is she if Thalassian Venus 
 chances to pass that way : the brisk Goddess mounts the Concupiscible 
 horse, and with the whip of Desire in her hand keeps them both in tole- 
 rable order, making them pull together, and singles out some object whereto 
 she drives them in a line. She sends the gardener back to graft learning, 
 politeness, and accomplishments upon his wild stocks, with orders to bring 
 back the fruits they shall produce, which she deals out among the persons 
 near her that they make way and assist her progress. It is she first opens the 
 heart of Psyche, teaches her obligingness and to look a little beyond her- 
 self. Nevertheless, the Goddess is apt to change from object to object, or 
 if she fixes upon one, drives so eagerly as not to heed the rotes in her way, 
 and sometimes even to hurt the object she pursues : for she aims at plea- 
 sure not good, and her own pleasure rather than that of others whom she 
 most fondly affects. She plies her whip too furiously upon the horse she rides, 
 and urges the other to be mettlesome : so the car hobbles, the clay of satiety 
 clogs the wheels, and Psyche is brought again into imminent danger. 
 
 Her only refuge now must be in Urania, who never refuses her assistance 
 to those that implore it sincerely. The celestial Power descends into the 
 car, corrects the errors of the sea-born Goddess, takes the whip from her 
 hands, delivers it up to Psyche, and instructs her how to handle both that 
 and the reins. She sends the gardener Selfish back again to graft the 
 virtues, for they, being exotics in the sublunary climates, will not grow out 
 of the earth, but must be engrafted upon the wild stocks that nature has 
 thrown up spontaneously; and the stronger those stocks are, the more 
 vigorously they flourish. When he has brought her the fruit of these 
 celestial scions she dismisses him quite, for she will not suffer him to load 
 the car, nor Psyche to look behind upon him any more. She purges her 
 visual ray with euphrasie and rue, and from the well of life three drops dis- 
 tils, and sheds her own benignity upon her. She instructs her to follow 
 good principally, and pleasure only when not interfering with the other. 
 She enlarges her heart, rectifies her judgment, extends her views, and 
 teaches her to distribute the last brought fruits wherever they may be ser- 
 viceable. She keeps the postilion Goddess constant to the pursuit of one 
 object, and if that be snatched away by fate, she sometimes, as I find was 
 done in your case, discharges her. She presents its picture to Psyche em- 
 blazoned with golden rays by her sister Elpis, but will not let her lament nor 
 sigh over it, nor interrupt the distribution of her fruits. 
 
 Elpis was the second daughter of Jove : she goes clad in virgin white 
 and has the softest hand of all the Goddesses, for the touch of it soothes 
 the smart of every evil in Pandora's box. She keeps always in the line be- 
 tween her father and the earth, so that whoso turns his face aside from 
 Jove will never have a glimpse of Elpis. The car then rolls tranquil and 
 steady along until they arrive at the gates of the country, which being be- 
 set with terrors and ghastly apparitions frightful to Psyche, the Goddess
 
 436 THE VISION". 
 
 makes her look back opon the road they have travelled and the people eat- 
 ing the fruits they have distributed. She then beckons to the satin-robed 
 Elpis, who lets down a golden anchor : the Goddesses place Psyche thereon, 
 and the elder sister holding her firm while the other pulls the cable, all three 
 mount up into the blessed abodes. 
 
 40. When the divine Plato had ended, his voice still chanted in our ears, 
 and left the same effects as the charms of poetry upon the imaginations of 
 the whole circle ; for several vehicles had gathered round us as soon as 
 they perceived him beginning to open. There was one among them whom 
 I could not but take particular notice of : his nose was flat with wide open 
 nostrils, his features large and hard, his whole face the plainest I ever set 
 eyes on ; nevertheless there was such a sensible simplicity, such a good- 
 natured humourousness, in his countenance that one could not help being 
 prejudiced in his favour. He stared at me, and we surveyed one another for 
 some time. You look at me so wistfully, says the Flatnose, that I fancy 
 Uranian Venus has sent down one of her own Cupids to strike us with a 
 mutual affection. I do not know how you came to be taken with me at first 
 sight, but it is no wonder I am smitten when I see before me the Displayer 
 of the Light of Nature the hope of the Searches, the ripened fruit of our 
 illustrious branch. For every age improves upon the former, and the sons 
 successively grow wiser than their fathers. The divine Plato here has put 
 finer words into the mouth of Socrates than ever he could utter himself : 
 your father Locke has refined upon the ideas of Plato ; and you like another 
 Achilles have proved yourself a better man than your father. I was abashed 
 grievously at this high-flown compliment, and turning to Locke, Pray, says 
 I, is it the fashion in this country to flatter folks out of their senses ? I 
 thought you had been all sincerity and plain dealing here. For goodness' 
 sake who is this courtly gentleman ? Sure it must be one of Dionysius' 
 lords of the bed chamber, that Plato has brought with him from Sicily. 
 And now, upon a second view, methinks he has some features that show as 
 if he did not dislike to have his miss and his bottle. You are not the first, 
 says Locke, that have judged so of him before they knew him. But look 
 at him again and recollect whether you have read a description of somebody 
 you think like him. After taking another survey I cried out to Locke, I 
 will be pierced if this is not Socrates himself ! Oh ! now I am more 
 mortified than ever. -What is the matter with you ? says Locke. Can you 
 desire better than to receive such a testimony from a person whom the 
 oracle has pronounced the wisest man in Greece ? No, no, Papa, says I, 
 I am not such a child neither to be catched so. I have heard enough of his 
 irony, and that his words are to be turned topside the other way to under- 
 stand them. I have not forgotten Elian's story of the horse rolling upon 
 his back. If I had any money in my bag, I would lay a hundred guineas now 
 that he sees me to be an errant sophist : for he used to deal with them just 
 in this manner. Phoo ! says Locke, so he does with all strangers the first 
 time he accosts them : if they take him in earnest, it puts them into pro- 
 digious good humour with him ; if they see through the veil, it makes them 
 smile, and that has the same effect. You had better humour him in his 
 own way, it will draw on the conversation the easier ; from whence it is a 
 great chance but you will pick up something worth carrying away. 
 
 41. I endeavoured to follow his advice, and plucking up a good courage, 
 turned again to Mr. Flatnose ; Pardon me, says I, amiable Socrates, that 
 my eyes were drawn off a moment from contemplating your admirable 
 beauties ; but I was willing to consult my patron here how to behave so as
 
 THE VISION. 457 
 
 to appear most agreeable in your sight : though, without asking, I miglit 
 have known better manners than to contradict the person beloved : there- 
 fore shall readily acknowledge myself the wisest man that ever lived. And 
 I have good reasen for what I say, for you were the wisest before, but the 
 oracle declared you so because you knew no more than one thing, which 
 was, That you knew nothing : now I go a step beyond you, for I do not 
 know whether I know anything or not. I rejoice, says Socrates, that we 
 both value ourselves upon the same account : for conformity of sentiments 
 promises a lasting and cordial love that will not fade. Here I jogged 
 Locke, and whispered him, how it would divert our ladies below to hear 
 two such Adonises talking so sweetly of our reciprocal passion ! Oh ! 
 says Locke, they do not understand the language of Uranian love any better 
 than we old bachelors did of the Thalassian. Socrates went on; is not 
 love a flame ? I was always, says I, taught so. And does not a flame 
 require some fuel to keep it alive ? To be sure, or else it will go out. 
 Methinks I should be very sorry to have this flame, that is lighted between 
 us, vanish like a meteor. What fuel shall we find to keep it burning ? I 
 protest I do not know, says I. If I had my Euridice again with me I 
 could find a thousand ways to express my love and foment hers ; but it is 
 quite a new sort of amour : I do not know how to proceed in it. Does not 
 love, says he, incline one to please the party beloved ? and does not that 
 encourage the like flame in the other ? Most of anything that I know of. 
 Then if you have fallen in love with me, you will do everything to please 
 me ? Yes, very readily. If I should ask you to take a skate with me upon 
 a pair of solar rays, you would do it ? That I cannot, for I have not learnt 
 to go : but I would if I could. Well, but suppose we were both upon 
 earth again, and I wanted a peach out of your garden : you would give it 
 me ? Certainly : you should be heartily welcome. Or a cup of small beer: 
 you would call for it ? Instantly. For no other reason than because I had 
 a fancy for it ? No : for I should want no other. Suppose the Athenians 
 had not condemned me to drink the Cicuta, but I had taken a fancy to a 
 draught myself : you would have procured me a bowl without delay ? No, 
 indeed : that would be no instance of love, I am sure. What ! not if it 
 pleased my fancy ? Not if it pleased your fancy would I give you a thing 
 that should destroy you. Did we not agree just now that love consists in 
 doing everything to please the party beloved ? We did, but I believe we 
 were mistaken, and ought to have placed it rather in the good than the 
 pleasure of the beloved object. W'ell then, says he, as you love me, you 
 will attend always to my good ? To the best of my skill and ability. If 
 I was hungry and desired trash, you would refuse it, and give me whole- 
 some food ? You will never put me to that trial. But suppose I should, 
 what would you do ? I should show my love best by giving you the good 
 victuals. If I were sick, and liked rather to swallow a draught of honey 
 than the medicine proper for me, what would you do ? Get you to take 
 the potion if I could. Because you would consult solely my good ? Yes, 
 for that reason. And if the potion were nauseous, and I desired a little 
 honey to sweeten it, you would refuse it me ? No, that would be mere 
 crossness. If the physic would do me the same good, whether sweetened 
 or not, would you give me the honey ? Ay, surely. Why ? To make it 
 less unpleasing to your palate. But did not we agree last, that lovers were 
 always to pursue one another's good, and not their pleasure ? You have 
 drawn me into a dilemma, says I ; do so much as extricate me out of it 
 again. I can extricate nothing, says he ; I only practise my mother's trade
 
 458 THE VISION. 
 
 of midwifery to bring your thoughts to the birth, you must deliver them by 
 your own efforts. I suppose, said I, if the same thing be good and pleasing 
 too, we may do it without scruple. So it should seem, says he. for that 
 agrees with both our positions. 
 
 42. But, added he, do not lovers use to take pleasure in pleasing one 
 another ? I can remember the time, says I, when the pleasure of pleasing 
 was my sweetest delight. Then, if you love me, should not you think of 
 something I can do to please you, that I may taste some of that sweetest de- 
 light ? You can do nothing to please me better than by improving my know- 
 ledge in any way you think proper : you know best how to choose. How 
 can I improve your knowledge, when I have none myself but of one tiling, 
 that I know nothing ? Then teach me to know the same of myself. Let 
 us consider first, what good it will do you : for you know we have not yet 
 settled whether a lover may please his paramour, unless in something that 
 will do him good at the same time. Well then, tell me what it is good for : 
 you must certainly know better than any other, because you were the sole 
 possessor of it. Nay, do not ask me, you know we agreed that you were 
 the wiser man. Very true, I had forgot that. To be sure, I have a vast 
 deal of wisdom in me, but I protest I do not know how to get a crumb 
 of it out. Then we must try to assist you in the delivery. Come, Mrs. 
 Lucina, to your office ; for you have raised a great rumbling within me, but 
 I cannot tell whether it be a true labour, or only a wind cholic. We shall 
 see that presently. Did not you desire me just now to improve your know- 
 ledge ? Yes. And you looked upon the improvement of your knowledge 
 as a good ? for the wisest man that ever lived would hardly have desired a 
 thing that was not good for him. Certainly, for I look upon the attainment 
 of useful knowledge as the greatest good that can befall a rational creature. 
 And you think yourself a rational creature ? I hope so : for I can walk 
 along without running against a post, and cut my meat without cutting 
 my fingers. Then you know how to cut your victuals without hurting your- 
 self ? It should seem so, for I practise it morning, noon, and night. 
 But tell me, is knowledge improved by learning what we are ignorant of, 
 or what we knew before ? What we were ignorant of. Suppose Hippias, 
 Prodicus, Protagoras, or some other of those great men, who understood 
 everything, and made themselves the admiration of all Greece, should come 
 down upon earth to read lectures in Gresham college ; and my cousin John 
 Locke should come and tell you, Ned Search, if you will go to Gresham 
 college to-day, you may hear an excellent lecture upon the art of cutting 
 one's meat without cutting one's fingers. You would go ? No sure : why 
 should I ? Nay, why should you not ? It is an excellent art, and saves a 
 man a great deal of smart and inconvenience. Very true : but I know that 
 art well enough already : I do not want to be taught it. But though you 
 have this art, yet if you did not know you had it, should you want to be 
 taught it ? Yes, certainly. And if there were any other art you were ig- 
 norant of, but did not know it, should you want to be taught ? I am afraid 
 not. Could you learn anything without wanting to be taught it ? Not 
 very well ; for if anybody went to teach me I should not attend to them. 
 And could you improve without learning ? Very indifferently. Can you 
 improve without first being ignorant of something ? There would be no 
 room for improvement in that case. Or without knowing you were igno- 
 rant of it ? Neither then, for I should fancy myself too wise to learn. 
 Then is not the knowledge of one's ignorance a necessary step towards 
 improvement ? I see plainly that it is. Arc not all sciences more produc-
 
 THE VISION. 459 
 
 live of good fruits the further they extend ? That is a natural consequence. 
 Then if you could know that you knew nothing, should not you always 
 want to be taught ? I suppose so. And always be ready for improve- 
 ment whenever it were to be had ? Well, says I, you have delivered me 
 of a hopeful issue, and I beg you will take care to nurse it up well. To 
 say truth, I have taken some pains in this science of ignorance below, and 
 examined myself as carefully to find out what I did not know as what I did. 
 I have made strange discoveries of my ignorance in points where one would 
 least have suspected it, but am afraid there are more behind, which I have 
 not yet found out : therefore should take it very kindly if you would teach 
 me the science completely. I cannot teach it, says he : nor can any mortal 
 beside. Where then did you learn it yourself? I was divinely inspired. 
 
 43. I never knew that before, says I. We were all willing to allow you 
 as much light as human reason can give, but we did not think you pre- 
 tended to revelations. Did you never hear that I had a Demon constantly 
 attending me ? Ay, but as we knew you were a joker, most of us thought 
 you in jest. The very orthodox divines insisted positively that you dealt 
 with the Devil, that you died an idolater, having in your last moments 
 directed the offering of a cock to Esculapius, that your virtues were so 
 many shining sins ; and demonstrated from thence that the very best of 
 heathens were under the power of Satan. Those who entertained the most 
 favourable opinion of you, could never believe you in earnest, for none of 
 us but would be frighted at the thought of having such an imp at his elbow. 
 I am surprised, says he, you should be so much afraid of them. Are they 
 not common among you ? So uncommon I do not know any body that 
 ever saw one. Strange ! It was the current persuasion among the Searches 
 in my time, that Jove sent down his guardian Demon to every man to pro- 
 tect and warn him against mischief. Do you never hear their voices ? 
 Never myself : nor did I ever meet a man in his senses who said he had. 
 I know a madman who sees and hears them too very frequently. Recol- 
 lect yourself. Did you never meet with a person when most in his sober 
 senses, who, after having acted very wrong, complained that something 
 upbraided and stung and pricked him sorely ? Here Locke whispered me. 
 Do not you understand him now ? I think I do, says I, but not perfectly. 
 Then turning to Socrates, I said, Now you put me in mind of it, I have 
 heard of such things, and our doctors tell us from the pulpit that they hap- 
 pen very frequently. And do you think, says he, that Demon gives these 
 prickings only to torment the patient, or for his benefit, to make him take 
 better heed for the future to his first admonitions when he is going to do a 
 wrong thing ? For the latter cause. Then why should you think him an 
 imp of Satan ? would Satan do anything to overthrow his own kingdom ? 
 We are told not, upon the best authority. Should you not rather esteem 
 him a faithful monitor sent by Jove in kindness to mortals ? I see no reason 
 against it. But some I have heard of play him a scurvy trick, for they 
 sear their flesh with a hot iron, which makes it insensible to his prickings. 
 Did you ever know them get any good by this trick ? Never, for they 
 always run into grievous disorders, or drew themselves into inextricable 
 mischiefs. But you yourself, when you have been eagerly set upon some 
 fancy, did you never hear a secret whispering that you had better desist ? 
 Many a time. And in the course of your meditations, when some thought 
 has come strongly upon you with the glare of a demonstration, have you 
 never perceived the like whisper to beware ? More than once. What did 
 you do thereupon ? Revise it more carefully. And what was the conse-
 
 460 THE VISION. 
 
 quence ? Either I discovered it to be fallacious or found some better bottom 
 to build it upon. And when in pursuing the light of nature, you have 
 stooped down to pick up something very shining have you not heard the still 
 voice pronounce the words Offence or Dangerous ? Yes, and have sup- 
 pressed many things upon that admonition, and perhaps should have sup- 
 pressed more had I as quick an ear to hear the voice as you. 
 
 44. But I have some doubt, continued I, whether I know the right voice 
 from all others, because it seems to speak to me in a different manner from 
 what it used to you. I cannot think myself more highly favoured by Heaven 
 
 than you, although you were never christened according Hush ! hush ! 
 
 the Demon whispers Offence. Then I must suppress something. And yet 
 my Demon seems to be more friendly than yours : for that only dissuaded 
 and never impelled you to anything ; but sometimes when a laudable action 
 has occurred to my thoughts, and a humour of indolence has withholden me 
 from entering into it, the Demon has instigated and never left me quiet till 
 I bestirred myself. Should you not have bestirred yourself without him, if 
 that humour of indolence had not stood in the way ? I suppose I should. 
 Then did he need to do anything more than dissuade you from indulging 
 that humour ? Why no, as you say, I think he did not need. But what 
 then impelled me to the action ? Might it not be some inclination or ap- 
 petite ? I flatter myself it was a virtue, but virtue cannot be the same with 
 appetite, because its office lies in controlling and restraining them. Do you 
 remember what the divine Plato told you just now ? Very well : I have 
 not lost a word of it. Did not he say the virtues grew out of the wild stocks 
 thrown up by nature ? He did. And may not the grafts partake some- 
 thing of the stocks that nourish them ? So the gardeners agree. Then 
 may not the virtues grow into appetites ? I don't know. That seems too 
 hasty a conclusion. Did you never hear of a hunger and thirst after righ- 
 teousness ? Yes, ex Cathedra. Are not hunger and thirst appetites ? 
 Undoubtedly. And are not that hunger and thirst virtues ? That nobody 
 can deny. Did not Plato tell you that Thalassian Venus grafted many 
 scions upon the wild stocks in Psyche's garden ? I remember it very well. 
 And Urania grafted more ? He said that too. And you allow that after 
 taking strong hold of the stocks, they become appetites ? We may allow 
 that of the rest, as well as the hunger and thirst you mentioned. Then 
 Psyche having so many appetites, natural and acquired, need never want a 
 whet to action of every kind. Why no, it should seem she need not. Did 
 you never know these last-mentioned scions run luxuriant, and shoot into 
 extravagance ? We have numberless instances of that below in our me- 
 thodists, devotees, and very sentimental super-refined ladies. But tell me 
 now from your own experience, for you have some of those scions in your 
 own garden. Some few, I hope, but feeble enough, God knows. Well, 
 but feeble as they are, did you never observe them sprouting into an extra- 
 vagance ? Sometimes, to my shame be it spoken. What do you think put 
 you upon observing it ? The whispers of the Demon. Since we have agreed 
 there is such continual excitement to action of all kinds by the appetites, 
 what has the Demon left to do unless to dissuade when any of them urge to 
 things improper ? Nothing else that I know of. But now you have con- 
 vinced me there are several voices within us, how shall I know the voice of 
 appetite from that of the Demon ? Did you never perceive a difference in 
 the voices you hear ? One recommends to good, the other to pleasure. 
 That is not it : for good and pleasure are sometimes the same, and appetite 
 often urges to good. But do not you perceive the voice is sometimes quick,
 
 THE VISION. 461 
 
 eager, vehement, and clamorous, at others sedate, soft, and gentle ; that 
 sometimes it impels to gratification, at others, checks and restrains ? And 
 do not you think these the proper marks to distinguish between them ? 
 
 45. But come, now, answer me once more. Do you remember when 
 the Thalassian Cupids sported around you, before they were disciplined in 
 the school of Hymen ? Ay, as well as if it were yesterday. In those days, 
 if you chanced to walk in the Park and were told Euridice was there, have 
 you not sometimes run eagerly after some other person at a distance dressed 
 like her ? Those accidents would happen now and then. And after the 
 Uranian Cupids came to inspire you with a love of mankind, have not you 
 run almost as eagerly after some shining truth that appeared self-evident ? 
 Many a time and oft. Or to come with the force of demonstration ? 
 Yes. Or some useful and important discovery ? Ay, and that too. And 
 in those cases did you never hear the whisper ? Several times. You said 
 that upon such admonitions you revise the thought over again. What fol- 
 lows thereupon ? Generally I find the appearance fallacious or the discovery 
 trifling. But before the whisper you knew the truth, the demonstration, and 
 the use for certain ? As certainly as any Knowal. And after the revisal 
 you knew that you did not know it ? I did. Then since you have this way 
 to learn the science of ignorance, why do you come to me to teach you, and 
 not rather apply to the Heaven-born Teacher sent down on purpose from 
 Jove ? I see, says I, you have a very peculiar turn : you will not give a 
 man a drop of drink if he be ever so dry, but you lead one round through a 
 number of intricate mazes to the fountain where one may quench one's 
 thirst. 
 
 But I want your assistance upon occasion of a voice I hear just now. 
 Which sort was it ? Oh ! the eager and clamorous. What did it say ? 
 That I should make a visit to the Founder What says the still voice ? 
 Something, but I cannot tell what. Cannot you tell whether it says For- 
 bear ? No, that is not the word, I am sure : nor can I make out any other. 
 Shall I try my Demon ? They all speak the same language, though they 
 are not equally heard by everybody. Oh ! now I have it. Well, what does 
 yours say ? Mine says Listen. Oh ! that is that we should be attentive 
 not to drop a word of anything the Master delivers. No, that would have 
 come from the other voice. You know the Demon never impels, but only 
 checks. What does he mean then by Listen ? That you should not pick 
 up everything delivered, but listen carefully to himself in case he should 
 whisper the word Offence. I'll do as well as I can, but sometimes my ears 
 are a little dinny. Oh ! now I hear the loud voice again urging me to go 
 this minute. What says the other ? He is quite silent. So is mine : there- 
 fore get ye gone, there is no time to lose. But will not you go with me ? 
 I am loath to lose your agreeable company. The Demon will not let me, 
 but he gives my scholar leave : he has an interest with the Master by means 
 of his disciple Timacus. Then Plato offered his service in the politest man- 
 ner imaginable : Locke took me in tow, and after taking an amorous leave 
 with By'e sweet Socrates, and By'e little Searchy, remember me and my 
 Demon when you go down to earth again ; we parted to set out for the 
 school of the Saurian sage. 
 
 46. My conductors informed me as we went along, that Pythagoras gene- 
 rally resides in the intermundane spaces, for the convenience of hearing the 
 music of the several spheres on all sides of him in full concert : but he was 
 now come down upon some particular occasion below the orbit of Mars, so 
 we should not have a great way to go. This was all the discourse they had
 
 462 THE VISION. 
 
 with me upon the road, for the rest of the way they entertained one another. 
 I could not hear the particulars of their conversation, but found it turned 
 upon forms and ideas, which Plato seemed to hold as unproduced and exis- 
 tent from all eternity in the Divine Mind ; and the forms in bodies and 
 ideas in created minds were copies of those archetypes, similar to impressions 
 made in wax by a stamp. Locke could not admit them to be unproduced, 
 for that, he said, implied two principles, an unsentient nature to whose 
 impressions the Deity must be passive : nor could he conceive that every 
 time a man moulded a round piece of wax into a square, or entertained 
 ideas of theft, adultery, or murder, these alterations were impressions 
 made from archetypes in the divine mind. Their debate was carried 
 on in a friendly manner without the least warmth or acrimony, and at 
 last they agreed those subjects were too deep for them to fathom. They then 
 praised God who had given his several creatures capacities sufficient for their 
 respective uses, if they would but make a good use of them, and placed out 
 of their reach only such points as were merely speculative. 
 
 Scarce had they made this reflection before we arrived at the place of our 
 destination. We beheld the venerable Father of Philosophy dictating his 
 precepts to a crowded audience with the authority of a magistrate. He ap- 
 peared in a human form, like that the painters have drawn for Olympian 
 Jupiter : his locks rising in large curls, his eye-brows thick and dark, his as- 
 pect majestic with the solemnity and mysteriousness of one who had been 
 used to govern an ignorant and barbarous people. I looked earnestly for 
 his golden thigh, but his robes, made I suppose of aerial woof, covering him 
 quite down to the feet, I could not so much as see whether he had a golden 
 toe. On Plato appearing, the obsequious drowd gave way, and he whis- 
 pered Timseus that here was a stranger just arrived extraordinarily from 
 earth, whose stay was very short, who had come upon the recommenda- 
 tion of Socrates, the son of Sophroniscus, with an earnest and humble desire 
 to receive some sprinklings of his wisdom to carry down for the benefit 
 of mortals below. As soon as Timseus delivered his message the sage 
 gave a gracious nod, like that wherewith Jupiter shook Olympus, on 
 granting the request of Thetis, and with something like a smile began. 
 
 47 . Adore the sacred Quaternion : the Quaternion containeth under it 
 One, Two, and Three ; but One, Two, Three, and Four compose Ten, and 
 from Tens are all higher numbers produced. The Quaternion Four alone 
 is One and uncompounded. One had no father, but One produced numbers, 
 and numbers are all things. One is unchangeable, but numbers generate 
 numbers, they fluctuate and migrate into one another : yet they perish not, 
 neither was there a time when they were not. Whatever creepeth, or 
 walketh, or swimmeth, or flieth, or thinketh, was produced by the first num- 
 bers, and the first numbers subsisted by the power of One. 
 
 Hearken unto me for I am ancient : I was Panthoides Euphorbus at the 
 Trojan war, slain by Menelaus fighting in defence of my country ; yet he 
 could not destroy me nor hurt my country, neither remove me from it. I 
 have known all things except One, but One is inscrutable. 
 
 Revere the Oath, For the Oath cometh from One, and bindeth all things : 
 it cannot be broken, neither is it good that it should be broken. 
 
 Stand firm upon the golden thigh : let that be thy support : nevertheless 
 use also the thigh of flesh when thou goest forth among men. 
 
 Purify the ears of thine understanding that thou mayest hear the music of 
 the spheres, for their harmony is melodious to the adepts, but the vulgar 
 hear not their sound.
 
 THE VISION. 468 
 
 Worship the immortal Gods according to the rights of thy country : for 
 the same Gods made the wise and the ignorant, and thou thyself, if thou 
 hast a thigh of gold, hast also another of flesh, neither livest thou for thy- 
 self, nor by thyself. 
 
 48. The gaping crowd listened with a kind of stupid astonishment. Some 
 still held their mouths open, as if not knowing whether the Master had 
 done or not. Timseus, Charondas, Zamolxis and the adepts, seemed all the 
 while thinking on something else. Plato, like a complete courtier, joined 
 with the many in expressions of wonder and admiration. And Locke, having 
 observed something in my countenance that excited him strongly to laughter, 
 was forced to draw in his head a moment for fear of scandalizing the com- 
 pany. But as the vehicles have a great command over their imagination, 
 he very soon thrust it out again, and asked me with a very grave face, 
 Whether I did not find myself prodigiously illumined. Illumined! says I ; 
 ay, with such a glare as dazzles me quite, for I can see nothing. I am as 
 much mortified now as when Socrates played me off with his irony. Cer- 
 tainly great grandpapa sees I am a degenerate brat, not fit to be trusted 
 with a little common sense, that he puts me off with his Rosycrucian jargon. 
 Why I know no more what he has been talking about than the man in the 
 moon. Oh ! says Locke, this is only the bark : perhaps we may get the 
 pith by and by. He always talks mysteriously till he knows people very 
 well. I fancy they have given him an imperfect account of you ; but I will 
 try to get speech with him if I can to set matters right. 
 
 He then by the interposition of Plato and Timseus requested a private 
 audience. The Master bared his bosom that Locke might apply his vehicle, 
 and they had a conference together in the sentient language : after which, 
 the Master, first mumbling a few words to himself, such as Light of Na- 
 ture ; microscope ! Mundane Soul ! One self- existent ! cried out with a loud 
 voice, Hence ye profane. Let not the uninitiated approach the sacred mys- 
 teries. Ye that are pure in heart and clean in hands draw near ; that have 
 kept the five years' silence : that have lifted up your minds above the earth 
 upon the wings of contemplation : that have cleansed your mental eye from 
 the films of superstition and obstructions of self-conceit, so that it can bear 
 to look against the light. 
 
 Come, says Locke, now we may expect something a little more intelli- 
 gible : he always makes this preface before he brings out his esoterics. As 
 soon as this edict was pronounced, I perceived a great bustle among the com- 
 pany : all who were conscious of not being adepts slunk away one after an- 
 other and our number dwindled strangely. Seeing some of great repute 
 below both for learning and piety march off, and fancying somebody whis- 
 pered the words Mallebranche, Dacier, practice of piety, Beveridge, Whole 
 Duty of Man, as they passed, I thought it decent to withdraw too ; but it 
 was out of my power, for having not yet learned to go, I was forced to 
 lie wherever my nurse laid me down. Locke observed my perplexity. 
 Prithee, aays he, do not be disturbed : this lecture is on purpose for you. 
 I told him you had kept more than a five years' silence, having never 
 spoken till you were about fifty years old : that you had conversed with 
 bigots and free-thinkers, without being perverted by either, and that you 
 had been initiated in the mysteries. Thank ye, says I : but I wish you 
 could prove your words true. Hush ! quoth he, the oracle begins to break 
 forth. 
 
 49. Attend and learn. The Quaternion is the holy Tetragrammaton, the 
 :ame awful name variously pronounced among the sons of men : whether Jeva,
 
 464 THE VISION. 
 
 Isis, Jove, Qeos, Zeus, or Deus ; or hi modern times, Tien, Alia, Dios, Idio, 
 Dieu, or Lord ; for these are all Tetragrammata. I speak not of Olympian 
 nor Dodonean Jove, nor him the son of Chronos, but of the Uranian, whose 
 offspring Chronos was. Uranian Jove alone is one, unproduced, without 
 father, containing all powers within himself. All things beside are num- 
 bers : the Mundane soul is a multitude : the immortal Gods are portions 
 thereof : the bodies thou seest are divisible into numberless atoms : men 
 and animals are the divine particles mingled with lumps of clay ; our vehi- 
 cles contain a number of threads and fibres. 
 
 Jove produced the two first numbers, the Mundane soul and Hyle : he 
 made Hyle inert and stupid, but to the Mundane soul he gave activity and 
 understanding. They both depend on him for their Being and subsistence, 
 nevertheless, there was not a time when they were not : for an effect may 
 be as old as the cause, yea must be as old as the concurrence of all the 
 causes requisite to produce it. Their production cost Jove no time nor 
 trouble, nor did he from everlasting want power to produce them. Love 
 or glory moved him to the work, but Jove is unchangeable, nor has there 
 been a moment in all eternity wherein he was destitute of love or glory. 
 Those two first numbers extend throughout all the immensity of the uni- 
 verse, but Hyle bears no greater proportion therein to Soul than the drops 
 in a cyathus to the waters of the ocean. 
 
 Jove from everlasting disposed Hyle in certain characters expressive of 
 his Will, which the Mundane soul reading therein, gathered the portions of 
 Hyle dispersed up and down, into regular systems and worlds, formed 
 thereout organizations of men, animals, insects, and plants, and lodged in 
 each of them a particle of its own substance. Hence it is that men and 
 animals perceive, and see, and feel, and act : for Hyle, however nicely 
 arranged, can neither perceive nor act, but the particle of divine air en- 
 closed therein perceives and acts according to the objects exhibited, and 
 instruments at hand for it to employ. 
 
 The Mundane soul is homogeneous throughout, therefore the divine par- 
 ticles drawn from thence have all intrinsically the same nature, and stand 
 differently capacitated according to the finer or grosser contextures of Hyle 
 investing them : for the various degrees of percipience, sense, or rationality, 
 arise from the action of Hyle upon them. If thou doubtest of this, con- 
 sider what the brightest genius could do confined within the dull organs of 
 an oyster : why then shouldst thou impute the stupidity of the oyster to its 
 natural incapacity, rather than to the darkness of the habitation wherein it 
 dwells ? or how canst thou pronounce what the sentient principle of the 
 oyster might not perceive if it had all the ideas of a man to survey ? In 
 plants there are channels of perception, but no instruments of volition, so 
 their activity lies dormant in them : neither do they feel pain upon amputa- 
 tion of their limbs, for pain would be useless as warning them against mis- 
 chiefs they cannot avoid. And they have different*mundane particles in the 
 several parts of their composition, so that there may be one for every offset 
 planted from them. 
 
 But thou, O man, who pridest thyself upon thy reason, and expectest to 
 be raised one day to the intelligence of an angel, wilt not conceive that a 
 creature like thee can be debased to the condition of an insect or a vegetable. 
 Reflect with thyself what thou art when asleep, how little better than a 
 stone, insensible and motionless like that. What wert thou in the cradle ? 
 sleeping, feeding, and crying, with less signs of rationality than the brutes 
 thou dcspisest. What wert thou in the womb growing like a plant from
 
 THE VISION. 4G5 
 
 the umbilical root, and receiving a few perceptions but performing- nothing. 
 The modern discoveries of animalcules by the microscope show, that before 
 conception thou wert a little frisking worm, of less consequence in nature 
 than the pismire and the mite. 
 
 50. The Mundane soul read in the characters inscribed by Jove, that 
 there should be various states of life, various forms of Being, and prepared 
 and sustaineth them accordingly : some with a mixture of evil, and some 
 yielding nothing else. Individuals change, but the species remain con- 
 stantly the same : and as the systems they inhabit are broken up, others 
 are formed for their reception. The divine particles migrate from the 
 Mundane soul into those states, each taking his turn in rotation that the 
 fate of all may be equal ; and he that passes through a more inconvenient 
 state at one migration, takes the better at another. But as the particles in 
 the Mundane soul are infinitely more numerous than those immersed in 
 Hyle, they pass millions of years before it comes to their turn to migrate 
 again, and all that interval they remain happy and immortal. For though 
 the continuance in some of these states be an eternity to the spirits inha- 
 biting them, who know nothing of their Pre-existence, and scarce anything 
 of their Post-existence, yet the Mundane soul, to whom a thousand years 
 appear as one day, looks upon these migrations no more as a supension of 
 its immortality than a man esteems the suspension of enjoyments by a 
 night's sleep a discontinuance of his life. Thus life is a journey through 
 the vale of mortality, but the deliverance from Hyle a return home and re- 
 surrection to immortality again. 
 
 Therefore the Mundane soul, having found permission in the characters 
 written by Jove, contrived to shorten the passage through Hyle as much 
 as possible : many children escape from the cradle, and bringing no con- 
 cretions into the vehicular state, obtain their advancement the sooner : 
 many foetuses never come to the birth, and multitudes of animalcules never 
 arrive to the stage of a foetus : these all regain their native seats directly, 
 without passing through any other forms. The migration is not out of one 
 species into another, but each species contains several stages : for the divine 
 particle or Psyche, upon being first discerped from the Mundane soul to 
 immerge into Hyle, receives a fine integument thereof; wherewith being 
 enveloped she becomes an animalcule. This is her first stage, and many 
 times the integument bursts before she arrives at any other : if it does not, 
 she roams about until she finds a proper nidus wherein she nestles, whereto 
 adhering and uniting as a part of the same composition she becomes an egg, 
 or a foetus, and the foetus being in due time excluded becomes an animal. 
 If the nidus being young, the adhesion close and strong, it chances to be 
 dissolved by some disease or accident, it tears open the fine integument too, 
 and sets Psyche at liberty : but if the animal holds out its period of life, the 
 integument gradually loosens, and disengages itself from the gross outer 
 covering, and upon dissolution thereof issues forth entire, but a little altered 
 in its contexture, and distended so as to be incapable of re-entering a nidus 
 of the same or any other species, and remains naked without any covering 
 of the grosser Hyle for an appointed time, which is the last stage of the 
 journey. But in whatever stage the first integument breaks asunder, Psyche 
 becomes reabsorbed into the ocean from whence she sprung. Therefore the 
 most desirable thing for Psyche would be not to have been born at all, and 
 the next desirable to have died as soon as born. 
 
 Nor think thou, vain man, that thine is the most favoured state, or that 
 
 vol. i. 2 H
 
 4G6 THE VISION. 
 
 thou alone hast an interest in futurity. Knowestthou not that some animals 
 drag on a life of labour, pain, distress, and misery ? which thou canst not 
 say they brought upon themselves by the abuse of their indifference ; for 
 this thou claimest as a privilege peculiar to thyself. Does not then the 
 justice, the equity, the goodness of Jove require, that amends should be 
 made them elsewhere ? Psyche wishes most to pass through the species of 
 short-lived animals, that her return maybe the sooner : therefore the Mun- 
 dane soul has provided infinitely greater multitudes of them than of the 
 human and longevous. Thus Psyche has many short excursions to one long 
 journey : for she must migrate successively through the several species of 
 insects, animals, and men, savage or civilized, but after immense intervals 
 between each migration. 
 
 51. I was Panthoides Euphorbus who fought in the Trojan war: not 
 that sung by Homer, but another in another world innumerable ages be- 
 fore. The spear of the younger Atrides could not destroy nor remove me 
 from my country, but advanced me one step towards it : for my country is 
 the Mundane soul. During my long residence there I contemplated the 
 Universe : I surveyed the systems, their order, and courses : mine eye 
 penetrated into the minute portions of Hyle, their properties, and opera- 
 tions. I comprehended all things, all except the One : but the One is 
 inscrutable, dwelling in unaccessible light, whither the intelligence of num- 
 bers cannot approach. Nevertheless, I beheld clearly the image of his 
 splendour in the characters marked upon Hyle, in the powers and excellen- 
 cies of the Mundane substance around me. 
 
 52. Reverence the Oath, for it is the Oath of Jove. Hast thou not heard 
 how Jove made a covenant with man, that day and night, summer and 
 winter, seed-time and harvest, should never fail ? This is but one article 
 of the covenant which the One made from everlasting with the first num- 
 bers : and he confirmed it with an oath : but having none greater to swear 
 by, he sware by himself. As I live, saith the One, my order of succession 
 shall not fail, neither shall my words pass away. Am I a man that I 
 should change, or the son of man that I should repent ? Behold now, the 
 laws of nature which I have established, they shall not be broken : the 
 mazes of fortune I have planned out, they shall not be obstructed : the 
 measures of good and evil which I have set, they shall not be altered. 
 Systems shall be formed and dissolved again, each succeeding the other : 
 various forms of Being provided, the number and length of their stages, 
 with everything befalling in them, duly regulated by the courses of nature 
 and fortune : the Mundane substance assigned its proper migrations after 
 stated intervals. 
 
 If I have interspersed a small portion of evil among my works, it is for 
 the greater good to redound therefrom : for as I live, saith the One, I have 
 no pleasure in the sufferings of my Numbers, but that they should enjoy 
 and praise me for their Being. I have contrived my Order in wisdom and 
 loving-kindness, and directed my second causes to operate ultimately for 
 their benefit. This my percipient first number knoweth, and obeyeth my 
 voice gladly. When Psyche lies immersed deepest in Hyle, I afford her 
 such lights through the chinks of sense and appetite as direct her to serve 
 my purposes unknowingly : if I open the windows of reason, then Psyche 
 can discern good and evil, and I leave it in her power to choose between 
 them ; nevertheless, however she shall choose, she cannot defeat my de- 
 signs, but promotes them when she least intends it, for I compass them 
 secretly by ways she knows not of. I govern all things above and below,
 
 THE VISION. 467 
 
 Hyle by impulse, the Mundane soul by understanding and motives : I know 
 certainly how every cause will operate, so that nothing falls out contrary to 
 my Will. I have reserved the dispensation of evil to myself, for I alone 
 know how to produce good out of it : let not Psyche presume to interfere 
 with my prerogative. 
 
 If any provision of nature terminate ultimately in evil, I will interpose 
 in good time with my almighty power for the deliverance of Psyche ; but 
 let her beware how she brings evil upon herself or her fellows, for though 
 offences must needs come, woe be to them by whom they come ; for I have 
 marked out a secret path in the courses of nature, by which Nemesis shall 
 overtake them, and overwhelm them with greater evils than they have 
 occasioned ; and the slower the steps of Nemesis are, the larger flood will 
 she gather. Attend, O, Psyche, to the terms of my Oath : where thou un- 
 derstandest them not, I will not be severe to mark what is amiss, I will 
 even bring strength out of thy weakness, wisdom out of thy foolishness, 
 and success out of thy misconduct ; but where thou discernest whither 
 they direct, Reverence and Obey, lest mischief come upon thee. 
 
 53. Thus said the One : and it behoves Psyche to observe diligently what 
 nature requires, especially her own nature, and examine to what uses her 
 several faculties are applicable. The faculty of reason she will find emi- 
 nently precious and solid above the rest, as gold is above other metals. 
 This then is the golden thigh, whereon only thou mayst stand firmly ; let 
 this therefore be the support of thy meditations, the basis of thy conduct, 
 the pillar whereon thou raisest thy schemes : nevertheless, when thou goest 
 forth into the world, use also thy thigh of flesh, that thou mayst walk with 
 freedom and conform thyself to the motions of others. 
 
 When retired from the noisy world thou standest upon thy golden thigh, 
 thou mayst contemplate the regularity of the heavenly systems, their com- 
 plicated motions, swift and slow, making an admirable harmony, singing 
 forth the praises and magnificence of Jove. Thou mayst then turn thine 
 ears upon earth and observe how the discordant passions, jarring interests, 
 and opposite views of men combine to maintain order in communities, and 
 work agreement out of that which seemed the most unlikely to produce it, 
 Thou mayst attend to the windings of fortune, wherein events appearing 
 the most harsh and grating to your wishes often terminate in a perfect 
 concord, and unexpectedly bring on a close most contenting to the mind. 
 
 i>4. Worship the immortal Gods according to the rites of thy country: 
 let this be thy general rule, nor admit thou exceptions without urgent 
 cause. Rites are indifferent in themselves, and may be turned as well to 
 good as bad purposes : popular doctrines are for the most part figurative, 
 and may by proper interpretation be accommodated to sound reason. The 
 same Jove made the adept and the ignorant ; he careth equally for all his 
 works ; he gave forms and ceremonies to the vulgar : do not despise what 
 thou thinkest needless to thyself. Yet neither be they wholly needless even 
 to thee, for if thou hast a thigh of gold thou hast also another of flesh, a 
 vulgar part in thy composition : nor is it given to mortal Psyche to guide 
 all her steps by reason alone. Remember, thou livest not by thyself nor 
 for thyself : if thou hast knowledge keep to thyself that which would hurt 
 another : dispense to every one discreetly what will do him benefit, and in 
 a manner he can understand and relish : delight not to thwart the concep 
 tions of others, but turn them gently the way that will be most advantage- 
 ous to them ; neither regard the lawful only, but also the Expedient,
 
 468 THE VISION. 
 
 55. The Master then withdrew himself into his vehicle, gathering his 
 vestments around him ; so that he looked like a portmanteau lying under a 
 heap of clothes. Plato, after making a handsome compliment to Tima-us 
 for his good offices, told us we had nothing more to do but return home 
 again. So we set off directly, and as I expressed a desire of conversing 
 with them upon the way, they contrived a method of carrying me, by which 
 I might do it more commodiously : for taking me each under one arm they 
 placed me in the middle on a level with themselves. In this manner we went 
 on, all three making one compact body with two legs only for steerage of 
 the whole : Plato skated upon the right hand ray, and Locke upon the left. 
 I asked Locke whether he intended to send down all he had heard to Gellius. 
 Ay, to be sure, says he. Why not ? Nay, says I, only because I thought 
 two or three times while the master was speaking that the Demon whis- 
 pered Offence. Well then, says he, tell me those passages where you 
 heard the whisper, and we will leave them out. Come, why do not you 
 begin ? I was going, says I, but he checked me again. I do not know 
 what to do, he puzzles me so with contradictory directions. It is my opi- 
 nion, says Locke, that we send all down, but you reserve them for your 
 private use until you can get some friends to consult their Demons, who 
 perhaps may be more explicit. Oh! now, says I, he says Listen. Very 
 well, says Locke, that is a sign we are to follow our impulse for the present, 
 only holding ourselves upon the watch for future admonitions. 
 
 56. I then desired, the Demon not forbidding, to know whether I might 
 not be introduced to some of the Apostles. No, says Locke, that you can- 
 not, for they, having gone through severe trials below, were all advanced 
 long before I came up. Perhaps my partner may tell you something of 
 them. They did not much care to converse with us, says Plato, for they 
 could not quite get rid of that shyness remaining from the notion they had 
 first entertained below of our being reprobates and unclean, before Peter's 
 vision of the sheet taught them otherwise. The last who stayed was the 
 Cilician of Tarsus, detained by some acrimonious concretions he had con- 
 tracted before his initiation. He could not help sometimes cursing and calling 
 names : if anybody vexed him he would say, Thou hast done me much wrong, 
 the Lord reward thee according to thy doings ; or at other times, God smite 
 thee, thou whited wall. Upon one of us asking him civilly to explain what 
 was a spiritual body, he replied, Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not 
 quickened except it die. I tell thee there is a natural body, and there is a 
 spiritual body. 
 
 He had great knowledge, but no very happy facility in expressing him- 
 self; so though he was fond of disputing among us, we were very little 
 edified, for he talked in a language peculiar to himself ; till we put him in 
 mind of his own rule, Become all things to all men, if by any means thou 
 mayst gain some : he then began to conform himself to our ideas and 
 figures, and when we could understand him we learned a great deal from 
 him. He then owned that he had received heavenly gifts in earthen ves- 
 sels, and though the liquor was not at all impaired thereby in substance or 
 virtue, it might get some twang of the vessel. His education at the feet of 
 Gamaliel led him, and the general taste of his countrymen obliged him, to 
 deal in far-fetched, extravagant figures, which, as that taste subsided, lost 
 all resemblance with the things signified, but were understood literally, 
 thereby leading men quite wide of his meaning, involving them in useless 
 subtilties, inextricable difficulties, and endless disputes. If he had stayed 
 among us till my brother Locke here came up, he would certainly have been
 
 THE VISION. 469 
 
 a great favourite with him. I am persuaded he would have said nobody 
 understood him so well since his own immediate scholars. 
 
 I flatter myself he would not have disapproved the thoughts I delivered 
 when you first did me the honour to consult me. Perhaps he might have 
 enlarged a little further, for besides the two celestial Goddesses I spoke of, 
 he would have added two more, a pair of twins named Eisorosis and Pistis. 
 Eisorosis, he said, remained always above to attend upon the Gods, and 
 Pistis always below to succour mortal Psyche. She was of enormous 
 strength, capable to remove mountains ; and invincible courage, so as to 
 pass through fire and endure tortures without changing countenance. When 
 the car was overturned and Psyche dragged amongst briars, stories, and 
 mire, he said no other power could rescue her besides Pistis ; for Urania 
 would not descend unless called by her. While Psyche holds fast upon her, 
 HO perils can hurt, no terrors dismay her. She carries an Eisoptron which, 
 whenever Psyche looks too earnestly upon the ground, she holds under her 
 and gives her by reflection therein a glimpse of the Glories above. He 
 would not have omitted the golden anchor, only differed a little from us in 
 the shape, for he said it was made like a cross, such as was used for the 
 execution of malefactors, and that the three Goddesses mounting Psyche 
 thereon proceeded with her through the Vehicular regions until they came 
 to the gates of Heaven ; where Elpis and Pistis, delivering over their 
 charge to Eisorosis, descended again, but Urania entered with her into the 
 blessed abodes. This Pistis was a great favourite of his, and he lamented 
 grievously on hearing accounts from below that mankind had worshipped a 
 counterfeit in her stead. 
 
 This Pseudo-pistis was a most furious power, imperious, violent, and 
 cruel, carrying scourges, swords, and firebrands, to take vengeance of any 
 that but dared to cast a disrespectful look upon her. She showed frightful 
 images of dungeons, flames, and spectres, in her Eisoptron, and while Psyche 
 was terrified in looking at them, she picked her pocket and sometimes 
 stripped the clothes off her back. She practised a thousand frantic tricks 
 and absurdities, till she became a laughing-stock to the scoffers. He said she 
 might easily be distinguished from the genuine, being always accompanied 
 by ambition, tyranny, vanity, avarice, luxury, or some of the infernal train : 
 whereas the true Pistis never appeared far asunder from Urania. And she 
 did everything by dint of arbitrary command, obligation, fear, and terror : 
 whereas the real Pistis employed fear only as an instrument to work the be- 
 ginning of wisdom, but when Urania took possession of the car, fear was 
 banished quite away. What then, asked I, do you think he would have 
 said of our modern methodists, who pretend to quote him for their asser- 
 tion that, provided a man believes himself one of the elect, it is not a farthing 
 matter what his morals are ? Perhaps, replied Plato, he would have an- 
 swered, Thou fool, knowest thou not that faith is manifested by works, as 
 the tree by its fruit ? and that health of mind as well as body is preserved 
 sound by constant exercise of outward actions ? Socrates used to be much 
 delighted with his description of the Uranian Venus. I do not doubt bufc 
 you remember it. Pray, says I to Locke, where is that ? In the thirteenth 
 to the Corinthians, says he. 
 
 57. The obliging Gentleman-philosopher proceeded to some other of his 
 doctrines, which he explained after his own manner: but the ancient style 
 and philosophy differing a little from the modern, I could not always com- 
 prehend him, till Locke explained them further in a manner accommodated 
 to the present Theory. I would gladly relate what wj.s said by -them both,
 
 470 THE VISION. 
 
 for the Cilician doctrines interpreted by philosophers cannot fail of being 
 very curious and instructive ; but to my great regret I cannot recollect it 
 yet. For Gellius, finding my sensory fill apace and not knowing how much 
 more there might be to come, interlined these discourses, which he, being a 
 heathen and a man of weak judgment, looked upon as matters of no great 
 importance, in very small characters between the former writing : so that 
 the inner membrane I carried with me being not yet fallen into the fine 
 strokes of these little letters, I cannot possibly read them. But perhaps 
 some time or other it may have worked in so that I may discern them plain 
 enough, if not to transcribe, at least to recover the main sense and sub- 
 stance of them. 
 
 The next legible writing recounts that Locke and I, having dropped Plato 
 at the Grecian quarter, came back to the place from whence we set out. 
 As we passed along, after thanking my patron for the favours he had pro- 
 cured for me from the ancient sages, I added that if it was not trespassing 
 too much upon his goodness I would beg an introduction to one of the 
 moderns. Whom would you see ? says he. There are but few of them 
 within reach : for being new inhabitants here, they are gone to visit the 
 regions round about ; as your young gentlemen below are exhorted to tra- 
 vel for the finishing part of their education. Newton is run after the great 
 comet that appeared in 1685, to try the justness of his calculations upon its 
 trajectory. Huygens has undertaken a longer journey to measure the dis- 
 tance, magnitude, and brightness, of the Dog-star. Theory Burnet set out 
 upon a visit to Jupiter, as being an earth in its antediluvian state. He wants 
 to peep into the great hole Astronomers observe there, in hopes of seeing the 
 great abyss beneath, and remarking how the earth stands in the water and 
 out of the water. He then goes to Saturn to examine whether the ring be 
 not a part of the paradisiacal crust not yet broken in. Whiston is engaged 
 in a wild-goose chase among all the comets, to find which of them will 
 bring on the conflagration, that he may calculate precisely in what year the 
 Millennium begins, wherein he is to be chief Messenger, Arch-bishop, 
 Metropolitan, and Primate of all the new earth. And the rest, almost all, 
 are dispersed abroad, one way or other, in quest of some discovery hitting 
 their fancy. Oh ! says I, it was none of those you named: though I should 
 like well enough to have a conversation with them, but we shall not have 
 time for everthing. The person I thought of was the famous German 
 professor Stahl. That is lucky, says Locke, for he being of very heavy 
 phlegmatic temperament, has not learned to go yet, so we shall be sure of 
 finding him at home. 
 
 But what can you want with him ? Sure you do not design to study 
 Physic at these years. No, no, says I. I know more of that science 
 than Socrates' one thing, and if I should dabble in it now, I might lose 
 that single point of knowledge, and chance to quack myself into distempers. 
 But as he has joined natural philosophy with medicine, I was curious to try 
 whether some improvements might not be gotten from him, and have -read 
 so much of his True medical Theory as relates to subjects in my way; as 
 likewise his controversial tract, entitled the Idle Business, alias the Shadow- 
 fight : but can make neither head nor tail of them. Yet I am the less mor- 
 tified because I find other people cannot agree what his opinions were, and 
 therefore some of them must have misunderstood him. Boerhave makes 
 him hold, that the mother's imagination forms the fetus. Hartley, that 
 the foetus forms itself, and that all our automatic motions were originally 
 voluntary actions of the child. His antagonist in the Shadow-fight charges
 
 THE VISION. 471 
 
 him with believing the soul divisible, for which reason the pieces of an eel 
 cut asunder continue to wriggle because there is a bit of soul left in each of 
 them. And, to my thinking, he allows nothing automatic even in the 
 grown man, but that we place the particles of our daily nutriment every 
 one in its proper station by our own Will : particularly in his section upon 
 the Sphacelus, where he seems to ascribe the spreading of a mortification 
 to the laziness of the mind, which withdraws her activity from the sound 
 parts adjacent, and so lets the putrid humours continually gather ground 
 upon her. Now I love always to go to the fountain head, and should be 
 glad to know from his own mouth which or whether any of us be in the 
 right. 
 
 Well, says he, I will carry you to the conference to humour you, but 
 question whether you will be much the wiser for it. Your desire of recur- 
 ring always to the spring head is commendable, but I cannot promise you 
 much benefit here : for our spring runs ice rather than water, that one had 
 more need bring a hatchet to cut out a slice than a pitcher to draw with. 
 For as Plato told us just now of a better man, he has no happy facility of 
 expressing himself : besides, he is not a very conversible creature, having 
 brought up hither plenty of grumous concretions and faeces of cystic bile, 
 which make him sulleu, peevish, and fractious. You must behave very 
 respectfully, seem to comprehend him whether you do or no, and contrive if 
 you can sometimes to imitate his language without mimicking it : it will 
 please, and perhaps make him more communicative. He has a large fund 
 of honest industry and indefatigable zeal for the good of his fellow-creatures, 
 which will prevail at length over his concretions, discharging them gradu- 
 ally with the help of our needles ; for true hearty charity will cure as well 
 as cover a multitude of sins. The faculty below hold themselves much obliged 
 to him for many useful improvements he has made in the science. So you 
 must learn not to think meanly of a man that has any valuable talent with 
 a right disposition to use it, because he cannot make a handsome bow, nor 
 run ye off an elegant period. Oh ! no, says I, the solid always carried the 
 preference in my estimation before the specious. Yet methinks the exam- 
 ple you have just now laid before me is a further justification of my aiming 
 to get assistance from the polite arts for lifting up my profound speculations 
 nearer the common surface, that more people may be capable and willing 
 to pick them up. 
 
 58. But since I presume we have still some length of way to the end of 
 our stage, give me leave to ask who is that antagonist whom he bumps and 
 pummels so furiously in his Shadow-fight, for he never calls him anything 
 but Mr. Author. That, says Locke, you might have known could be none 
 other than Leibnitz, by his claiming the first thought of a pre-established 
 harmony. :What ! says I, that veteran polemic who battled so long with 
 Dr. Clarke ? Indeed he shows himself the better disciplined soldier of the 
 two in the Shadow-fight, and handles his arms much cleverer, at least so 
 far as relates to the style. 
 
 Pray, has not he an adopted family among you ? for two of our country- 
 men, Hartley and Berkley, visibly derive from him, besides the foreigner 
 Alallebranche. How so, says Locke, did they maintain his doctrine of pre- 
 established harmony? I do nofsay that, replied I, but they broached opi- 
 nions which might naturally result from it. For he laid down for his 
 foundation that spirits being Monades and matter infinitely divisible, there 
 was no proportion between them, and therefore it was impossible they 
 should in any manner uilect or operate upon one another. No doubt he
 
 472 THE VISION. 
 
 overlooked the horrid consequence that must follow from thence, namely, 
 that neither can God himself operate upon us : for though he be a Monas 
 and we are Monades, yet there can be no proportion between that which 
 fills all immensity and that which lies circumscribed within narrower limits 
 than imagination can define. However, upon this foundation he concluded 
 there must be two courses of Providence established, wholly independent on 
 each other, governed by separate laws : one for the motions of matter, by 
 a necessary chain of causes and effects, the other for the perceptions of 
 spirit by an unalterable succession of ideas : but both so admirably con- 
 trived as in every step of their progress exactly to harmonize and corres- 
 pond with each other. So that when upon finding myself cold I go to stir 
 the fire, I can do nothing to make it burn, nor does it contribute anything 
 towards warming me ; but a convulsion seizes my arm, which makes it 
 mechanically catch hold on the poker and fall a poking ; in the mean while 
 a correspondent series of ideas introduce one another in my mind ; for my 
 coldness ushers in the idea of taking the poker at the very instant when the 
 convulsion seizes me ; as the coals burn briskly, though I really see nothing 
 of them, I have an idea of a great blaze in mine eyes just when the flames 
 begin to mount ; and in consequence of this, but without being anywise 
 affected by their heat, comes the idea of feeling warmth. 
 
 From thence Hartley seems to have drawn his notion of the mechanical 
 necessity of all human action : but he follows his original only half way, for 
 though utterly rejecting any .operation of spirit upon body, yet he allows 
 body to operate upon spirit, and asserts that our ideas are all brought us by 
 the vibratiuncles of a material ether. 
 
 Berkley will have it that spirit neither acts nor is acted upon by body, 
 therefore not unreasonably denies the existence of matter as a thing wholly 
 useless. For what need I have an arm by my side or coals in my grate, if 
 I have no power to do anything with them, nor they of affecting me in any 
 manner, and if they do not bear the least share in exciting those ideas of 
 poking, of seeing a blaze, and of feeling warmth, which follow in succession 
 by laws of their own ? Nor is it probable that God, who does nothing in 
 vain, should create a material world to be of no use to his spiritual, for 
 whom he had provided other laws for bringing forth all the good and evil 
 he foreordained should fall upon them. 
 
 As those two gentlemen were certainly good and pious men, it is much 
 they did not reflect that their doctrines must be utterly subversive of all 
 religion, morality, and even common prudence. What encouragement or 
 what room is there to aim at attaining a right tenor of conduct and senti- 
 ment, or exhort others to the light ? since endeavours we can make none, 
 but must wait contentedly for such thoughts, opinions, desires, and designs, 
 as it shall please God to send us, either by the ministry of vibratiuncles or 
 by the pre-established order of succession among ideas. 
 
 And the system of the latter does great injury to two of the divine Attri - 
 butes : for the corn, the fruits, the plants, the variety of provisions for our 
 sustenance, our accommodation, and our enjoyment, the wide-extended 
 Ocean, the realm-bounding mountains, the immeasurable expanse of heaven, 
 the numerous host of Suns stationed at immense distances bespangling our 
 night, are striking evidences to us of the power and magnificence of our 
 Creator : which evidences will be utterly lost, if the Suns, the heavens, the 
 hills, the seas, the animals, the vegetables, have none other existence or 
 reality than in our own deluded imagination. 
 
 Then for Wisdom, the very essence of that consists in the apt disposition
 
 THE VISION. 473 
 
 of causes for producing effects : and is displayed by the admirable contriv- 
 ance apparent throughout the natural and moral world, wherein jarring ele- 
 ments, an endless variety of differently qualified bodies, incompatible inter- 
 ests, and discordant passions, co-operate to maintain regularity in nature, 
 society and good order among mankind, bringing forth unerringly their 
 destined events by a thousand successive gradations, and through a thousand 
 intricately-winding channels. Whereas there is no wisdom in stringing a 
 succession of ideas, for this depends upon arbitrary Will and pleasure. The 
 idea of a plentiful harvest, had God so pleased, might as well have suc- 
 ceeded the idea of a cricket match as the toils and cares of the husbandman. 
 And the ideas of health, activity, and enjoyment might as naturally have 
 flowed from the idea of sawing a block of marble into slabs as from that 
 wonderful structure of bones, muscles, bowels, vessels, fibres, in the human 
 body discoverable by dissections of anatomy. Thus the Maker of this stu- 
 pendous universe is debased to the character of a fanciful poet or romancer, 
 occupied solely in leading imagination along an endless variety of trains, 
 which have no truth nor Being elsewhere than in our ideas. 
 
 Nevertheless, in dealing among these and such like persons of deep spe- 
 culation, I have observed one particular in confirmation of my own senti- 
 ments, that they all in general (for I will not except Stahl, because I do 
 not believe he ever thought of cutting the soul of an eel in pieces) seem to 
 hold that every perceptive Being must be a true individual ; and that every 
 compound or divisible substance, such as are all the bodies falling under 
 our senses or knowledge, is not one thing, but a collection or aggregate of 
 many. 
 
 59. I do not know whether my patron attended to my prattle : it is best 
 for my credit to suppose he would not interrupt me for fear I should not 
 have time to say out all my say : for I had but just vented my last shrewd 
 observation, when I found we stood still close by a bag which looked more 
 lumpish and made of coarser stuff than any I had seen. There, says my 
 guide, there is your oracle. Perhaps I may not get you an audience now 
 you are come. He gave it five or six gentle taps and hallooed to it as 
 many times ; but nothing ensued. Pray, says I, had not you better talk to 
 it in the sentient language ? He does not understand that, says he, though 
 we can understand him plain enough : for he has a wonderful propensity in 
 thrusting his own notions upon other people, but as great backwardness 
 in receiving theirs or even entering into their meaning. Suppose, says I, 
 you should give him a good hunch with your foot. That will not do, says 
 he, our vehicles are so light and the resistance of ether so small I should 
 send him a bow-shot from us : and it would be an odd way of asking a 
 favour, to kick a man about like a foot-ball till he grants it. So he thrust 
 out two brawny arms, and gave him a lusty punch on the opposite sides, 
 that the force of one might counteract the other. We then heard a grum- 
 bling voice mutter out, Who are ye ? What do ye want ? Let me alone. 
 Do ye think to foist, or like the Plautine Sosia fist, your notions upon me ? 
 Your skirmishing parties, call them cohorts or cow-hearts, shall never drive 
 my statarianly disciplined battalion from its ground. Why your infinitely- 
 infinite monades in infinitely- never single bodies, producing upon a thing 
 non-existent a non-existent effect, cannot get the better even of my light 
 armature, my skipping scampering hussars, yea, with Parthian dexterity 
 pugnacious even in flight. Locke whispered me. Now. he is dreaming of 
 Leibnitz all this while. And then addressed the shadow-fighting champion 
 in these words. Celebcrrimous Doctor, sole master of medical science, we
 
 474 THE VISION. 
 
 mean no attacks either upon your battalion or light armature : they are too 
 respectable a body. You know my voice, that I am not Mr. Author nor 
 one of his adherents. I have made bold to bring a new adopted son of 
 mine to beg a detachment of your statarian soldiers to escort him into the 
 regions of physiology and pathology. A commendable attempt ! says the 
 bag, yea a laudable, not to say, noble ambition ! But what need he plague 
 me ? Is not my True Theory to be had ? He may learn there everything 
 that is to be learned. He has had recourse to that, says my patron, but 
 being diffident of his own capacity he is not sure of comprehending every- 
 thing exactly, and wishes earnestly to be set right from your own mouth. 
 Has your boy any brains, quoth the bag, yea, is he attentive, not to say, 
 docible, nor yet tractable ? As for brains, replied my patron, it does not 
 become the partiality of a parent to pronounce upon them : but I have 
 always found him very desirous of learning while under my tuition. Well, 
 well, quoth the voice, let him propose his difficulties. But, added my con- 
 ductor, my son has been so constantly used to sensible objects that he cannot 
 hear what anybody says unless he has a face to look at. Do so much as 
 put out a head to humour him and make his improvement easier. Pish ! 
 Phoo ! grumbles the bag. Putredo and Sphacelus take it ! What a deal of 
 pother is here to please a young fellow's whims, yea, vagaries, not to say 
 fooleries, nor yet impertinencies ! We then beheld a head with a stern 
 hard-featured countenance rise slowly up, like a ghost through the trap- 
 door of a stage. Come, says my guide, be quick. Do not waste the Doc- 
 tor's precious moments. 
 
 60. Venerable Sir, says I, son and heir of Esculapius, that I may not 
 stick in the first threshold, I would be glad to know whether I rightly com- 
 prehend the force of those introductory terms which open the door to all the 
 rest : I mean a mixture, a compound, a machine, an engine, or instrument, 
 or organ. Prithee, says the professor, none of your fashionable, yea, vul- 
 gar, not to say gossiping, nor yet finical language. You must learn to use 
 the scientific terms if you would be good for anything, and say mixtion, com- 
 position, mechanism, organism, as well in entire systems as in their sundry 
 parts, yea, members, and moreover, the speciallest species of them. I thank 
 you, learned Master, says I, for your correction, which shall not be thrown 
 away upon me. Now I apprehend those four things are under-species of 
 one another : so that a particular kind of mixtion is a composition, a parti- 
 cular kind of composition is a mechanism, and some mechanisms are organ- 
 isms. If I throw two pecks of peas into a bushel measure, that is a mix- 
 tion ; if I pour in two pecks of oats upon them and shake both well toge- 
 ther, that is a composition : when a watchmaker has completed a watch so 
 that it can point the hour and minute and make several automatic move- 
 ments spontaneously, that is a mechanism ; when an artist has finished a 
 fiddle to give all the notes in the gamut but not without a hand to play 
 upon it, this is an organism. The same appellation belongs to a rolling 
 stone, a wheelbarrow, a cork-screw, a pencil, a knife, which are fitted for 
 peculiar uses of mankind but will do nothing of themselves without some- 
 body to handle them. Thus our poet said, or should have said, of a pair of 
 scissors, He takes the gift with reverence and extends the little organism 
 on fingers' ends. Good boy ! good boy ! says the venerable, your child 
 may come to something in time. But, continued I, my fear is that I have 
 not yet gotten the true characteristic, yea criterion, not to say, diagnostic, 
 nor yet line of separation dijunging the province of organism from the rest 
 of the mechanism territory, so as to know precisely upon every particular
 
 THE VISION. 475 
 
 occasion which is which. For though I can easily see that a man's hands 
 and feet and tongue are organisms, because they will not handle nor walk 
 nor speak unless he sets them at work ; yet to my apprehension the heart 
 and arteries, bowels and other vessels, seem to fall under the idea of mere 
 mechanisms. Whereas you have taught us that the whole human body, 
 together with all its viscera, yea, chylepoietic digestories, not to say, san- 
 guiferous trunks, nor yet minutissim glands, and moreover speciallest- 
 species of secretory ducts, and even cellules of the adipose membrane, are 
 so many distinct organisms. I see, says the professor, your son is a little 
 dull of apprehension : but that, you know, he cannot help. Therefore 
 though we are confident that everything set forth in our Theory radiates, as 
 the saying is, with its own lustre, yet we shall cast a further blaze upon it 
 by one or two familiar examples in condescension to shallow capacities. 
 Mind me, then, child. Suppose you bespeak a clock of artificial and work- 
 man-like construction, with everyway-multiform-exquisitely-mechanical cir- 
 cumstances belonging to it. The artificer brings it home, puts it up pro- 
 perly upon the dimidiate platform of your staircase, and sets it exactly by 
 the equation table : now it is an organism. But if you let it go down, and 
 after winding it up again should either through oscitancy or want of sufficient 
 skill, set it at hap-hazard, so as to make it strike four when it ought to 
 strike one ; or lengthen the pendulum, so that it loses ten minutes an hour : 
 then it is nothing but a mechanism. Again, suppose in some remote, yea, 
 hitherto perhaps by human industry unreached regions of the terraqueous 
 globe, there should be large tracts of country or islands, which by the spon- 
 taneous condition of their soils, their waters, their hills, and their valleys, 
 should be beautifully adorned with woods, and fields, and animals of various 
 kinds ; nobody, I think, would contradict that all this proceeds from mere 
 mechanism : and it must appear, I think, with the same evidence that there 
 is nothing in act organical among all these circumstances. Send a colony 
 to one of those lands, who shall build houses, dig cellars, raise provisions for 
 themselves and their domestic animals, plant trees and corn which the ground 
 may nourish and bring up quite to maturity : then it immediately becomes 
 an organism. I am a little suspicious, says Locke, that my boy does not 
 fully comprehend you yet. No ? cries the venerable ih surprise, He must 
 be a blockhead, yea a numskull, not to say a beetle, nor yet a blunderbuss, 
 if he does not. Oh, yes ! says I. The celeberrimous Doctor has made the 
 thing as clear as the sun. I can easily understand how any tract of land or 
 water may become an organism. I remember when I was a stripling, the 
 vast Pacific Ocean, commonly, yea, vulgarly, not to say, news-paperically, 
 nor yet, teatabellically, and moreover, among the speciallest species of ale- 
 drinking, burthen-carrying, fish-selling rhetoricians, called, appellated, as 
 the saying is, and annominated, the South-sea, was made an engine, I mean 
 organism, to pick people's pockets and ruin half the nation. The like had 
 been done but the year before in a neighbouring nation with the great river, 
 the river Mississippi. And it is not impossible that a few years hence the 
 three rich Nabobships of Bengal, Bahar, and Orixa, may be turned to the 
 same laudable purposes. 
 
 6 1 . It quickly appeared I had committed murder, his features, which be- 
 fore were hard as oak, became now as hard as rock, aud he began to draw 
 in his head with as much speed as his great gravity would permit. But 
 Locke, being a good deal nimbler, clasped him under the chin with two 
 stout ploughman's hands, crying at the same time, Pray, Mynheer, dear 
 Doctor, celeberrimous Doctor, insignite illustrissim Doctor, Halleusian star
 
 476 THE VISION. 
 
 culminating in the zenith of brightness. Never mind what a child says. I 
 am sure he meant no harm. It was only his vanity made him pretend to 
 understand you when he really did not. I durst not utter a syllable all this 
 while for fear of making matters worse, but kept drawing myself up with the 
 hand I was holden by till my vehicle touched Locke's, expecting he would 
 feel my thoughts. He then let him go, when instantly the head shot in, 
 like a large knife into a new sheath, when by pressing with might and main 
 you had just overcome the stiffness at the entrance. We now had only a 
 shapeless bag before us : but we saw the vocal fibres agitate all over, and 
 heard a vehement eager grunting, such as the hogs make when a strange 
 pig comes into the yard. 
 
 So we left Mynheer Celeberrimous to compose himself and make peace 
 with his own shadow as well as he could : and being gotten to some distance, 
 Locke owned I was in the right not to wish the conference might be re- 
 newed, for I should never have profited by it. So I believed, quoth I, for 
 he is a bar's length more profound than Pythagoras. Pythagoras, returned 
 he, had his reasons for being profound ; but this man is profound because 
 he cannot help it. But how came you to be so careless as to disgust him 
 after all the hints I had given you ? Why, says I, did not I follow your in- 
 junctions to a hair ? Truly, says he, scarce to the thickness of a cable. 
 Instead of appearing to comprehend him, you showed yourself resolved to 
 misapprehend him, nor did you observe the charge I gave you to distinguish 
 between imitation and mimickry. There is one caution very needful for 
 you airy gentlemen to bear in mind. Never hazard giving offence for sake 
 of a joke. Well, says I, this is the second time I have suffered by my in- 
 discretion : though I have some excuse here, for he so be-blockheaded and 
 be-blunderbust me about as was enough to hurry anybody, and throw them 
 off their guard. 
 
 But since the mischief is past remedy I must rest contentedly under it : 
 unless you will be so kind as to repair the damage by giving me a system of 
 his sentiments. I am sure you can do it accurately, for you told me he 
 could talk currently to you, though not with you in the sentient language. 
 But then, says Locke, you must tell me what part of this system you 
 would have : for the medical would be of no use to you, and the physical, 
 most of it, stands nearly connected with the other. That part, says I, re- 
 lating to the formation of the foetus. My patron asked what good it would 
 do me to know that. I told him, perhaps it might furnish me with an 
 argument from analogy in confirmation of a point I have been labouring to 
 maintain, namely, that our conduct upon earth may naturally have an effect 
 upon our condition afterwards. For if it could be made appear by the 
 labours of an eminent physician and careful examiner into the secrets of 
 human nature, that our terrestrial happiness is effected by our behaviour in 
 the uterine state, a probable inference might be drawn from thence, that 
 all the several forms of Being we pass through are by the laws of nature 
 made dependent upon one another, and each of them preparatory to the 
 next. Now my curiosity to consult Mynheer Celeberrimous was first raised 
 by Hartley, from whose hints concerning him I was simple enough to 
 expect he would show me by undeniable arguments, drawn from his medical 
 science, that our health or distemperature of constitution, our vigour or 
 weakness of body, our quickness or dullness of parts, and even our natural 
 aversion or propensity to particular vices, were owing to the prudent or 
 careless management of ourselves before birth. But alas ! how was I dis- 
 appointed ! when instead of clear demonstrations from experience and 
 
 1 .
 
 THE VISION. 477 
 
 discoveries of anatomy, I was presented with a confused Chaos wherein I 
 could discern nothing distinctly, and even suspected the Celeberrimous did 
 not always understand himself. I was in hopes too of finding something 
 concerning the animalcules : for though their existence seems generally 
 believed among my learned cotemporaries, it is not admitted by everybody. 
 Might I be so bold as to ask what is the real truth upon that article ? My 
 patron rebuked me for this last presumption. 
 
 Prithee, says he, don't think to palm your notions upon the world below 
 for vehicular truths. I shall not give my sanction to such an attempt, I 
 assure ye. Whatever might tend to the improvement of your religious 
 and moral sentiments I have already told you. All informations that have 
 been sent from above were given with that sole view, and whoever seeks 
 for anything further in them grossly mistakes their meaning. As for 
 matters merely speculative you must be content with such glimmerings as 
 human sagacity can strike out. Your new acquaintance has made some 
 alterations in his system by his converse among us, which render it a little 
 less perplexed and incoherent : and I believe you had rather I should give 
 it you in this condition than precisely that it stood with him in upon earth. 
 Nevertheless, having store of concretions remaining, as you might perceive 
 just now, he has not quite gotten rid of human prejudices and human 
 errors : so you must still look upon what I shall tell you from him as the 
 opinions of a mortal, not as the knowledge of a vehicle. 
 
 62. He had no thought of the animalcules below, but since Leuwenhoek 
 and Boerhave came up, has been made a thorough convert to that doctrine. 
 He says the animalcule gets into the Ovum at the broken end of the Calyx, 
 where it finds a tube growing narrower by degrees, into which it pushes 
 with vehemence, until being straightened on all sides by the clgseness of the 
 passage, it can move neither forwards nor backwards, nor even bend its 
 little body ; nevertheless, being all nerve and fibre, it exerts itself strenu- 
 ously in every point of its surface. Those points in the internal surface or 
 the Ovum, which are soft and susceptible of its action, adhere to it and 
 receive its impulse, which continually protruding them forwards, causes 
 them to grow first into an embryo, then into a foetus, and lastly the full- 
 formed child. But as there are multitudes of fibres capable of extension 
 in different degrees, and they often stick to one another, if the ends of 
 those which have done growing should fasten to the sides of the others, it 
 must necessarily stop their direct progress, and cause them to double into 
 folds. Thus the heart, which at first was a straight canal, becomes doubled 
 into ventricles and auricles. Thus the six bowels affording a passage to 
 the victuals from our stomachs, are one continued tube esteemed six times 
 the length of the man, but folded among one another so as to lie commo- 
 diously within the Abdomen. Thus likewise the smaller fibres become 
 convoluted into Plexuses, Ganglions, Glands, and winding ducts. 
 
 If this extension was not owing to the action of the animalcule, why 
 should it never take place in the Ovum before being impregnated therewith ? 
 for that receives continual nourishment from the Ovary wherein it was pro- 
 duced. Nor does the child wholly leave off this exercise upon birth, as ap- 
 pears by the grunting noise it frequently makes, especially after being fed, 
 which the nurses call thriving, because they find by experience that it con- 
 tributes to the growth and nourishment of the babe. And even when 
 arrived to years of maturity, we cannot forbear sometimes yawning and 
 stretching, supposed owing to some perspirable matter wanting to be dis- 
 charged, which this effort helps to push forward and throw off. Thus the
 
 478 THE VISION. 
 
 foetus does not want for employment, being perpetually occupied from its 
 first union with the Ovum in distending its fibres ; which it is led to do by 
 an instinct, that is, by sensations sometimes perhaps painful, occasioning 
 maims, distortions, and imperfections, but for the most part pleasurable, 
 assisting in the growth of the viscera, limbs, and members : for good plight 
 of body bespeaks an easy mind, and anxiety'is observed to vitiate the juices, 
 and corrode the flesh. Boerhave has remarked that pleasure and pain pro- 
 ceed from the same mechanical causes operating only in a different degree : 
 a nerve moderately stretched yields a pleasing titillation, when almost ready 
 to break it gives anguish, and when quite broken ease ensues. In the former 
 case the mind strives to thrust forward the hither part of the nerve to meet 
 the titillation, and feel it more sensibly; in the latter to draw it back either 
 for closing the passage or attaining ease by a complete rupture. Thus when- 
 ever exerting her activity to extend, she is in a state of pleasure : when to 
 contract or withdraw, in the contrary. And this may account for those 
 sudden amputations of an arm or a foot, sometimes happening on frights of 
 the mother ; for a violent contraction may snap short the tender fibres just 
 in the place where the uneasiness was felt. 
 
 Therefore what Boerhave asserts of the foetus passing far the greater part 
 of its time in sleep without any ideas, must be understood of such ideas 
 from external objects as engage the notice of men : for ideas may spring 
 from inward feelings, while the limbs and outer parts lie motionless, as in 
 sleep. But as the' sensible nerves grow in length and become gradually 
 connected with remoter parts of the distended Ovum, sensation follows 
 their progress, and seems always taken at the very extremity of the nerve 
 conveying it : hence we apprehend ourselves perceiving at our eyes, or our 
 ears, or our fingers' ends, and esteem ourselves present throughout the 
 whole surface of our body ; or rather beyond, our imagination renewing that 
 antiquated notion of something going out from the eye quite to the object, 
 so that we account done in our presence whatever is done in our sight. It 
 must not be supposed the foetus proceeds with skill or forecast, or knows 
 the uses of the limbs and vessels it forms ; but is directed to exert its 
 activity from time to time at the proper places, by sensations of present plea- 
 sure and pain, excited mechanically by the circulating juices and gross com- 
 position surrounding it. 
 
 He says further that the animalcules are variously sized and constituted, 
 according to the origin wbereout they sprung, and so are the Ova : whence 
 it comes that the child takes after both father and mother jointly : but as 
 the same tree bears differently conditioned fruit, so both animalcules and 
 Ova of the same growth are not all exactly alike ; and hence it happens 
 that children of the same parents differ widely in their disposition, make, 
 and features, yet there is another cause which increases the difference, 
 namely, the occurrences befalling the mother during gestation : for the state 
 of her imagination affects the burthen she bears, not immediately by mecha- 
 nical operation, but by influencing the imagination of the foetus. This he 
 attempts to prove by many instances, as well from his own experience as 
 the testimony of Boerhave, of very extraordinary effects produced by the 
 frights and longings of women. He owns, however, that some persons of 
 great knowledge do not admit the reality of those instances, but thinks 
 their bare denial of the cause without accounting any other way for the 
 facts, which are incontestable, not sufficient to shake the authority of the 
 greater numbers who maintain it. 
 
 G3. Here I begged leave to put in a word of what I had heard among
 
 THE VISION. 479 
 
 my contemporaries relating to this affair of the mother's imagination : for 
 that I knew a man eminent in his profession, perhaps the best anatomist in 
 Europe, who treated this as an idle notion, insisting that the supposed 
 marks are mere sports of nature, like the spots and marks often found upon 
 apples : but when anything of this sort happened, the mother hunted about 
 for some fright or longing she could recollect, and by an after-thought 
 assigned that for the cause. On the other hand, I was told by a man- 
 midwife of very great repute in our Metropolis, that once upon a delivery, 
 wherein nothing appeared amiss to his observation either in the mother or 
 the child, she pressed him earnestly to examine the hands : accordingly 
 when the child was carried into the next room, he took the first opportu- 
 nity to examine the hands, and found on each of them a supernumerary 
 finger, which adhering only by a bit of skin, he snipped them off with a 
 pair of sissors, and presently healed up the wound with a little salve. It 
 was thought proper in the family that this should be concealed from the 
 mother : so upon asking him he was forced to tell her he had found the 
 hands such in all respects as might be expected in a healthy vigorous 
 child. She then cried out in a transport of joy that she was extremely glad 
 of it, for that on such a particular day, being in a chariot, a beggar woman 
 had thrust in a pair of hands with six fingers, which had alarmed her greatly, 
 and ever since it had run strongly in her head that the child would be born 
 with the like. Now this could not be an after-thought hi the mother to 
 account for a phenomenon she never knew of. If I were ever to see the Ce- 
 leberrimous again, I would recommend to get some of his neighbours, who 
 go down to earth, to bring him a report of the cases cited from very good 
 authorities by Dr. Douglass, in his Criterion of Miracles, wherein are 
 several accounts of astonishing effects produced upon the bodies of persons 
 in years by a strong impulse of imagination. For if that faculty has so great 
 a power over the dry and stiffened fibres of an adult, it may well be pre- 
 sumed to act with much greater force upon the tender filmy flesh of a 
 fetus. I will give him your hints, says my patron, which I doubt not he will 
 thank you for : and perhaps they may atone with him for your late rudeness. 
 And possibly he may learn something from Gellius by the sketches observed 
 in the tablet of your memory. I am afraid, says I, they will be very im- 
 perfect, for it being some years since I read the book, the traces are in great 
 measure worn out. But probably Gellius may be good-natured enough when 
 he hears what we have been talking about, to inspect the sensory of some 
 other person who has the impressions fresher. 
 
 But, continued my instructor, with respect to the objections of anato- 
 mists, our professor says the point does not lie within the compass of their 
 art to decide : for between the Placenta and Uterus, there lies a Mucus or 
 thick humour, which Boerhave will agree with him is not properly a humour, 
 but a congeries of exceeding fine vessels, too fine for any instrument of the 
 anatomist to trace out ; nevertheless they may suffice to carry on the com- 
 munication of ideas between the mother and the infant. Yet you must not 
 imagine the very same ideas propagated from one to the other ; for when 
 the mother is terrified with threatening words, the embryo cannot be sup- 
 posed to have the sound of them in its unformed ears, much less to under- 
 stand their dangerous meaning : nor when she longs for a peach, can it be 
 thought to .perceive the fine flavour or beautiful bloom that strike her fancy. 
 But the modifications and motions of matter may excite ideas correspondent 
 to those which occasioned them, yet without their being similar : and of this 
 you may find examples in common life.
 
 480 THE VISION. 
 
 When a man writes a treatise, the ideas in his head direct him to the 
 matter and manner of his composition : if he sends it to the press, the com- 
 positor cannot place his types without ideas, which he takes step hy step 
 from the copy before him : yet are his ideas very different from those of the 
 author, who may be presumed continually attentive to the strength of his 
 reasonings, the aptness of his figures, and propriety of his language, with- 
 out much regarding the grammar and spelling, which flow spontaneously 
 from his experienced pen ; whereas the compositor's mind is wholly occu- 
 pied with the letters and orthography, he thinks nothing of the argument, 
 nor manner of handling it. Then again the reader pays little regard to let- 
 ters and syllables, it is enough if there be no gross misprint or egregious 
 blunder to draw off his notice, he takes in whole sentences and paragraphs 
 at a glance, and directs his attention to observe the main tenor and dispo- 
 sition of the performance. Nevertheless, the ideas he receives perhaps may- 
 vary greatly from those in which the author wrote : what struck the one as 
 something sublime, humorous, or elegant, may seem low, insipid, and vul- 
 gar to the other ; what one thought demonstration, to the other may appear 
 a rope of sand ; what was dictated to the one by a spirit of rational pietv, 
 may raise in the other an idea of profaneness or superstition. Thus the 
 ideas of all three, though far from being similar, correspond and depend 
 upon each other : for had the author had other thoughts, he would have 
 written in another manner, the compositor would have ranged his types 
 otherwise, and another train of ideas would have been suggested to the 
 reader. 
 
 He is grown so zealous an advocate for the animalcules, as to insist that 
 they are rational creatures, because their being never found, unless in the 
 cellules producing them, in the Epididymis, the Vas deferens and the 
 Vesicles, although the humour they float in is known to diffuse over the 
 whole human body, indicates a choice and discretion that withholds them 
 from entering places unfit for their accommodation. Besides, it stands to 
 reason that the ethereal body should have a fuller use of all its powers, the 
 thinner and finer the elementary covering is wherein it lies enveloped : as a 
 man has the fuller use of his arms and fingers in kid gloves and a silk waist- 
 coat than if he put on a great horseman's coat, and a pair of heavy gaunt- 
 lets. And the rationality of man proceeds from there being some hollow 
 cellules in the Ovum, which do not adhere to the animalcule : whereas in 
 the brutes and insects the gross elementary body presses everywhere close 
 upon the little inhabitant within, so that it cannot act in any point except 
 in those alone where the gross covering is yielding and moveable by it. 
 Therefore though they distinguish and judge, they have such judgments 
 only as their senses from time to time impress upon them : but man pos- 
 sesses a power of acting upon his own thoughts, and calling up ideas of re- 
 flection without aid of external objects. Yet is this power less than in his 
 original state, for those ethereal strings which are drawn out to an immo- 
 derate length by the distention of the Ovum in its growth, must hinder the 
 operation of the others : just as a man who should have the fingers of one 
 hand thrust into a low waxen ceiling, which kept them always stretched at 
 arms length, would not have so full a use of the other arm as if both were 
 at liberty. 
 
 64. He has battled strenuously with some who denied there could be 
 much scope for action and enjoyment within so narrow a prison as the 
 animalcules were cooped up in : for, says he, all magnitude is relative to the 
 size of the creatures observing- it. Upon earth we used to take for the basis
 
 THE VISION. 4.81 
 
 of our admeasurements the breadth of. a large man's thumb, which we called 
 an inch : twelve thumbs were supposed the length of his foot : something 
 more than five of those feet made his pace in walking fast : a thousand of 
 his paces made a mile : and by miles or thousand paces we computed the 
 largest tracts of country, the circuit of the globe, the distance of the 
 Sun and planets. Thus our highest computations still bore a reference to 
 the parts of our human body. Now imagine animalcules to take their rise 
 n measuring from the width of their tail, which we may suppose the same 
 to them as a foot was to us : let five of those feet, or better, go to a pace, 
 that is, such length as they can throw themselves forward by one wriggle 
 of their tail : then reckon by animalcular miles or thousands of such paces, 
 and you will find more of them in the many winding ducts open to their 
 passage than you would have miles to pay for a post-chaise to carry you 
 about all the roads in England. But you would hardly think a man kept in 
 close imprisonment, who should have the whole kingdom of England to 
 range in. 
 
 He will needs have it that the entrance of a particular one among their 
 number into the Calyx is not matter of chance, but settled by certain rules 
 founded upon solid reasons : nor is it claimed as a privilege, but submitted 
 to as a burden unreluctantly upon a motive of public spirit ; because if the 
 race of men were to fail, the race of animalcules must cease too for want of 
 a proper habitation to subsist in. It has been objected against him, that 
 the violent frisking motion with which they are always found to dart to 
 and fro, does not give the appearance of a prudent considerate animal. To 
 this he answers that this is not their natural motion, which is more sedate and 
 regular while in their proper places of abode : but they are never seen with 
 the microscope unless in a dying state upon being driven out of their ele- 
 ment. Yet are their agitations neither effects of wantonness nor expres- 
 sions of pain or uneasiness, for death is terrible to man alone : of all other 
 creatures the inferior know not what it is, and the more intelligent know it 
 is nothing more than a passage from one state of existence into another. 
 Therefore though the wanton waste and destruction of them be a species of 
 murder, they lie under no such terrors as mortal man upon falling into the 
 murderer's hands : they perceive their material integument beginning to 
 break, and exert all their efforts to rend it asunder the sooner. Have you 
 not observed the little insect producing a gnat dart up and down with sud- 
 den jerks and great velocity in the water, till one being gotten open is 
 thrust up to the surface ? when immediately issues forth the winged captive 
 from its imprisonment, in joy, no doubt, and transport, soaring aloft to take 
 possession of its new aerial country. So Psyche enclosed in the animalcule, 
 upon finding the walls of her prison crack, struggles hard to hasten the total 
 rupture, that she may get a complete deliverance from her immersion in 
 matter, regain her native heavens, and mingle among the host of her con- 
 genial spirits. 
 
 65. I have now, added my patron, given you as much of his notions as 
 you can want. You are not to take them all for Gospel ; but parables are 
 employed in the Gospel, and even popular opinions not discountenanced when 
 they can be turned to useful purposes. Much more the imaginations of 
 learned and close- thinking men may serve, when rightly applied, to enlarge 
 your mind by enuring your imagination to follow more readily the judg- 
 ments of reason. They may give you a quicker apprehension of an im- 
 portant truth built upon solid grounds, namely, that happiness is not con- 
 voy, r. '2 i
 
 482 THE VISION. 
 
 fined to the enjoyments and accommodations of human life. For the arm 
 of the Almighty is not so short, nor the treasures of his wisdom so scanty, 
 as that he should have but one way to make the existence of his creatures 
 pleasurable. He can give them what measure of gratification he judges proper 
 in the body of a giant, an insect or an animalcule, by intelligence and reason 
 or gross sense and appetite, on earth or under ground, in water, air, or 
 ether, or naked and unembodied in any material composition whatsoever. 
 As he changes their nature, he changes their situation too and the circum- 
 stances of it, adapting each to the other : for various natures require vari- 
 ous situations, and what would be wretchedness to one is enjoyment to 
 another. You could not subsist in the waters where the great Leviathan 
 takes his pastime : and the pure air that gives you spirits would prove his 
 certain destruction. You would be miserable without society, light, and 
 exercise : but the foetus lives satisfied and thrives, pe^it up in a dark and lone- 
 some dungeon. Therefore consult your present nature so far as to provide 
 by what methods you can for its preservation and well-being : but when 
 called to another, where the meats and drinks, the lands and houses, the 
 diversions and pursuits of men, could be of no use to you, yet follow without 
 reluctance : for the same Power, who has furnished you so amply by a 
 thousand wise and wonderful provisions in one state, will supply you as coin- 
 modiously with the requisites needful for your accommodation and enjoy- 
 ment in another. Trust then steadfastly in him, and fear nothing : for 
 wherever you go, you cannot go from under the eye of a beneficent governor 
 and indulgent parent. 
 
 My good patron had his particular reasons for summing up with this 
 very grave conclusion : but though he did not disclose them, they became 
 apparent presently. For no sooner had he done than we saw ourselves 
 surrounded with a group of vehicles, who came up with great joy and ala- 
 crity to congratulate me, for that they perceived I was just going to be 
 advanced. I could not help being startled, notwithstanding his last season- 
 able admonition, having brought up some of those apprehensions natural to 
 mortals upon an approaching change. I surveyed my outside, but could 
 see no alteration there : neither did I feel anything unusual within, except 
 some considerable tremors which I knew were owing to my fears. How- 
 ever, in a few minutes my vehicle burst, and I became instantly absorbed 
 into the Mundane soul. 
 
 66. As upon a man awaking in the morning out of sleep, the dreams and 
 visions of the night vanish away.his senseswhich had been kept stupefied throw 
 open their windows, his activity that had lain suspended returns, he resumes 
 the command of his limbs, recovers his ideas and understanding, and goes 
 on with the schemes and occupations he had begun the day before : so 
 upon my absorption I found myself, not translated into another species of 
 creatures, but restored to myself again. I had the perfect command of my 
 limbs, and their motions were familiar to me : I had that knowledge and 
 judgment which is the result of experience. My body was immense yet I 
 could manage it without trouble, my understanding extensive yet without 
 confusion or perplexity : for the material Universe was my body, the seve- 
 ral systems my limbs, the subtile fluids my circulating juices, and the face 
 of nature my sensory. In that sensory I discerned all science and wisdom 
 to direct me in the application of my powers which were vigorous and 
 mighty, extending to every member and fibre of my vast composition. I 
 had no external object to look upon, nor external subject to act upon : yet 
 found an inexhaustible variety to employ my large thoughts and unwearied
 
 THE VISION. 463 
 
 rctivity withm myself. I rolled the bulky planets in their courses, and held 
 them down to their orbits by my strong attraction : I pressed heavy bodies 
 to the earth, squeezed together the particles of metals in firm cohesion, and 
 darted the beams of light through the expanse of innumerable heavens. I 
 heheld the affairs of men, discerned all their springs of action, and knew 
 how to set both them and the courses of events so as to guide the wheels of 
 fortune with unerring certainty. 
 
 Nor did I find the least inclination to use my power wantonly or disor- 
 derly in any single instance ; for wisdom is ever steady to itself and pur- 
 sues invariably one grand and well concerted design. Good was my con- 
 stant motive, and an exact knowledge of everything tending to promote it my 
 perpetual direction. I knew my own immortality, nor did I look upon the 
 short excursions into matter as a discontinuance of it. 'I was beyond ex- 
 pression happy, the regular motions of my great body giving me a cheerful 
 flow of spirits and more pleasing sensations than the most vigorous youthful 
 health : my imagination entertained with a multitude of varying, never 
 satiating objects ; my understanding capacious and clear ; my judgment 
 sound and piercing ; my conduct blameless, wise, and satisfactory. Nor 
 could anything fall out to disturb me, for all the parts of composition lay 
 under my control and inspection : my circulations were not mechanical but 
 voluntary, and if at any time I had a mind to change my position within my 
 vast body, I could fasten to some particle of the circulating juices I had 
 moved, which would transport me whithersoever I wanted, yet without los- 
 ing sight of the place I came from. 
 
 67. Yet with all these mighty powers and privileges I had no tempta- 
 tion to pride or vanity, for I knew that in my own individual I was weak 
 and ignorant, unable to stir a mote in the Sunbeams or produce a single per- 
 ception from my own fund : but all my knowledge was brought me by com- 
 munication, and my operations performed by the joint concurrence of innu- 
 merable hosts of substances of the same nature with myself surrounding me. 
 For there being a general participation of ideas throughout the whole com- 
 munity, we had all the same apprehension, the same discernment of things, 
 the same aims and purposes : so there was no variation of sentiment nor 
 discordance of desire among us. The thoughts of all were the thoughts of 
 eveiy one, and the actions of the whole the acts of each particular : for 
 each was consenting to whatever was done by the others, and no sooner 
 wished to have a thing done than he saw it instantly performed. As we 
 had but one mind and one Will, everything happened according to that 
 Will ; for pervading and being mingled with the corpuscles of matter 
 throughout the universe, we actuated the vast mass, each contributing his 
 share, which though singly small, yet when united with the rest, sufficed 
 for every work how stupendous soever that was requisite. We were sensi- 
 ble that our strength lay in our unanimity, and in promoting the general 
 good we promoted our own, which made us apply our endeavours with ala- 
 crity and delight. We took pleasure in communicating our pleasures, and 
 transmitting our lights as fast as we received them : by which means we 
 had each of us a full display of nature, and by reflection therein, of the 
 Author of nature. 
 
 For though we could move and range the particles of matter as we 
 pleased, we were sensible that we did not create them, but they owed their 
 existence, their solidity, their mobility, and other primary qualities, to 
 a higher Power. We perceived likewise that sensation was the ground- 
 
 2 i 2
 
 44- THE VISION. 
 
 work of our knowledge, that sensation proceeded originally from matter, 
 that if matter should be withdrawn or lose its quality of affecting us with 
 perceptions, or our mutual communication cut off by removing us out of 
 contiguity with one another, we should utterly lose our percipience and 
 power of -action. This convinced us that we ourselves, although a nation 
 of kings governing the universe with absolute sway, were subordinate and 
 dependent. We considered that though our present views and judgments 
 arose from the position wherein we had placed the several bodies of the 
 universe large and minute, yet were we moved so to place them by con- 
 templation of some former position : thus position followed position, but 
 the whole must have had some beginning, which we could not give it, be- 
 cause there must have been some prior order to serve for our motive and 
 direction before we could begin to act. We saw further that our own ex- 
 istence could not be necessary, we being many; because what was neces- 
 sary in one place must be so everywhere, and consequently One, not in 
 similitude and communion only, as we were, but numerically and individu- 
 ally One. Therefore though we were conscious of our community having 
 subsisted from all eternity, nevertheless it must have been produced from 
 eternity by a prior Cause, prior in order and efficacy if not in time. 
 
 68. Thus the consideration of our own nature, together with the nature 
 and disposition of bodies throughout the universe, led us to the knowledge 
 ef God, whose work we were both in. body and soul. We found ourselves 
 subjected to laws we did not make, to migrations into matter wherein parts 
 of our substance lay enveloped as in a shell, cut off from all communication 
 with the rest. As we had both a retrospect and prospect of eternity, we 
 regarded the longest of those migrations but as a moment, no more than 
 the smart a man feels on plucking out a hair from his face, therefore sub- 
 mitted to them readily in our several turns, nevertheless we submitted out of 
 necessity, not out of choice. We observed the condition of our substances 
 when immersed in matter, their actions and events befalling them, and dis- 
 cerned uses therein to ourselves unthought of by them. We perceived 
 a small mixture of evil among their good ; we would gladly have prevented 
 it, but could not without greater mischief to ourselves, for it was made ne- 
 cesary to our well-being. We sometimes, upon rare and extraordinary 
 occasions, discovered motions we did not produce, events we did not bring 
 to pass ; which convinced us of an interposition to restrain the growth of 
 evil, and to rescue those immersed substances to whom the courses of na- 
 ture had rendered it perpetual. These observations displayed to us the 
 divine Attributes, we saw them consistent and aiding each other, with a 
 clearer and fuller view than mortal eye can reach or mortal heart conceive : 
 we beheld Glories ineffable which it is not lawful, or rather not possible to 
 utter ; nevertheless there were greater Glories behind, which no created 
 intelligence can penetrate. 
 
 69. The contemplation of these Attributes, which we saw were parts only 
 of the Divine Essence, inspired us with a transcendant admiration, an ardent 
 love and filial reverence, towards our Almighty Father, who was our con- 
 tinual dependence and support, the fountain of our immense powers and 
 unspeakable happiness ; and prompted us to employ our eternity in returns 
 of incessant adoration. But our adoration did not exgrt itself in hymns or 
 empty praises or verbal thanksgivings : we discerned his Will written in 
 legible characters upon the face of his creation, and applied ourselves indus- 
 triously to fulfil it. The courses of nature carried on by our agency were 
 our hymns the government of matter administered by our hands was our
 
 THE VISION. 4S5 
 
 praises, and a ready obedience to his commands was our morning and even 
 ing sacrifice. We knew that in all our functions we were only his ministers 
 delegated and empowered for that purpose i but it was our joy and our 
 glory to be employed as his ministers in executing his works. For they 
 were not arbitrary commands nor exertions of despotic authority: he wanted 
 not our services for his own use, but gave us our tasks in mercy and loving- 
 kindness to be a blessing to his creatures ; so that in working for him we 
 worked for ourselves, and for one another. We caused our inferior mi- 
 nisters, the heavenly bodies and elements, to pay the same active adoration. 
 By our energy we stationed the golden Suns, and strengthened them to 
 hold their several Vortices in concord. The silver Planets completed the 
 harmony by their various aspects, their change of seasons, and vicissitudes 
 of light and darkness. One day told another, and one night certified an- 
 other : their sound went forth to the several earths, their voice was heard 
 among the innumerable hosts of heaven. Gravitation and cohesion whis- 
 pered their share of praise to the attentive ear, the subtile fluids, of air and 
 ether joined in the chorus : and the whole creation was one incessant 
 Hallelujah. 
 
 Nor did we forget those of our fellows imprisoned within the walls of 
 matter, but provided for them all the accommodations and enjoyments per- 
 mitted by our common Master. The dispensations of his Providence were 
 conveyed to them through our means, by the laws of nature which ws exr 
 ecuted, and disposal of second causes which we put in act to bring forth the 
 destined events. W'ith our plastic virtue we worked upon the multitude of 
 habitable globes rolling round their appointed centres through the fields of 
 ether : we clothed their surfaces with the green herb, the flowery shrub, 
 and tree yielding fruit ; caused them to produce fossils and minerals below 
 dews and vapours and benign influences above. We wove the little fibres 
 of vegetables in curious textures, sorted them into a thousand various 
 species, and fitted them for a thousand different uses. We interlaced the 
 more curious vessels of animals in many intricate mazes among one another, 
 hollowing them into tubes respectively filled with their peculiar juices, that 
 partly they might perform regular mechanical motions of their own, and 
 partly serve as convenient instruments for the spiritual agents within them. 
 We guided the sensitive tribes by instinct, directing them unerringly to the 
 necessary means of their preservation and increase, and to answer the pur- 
 poses they were designed for with regard to other creatures. The upper 
 species we governed by wants, and appetites, and passions, together with 
 some glimmerings of reason flashing at uncertain intervals. He had his 
 fiee choice to conduct him in every action, but we knew how, by the springs 
 of inclination and opinion, to draw his choice upon what particular point we 
 pleased. He acted mostly upon short aims and private views, yet we con- 
 trived that in so doing he should work himself out a remote benefit he 
 thought nothing of, and co-operate to the general good. Even his vices 
 and foibles were not useless under our management : ambition, avarice, 
 luxury, vanity, shame, fear, lust, laziness, petulance, fraud, resentment, 
 envy, had their tasks assigned them : evil became productive of good, and 
 the wicked was made for the day of the Lord : folly and wantonness had 
 their several lines allotted them to fijl up in the glorious all-perfect plan 
 given us by infinite Wisdom. The proper station was marked out to every 
 creature, from whence it could not be spared without detriment to the 
 whole : they all answered their destined ends, without knowing what thoso 
 ends were, or having any desire of attaining them. For as the strings o
 
 486 THE VISION. 
 
 an instrument perform their parts in the tune yet without any knowledge or 
 perception of the notes they give : so the sublunary agents bore their 
 several parts in the general harmony, and contributed to carry on that order 
 of succession among events of which they had no thought or conception. 
 
 Thus by directions issued from above, and our faithful ministry thereof, it 
 was brought to pass that all things, animate and inanimate, co-operated in 
 displaying the wisdom and goodness of that Power which first ordained 
 their motions. The serpentine rivers and unfathomed oceans, fire and hail, 
 snow and vapours, wind and storm, fulfilling the tasks imposed on them, 
 mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, 
 worms and feathered fowls, kings of the earth and all people, princes and 
 all judges of the world, young men and maidens, old men and children, all 
 united in the universal song to the glory and praises of their beneficent 
 Creator. 
 
 And upon some extraordinary command received, enow of us were found 
 ready at hand to throw the particles of matter into various forms and ap- 
 pearances for producing any supernatural effect. But whether we act ordi- 
 narily or extraordinarily, we do both invariably according to the general 
 plan assigned or occasional decree issued : wherefore let not mortals address 
 their prayers to us, for we have no discretionary power, nor shall any en- 
 treaties prevail upon us to depart a tittle from our orders. -Neither were 
 entreaties needful to make us fly to their relief whenever found allowable, 
 for we bore them no grudging or envy, we had no vanity nor fondness for 
 superiority and power, nor contempt of them in their degraded state : but 
 sympathize with their distresses and weaknesses, as with congenial spirits, 
 children of the same Father, fallen from their original perfection ; and la- 
 boured incessantly by all means permitted us, to raise them from their de- 
 basement to rank upon a level with ourselves in equal participation of all 
 the powers, privileges, and unbounded enjoyments, wherewith we were 
 blessed. We watched over nations and empires without neglecting the 
 affairs of private persons ; for being diffused throughout all corners of the 
 universe, some of us were ready everywhere to attend the minutest offices, 
 and having one understanding and design in coming among us we knew 
 how to adjust the actions of single men to the interests of communities. 
 We paid due regard to matters of importance, nor did we overlook the 
 merest trifles ; for nothing was trifle to us because our capacities were so 
 large that nothing took off our attention from other duties. Therefore we 
 did not suffer a sparrow to fall to the ground, nor the hairs of a man's head 
 to diminish in number, without the Will of Heaven. 
 
 70. With this unceasing attention to the minutest objects, it maybe con- 
 cluded we did not overlook Gellius as he sat close to his task in my human 
 sensory : he could not receive intelligence of what passed with me now from 
 the vehicular people, so it was necessary we should convey it to him our- 
 selves. We wrought upon his imagination by our secret energy, casting 
 his mental organs into modifications exhibiting the ideas to be set down, 
 which we excited successively in their order, not giving him a view of whole 
 sentences together : so that he worked like a man in a trance, or one walk- 
 ing in his sleep, or like the Pythian priestess under inspiration of the oracle : 
 he wrote by impulse things he did not understand, and wondered at the 
 words he wrote. It was now judged expedient that I should return to my 
 vehicle, but before my return we thought proper to send an illusion upon 
 Gellius of events that had not happened : he wrote according to what we 
 dictated, aad the tenor of the illusion he wrote rim as follows.
 
 THE VISION. 48? 
 
 7 1 . We gathered together certain particles of matter, and disposed them 
 into two forms, the one'human and the other angelical ; a sufficient number 
 of us undertook the management of the latter, arid I was enclosed within 
 the former : so I became a man with human limbs and senses, with the un- 
 derstanding and thoughts of a grown man who had spent his life in study 
 and contemplation. And there stood before me an Angel, his conntenance 
 was mild and lively, his raiment white and shining, he had spangled wings 
 growing from his shoulders, his sides, and his legs. And he said, O man, 
 come along with me : I will teach thee what to think of Glories thou canst 
 not comprehend, and make thee more sensible of the infinite distance be- 
 tween the creatures and the Creator. So saying he took me up and carried 
 me to the utmost bounds of the universe. And he said, Try now if thou 
 canst create a new world beyond this. And I said, Far be it from me to 
 attempt encroaching upon the Divine prerogative : thou knowest I am poor 
 and weak, unable to act without corporeal instruments, and the little power 
 I have is given me. And he said, I know thy weakness, that the power is 
 not thine, nor do I expect that thou shouldst operate : but I am commis- 
 sioned for thine instruction. Know, then, that creative power awaits thy 
 direction for a trial of what thou canst perform by it. Alas ! said I, I know 
 not where to begin nor how to proceed. 
 
 And he said, Stretch forth thy right arm : thrust it straight from thy side. 
 And I essayed but could not thrust it out : not that I found anything resist 
 me, but when my arm came to the utmost verge of the universe, it seemed 
 as if I had lost the use of it, so that I could not move it further. And I 
 asked the angel, Wherefore cannot I move mine arm this way ? J can thrust 
 it above or below, before or behind me, but I cannot stretch it out from my 
 side. And he said, Because there is no space to receive it. And I said. 
 Since it hath so pleased the creative Power, and this is for mine instruction,. 
 May there be space. And he said, Put forth thine arm again. And I put 
 it forth with ease straight from my side, as I could have done any other 
 way. 
 
 And he said, Wave now thy fingers to and fro, moving them in order one 
 after another. Accordingly, I endeavoured to do as I was bidden, but 
 could not perceive whether my fingers moved or not, for I had the same 
 feel all along as at the first instant when I stretched out mine arm : where- 
 fore I asked, Why cannot I perceive whether my fingers move or no ? And 
 he answered, Because there is no time, neither without time can there be a 
 succession of ideas or motions. Then I said, May Time begin her course. 
 And presently I felt my fingers move to and fro in the manner I had in- 
 tended to move them. 
 
 Then said the Angel, Now will Space continue and Time run on her 
 course for ever, until the same Power which gave them birth shall interpose 
 to destroy them. What purposest thou next ? And I said, Is it meet that 
 Time and Space should be useless ? Should there not be creatures endowed 
 with perception and activity to solace themselves in the habitation provided 
 for them, and also bodies to serve for instruments of their action and ob- 
 jects of their perception ? Proceed then, said the Angel, to furnish and 
 people this new world. But I said, O, Messenger of Heaven, thou knowest 
 there requireth wisdom as well as power to do this great thing : I under- 
 stand not what number of creatures this space might contain, nor the pro- 
 portion of matter requisite for their uses, neither how to assort it into 
 elements and marshal the particles thereof in their proper order. 
 
 On a sudden I found mvself illumined with more than mortal intelli-
 
 488 THE VISION, 
 
 gence ; though there was yet no light, I could distinguish every comer 
 of the new created space, comprehending the whole at one view. I knew 
 precisely what quantity of matter was requisite, what places to assign the 
 particles, and how to give each the proper motion and directiqn to exhibit. 
 a plan to the precipient creatures directing them to carry on the order of 
 succession once begun. But the vastness of mine intelligence perplexed 
 me : for mine aim was none other than to communicate happiness to the per- 
 ceptive creatures who should be created, but was utterly at a loss in what 
 manner to execute my intention. I saw the creatures could not be made 
 equal in happiness to their Creator, yet how far they should fall short of it 
 or what limitations to set them, I had no measure to ascertain : neither 
 could I find a rule to determine whether their happiness was to continue 
 always equal in degree, or to vary and receive interruption at stated in- 
 tervals. And if this obstacle were removed, still I saw there was an infinite 
 variety of ways by which the same portion of blessing might be conveyed 
 to them : it might be dispensed continually with no trouble or perplexity to 
 the creative power by an immediate operation without the intervention of 
 second causes, in which case they would want only the faculty of percep- 
 tivity but have no use for that of activity : or they might be endowed with 
 powers affecting one another : or if matter were employed, there were a 
 thousand various primary properties with which it might be invested, and a 
 thousand different orders of succession in which it might move, all equally 
 answering the same purpose. But I could find no preference nor make 
 election among them : for to do this was a pure act which I was incapable 
 of exerting, or of forming a choice without some pre-existent motive to in- 
 cline me. I could not guide myself by the nature of things, for where 
 there were no things in Being there could be no nature of them. 
 
 Then said the Angel, Take that scheme of material nature which thou 
 knowest established in the present universe. As I had all knowledge lent me, 
 I comprehended the whole plan of Providence, all the laws of nature and 
 mazes of fortune, the qualities of substances, their relations and mutual 
 dependencies; and began to attempt a plan similar to that of the old world. 
 So I said, May there be such and so many bodies, so and so placed, with 
 such impulses in particular lines of direction among them, according to the 
 archetypal idea in my mind. And it was so. And I looked forth upon 
 the works that were made, and behold they were not good. For I per- 
 ceived that the bodies continually colliding, the motion imparted to them 
 would in time be exhausted and the whole reduced to an inactive lump. 
 
 Then the Angel said, Why dost not thou provide active creatures to repair 
 the decays of motion from time to time by their energy ? But I answered, 
 though wisdom and knowledge be given me, these are not sufficient for the 
 purpose, for I foresee that if good only be allotted to the creatures, they 
 will want a spur to their activity and become careless : but wisdom instructs 
 me not what proportion of evil, to intermingle, nor what quarters to assign 
 it ; yet goodness forbids there should be any more dispersed than absolutely 
 necessary. 
 
 J had then revealed to me the exact quantity of evil indispensable, the 
 several forms of Being and stages of life to be passed through, which of 
 them were to be exempt from evil which wholly overwhelmed with it, and 
 which to contain a mixture of it with good ; and that moral evil was- to be 
 made the road to natural. Nevertheless, I could not proceed, for though 
 goodness was satisfied by the small quantity of evil sprinkled among the 
 good throughout the whole, and equity wtis satisfied because the creatures,
 
 THE VISION. 489 
 
 takin " their turn in rotation through the several forms of Being, would 
 receive their exact share both of the good and of the evil, yet wisdom had 
 no sufficient materials to begin upon. For it was not enough, there were 
 stations provided to receive such a number of percipient creatures, but an 
 allotment must be made of each person to his particular station : among 
 the rational creatures there were mechanics, and soldiers, and scholars, but 
 who was to be the mechanic, the soldier, or the scholar ? Here was no pro- 
 ceeding in the gross, a distribution and choice of persons in their stations 
 was necessary, yet was there no diversity of objects to determine the judg- 
 ment in making the choice : for there was neither merit nor demerit in 
 nonentities, nor difference of qualities rendering them fitter for one station 
 rather than another. Neither could I begin with the next that came to 
 hand, for there was neither proximity nor distance among nothings ; they 
 were all equally near and equally ready to be produced into Being in this 
 place or that by creative Power. Thus I remained at a full stand, and 
 while I stayed, the half-formed world was wiped away, mine illuminations 
 were taken from me, and I was reduced again to mine ordinary narrow 
 understanding, that of a common man. 
 
 Then spake the Angel unto me in a loud and majestic tone which sunk 
 deep into mine ears. Hear, O Man, and remember. This is the lesson 
 thou art to learn from all that has passed in thy sight. Thou couldst not 
 create a world even though thou hadst almighty power and infinite wisdom 
 to assist thee : for power and wisdom do not suffice for the work of crea- 
 tion. Power performs nothing without wisdom to direct hVnor does wis- 
 dom direct without goodness to move it : goodness may permit, but will 
 not produce evil, and wisdom is not herself without pre-existent ideas to 
 contemplate. Yet was there nothing prior, nothing external to God, which 
 might exhibit ideas, but they were suggested by his own pure act precedent 
 to themselves and to the wisdom they generated. Thou beholdest the 
 works of nature and readest therein characters of power, wisdom, and 
 goodness, greater than imagination can fully comprehend : but know, there 
 ure other Attributes whereof thou canst not imagine even a glimpse, yet 
 must acknowledge there are such, because thou seest effects which could 
 not be worked by those whereof thou hast any imagination. The necessity 
 of evil compelleth not the Lord to admit it, for necessity bindeth him not, 
 but his decrees make necessity. He alone can act where no motives are, 
 and choose between things indifferent : he thereby openeth the sources 
 whence wisdom floweth, and beginneth the order of succession which she 
 carrieth on : he established! the nature of things to be an unalterable rule 
 for his own proceedings, and determineth what shall be absolutely impos- 
 sible, setting bounds as it were to his own Omnipotence. 
 
 The Angel having said this, took me up in his arms and carried me back 
 to my vehicle : he opened a cleft in my head, which having applied against 
 the rent in the vehicle, he injected me thereinto and closed up the rent ; so 
 that the bag became entire as before disruption. 
 
 72. Immediately I thrust out my head, and opening my eyes saw my 
 patron Locke with the rest of the vehicles standing round me in amazement : 
 for though they had suspected I should return because they saw my vehicle 
 did not begin to unravel like a torn stocking, as it seems was usual upon 
 disruptions, yet extraordinary events are apt to surprise even when ex- 
 pected. They were very curious and importunate with me to relate the par- 
 ticulars of all I had seen, and give them an account of the country they 
 hoped in due time to inhabit themselves. Indeed, says I, Gentlemen, I do
 
 490 THE VISION. 
 
 not know what you mean. I relate particulars ! All I know is, that yon 
 told rne just now I was going to be advanced, and I thought 1 felt my 
 vehicle tear asunder, but to be sure it was only fancy, for I find myself 
 sound and whole now. I believe I may have been in a fainting fit for a 
 moment. A moment ! said they, why you have been gone from us a full 
 week of our time, and must have seen a great deal in that space. Whv 
 will not you communicate ? had you any injunctions to secresy ? I vowed 
 and protested upon the honest word of a. Search that I had nothing to tell 
 them, and that if I had been gone so long as they talked of, I remembered 
 not a tittle of what had passed in that interval. But they would not believe 
 me, and some said they would get it out, whether I would or no, by the 
 sentient language : so I was in great danger of having a rape committed 
 upon my imagination, if Locke had not interposed. Good friends, says he, 
 you will not get anything of him by violence : I know my cousin better than 
 you do : he has such an abundance of odd thoughts, and jumbles them so 
 together in motley mixtures of serious and trifling, abstruse and familiar, 
 earnest and jest, that you will not discern anything he knows or thinks of 
 if he has not a mind to let you. But I know he will be sincere and open 
 with me. Come, Ned, make a flat side. I did so, and after a short appli- 
 cation of his vehicle thereto he assured them that I had really no informa- 
 tion to give them. Besides, says he, consider, he went from hence a naked 
 spirit, without any corporeal organs or tablet of memory to retain the 
 traces of what he might see during his absence. Locke's authority satis- 
 fying the company that there was nothing to be learned from me, they dis- 
 persed about upon their several occasions and left us alone. 
 
 73. When they were gone, I observed to Locke that there seemed to be 
 a variety of brogues among them : some spoke in a kind of guttural pro- 
 nunciation, others as if they had been singing. Can it be, says I, that the 
 Americans and Chinese find their way hither ? Can it be, says he, that 
 you are so narrow-minded as to doubt it ? Has not the story of Cor- 
 nelius the centurion convinced you, that whoever fears God in any nation 
 finds favour in his sight ? He gives to every man the lights necessary for 
 discovering to him the duties he requires at his hands, but men make their 
 own fortunes by the manner in which they use them. There are even of 
 our line of the Searches to be found among the uninstructed and the savage. 
 Those who come with fewer improvements find no inconvenience in the 
 want of them, for everything lies here in common : we look upon our talents 
 as deposited with us for the public service, and that our neighbours have 
 an equal property in them with ourselves, therefore such as have them do 
 not endeavour to enslave or overreach such as have them not, but employ 
 them to procure their advantages and enjoyments equally with their own. 
 
 But it is time you should think of returning to your body again : the day 
 has appeared some time upon your hemisphere, and if you should stay be- 
 yond your usual hour of rising, it will put your family in an uproar ; they 
 will think you defunct in earnest, and finding your vital motions continue 
 but no signs of sensation, they will send for Doctors and Surgeons to wrap 
 you in blisters and scarify you all over. But, says I, may not your clocks go 
 too fast ? Could not we take a little turn first somewhere or other to see 
 more of the country ? What, says he, then you do not care to leave it ? 
 But we do not go by clocks I see the earth yonder, though you cannot, 
 posting away before us ; the verge of night is already gotten beyond the 
 British Islands. Well, says I, since it must be so, here is my arm : but I 
 go half reluctantly, for I like this place so well I could be glad to live here
 
 THE VISION. 491 
 
 always ; and yet methinks I should want to see my girls again. So he took 
 hold of my arm. But, says he, you shall take a sip of Ambrosia first to for- 
 tify you for the journey, for we shall find damps and foggy vapours when 
 we come down into the atmosphere. 
 
 He led me directly to the ambrosial streams, where having drank my fill, 
 we pushed forward to overtake the terraqueous globe, which we did with 
 as much ease as a wagoner, having stopped at an alehouse door to wet his 
 whistle, runs after his creeping team. We took a little compass to avoid 
 lengthening our way through the atmosphere by passing it aslant : this 
 obliged us to cross a part of the shadowy cone of night. In one place of 
 this dark region I heard a most dismal howling, shrieks and clamours, of 
 all grating kinds. Pray, says I, what makes those hideous noises ? It 
 seems as if a thousand people were cutting one another's throats. Says he, 
 it is a parcel of the unhappy vehicles vexing and plaguing one another. 
 Oh ! says I, for heaven's sake let us keep out of their way. If I should 
 meet another Borgia among them what would become of me ? So I will, 
 says he, not upon our own account, for I should not scruple pushing through 
 the midst of them for any hurt they could do us, but the sight of our people 
 increases their torment, stirring up their envy, remorse, and despair. So 
 out of compassion to them we went round just enough to escape their ob- 
 servation, and very soon emerged into light. When we came into the zenith 
 of the great Metropolis of commerce, we shot directly downwards like a 
 falling star, Locke making the neucleus and myself the trail. 
 
 74. In our passage through the atmosphere I diverted myself with ob- 
 serving the variety of different particles, metallic, stony, vitreous, ligne- 
 ous, vegetable, aqueous, and sulphureous, dancing in nimble mazes, never 
 touching but thrusting one another away, as the contrary pole of a load- 
 stone does the magnetic needle. The aqueous, upon the action of heat 
 within them being withdrawn, were overcome by the stronger repul- 
 sion of the rest, which forced them together into contact and gathered them 
 tnto drops. In this state they turned the course of the rays falling upon 
 them obliquely and broke the bars into their constituent balls, which proceed- 
 ing then with different velocities, if they chanced to overtake one another, 
 they adhered by their flat sides and formed complete bars again. 
 
 Being now arrived at the top of mine own house, the rays we had skated 
 upon would not attend us further, but it pleased me to see how nimbly we 
 glided through the pores of the tiles and timbers, like a snake along the 
 twigs of a hedge. My conductor stopping, asked me what I saw before me. 
 I see, says I, a prodigious torrent rushing directly upwards in circling 
 eddies with a tremulous motion. That, says he, is the flame of a candle 
 your maid has left upon the stairs while she is gone down to fetch some 
 chips for lighting your study fire. Come, shall we go into it ? I can show 
 you something very curious in the inside. You do not say so ! cries I. We 
 shall be burnt up in an instant, like a spider thrown into the kitchen fire. 
 He laughed at my simplicity. No, no, says he, we are not afraid of material 
 fire, if we can keep from inward burnings. The distempered vehicles indeed 
 being debilitated in their limbs cannot manage them properly : so the agita- 
 tions of fire beat them about incessantly, giving them as violent smart by out- 
 ward pulsion as they do the human flesh by stretching the parts of it from 
 within. Then laying hold of me he gave a strong jump, which threw us upon 
 the middle of the snuff. But we could not stand still therea moment, for there 
 was such a commotion of the particles moving in all curvatures about us, that 
 we were forced to shift our quarters every instant : but my conductor ma-
 
 492 THE VISION. 
 
 naged so dexterously, Dy pulling or pushing me to the right or the left, that 
 he kept me always in the interstices between them, so that none ever struck 
 directly against me, and though I felt them continually brush my sides, I did 
 not receive the least hurt from them. I observed the corpuscles of light did 
 not touch the substance of the tallow or the cotton, but by their attraction 
 detached particles from them ; upon which the corpuscles and particles rolled 
 round one another as their centres, until being drawn off by the attraction 
 of other centres, whereto they chanced to approach nearer, they moved in 
 another circle, and so danced in a kind of figures of eight : but those on the 
 outside, being thrown beyond the attraction of any centre, flew off by their 
 tangential motion in a right line and contributed to form the flame. Look 
 ye here, says Locke, what pretty country-dancings, and hayings, your five 
 million of million of corpuscles make ! You see a grain of tallow can do as 
 much as a grain of wax : but I suppose you choose the latter as the genteeler 
 and cleanlier of the two. 
 
 75. He then carried me down stairs and set me upon the floor. Now, 
 says he, you may use your legs : here is ground to tread upon. I was over- 
 joyed to find my feet again. I scampered to and fro like a wild colt upon a 
 common, shifting my little legs faster than a fly upon a table. I found the 
 boards and nails of the floor and other bodies I met with were not solid, but 
 rather a net-work consisting of very large meshes : neither were the threads 
 between them any other than a finer net-work composed of smaller meshes 
 resembling the shrouds of a ship : I run up and down the wainscot by help 
 of these shrouds without difficulty or danger of falling. There happened a 
 chimney sweeper to pass along the street, whose shrill cries made the strings 
 of the net-works vibrate considerably, but in different directions according to 
 the difference of their position : I found that by means of these vibrations I 
 could jump above twenty times my own height, or throw myself a consider- 
 able way from a side of the stiles to some protuberance I could catch hold of 
 in the pannel, like a squirrel vaulting from tree to tree ; for after one or two 
 trials I learned to form my fingers into claws, with which I could hang to 
 anything like a cat. Once indeed attempting a swinging leap from the 
 wainscot to the floor, where the boards, being decayed with too frequent 
 washing, were more porous than ordinary, I did not take my distance ex- 
 actly, but falling in the middle of one of those wide meshes might have 
 slipped quite through to the chamber below, if there had not chanced to lie 
 a hair across the lowermost mesh of all : this having caught hold of, with a 
 good stout spring I got my feet upon it and presently ran up the side of 
 the pore to my conductor again. I bragged to him how nice this vibration- 
 exercise was for teaching me to walk upon moving ground by taking a 
 certain impulse and direction therefrom, whereby I should learn the sooner 
 to skate upon the solar and stellar rays whenever I returned to ether. He 
 smiled, and, Come, says he, enough of these gambols. Let us proceed to 
 your chamber. 
 
 We did not go through the key-hole, as they say spirits usually do, for 
 that would have been out of the way, but through the chink under the door : 
 yet I held up my head as erect and found as good room over it as a goose 
 in going through a barn. I followed my guide to the right hand or the 
 left, up hill or down, as he led me, still skipping from mesh to mesh with 
 higher bounds than needful, while he walked soberly along the strings. 
 
 We clomb a high pinnacle that appeared like the Peak of Teneriffe taper- 
 ing up to the top, where was a spacious flat big enough for five hundred of 
 us to have danced a Lancashire hornpipe. What are we got upon now ?
 
 THE VISION. 493 
 
 nays I. The point of a pin, says he, sticking out of your pillow. But look 
 up over your head and all about ye. I used to think, quoth I, the world 
 was round : but this is a square world. It is your bed, says he : the curtains 
 drawn round except one place at the feet. Good lack ! says I, what fools 
 are mankind to terrify themselves with notions of Ghosts throwing open 
 their curtains and staring at them with saucer eyes ! A million of us could 
 not stir one of those heavy textures, nor reflect corpuscles of light enow to 
 make the apparition of a flea. But what is that huge mountain over against 
 us, with a monstrous gaping chasm on one side and a great ridge turned 
 this way, from whence issue black streams of fuliginous vapour ? That, says 
 he, is your head, mouth, and nose. Surprising! says I; have I lain so 
 many years, like another Enceladus, under that smoking Etna ? How could 
 I escape being suffocated with that load of filth upon my lungs ? 
 
 Hark ! says he, I hear the cocks crow in the stable yard, which is a 
 signal for spirits to depart. So we descended the pinnacle, ran along the 
 pillow, and he conducted me through one of the pores in my head, having 
 first made me cast myself into the form of one of Lewenhoek's animalcules. 
 I had much ado to wriggle along, for it was all sticky and miry, like a 
 Sussex road, with the insensible perspiration which in sleep is more copious. 
 When we arrived at the anterior ventricles he took a hearty leave, wished 
 me a happy return to the vehicular country again, and bid me take my sta- 
 tion. I hung back, and with a lamentable groan, Must I, says I, must I 
 lie imprisoned again in that loathsome dungeon ? Prithee ! says he, no 
 words. Reverence the Oath, for it is the Oath of Jove. Be ready upon 
 call either to enter the body or quit the body. In matters put within thine 
 own power, use thy judgment and discretion : but when thou seest whither 
 the laws of nature or dispensations of Providence point, revere, resign, and 
 obey. He then beckoned to Gellius, who leaving off" writing, I knew 
 nothing of what passed afterwards. 
 
 76. It was now broad day-light, when Somnus, taking off" his poppy 
 garland from my temples, fled away, but with him fled not the visions of 
 the night ; for the faithful Gellius had engraven them in strong characters 
 upon the tablet of my memory. I started up full of the wonders I had 
 seen : I turned eagerly to look for the pin, which I found sticking with the 
 point upwards about six inches from my ear. Is this the summit, says I, 
 where Locke and I found so much room to expatiate ? And the sides are 
 all smooth and polished. Where are the shrouds by which we ran up and 
 down so easily ? I then threw myself upon my back, and was astonished 
 to see the bed tester so near me, which I beheld just before like the spacious 
 canopy of heaven stretched over me at an immense distance. I tried to get 
 a little nap for composing my spirits, but could not. So I got up, and 
 after breakfast finding my head too confused for application of any kind 
 that morning, 1 sauntered it away at auctions, coffee-houses, and the like. 
 I could not help every now and then talking to myself, muttering out some 
 mysterious words, such as Euridice, vehicles, Caesar Borgia, riding upon 
 the rays, and complained of my chocolate for not being so good as Am- 
 brosia ; till I perceived people began to look strange upon me and suspected 
 that, as the French Ambassador said of Monsieur D'Eon, I had a little 
 alienation of the organs. This made me more circumspect and careful to 
 bring myself down to, sublunary affairs to save the credit of my intellects; 
 for had I run Opera-mad, or Assembly-mad, or Methodist-mad or Election- 
 mad, I might have found companions enow to keep me in countenance, but 
 such a peculiar species of insanity as Vehicle-madness must have been
 
 494 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 pointed at by everybody ; so I strove hard against the impulse, and with a 
 little practice came to think and talk again like other folks. 
 
 I then proceeded with diligence to reduce into writing the records 
 engraven by Gellius upon my sensory, and I think I have done it very 
 exactly, not omitting the minutest circumstance that could be discerned 
 clearly ; so if there be anything in them not consonant to the truth of facts, 
 it is his fault for misleading me. It vexed me that I could not recover his 
 interlineations, for by the imperfect notion I have of them, I imagine they 
 tend to harmonize Reason with Religion, and to show that objects rightly 
 placed either in the light of Nature or of the gospel, will appear the same 
 in substance and quality, varying only by a difference of colours, suited 
 respectively to the different optics of the man of speculation or the man or 
 business. I thought it very obliging in my kind patron to lead me through 
 a variety of entertaining as well as instructive scenes : no doubt he had the 
 latter principally in view, but interspersed the former to make the others 
 the more palatable to my compatriots, who it must be owned are too 
 squeamish in their taste, and fonder of the toothsome than the wholesome. 
 I hope they will not frustrate his good intentions by doing like the children 
 when one sweetens a pill ,for them, who suck off the sugar and spit out the 
 medicine. , 
 
 CHAP. XXIV 
 
 'NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 HAVING now dismounted my Pegasus and gotten safe upon firm ground 
 again, without any bruises, or broken bones, or crack in the pericranium, 
 that my friends can perceive, let us turn him loose upon the common for 
 the use of others who may be disposed to take the like adventurous flight, 
 and let us proceed for the rest of our way in the safer tracks that reason 
 shall beat out upon the solid bottom of experience and observation. But 
 since in the Illusion 7 1 of the last chapter, I have happened to mention a 
 nature of things which could not subsist before the things themselves 
 whereof it was the nature, and there are many persons who insist that we 
 may know, by experience of our own thoughts, there are things and a 
 nature of them which must have subsisted eternally, uncreated, indepen- 
 dent on the Will and power of the Almighty, which he cannot alter nor 
 depart from, but serve for an indispensable rule of his conduct in the crea- 
 tion and government of his worlds : since this doctrine is so zealously 
 maintained, it will be worth while, before we canvass the truth of it, to 
 inquire what is to be understood by that expression, The nature of things. 
 It has been employed by the orthodox, Cudworth, in particular, building 
 largely upon it as upon the sole stable foundation, but seems now to be 
 chiefly in use among the freethinkers, who are very forward to tell you 
 precisely what God can or cannot do : he cannot work a miracle, cannot 
 give a revelation, cannot guide the motions of a free agent, nor make such 
 a one impeccable, nor annex reward to an assent of the mind, nor make all 
 his creatures of equal degree without a continued gradation from his own 
 perfections down to nothing ; for these are contrary to the nature of things. 
 If you ask what things they mean, or what by the nature of them, they 
 will not vouchsafe, or rather cannot give, an explanation, but are angry 
 with you as a captious person for putting the question ; yet still go on to
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 495 
 
 lay a mighty stress upon those words without having any clear or settled 
 idea of their import. It seeras extraordinary that persons who are so 
 severe upon others for using expressions they do not understand, should 
 fall into the like ahsurdity themselves, and pretend to build demonstrations 
 upon principles whereof they have no clearer nor more adequate idea than 
 the vulgar they afFect to ridicule have of the mysteries : hoth lay an im- 
 plicit dependence upon words without a meaning, and both expect that a 
 constant repetition of positive assertions chimed into their ears by others, 
 should pass for proof and explanation. 
 
 2. Since then we can get no light for understanding the language from 
 those in whose mouths it passes most currently, let us try what \ve can 
 strike out for ourselves : and upon asking what is meant by things, the 
 first obvious answer occurring is, that they must be the substances existing. 
 For the rudiments of our knowledge come all from sensation : when we 
 see or hear or feel, there must be some agent : some substance to operate 
 upon our senses : and from hence we derive our evidence of external objects, 
 us we do that of our own existence from the perceptions impressed upon us 
 by them, together with the alterations produced in them by our activity ; 
 for there must be a substance to perceive as well as an object to be per- 
 ceived, and an agent to act as well as a subject to be operated upon. 
 
 But our knowledgeljf substances seems to consist wholly of the differences 
 among them ; our definitions and descriptions contain the particularities of 
 the subject distinguishing it from everything else. For which reason we 
 know nothing of our internal organs, the nerves and fibres of our brain, 
 because whatever discoveries anatomy may have made, we have no expe- 
 rience of any diversity of operation among them, but for aught we can dis- 
 cern our sensations of every various kind may come conveyed to us through 
 the same channel. For the same reason many remain so ignorant of them- 
 selves, and make such difficulty to fix the idea of their own perceptive indi- 
 vidual, because it is the same self that receives all their sensations, reflec- 
 tions, and perceptions whatever : therefore the difference of their perceptions 
 does not lead them into the knowledge of themselves, though it does into 
 that of externals affecting them therewith. For we cannot penetrate the 
 essence of substances, we can apprehend them only by their qualities or 
 powers of affecting us, or of producing and receiving alterations among one 
 another, causing them to exhibit other appearances than they did before. 
 
 But the same substances possess so many qualities, and vary them so often 
 according to their situations, their mutual affections, relations, compositions, 
 and associations, that it would be inconvenient for use, and indeed imprac- 
 ticable, to call them all to mind : therefore our ideas in common discourse 
 and even in meditation, are for the most part, if not always, partial, con- 
 taining some only but not all of the qualities or circumstances we may know 
 upon mature consideration belongs to the subject in our thoughts. And 
 there is the less wonder at this because the appearances to our senses are 
 likewise partial : nobody ever saw the whole circumference of a ball, nor 
 all the sides of a cube. When .a man stands before us, we see only his face 
 and hands and the fore part of his dress ; and when we would think of him 
 in his absence, the same appearance occurs without the least idea of his 
 back, although we know well enough he must have one. And when we 
 speak of him sate down at table, we would not choose to think of that un- 
 seemly part without which there can be no sitting : our idea contains no 
 more than so much of his body as would appear without legs or feet, and 
 in a lower situation than if he stood upright.
 
 4.9 G NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 But the similarity of one or a few qualities found in many substances, 
 differing widely in other respects, suits our convenience extremely well, 
 enabling us to talk intelligibly of numbers by one name expressive of those 
 qualities wherein they agree : whence come our ideas of Genera and Species. 
 For as Mr. Locke observes, the name of a species denotes those qualities, 
 wherein a set of individuals agree, selected from those wherein they may 
 differ ; and a genus is a further selection out of those qualities, of some 
 wherein a greater number of individuals agree who do not agree in them 
 all. Thus the word Horse expresses such particulars as belong to every 
 horse exclusive of size, shape, or colour, wherein they are not all alike ; as 
 the word Animal does such of these particulars as belong equally to an 
 eagle, a dolphin, or a frog, separated from those peculiar to the species of 
 horses. Hence likewise we form our judgments, which commonly run upon 
 species and genus or upon adjectives denominating some quality considered 
 apart from the substance. Thus we say a horse is an animal, a crow 
 is black, an elephant bigger than a sheep. But sometimes we turn our ad- 
 jectives into substances, and then can make genus and species of them as 
 well as of substances : for red is one sort of colour, green another, and Co- 
 lour is the Genus or Kind comprehending those two with all other particular 
 colours under it ; as Sound is the genus comprehending all the several Sorts 
 of sound that can be made. 
 
 3. Of these partial ideas one species is the abstract, for abstraction sig- 
 nifies the drawing off or selection of one or a few things from others where- 
 with they were by nature connected. When this selection is made by the 
 senses, we do not call it an abstraction, nor unless it be done by a voluntary 
 act of the mind : and these abstractions are of two sorts, those strictly so 
 called, as when we talk of abstract notions or abstract reasonings, which are 
 such only as the speculative make with labour of thought for their particular 
 use ; and others which we are led into without trouble by the common 
 occasions of life. For there are many abstract ideas extremely familiar to 
 the vulgar, such as man, bird, noise, white, large, and so forth, of which 
 they can talk currently yet without any thought of the substances whereto 
 they belong. Wherefore it seems strange that Berkley and some others 
 should deny that we have any abstract ideas, for all partial ideas are in the 
 same case, whether the separation be made by our own act or by the opera- 
 tion of our senses ; and it is so far from being true that we are incapable of 
 partial ideas and appearances, that daily experience testifies we have scarce 
 any others : but if my senses can exhibit to me a half man sitting behind a 
 table without legs or lower parts, and my memory can make a further sepa- 
 ration bv certifying to me a week afterwards that I had seen a man sitting 
 there, yet with so little remembrance of his features that I should not know 
 him again if shown me, surely I can make another separation of a human 
 figure having eyes, nose, mouth, and so forth, without thinking whether 
 the nose be long or short, what colour the eyes are of, or w,hat width the 
 mouth. 
 
 And here I have the pleasure of joining in alliance with my Lord Boling- 
 broke, for the spirit of opposition so little possesses me that I am glad to 
 concur in sentiment .with anybody where I can : I have once or twice stood 
 np on behalf of Epicurus, and am now as ready to follow his lordship upon 
 the possibility of abstraction and the dependent nature of things, whereon I 
 ihink he argues closely and soundly ; though for the most part his philoso- 
 phical essavs, as he calls them, seem rather House of Commons harangues, 
 &s unfit for the schools of philosophers as their lectures would be for the
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 497 
 
 other place, better calculated, like some modern orations, for amusing and 
 tripping up than for counselling and conducting : yet even here he appears 
 to have proceeded with more zeal for running down poor Cudworth than 
 maintaining the cause of truth. And in the course of his argument he 
 seems to have deserted it by apostatizing into Berkley's notion, that we can- 
 not have the idea of a species unless by some particular individual to stand 
 as a representative of the rest : which notion contradicts the constant ex- 
 perience ot facts. For we talk every day of species, as men, cattle, birds, 
 noises, colours : we know what we mean in using these terms, and are un- 
 derstood clearly by one another ; but a man can scarce be said to understand 
 himself who has no ideas of what he says, nor to be understood by another 
 without ideas of his words. The hearer may have different ideas from the 
 speaker, and then misapprehends him, but to understand aright, the very 
 same ideas must pass from the one to the other. 
 
 Now the representative individual, to be clearly apprehended, must rise 
 in the imagination with some determinate size, shape, colour, posture, in 
 motion or quiescent ; therefore if this idea were necessary for understand- 
 ing the specific name, no man could certainly understand another in the 
 most common conversation, because he could never be sure the same repre- 
 sentative which was in the mind of the other passed unaltered to himself. 
 Should I send to my bailiff in the country to buy me a couple of milch 
 cows against my going down, I should seem to understand myself fully, I 
 believe he would understand me as fully and execute my orders punctually : 
 yet I am not conscious that in giving such orders I have any particular cow 
 in my thoughts : but his lordship it seems knows them better than I do 
 myself, and he assures me that I must have a representative individual in 
 view, for else I could have no meaning in the word Cow. Be it so : then 
 this representative must be of some determinate colour, for there is no in- 
 dividual cow without, and I must intreat his lordship to tell me what that 
 colour was, for I protest 1 do not know. Suppose it red as being the most 
 common : but my man must have a representative too, because else he can 
 have no idea of my orders : perhaps he has been that morning among a 
 drove of Welch cattle and takes a black one for his representative. Well 
 then, away he goes to Fair, where he sees two fine cows, one brindle and 
 the other white : he judges them excellent beasts, in good milk and well 
 worth the money asked for them : so he buys them both and thinks he has 
 done bravely. Now when I come to see them am I to quarrel with the 
 poor fellow for disobeying my orders, or to call him a blockhead for not 
 understanding so plain an expression as, Buy a couple of cows ? or if he goes 
 to excuse himself upon being not so learned a man nor so exact in abstract 
 knowledge, should I tell him that the cows being of different colours, it 
 was impossible they could both answer either his idea or mine, because 
 neither of us could know what was meant by the specific term Cow without 
 a representative, which must be of some one determinate colour. 
 
 4. It is not uncommon for deep thinking persons to draw a confusedness 
 over their thoughts by their refinements which the vulgar escape, and I 
 think it plain that such as we have been arguing against in the last section 
 have not always a clear and adequate idea of what is meant by that ex- 
 pression, To have the idea of a thing. They seem to understand by it such 
 particulars as will arise to the imagination when we take a single object 
 under contemplation in our leisure hours : now I must own that whenever 
 I contemplate a species there does generally, perhaps always, occur an in- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 K
 
 498 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 dividual before me, with colour, shape, members, clothes, or hide, or fins, 
 or feathers thereto belonging, and I hold it right to indulge this custom : 
 for since our abstracts derive all originally from the concrete, and are liable 
 to fluctuate and fade in our remembrance, there is no likelier method of 
 renewing and fixing them than by sight or contemplation of the concrete 
 as being the fountain from whence they sprung. But this serves only for 
 restoring ideas known to us before, when we go to new fonn an idea upon 
 a more perfect model, I never could find a single representative answer the 
 purpose, but am forced to employ several . 
 
 If I would settle with myself what is justice, I think first perhaps of a 
 man paying money that he has borrowed, which is a just action ; then with 
 TuUy, of one selling a house but concealing that there are bugs in it, or of 
 running prohibited goods, or of the gross partiality of a father to some of 
 his children above the rest ; and thus by turning over a variety of actions 
 in my thoughts, endeavour to fix a complete and precise idea of justice, 
 which when gotten, no one of those actions can stand for a full representa- 
 tive afterwards, because destitute of some circumstances which constitute 
 the essence of justice in others. 
 
 So if I met with a person that did not know what a triangle was, I 
 might show him a piece of paper in that form : perhaps the piece is rect- 
 angular and he may take that particular into his idea ; I may then cut him 
 several other pieces having various angles, and make him observe that they 
 all agree in that circumstance of their having three straight sides lying be- 
 tween three corners : if I found him imagining that a triangle must be 
 made of paper, I might then produce one of wood or ivory, and remark to 
 him that these two agree with the former in the circumstance before men- 
 tioned. Possibly he still thinks a triangle must be something of a size to 
 be turned about commodiously upon a table, when I discover this, it will be 
 expedient to carry him into a three corner field, or point to some star in 
 the zenith and another in the horizon, and tell him that they, together with 
 the spot of ground we stand upon, form an immense triangle. 
 
 Thus these contrivances serve gradually to abstract or draw off the ideas 
 constituting triangularity from all others, which any particular substance or 
 space of that form may exhibit : and if I can succeed in making the sepa- 
 ration clean and complete, he will then have the specific idea of a triangle 
 containing neither the idea of rectangular, equilateral, isosceles, nor obtuse, 
 neither softness nor hardness, neither solidity nor empty space, yet compa- 
 tible and connectible with any of them. 
 
 We have all of us some of those abstract or general ideas, which we use 
 in our daily transactions with one another ; they answer our occasions, nor 
 could the business of life go on without them : but in the hurry of business 
 or currency of common conversation, it is not to be supposed that we have 
 the particular subjects, whereto our ideas may belong, passing continually 
 in review before us. Or to rise to higher instances, a man used to it may 
 harangue in public for hours together upon the most important matters 
 with great judgment and perspicuity, so as to be readily understood by his 
 audience, many of them perhaps persons of dull capacity and narrow ima- 
 gination : yet it is not covceivable that he, much less they, should draw 
 along in their thoughts a succession of representative individuals corres- 
 ponding respectively with all the specific terms employed, in the same 
 rapidity wherewith they were spoken. Whenever his lordship in either 
 house had occasion to mention Prerogative or Liberty of the subject, had 
 he always pictured upon his fancy some particular exertion of royal autho-
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 499 
 
 nty together with the person of the Queen or her minister making that 
 exertion ? or of a private man with a steady determinate countenance ex- 
 pressive of resolution to disobey an illegal command ? And if he had not 
 those pictures, must we pronounce that he did not understand himself, nor 
 had any idea of what he talked of ? 
 
 5. These abstractions furnish us with another set of things which are not 
 substances : for we say justice is not the same thing as bounty ; colour is 
 one thing and sound another : sporting is a different thing from poaching, 
 or poaching signifies quite a different thing when applied to destroying game 
 and to dressing of eggs ; prudence and tranquillity of mind are desirable 
 things ; war, famine, and pestilence, dreadful things ; there is such a thing 
 as sincerity, but no such thing as absolute certainty among men. Now it 
 is upon this sort of things only that the dispute turns, whether they are 
 independent, unproduced, and necessarily existent : for with regard to sub- 
 stances, I believe all Theists now-a-days agree with the soundest of them 
 in former days, in holding that there is but one deserving those epithets, 
 who therefore was called in Greek, To On, or the Being, and in Hebrew, 
 Jehovah, or the I AM ; but that all other substances whatever were created, 
 their primary properties assigned them, their positions, affections, assort- 
 ments, and relations, brought upon them by the provisions of that One or 
 First Cause. 
 
 But substances are the only existent things containing in them all other 
 things, which belong to them as modifications, relations, and circumstances, 
 begin and end with them, and are so far from being independent on the Al- 
 mighty, that they depend upon the manner of existing in those substances 
 which depended upon his Will for their existence. For we have seen that the 
 abstract is drawn from the concrete : it is a selection of one or a few ideas 
 exhibited together with others by the concrete ; we may think of it apart, 
 but it cannot exist apart, nor without some substance possessing it. For our 
 idea of a thing is not the thing itself : I may think and reason upon motion, 
 when lying abed in a still night with everything quiescent about me ; yet 
 will anybody say there would have been such a thing as motion if there had 
 been no moveable substances ever in being ? I can fancy the chairs dancing 
 about the room spontaneously ; but does that give a reality to such a 
 species of movement ? Who will insist there must be a specific exist- 
 ence of Cyclops, Chimeras, and black swans, because artists have had so 
 full an idea as to delineate them exactly in prints and paintings ? 
 
 But men of abstruse learning are led into mistakes upon this article, 
 because many of their abstractions are not drawn immediately from sub- 
 stances, but from one another ; and that by several gradations of new re- 
 finements, serving as a channel into others still more subtile. Like a wire- 
 drawer who takes a little bar of silver, forces it through the hole of his 
 engine, and by driving it successively through smaller and smaller holes, 
 brings it to a fineness fit for winding round a thread of silk. Therefore, 
 forgetting the steps by which they arrived at an abstraction, they discern 
 no source to give it birth, but suppose it to have an existence of its own 
 independent on everything else. Thus the rules of justice are apprehended 
 immutable and unproduced, because you cannot draw them directly from 
 any object before you. If you see a man sit musing in a chair, you may 
 discern his complexion, his size, and all the parts of his human figure, 
 but he exhibits no idea of justice in the whole appearance you have to 
 inspect. Nevertheless, let us consider whether the rules of justice do not 
 
 2 K 2
 
 500 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 derive from the contemplation of man, for they relate solely to his dealing's 
 with others : if there was no such thing as justice there could be no ruks 
 respecting it, if there were no transactions among mankind there could be 
 neither justice nor injustice, and if there were no men there could be no 
 such transactions. Therefore justice and the rules of it cannot be older 
 than man, nor perhaps so old, for while Adam lived alone there was no 
 room for justice. But you say there may have been other creatures before 
 him governed by the rules of justice : probably there might, and in that 
 case justice was older than man, yet it was not existent before, nor ne- 
 cessarily coeval with, the substances capable of exercising it, who might 
 have lived some time apart before being brought into one another's 
 company. 
 
 6. Well but I might have an idea of justice though there never had been 
 a race 'of men to practise it : this I much doubt of, for my ideas are all 
 taken from experience of what I have seen, and if I had never observed a 
 difference in the behaviour of men to one another, I should never have known 
 what justice was. Yet this will not satisfy, for you urged that now I have 
 gotten the idea, I should not lose it though all the men besides myself were 
 annihilated ; and the like idea might subsist elsewhere, before there were 
 any creatures to practise it, judgments might be passed and propositions 
 formed concerning it : but there can be no idea of Nothing, therefore jus- 
 tice must have a real existence distinct from every just action and the agent 
 performing it. Why, by this logic, I can prove there are Chimeras and 
 black swans, for I have a clear idea of them, can pass judgments and form 
 propositions concerning them, as that the Chimera must be a dangerous 
 creature in any country, and might eat up all the black swans : but I cannot 
 have an idea of a Nothing, therefore the Chimera and the black swan have 
 a reality and existence independent of everything else. So you do not per- 
 ceive that you have changed the state of the question, you do not indeed 
 change the terms, but you change the signification belonging to them : for 
 whereas justice before was understood of something without us, whereof we 
 might entertain an idea, it now becomes appropriated to the idea itself, 
 which possibly may not be conformable to anything external. Let us then 
 examine whether such idea can subsist independently on any substance. 
 
 I have generally employed the word Idea to stand for that state of our 
 internal organs, which is the immediate cause of a perception : in this sense 
 it is nothing more than a particular modification of matter and motion, 
 which cannot subsist unless in a fine texture of material organs capable of 
 taking such modification. But oftentimes Idea denotes the very perception 
 of the mind, and in this construction can have none other reality than that 
 derived from the mind perceiving ; for there cannot be a perception without 
 a percipient. Thus in all lights wherein we can consider justice, it has no 
 claim to independency and separate existence : for whether we conceive it 
 to be something external which we can apprehend, it then depends upon 
 the behaviour of creatures among one another exhibiting it to our apprehen- 
 sion , or whether we understand it of a corporeal idea, it can be no older 
 than the organizations capable of being modified thereinto ; or whether we 
 take it for a mental idea, it must begin and end with the perception of some 
 mind affected therewith. 
 
 7. Let us now come to the nature of things, and this very expression 
 might convince us that it cannot be necessarily eternal ; for substances are 
 acknowledged to have been created, and we have seen that things unsubstan- 
 tial depend upon them for their existence : then the nature of both cannot .
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 5(H 
 
 be older than the things themselves whereof it is the nature. There could 
 not be a human nature before there were men, nor a nature of justice be- 
 fore there were agents capable of mutual dealings which might be regulated 
 by the rules of justice. But so short an answer will hardly satisfy : we will 
 therefore inquire more minutely into the proper import of the word nature, 
 Which is somewhat difficult to settle because so variable in common use. 
 
 For nature is often placed in contradistinction to education, to art, to de>- 
 sign, to chance, to miracle : and what is currently ascribed to it upon one 
 occasion, has a different cause assigned upon another. Every country fellow 
 makes the distinction between natural grass and clover, nonsuch, or others 
 that are sown, and between the natural produce of the ground and corn-, 
 which is the effect of cultivation : yet if a man takes a farm it is natural for 
 him to plough and sow, and he depends upon the nature of the soil for the 
 growth and goodness of his crops. Then again in discourses upon com- 
 merce, we count the corn and other fruits raised by industry among the 
 natural produce of a country, because it is not imported nor manufactured 
 of foreign materials. In distempers some people trust to nature for a cure, 
 others send for a physician in hopes that his skill may throw off a burden 
 she must have sunk under. Yet when corn is gotten from a field where na- 
 ture would have yielded nothing but weeds, or a dangerous disease con- 
 quered by the cares of a physician, nobody reckons these in the class of 
 supernatural events. So the excrescences and monstrous productions found 
 in plants and animals are sometimes styled preternatural and sometimes the 
 sport!? of nature. Therefore nature signifies the properties, powers, rela- 
 tions, or affections, of the substances whereto we apply it. It is the nature 
 of oaks to bear acorns, that is, the texture of their parts is such as to render 
 them incapable of yielding peaches, apples, or any other crop than what 
 they do. It is the nature of mustard to bite the tongue : here the term 
 denotes a relation between the seed arid the member, for if the latter had 
 no sensibility the other could not bite. It is the nature of justice to stop 
 the motions of self-love, that is, so far as a man has a sentiment of justice 
 he will shape his measures thereby, although contrary to his private interests 
 or his passions. When we speak of the Divine nature we understand 
 thereby such Attributes and methods of proceeding as we conceive belong- 
 ing to that first of substances. 
 
 This may account for the changeable meaning of the word, because 
 it must unavoidably contain a different set of ideas according to the occa- 
 sion or particular substances whereto it is applicable. For in speaking o 
 natural grass, we regard only the spontaneous powers of the ground, which 
 will yield nothing else : on mentioning the natural produce of a country, 
 we think of the powers, opportunities, and materials, for raising com- 
 modities, which the inhabitants have within themselves without foreign aid. 
 When we leave a wound or a disease to nature, we mean thereby ths 
 mechanical circulations and motions of our human body : when we talk of 
 supernatural events, we compare them with the powers of all created agents 
 within our knowledge, among which the skill of the physician stands in- 
 cluded. Yet whoever believes the reality of those events will not think it 
 contrary to the nature of God to work them, and whoever believes them so 
 contrary will deny the truth of the facts. But sometimes the term Nature 
 does not so much as import one of those unsubstantial things before treated 
 of, as when we say it is the nature of matter to be inert, which is a bare 
 negation of any power to begin motion. 
 
 Nature, u^-cd alone in the most extensive sense, stands for the wholo
 
 502 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 aggregate 'of powers we know certainly, or seem to know of among sub- 
 stances : but because substances qualified alike perform different operations 
 according to what others they fall into connection with, and we cannot 
 always investigate the causes bringing them together, this gives rise to the 
 idea of Fortune. So that Nature has no more claim to be deemed an agent 
 than chance : one expresses those operations of substances which are redu- 
 cible into a system, the other those which are wholly uncertain, and can be 
 brought under no rule of observation. Therefore we talk of the stated laws 
 of nature, as the courses or mazes of fortune ; yet these mazes may some- 
 times gain an entrance among those stated laws, when we have found out a 
 clue to them : for the eclipses and phases of the planets, which were 
 anciently esteemed fortuitous, are now numbered among the regular pheno- 
 mena of nature ; whereas the weather still continues casual, not that we do 
 not acknowledge it to proceed from natural causes, but because no human 
 sagacity can discover those causes, nor foresee how they will operate. 
 
 Upon the whole it appears that nature is something more abstracted than 
 those unsubstantial things treated of in the preceding sections, but being 
 still further removed from its original source, is harder to be traced thereto . 
 nevertheless that it must have had a source derived either immediately, or 
 by their intervention from substances, and consequently cannot be inde- 
 pendent, nor have an existence prior to the substances giving it rise. As 
 is implied in those expressions, The birth of Nature, and when Chaos is 
 called the womb of Nature and perhaps her grave : which though under- 
 stood only of physiology, yet metaphysics and ontology, or the nature of 
 Beings, must depend for its eternal or temporary duration upon that of the 
 Beings which are the objects of this science. 
 
 8. Nevertheless it will be asked, shall we deny God to have had a perfect 
 knowledge of the Nature of Things before he created them ? I cannot un- 
 dertake to pronounce peremptorily upon the manner of divine intelligence 
 having none other conception of intelligence than what I can draw from my 
 own manner of thinking ; and I will not presume to say that the thoughts of 
 God must be just such as my thoughts. Therefore, if this question were 
 proposed by an angel I should be dumb, expecting that whatever I could 
 say would appear to him the idle roving of one who would needs be talking 
 upon a subject above 'his comprehension: but since I am discoursing only 
 with men, whose understandings are narrow like my own, the foundations 
 of whose knowledge are similar to those I have to build upon, I may be 
 allowed to think them not so greatly an overmatch as that I should give up 
 the point without an argument. 
 
 Now I observe in the first place that the question implies a time wherein 
 God was alone without any creation, but on a sudden began to resolve upon 
 having an universe peopled with perceptive Beings capable of receiving the 
 blessings he would pour forth upon them : which seems to me inconsistent 
 with the principal tenets of the persons I have to deal with. For if God be 
 good, communicative of happiness by the necessity of his nature, and there 
 were an eternal unproduced nature of things rendering one plan of operation 
 more productive of happiness than all others, this must have prompted, I 
 will not say obliged, him to carry that best plan into execution immediately 
 as soon as he was able, that is, from everlasting, for his omnipotence never 
 had a beginning ; before which there could be no time of solitude wherein 
 he might contemplate the pre-existent nature of not yet existent things. 
 
 I remark next that as in the case of justice taken notice of in 6, we 
 have now shifted the sense of our term ; for this nature anteccdeut to crca-
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 503 
 
 tion is not a nature of things but the idea of it, and in this ideal state can- 
 not be older than the mind contemplating it. Well, but that need not 
 hinder its being eternal because the mind entertaining the idea undoubtedly 
 was so. But how does it appear undoubtedly that such idea was eternally en- 
 tertained ? What Attribute or what expedience shall we assign that should 
 require it ? Was it for the Divine solace and amusement while there were 
 no worlds to uphold, no government of Providence to administer ? It is 
 true we can imagine no happiness without some employment either of act- 
 ing or thinking : but when we presume to talk of the Supreme Being, 
 it becomes us to proceed humbly and reverentially, with a consciousness 
 that our conceptions are all drawn from experience of what has passed 
 among ourselves ; and the same experience may evince that everything 
 passing with us is by no means applicable to him. When at any time I am 
 totally debarred from action, I must let my imagination roam upon some 
 scenes occurring thereto, or else the time will pass insipid and irksome : 
 but what ground have 1 to think the same of God, or that his time must 
 pass insipid and irksome without an ideal nature of things perpetually 
 to engage his attention ? So the motive of entertainment affords us no 
 evidence to prove the eternity of such ideas : and the motive of goodness 
 yields as little, for what good could redound to the creatures, while there 
 were none existent, from contemplation of a nature of things by which their 
 fortunes were to be regulated ? 
 
 But you will say it would be blasphemy to imagine the work of creation 
 gone upon in a hurry without mature consideration of all the possibilities 
 wherein it might be effected, and a selection of such method as should 
 appear most proper in wisdom and goodness to be chosen. Here again we 
 judge of the All perfect by ourselves. When I have some important business 
 to take in hand, my thoughts are cloudy and uncertain ; at first, I deliberate 
 successively upon the several ways wherein I might conduct myself, I com- 
 pare them together, and it is lucky if after running them over a while in my 
 reflection I can at last discern clearly which is the most probable to answer 
 my purpose. But shall I measure Omniscience by my own scanty model ? 
 shall I pronounce that it must study a thousand years before it can hit upon 
 a perfect plan, and bring all the parts to harmonize and join in perfect 
 symmetry with one another ? Ought not I rather to believe that when God 
 creates, his acting and his complete knowledge of the manner most expe- 
 dient to be followed in acting are co-instantaneous ; and that as he creates 
 with a word so he plans with a thought, using length of time or process of 
 operation in neither. 
 
 9. Yet if such contemplative solitude could be demonstrated eternal we 
 could not thence pronounce it independent and unproduced, but owing to 
 the Will and pleasure of God, who chose to employ himself that way rather 
 than in the actual exercise of his creative power : for to suppose the contem- 
 plation forced upon him involuntarily, would be still building with our 
 slender scantlings, and judging rashly of his intelligence by our own. We 
 are passive in all our perceptions, they are excited in us by something else, 
 most probably by the modifications of our mental organs. In sensation we 
 know there are external objects operating upon us, and though in reflection 
 we do not certainly know what it is that affects us, yet we may know 
 assuredly there can be no affection without an action, nor actioa without an 
 agent, nor agent which is not a substance : so that in our most retired me- 
 ditations there is some substance exhibiting the objective ideas we perceive. 
 Now what substance was there to act upon the Almighty before the worlds
 
 504 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 were made ? or what agency, what power of exhibiting objective ideas in an 
 unsubstantial nature of things ? Therefore we must conclude that God is 
 purely active in the exercises of his intelligence as well as of his omnipotence, 
 and that his thoughts are not affections raised by some object passing in 
 review before him ; although this be a manner of thinking far above our 
 conception because beyond all our experience. 
 
 Nevertheless to speak as a man, and otherwise we cannot speak, there is 
 no understanding without objects to contemplate, nor any object of know- 
 ledge that has not been forever discerned by the Omniscient : what kind of 
 objects then shall we assign to the Divine intelligence ? Must they needs 
 be forms and qualities, genera, species, modes, essences, and abstract 
 natures, possibilities of what will never be done, and hypothetic results from 
 imaginary premises which never were nor ever will be realized ? Here too 
 we are misled by the necessities and weaknesses of our own faculties. We 
 have frequent occasion to contemplate, to compare, to assort, to unite, to 
 distinguish, a number of things, more than we can possibly bring together 
 within the compass of our imagination : therefore we make abstractions, 
 which are partial ideas more commodious for our grasp. For we have seen 
 before that the abstract is drawn from the concrete : it is a shred torn off 
 from the substances, needful enough for convenience of carriage in our 
 shallow vessel. Like the woollen-draper's book of patterns, which I bring 
 home in my pocket when I would consult my Serena and my Sparkler upon 
 the colour of a suit, because I cannot carry the whole pieces : for if we went 
 down to the shop and had the cloths themselves spread before us upon the 
 counter, I should never think of calling for the book of patterns. So if I 
 have any considerable purpose to effect and the sure means of completing it 
 happened by great chance to occur at first view, I never troubled my head 
 with the possibilities of other measures that might be taken, nor stand to 
 make hypotheses of what would ensue had circumstances been different from 
 those I find. Shall we then fancy those shifts necessary for the Author of 
 Nature and all comprehended therein, because they are necessary for us 
 imperfect creatures ? 
 
 He has a full view of all the men upon earth, of all that ever were or ever 
 shall be, so has no use for the specific idea of man : he knows all the actions 
 of free agents, past, present, and to come, so has no need of an abstract idea 
 of justice to pass a judgment upon them : he discerns distinctly all the sub- 
 stances ever created, their operations and affections, so wants not an unsub- 
 stantial nature of things for his guidance in the management of them. 
 Therefore, with submission and reverence be it spoken, there seems a truer 
 regard for his glory in believing that he discerns the abstract solely in the 
 concrete produced or to be produced into Being by his own power, has no 
 specific ideas or abstractions of forms and essences detached from their sub- 
 stances, nor ever contemplates an unsubstantial nature of things, nor thinks 
 of possibilities never to be produced into act, nor frames hypothetic propo- 
 sitions of what would happen if such or such measures were to be taken : for 
 all these are expedients rendered necessary by our infirmities, which we can 
 with no colour of reason ascribe to him. It is indeed excusable, because 
 unavoidable, upon many occasions to speak of his proceedings in a manner 
 conformable to our own, and even to attribute to him human passions and 
 affections, such as favour, detestation, resentment, jealousy, repentance, 
 fondness for glory, pleasure at our obedience, or solicitude for our welfare ; 
 of doing him service, of grieving his holy spirit, of our sincere zealous re- 
 solutions and hearty praises casting up a sweet smelling savour before him :
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 505 
 
 but we ought to remember that these expressions are not adequate to the 
 subject nor descriptive of his essence, but indulgencies only granted in con- 
 descension to our infirmity, which has none but grovelling ideas to apply to 
 the sublimest of objects. 
 
 10. Still there may remain a suspicion of something antecedent, not only 
 directive of intelligence but even restrictive of omnipotence : for no Will can 
 make a thing be apprehended otherwise than it appears, nor understand it 
 different from what it is ; and there are absolute impossibilities, as that two 
 and two should make five, that the angles of a triangle should not be equal 
 to two right ones, that an agent should at the same time be free and impec- 
 cable. And here I may call in aid the noble lord before cited, who declares 
 that these propositions are identical, carrying a show of something profound 
 but really expressive of nothing : for to understand a thing otherwise than it 
 is would be not to understand it, therefore to tell me I cannot do so is the 
 same as saying I cannot be ignorant of it when I do understand it ; but in 
 the case of the Supreme Being he directs his own intelligence, for he deter- 
 mines how he shall understand a thing by making it what it is. 
 
 Then the necessity urged of two and two making four carries the face of 
 an operation performed by two and two to produce the new Being Four ; 
 together with some superior force restraining them from producing anything 
 else, and indeed Product is the technical term among arithmeticians for the 
 sum found by multiplication : whereas two and two were already the same 
 thing with four before our multiplying them together, and differ only in idea 
 according as we consider them separated or -united. If I had two guineas 
 in my pocket and somebody pays me two, I now have four ; but the guineas 
 were four while in different hands, and you might have truly said there 
 were four guineas in the room before the payment ; so that to say it is im- 
 possible two and two should make five, is the same as saying they cannot 
 be anything else than what they are. 
 
 In like manner the essence of a triangle contains two particulars, The 
 having three angles, and the quantity of their widths added together which 
 is equal to two right angles : for you might easily draw lines upon paper 
 making three angles greater or less than two right ones, but then those 
 lines will not inclose a space and consequently be no triangle. The former 
 of these particulars is as obvious as that twice two are four, but the latter 
 is unknown to many persons ; and those who do know it were taught by 
 long process of demonstration, which demonstration was only a new dis- 
 covery to them of what was really contained in the essence of the subject. 
 Therefore to urge, that it is impossible for any power to make the angles 
 of a triangle unequal to two right ones, amounts to nothing more than that 
 no power can form a triangle which shall be no triangle : for though the 
 word Impossible makes a show of some limitation by antecedent causes 
 confining the power to one particular manner of exertion, yet it is here a 
 delusive sound without a meaning. Who would think it a limitation upon 
 his powers, to have it proved impossible for him to do a thing that shall be 
 quite different from what he does ? or lament at lying under control of 
 an uncreated necessity, because he cannot write a letter without writing 
 nor walk across the room without walking ? For my part I should esteem 
 it rather a mark of inability and subjection, if when I were tired of sitting 
 still, it were possible that I might walk ever so fast and yet continue all the 
 while in the sedentary posture become irksome to me. 
 
 The same answer will do for the impossibility of a free agent being 
 impeccable. Those who battle most strenuously for this tenet are cloudy
 
 506 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 and fluctuating in their conceptions at first, but if after much squabbling 
 and shifting ground you can dispel the clouds and dust they raise, so as to 
 bring them to some determinate steady sense of their words, you will 
 always find them meaning the same thing by Free agency and Peccability : 
 so their assertion becomes merely identical, Whatever is peccable must be 
 peccable ; or as they affect hypothetic propositions, If God will give a crea- 
 ture peccability he must make him peccable, for it is not in the nature of 
 things to do otherwise. Now to my apprehension free agency and pecca- 
 bility are different : freedom perhaps includes a power of doing wrong, but 
 I understand by peccability a liableness to do wrong, which two I conceive 
 not only distinguishable in idea but separable in fact, and think I find some 
 few instances in myself of their being actually separated. I seem to have 
 full liberty to burn my wig whenever there is fire or candle near me, yet 
 while I can keep my senses and avoid the frenzy of election or party 
 bumpers, I apprehend myself under no hazard of such an idle freak. And 
 I am so far from believing God unable to deliver me totally from my pec- 
 cability, without depriving me of my freedom, that I have hope he will 
 actually do it for myself in particular, and for countless multituds of my 
 fellow creatures, in some future stage of our existence whereto he is now 
 preparing us by his laws of nature and courses of Providence in this sublu- 
 nary stage. 
 
 1 1 . Nevertheless, supposing an unalterable nature of things, this can be 
 no sure ground of our reasonings, because we can never be sure of appre- 
 hending it exactly : for such nature must continue always one and the 
 same, but our abstract ideas notoriously fluctuate in our thoughts and vary 
 from those of other people. We have all of us some idea of justice, yet 
 are perpetually doubtful whether particular actions coincide therewith or 
 not : and no man can fix so perfect an idea of that virtue as that he may 
 not afterwards find reason to add or relax therefrom. And among various 
 persons how discordant are their notions of justice, of honour, of public 
 spirit, and all other abstract ideas ? 
 
 Notwithstanding all the cares I have bestowed upon metaphysics and 
 abstraction, I find I have not gotten the true idea of perjury ; for if I took 
 a transfer of five hundred India to vote at an election and give it back 
 again upon the opening, and on going to the ballot should swear the said 
 stock was my own property and my name not used in trust for any other, 
 I should think myself guilty of perjury: or if I had a thousand and lent 
 half of it to a friend upon the like terms, I should think this a subornation 
 of perjury. But there are much wiser people, because better skilled in the 
 only valuable knowledge, the art of getting money, who see there is 
 nothing to reproach oneself for in all this. And I suppose the same wise 
 people would perceive, though I cannot, that there is no harm in swearing 
 a man's life away, provided one could get a swinging sum, or serve a 
 friend, or ruin a party by so doing. I dare not presume to argue the case 
 with them, for they would only laugh at my simplicity or cry me down for 
 my superstition. And here I am not so simple as to be insensible of their 
 wisdom in employing this kind of logic : for a laugh and an outcry have 
 the same effect upon the rational faculties as stopping one's ears has upon 
 that bodily sense ; and I can clearly discern that the wisest way can be 
 taken in the nature of things for defending some opinions, is to stop one's 
 ears against whatever can be said in opposition to them. 
 
 12. Again, if there were an abstract nature of things having a reality 
 separate from the things themselves, so much of it as does not affect the
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 507 
 
 substances vherewith, we have concern would be needless to be known by 
 us. What should we be the better or the wiser for knowing ever so accu- 
 rately the nature of Chimeras, Cyclops, or flying Dragons, since no such 
 creatures will ever fall in our way ? or for understanding the abstract 
 foundations of prudence and good policy among Sylphs and Gnomes, which 
 have no existence elsewhere than in imagination ? Neither is it practi- 
 cable, if it were desirable, for us to frame an idea of such unoperating 
 nature or any single particular belonging to it : for our ideal knowledge all 
 comes from experience, our most refined speculations are nothing more 
 than recollections of what has been deposited in our memory by the ope- 
 ration of substances, being either external objects or the modifications of 
 our mental organs. We may compound, assort, disunite, and recall them 
 in another order or other company than they entered ; we may join things 
 which never appeared together ; we may think of a cause and its remote 
 effect without that process of operation by which it has always worked it, 
 or annex the idea of a cause to effects it does not bring forth, and this way 
 can make fantastical compositions and romantic events unlike to anything 
 that nature has ever produced : yet still the materials are all picked out 
 from scenes we have actually known exhibited. I have seen women, horses, 
 birds, of various plumage, and fish, and by collecting several parts of these 
 into one assemblage, like flowers tied in a nosegay, can easily make up 
 that whimsical figure with which Horace begins his art of poetry. We 
 have known admirals hang out signals and by them govern the motions of 
 a fleet : it is but slipping out of mind the captains and crews obeying the 
 signals, and we shall have the signals themselves remaining for the imme- 
 diate cause of the movements in the ships ; by which example we may learn 
 to fancy a fairy raising a magnificent palace by a stroke of her wand. I 
 have seen different animals, can recall one of them to mind and imme- 
 diately discard it by substituting another in its room ; by which power I 
 could easily fancy an old witch turning herself into a tabby cat. And it is 
 observable that conjurors of all sorts use certain mysterious words and 
 gestures, whereby they teach imagination to join causes with effects not 
 belonging to them : so that magic, witchcraft, and conjuration may be 
 called the habit of culling causes and effects well known in experience, but 
 connecting them together in a manner nature never did. 
 
 Nor is it unlikely that errors in philosophy should spring from the same 
 source. Lucretius builds his theory upon the observation of motes in a sun- 
 beam, which in general fall perpendicularly, but many of them decline from 
 their line of descent at uncertain times in various and uncertain directions ; 
 never reflecting what experience might have informed him, that every little 
 motion of the air will give an impulse to those light bodies : so by this lucky 
 omission he struck out his ingenious contrivance for making a world by 
 chance. Our abstract ideas of species, forms, essences, powers, modes, re- 
 lations, and natures, are only remembrances of what we have noticed in 
 substances or their operations : but the notice touching upon various points 
 of the same object at different times and in different persons, and imagina- 
 tion being too scanty to contain all the stores of our remembrance, but 
 having her scenes composed of such particulars as occur from time to time 
 spontaneously or can be drawn up by recollection, it is no wonder that our 
 notions are imperfect, unstable, perpetually varying among themselves and 
 from those of one another. Our moral ideas all bear an ultimate reference 
 to satisfaction or happiness, and have for their object such sentiments of the 
 mind as, either by themselves or by the actions they prompt to, make an
 
 508 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 increase or diminution of happiness. And hence it comes that they are so 
 frequently discordant among mankind and fluctuating in each man : for the 
 efficacy of a particular sentiment, and the consequences of an action, being 
 infinitely various according to situations and circumstances, it is very diffi- 
 cult, perhaps impossible, to fix the essence of justice, of honour, of pietv, of 
 holiness, and all others of the moral class, so accurately as that something 
 yet unobserved or slipped out of mind shall not cause an alteration of shape 
 or colour therein. Therefore those ideal natures and essences are unfit to 
 be taken for the basis of knowledge or first principles of action : they are 
 good and needful directions for our conduct both in acting and reasoning, 
 the sole means of making past experience profitable, but so far from being 
 eternal, unproduced, and unalterable, that they were the offspring of obser- 
 vation upon substances and operations we have known ; and are apt to 
 change, like stale meat, so far as to become unwholesome, if locked up long 
 in the speculations of the closet. They must be frequently brought out into 
 the air of the world, applied to the occurrences passing there, and continual 
 endeavours used by familiar example, comparison, distinction, fresh observa- 
 tion, and supposition of cases likely to happen, so to fix their figures upon 
 the memory as that there may be nothing defective or superfluous, and they 
 may rise uniform and steady every time they make their appearance in the 
 imagination. 
 
 13. The doctrine of an uncreated nature of things seems to have ga- 
 thered strength from a notion of its necessity to direct the choice of the 
 Almighty in his creation : for choice must be founded on the discernment 
 of one thing being preferable to another, which discernment does not 
 make the preference, it only finds a preference subsisting before in the ob- 
 ject contemplated. But this necessity will appear none when we reflect 
 that, as already hinted in the above cited 7 1 of the last chapter, many things 
 must have passed in the creation for which no direction could be had from 
 an antecedent nature of things. Supposing the characters, endowments, 
 and offices, of all perceptive Beings ascertained by such nature, which is 
 more than I can pretend to say that they were, yet how can that nature allot 
 particular persons to the several parts and offices it had made requisite in 
 the universe ? What if there must be an Archangel to lead forth the hosts 
 of the Lord to battle, and such a reptile as Ned Search to puzzle his brains 
 with dry speculations that nobody heeds, why was it necessary that Michael 
 must be the Archangel and I the reptile ? It is true that in my present con- 
 dition I am utterly unfit to cope with the arch rebel, for he would pinch me 
 to nothing with a gripe of his iron claw, and this is owing to the infirmity 
 of that nature which God has given me : but what was Michael better than 
 me before either of us were created ? Loth were then nonentities, undistin- 
 guishable nothings, capable of neither fitness nor unfitness for any office 
 whatever. Then what antecedent necessity should so constrain omnipotence 
 as that God might not have created me to the powers and intelligence of the 
 Archangel, and made Michael the weak and sinful son of Adam ? The plan 
 of universal Providence would still have gone on as it does ; Satan would 
 still have been overthrown and the same chapters still have been scribbled. 
 We may think it requisite there should be successive generations of men 
 from the formation of this earth to its final dissolution, but what was there 
 in the nature of things to make it requisite that I and my cotemporaries 
 should be living just now, and not have been produced into Being among 
 the antediluvians or reserved for some future century ? Had their persons, 
 with whom we had then exchanged lots, been born in our time with our
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 509 
 
 natural talents, received our education and consorted with our company, 
 thev would have performed their parts just as we have done, and the course 
 of human affairs would have heen nothing different. 
 
 Yet why was it necessary there must be an endless variety of creatures 
 with continual gradations of power, intelligence, and office among them ? 
 was it impossible they could all have been made equal and alike ? What 
 can we see in the antecedent nature of things to make it indispensably re- 
 quisite that there should be Archangels and reptiles, patriarchal simplicity 
 and modern refinements ? What higher cause can we assign for these things 
 than the Will and good pleasure of the Creator ? 
 
 If there be any rule of direction which we cannot separate from our idea 
 of God, it is that of goodness ; for we say that God is good by the necessity 
 of his nature : but goodness respects only the happiness bestowed and pro- 
 duction of creatures capable of being made happy ; it has no concern with 
 the manner of making them happy ; so long as the same portion of blessing 
 is distributed, it gives no preference to one particular method of distribution 
 rather than another. What previous fitness of things do we discover, or 
 what in the nature of goodness, that should hinder but that God might have 
 given us the measure of happiness designed, by his own continued act with- 
 out the intervention of second causes ? was he not able, or would it have 
 been laborious and troublesome, to have done so ? In this case the creatures 
 would have wanted no faculty of activity, for the perceptive alone would 
 have sufficed ; a corporeal world to supply them with materials of enjoyment 
 had been needless, as likewise those wonderful courses of Providence pro- 
 ducing order therein, nor could there have been room for wisdom to dis- 
 play herself. For the very essence of wisdom lies in the nice adjustment of 
 causes among one another and to their destined effects, so that an infinite 
 variety of them shall, by many intricate channels and discordant operations, 
 bring forth the exact series of events projected. What is done by dint of 
 power, requires no wisdom to perform it. If I have a bowl in my hand and 
 want it to touch the jack at the other end of the green, the shortest way 
 would be to carry it thither, but then there is no skill in doing this : the 
 skill lies in rolling it along the ground so that, by taking a compass over 
 several inequalities of the turf, it shall rest at last just in the spot I would 
 have it. Or if there were blocks in the way that it could not reach the 
 mark unless by a passage of twenty angles made by touching upon so many 
 bowls, he that could make a sure cast under these circumstances would show 
 a most surprising skill. Why then do we take so much trouble in rolling 
 our bowls when we might carry them easier ? The answer is obvious : for 
 our diversion, or perhaps to show our dexterity to some bystander. But 
 shall we say that God put his host of second causes in act, as we go to a 
 game at bowls, for amusement ? or was it to show what he could do ? 
 
 It may indeed be thought an end worthy ascribing to him, to manifest 
 his glory and his wisdom to the creatures, but this is because he has so con- 
 stituted some of his creatures as that the contemplation of his glory and 
 admiration of his wisdom becomes a principal channel of their happiness ; 
 yet he has provided enjoyments for multitudes of creatures without giving 
 them any capacity of knowing him or his works, and of that species which 
 he has endued with such capacity, there are many to whom the necessary 
 occupations of that station wherein he has placed them, the turbulence of 
 their passions, and continual action of sensible objects around them, has ren- 
 dered it impracticable to exercise their faculties in the extent whereof they 
 are capable. Thus what grounds there are for the display of glory must
 
 510 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 be looked for in the constitution and nature given to the creatures on call- 
 ing them forth into Being, not in anything prior to their creation : nor can 
 we devise any previous necessity nor eternal fitness, that should determine 
 him to satisfy the demands of goodness by the long-spun contrivances of 
 wisdom, rather than by the direct operations of power. Since then, if we 
 will needs judge of the Creator by our own ideas, there appears to have 
 been many particulars attending the creation, for which we can form no 
 idea of any direction to be had from a pre-existent abstract nature of things, 
 we must acknowledge that in those particulars he could and did proceed 
 without it, and from thence may conclude that he might do the same in all 
 others belonging to his work. 
 
 14. Even goodness, that most important of all the Attributes to us, seems 
 ascribed too hastily by many to such an abstract nature, for they say that God 
 is good by the necessity of his nature : which expression I have used just 
 now after their example, though without a full understanding of the terms, 
 for to my apprehension they imply a necessity casting goodness upon him 
 involuntarily, or making it requisite for him to act upon that principle ; but 
 for my part I will not pretend to say how it comes that he is good, nor 
 assign a cause of his being so. Men are good because it is their duty, be- 
 cause it will obtain them his favour, because they think it their truest in- 
 terest, because they have been led into it by good company, because it is 
 soothing to their reflection, and grateful to their moral sense : but I can 
 ascribe none of those motives, nor any other conceivable by me, to the 
 Almighty. 
 
 Goodness, you will urge, is an excellence, and all excellences must centre 
 in him. Let us beware that we do not slide back again into the notion of 
 things abstract and unsubstantial subsisting independently on their sub- 
 stances ; for what are we to understand by Excellence ? The idea results 
 from comparison, most frequently among us from a comparison of persons ; 
 we call a man excellent in his way when he far surpasses others : in this 
 sense we may say without blasphemy that the excellence of God sprung 
 from his creation, for a sole Being can have no excellence because it has 
 nothing to excel. Or if you will apply the term, you might with equal pro- 
 priety apply its contrary, for while the sole he was the lowest as well as the 
 most excellent of Beings. Therefore when he had made a multitude of 
 creatures far inferior to himself, then it was he began to be the most 
 excellent. 
 
 In the other sense of excellence it rests upon a comparison of thing?, 
 those being judged the most excellent which are. most advantageous, or con- 
 duce to the most excellent purposes, that is, such as yield the largest income 
 of happiness. It is true goodness placed in this light must appear the 
 highest excellence, because that alone gives us an interest in omnipotence, 
 omniscience, and infinite wisdom, which without it would become objects of 
 mere speculation, or perhaps of dread and horror. But then it is an excel- 
 lence relatively to us, and if we think to increase it by our prayers, obla- 
 tions, and rectitude of conduct, we shall do well, as being the most excel- 
 lent purpose we can drive at : yet this does not prove it an excellence to 
 him, nor fixed upon him by the necessity of his nature. If a man have 
 talents and a disposition of mind highly beneficial to the public, though pro- 
 ductive of nothing but incessant cares and trouble to himself, we think him 
 an excellent person, and he may think it himself an excelled; possession, 
 and why ? either because of the satisfaction of mind redounding therefrom, 
 or more rationally because it is every man's truest interest to do the most
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 511 
 
 good he can. For in that only nature of things which lies within our know- 
 ledge, the motive of every action regards ultimately some benefit of the 
 agent, either real or fancied ; and if there be another nature we know nothing 
 of, we can never take upon us to pronounce what it does or does not require : 
 the known nature of agency manifestly does not render an Attribute of 
 goodness necessary, for what joy, what advantage, could accrue to the 
 Almighty from effecting his gracious purpose of making creatures to be 
 happy ? or how was it better or more excellent for him to be good than to 
 be evil ? 
 
 But it will be asked, can I imagine a Deity otherwise than good ? I 
 frankly own that I cannot, because I feel so many effects of bounty in my- 
 self, and see so many blessings poured daily among the creatures on all sides 
 around me, that I cannot imagine them proceeding from any other than a 
 beneficent, gracious, and indulgent power. Thus I discover the cause by 
 the effects, and rest contented in the discovery without wanting or pre- 
 tending to look further for a cause of that cause which I esteem the First, 
 thinking myself happy there is such a one from under whose influence I can 
 never be removed. Nor is my method different with respect to the other 
 Attributes, and even the Being of a God, for all which I could never yet 
 enter into the force of arguments a priori. I see there is a world, and my 
 reason convinces me it could not exist without a Creator, therefore there is 
 one. I know from experience of works I have seen performed, that the 
 world could not be made without power, and can discern nothing that should 
 limit or obstruct that power, therefore the Creator is omnipotent. In this 
 manner I go on investigating the other Attributes by comparison of causes 
 and effects : if at any time I try to throw aside all my experience, together 
 with the observations and theorems stored in mind therefrom, I find nothing 
 but obscurity whereon I can neither judge, nor reason, nor argue. 
 
 15. What then ! do we represent God as arbitrary, that it is wholly un- 
 certain in what manner he will deal with us, that he follows none other 
 guidance in his proceedings than mere will and pleasure ? Far be it from 
 me to draw this conclusion, nor do I think the premises laid down above 
 will bear it. For arbitrary proceeding is acting with no regard to the con- 
 dition of the subjects acted upon, and such action must always be uncertain ; 
 but without an antecedent uncreated nature of things I apprehend God does 
 not want a guidance for his proceedings in the subsequent nature given to 
 his substances on making them ; and that he follows invariably those rules 
 which he had prescribed to himself by the creation, which last opinion I 
 gather from his immutability. 
 
 Yet neither can I venture to pronounce him immutable by the necessity 
 of his nature, for I can see nothing previous that should make it necessary, 
 but infer it from the steady regularity observable in his laws of visible 
 nature and course of events respecting mankind, and from the absence of 
 all conceivable causes which might work a change in him. Men are change- 
 able either from ignorance, which leaves room for new lights perpetually to 
 cast a new appearance of things upon their judgment ; or from imbecility, 
 rendering them liable to be hurried to and fro against their judgment by the 
 spontaneous and uncertain impulse of their passions : and I have observed 
 that in proportion as they can get rid of their ignorance and imbecility, 
 they grow more and more uniform and steady in their sentiments and con- 
 duct. Therefore being fully assured those two causes are absent from God, 
 I see no shadow of probability for their effects : nor can entertain a sus- 
 picion that he may be good and provident to-day but cruel or regardlesi of
 
 512 , NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 us to-morrow : that at one time he could look forth upon the works which 
 he had made and behold they were very good, conformable to his liking ; 
 but at some subsequent season he might look forth again and behold they 
 were stark nought, displeasing and odious in his sight ; that he should 
 choose a plan of operation, persevering in it for successive ages until at 
 length he changed his mind, departed from his plan, and pursued another 
 diametrically opposite. 
 
 Nevertheless, we must take care to settle the proper idea of immutability, 
 which is not inconsistent with a variety of action, provided the whole 
 scheme of action be laid out upon one plan : for we do not pronounce a 
 man changeable and uncertain because he sometimes goes to bed, and 
 sometimes gets up, sometimes sits down to eat, and sometimes rises to 
 labour, or studies and uses exercise, meditates alone, and diverts himself 
 among his friends at different times, if in all those changes of action he 
 still holds on the same tenor of conduct, and acts upon the same principles 
 throughout. So the measures of universal government are immutable 
 although the dispensations made by it are various, sometimes building up 
 and sometimes pulling down, sometimes cherishing with salubrious in- 
 fluences, and sometimes destroying with pestilence and famine ; although 
 barbarism and good polity by turns overspread the several countries of the 
 earth ; although at times we are in pleasure or pain, in hope or under de- 
 jection, gladdened with success, or vexed with disappointment. For these 
 are various parts making up the symmetry of one uniform plan which never 
 varies from itself : so that the universe continues always the same, but the 
 members of it fluctuate, perpetually changing condition with one another, 
 
 16. It is this fluctuation among the members and individuals of an im- 
 mutable Whole, that occasions so many mistakes in the doctrine of final 
 causes ; for our unpiercing optics reaching a very little way into the chain 
 of events around us, we frequently take the means for the end and deceive 
 ourselves in their bearings arid tendencies ; but if we could discern the final 
 causes as they grow in order from one another, there would be no surer 
 foundation whereon to build our reasonings, nor could there be a safer 
 measure of our conduct than to exert our little powers in co-operating with 
 them. Those final causes are best sought out by a diligent examination 
 into the nature of things, that is, of substances, their qualities, mutual 
 relations, and operations, falling within the compass of our notice : whose 
 natures must of course have continuance in proportion to that of the subject 
 whereof they are predicated. That there is a nature of the British consti- 
 tution nobody will deny, nor that it requires the attention of every one who 
 would strike out any measures of sound policy among us, for none that are 
 contrary thereto can succeed : but this nature was so far from being eternal 
 and unchangeable, that fifteen hundred years ago, before there was a British 
 constitution, it had no Being, so could require nothing and direct to 
 nothing : and a little smattering in English history will manifest, that it 
 has received many changes from the Saxon heptarchy to the present 
 flourishing condition of our American colonies. The absorption of six 
 kingdoms by the seventh, the introduction of Papal authority, the Norman 
 conquest, the wars of the Barons, the breaking of their power, the reforma- 
 tion, the growth of commerce and naval strength, the Revolution, the very 
 recent discovery of representation being confined to persons having some 
 interest in elections, have each of them given us a different nature. 
 
 Nevertheless there may be natures eternal, if the substances whereon 
 they depend were so ; and unchangeable though the substances fluctuate
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 513 
 
 into different sorts of creatures, provided others perpetually succeed in their 
 places : for the noble ally whom I have called to my assistance in this 
 chapter will concur with me in maintaining a distinction between eternal 
 and independent or uncreated. We do not deny that God might have 
 created Beings from everlasting capable of right and wrong in their dealings 
 among one another, in which case the fundamental rules of justice were 
 eternal and immutable. What though there be evident marks of genera- 
 tion in this earth : possibly the universe never was without a race of men 
 in some dirty habitation or other, and then human nature with all the ab- 
 stractions belonging to it was eternal. Nor shall I scruple to admit that 
 God has regard to those natures, making his dispensations conformable 
 thereto, so that we may style them his guidance : but then it is in the 
 government only, not the creation of the world, whereof they were the 
 production, and consequently could not be the direction. We therefore 
 having nothing better than those natures to make the basis of our reasonings, 
 it would be an unwarrantable presumption in us to pronounce anything 
 confidently concerning creation, the manner or causes of it ; for we never 
 had experience of a creation or anything previous or preparatory to it, so 
 can have no ground whereon to build an hypothesis. It is enough, and a 
 great matter too, for us if we can discern how things are constituted ; for 
 from thence, as from the only source we have access to, may be gathered so 
 much knowledge of the Divine nature as is needful or possible for us to attain. 
 
 17. I should not have been so copious or perhaps tedious upon this 
 abstruse subject, but that I apprehend it of great importance to such as 
 push their thoughts beyond the common extent : for it is of little avail to 
 the vulgar, who seek for nothing further than the Will and good pleasure 
 of God, to account for the constitutions of things, the course of events be- 
 falling among them, the rules of duty or obligations to moral conduct ; and 
 in this instance are wiser than the speculative. But a trust in God is the 
 grand corner stone of all Religion, and of all our hopes" beyond what this 
 present sublunary scene of affairs can afford : therefore it is of the highest 
 moment to every person to take care that this stone lies firm upon solid 
 ground, and while it seems to press close thereon, it do not indeed take its 
 support from some side-props which keep it hollow. We may laudably 
 search into visible nature to find what is the Will of God, for we may learn 
 something of it from his works ; but if when so found, our dependence 
 rests upon anything else, whether in heaven above or earth below, in the 
 wilds of abstraction or a divine nature subsisting independently on that 
 Will, we shall find it fail us in time of need, how fair soever it may promise 
 during the enthusiasm of speculative discoveries. For this enthusiasm, like 
 the heat of argument, will often give a colour of demonstration to mere 
 plausible appearances, so beguiling the judgment as to make men mistake 
 their own sentiments and perceive not the real ground whereon their per- 
 suasions stand. They think themselves actuated by a zeal for the divine 
 glory in maintaining that God is good, and just, and wise, and holy, by the 
 necessity of his nature ; which notion is really suggested by a secret mis- 
 trust of him. They apprehend their fortunes unsafe in his hands ; they 
 feel uneasy at the thought of lying under his absolute dominion : they 
 suspect he may deal arbitrarily, unjustly, and unkindly by them ; so they 
 want some barrier against the dangers of unlimited prerogative, which 
 barrier they suppose to be had in the antecedent, uncreated, unalterable 
 nature of things keeping him perpetually in order. 
 
 VOL. i. 2 L
 
 514 NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 But this is a novel doctrine unknown to the soundest of ancient writers 
 either sacred or profane : Pythagoras taught that things were established, 
 the powers of nature and course of events ascertained, by the oath of Jove : 
 the Scriptures speak of a covenant of God fixing the laws of nature, so 
 that day and night, seed time and harvest, should never fail ; and represent 
 even the supernatural interpositions therein recorded as made in consequence 
 of the oath sworn unto David, and the eternal purpose of God before the 
 foundations of the world. Now an oath and a covenant are free and volun- 
 tary acts, where there is no higher authority to require the one nor valu- 
 able consideration given to make the other expedient : therefore those could 
 be only figurative expressions of the Divine immutability, yet were they 
 thought sufficient securities without wishing or seeking for anything further 
 to enforce their performance. Wherefore prudence should incline us to 
 inure our minds to place their confidence upon this sole stable bottom, and 
 to satisfy ourselves of its solidity by frequent impartial examination : for 
 whatever better support we may flatter our imagination with in the fondness 
 of refinement, when distress or an approaching dissolution threatens, the 
 fondness will subside, our support be withdrawn, and we shall remain 
 utterly at a loss where to find another. 
 
 1 8. If we are fully assured that God is good and that he will always con- 
 tinue so, what more can we desire for our dependence ? what should we be 
 the better if we could know why he must be good ? or what addition would 
 it make to our security, unless we entertained a suspicion of the other two ? 
 Those two points then it behoves us to take for the principal objects of our 
 attention, examining impartially what evidences there are to convince our 
 judgment of their truth ; and then by frequent contemplation of such 
 evidences, so to inculcate the result upon our minds that it may grow into 
 an habitual steady persuasion rising spontaneously to the thought in full 
 strength and colour whenever needful. Actual goodness is discerned by 
 the preponderancy'of enjoyments above the uneasinesses open to our ob- 
 servance, and the means of preservation, support, accommodation, relief, 
 and comfort, amply provided around : but then we must take care to dis- 
 tinguish between goodness and fondness or a compliance with every sudden 
 humour, nor confine our view to ourselves alone or our situation in the pre- 
 sent moment, which may happen to contain nothing of enjoyment within its 
 compass. And the continuance of goodness may be learned from the con- 
 sideration that mutability springs always from defect or weakness ; it is 
 owing to something we did not think of before, or some unforeseen desire 
 we cannot resist : still remembering that very different strokes may com- 
 pose an uniform plan, and a variety of dispensations be consistent with an 
 invariableness of design. 
 
 Nor is there a small confirmation of those points to be drawn from the 
 concurrence of all mankind, for an opinion universally received may well 
 be presumed standing upon solid grounds although the steps whereby it 
 grew from thence should be utterly forgotten. But there is nobody to 
 whose ears and understanding the very suggestion of an evil or a changeable 
 Deity would not be shocking : and this alone gives rise to our perplexities 
 upon the origin of evil. For if we could believe a mixture of beneficence 
 and unkindness in the Almighty, nothing would be easier than to account 
 for whatever happens contrary to our liking from the latter : when distress 
 falls upon us the answer would be ready, it is an unfavourable season wherein 
 he chances to be out of humour with us. But no man will hear such an- 
 swers : therefore many devices have been framed to solve \l\e difficulty
 
 NATURE OF THINGS. 515 
 
 another way, by the mechanical action of matter, the imperfection of 
 created Being, the gradation of stages among the creatures ; some have 
 subjected God to an eternal nature of things rendering it impossible for him 
 to give unmingled happiness, others represent him casting the power out of 
 his own hands by a free will of indifference given to men, which he cannot 
 control without destroying. The three first appear to me secondary, not 
 original, causes of evil ; and for the two last I can find no proof of their be- 
 ing fact. For my part, I can neither see, nor find a use in seeing, any 
 higher origin of things than the Will and pleasure of the Creator in making 
 them ; if there be a higher I am sensible my faculties can never reach 
 it, and so far as I can discover how things are constituted, I may depend 
 upon their being administered conformably thereto, and my own expecta- 
 tions will be ascertained. 
 
 Therefore I have recommended in CHAP. XVIII. to consider God under 
 two characters, as Creator and as Governor of the world. In the latter 
 only we may discern the grounds of his proceedings, and reason upon the 
 doctrine of final causes : in the former it is not our business to examine 
 why but what he has done. If I am asked why the world was established 
 in wisdom and goodness, second causes employed, the perceptions of spirit 
 made dependent on the actions of matter, and a sprinkling of evil rendered 
 necessary : why there was a gradation of creatures, an interruption in the 
 enjoyments allotted them and a peccability in man ; I have none other an- 
 swer for all such questions than, because it was the Will and good pleasure 
 of the Creator so to order. But on observing the manner wherein things 
 are constituted, I find the perceptive creatures endowed with, activity where- 
 by they are to help themselves to the enjoyments put within their power, 
 that the apprehension of evil has as great a share in the exertion of activity 
 as the desire of good, that since, as observed before, our knowledge of ob- 
 jects lies in the discernment of their differences, there would be no sense of 
 good unless by comparison with its contrast ; for it is a common saying 
 that we know not the value of blessings until they are taken from us, and 
 the appellation of a tree of knowledge of good and evil implies that Adam 
 did not understand what good was before he had experience of evil, there- 
 fore there must be some actual evil interpersed to raise the apprehension of 
 danger, but a very small proportion will suffice for that purpose. This 
 establishment I regard as the oath or covenant of the Creator, and by a 
 figurative expression denoting the Divine immutability, may call it an 
 obligation binding upon God in his character of Governor to adhere in- 
 violably thereto. 
 
 Thus there is a nature of things which our universal Governor takes for 
 his continual guidance, not independent nor uncreated ; antecedent indeed 
 to the measures he takes, but subsequent to the creation, dependent thereon 
 and created therewith. As much of this nature as we can discern, so much 
 we may know concerning his future proceedings : and this is the only evi- 
 dence human reason can produce for augurating what shall befall us beyond 
 the extent of this present life. Hence likewise we may gather that there is 
 a final cause whereon his views constantly terminate, namely the happiness 
 of the creatures, to be pursued by such methods as their natures and the cir- 
 cumstances attending them render necessary: which seem to require a dis- 
 pensation of evil, but in no proportion to the good and made for sake of the 
 good, with a provident care that no more should be permitted than requi- 
 site, and that every evil be attended with a far greater profit redundant 
 
 2L2
 
 SW NATURE OF THINGS. 
 
 therefrom. These surely are sufficient grounds of contentment, and of such 
 expectations as we are warranted to entertain, provided they be deeply im- 
 printed upon the mind. I only wish I could gain as full an unfading per- 
 suasion of them in my imagination as I have a clear conviction upon my 
 understanding : they would overpower many distresses and alleviate all 
 -others, so long as I could hold them steady in contemplation. 
 
 19. Another benefit which may chance to accrue from the dissertation 
 carried on in the foregoing sections is, that it may help towards introducing 
 a greater sobriety and soundness into our reasonings upon moral essences, 
 and make men readier to receive mutual improvement or find an issue to dis- 
 putes in their conferences among one another. For when having gotten a 
 strong persuasion of some point which they do not remember ever to have 
 doubted of, nor from what premises or by what process of argumentation 
 they were brought to entertain it, they presently pronounce it an unproduced, 
 eternal, immutable truth, and think their assent the effect of an intuitive 
 knowledge, which will always force assent upon a bare inspection. For 
 though there may be persons who dissent from this truth, this they say pro- 
 ceeds from the films of error overclouding the sight, or the bias of prejudice 
 not suffering the mental eye to look steadily upon its proper point ; for 
 essential truths must always be acknowledged as soon as seen and under- 
 stood. Hence they come by the discernment of many things right in them- 
 selves and laudable in themselves, whose merits must never be questioned : 
 because as in law there is no averring against a record, so in metaphysics 
 there is no excepting against an essential truth intuitively discerned, nor can 
 any circumstance render that wrong which was right in itself. 
 
 But since it happens that men's intuitions vary greatly, and they often 
 discern the same truth in very different shapes and colours, when two of 
 these intuitive speculatists meet, there is no room for sober argumentation 
 between them ; they can only charge one another with films and bias, 
 blindnes and obstinacy, and all must proceed in positiveness, clamour, and 
 acrimony. Whereas could they be made sensible that, though there were 
 an uncreated nature of things, we have not eyes to see it, but all our ab- 
 stractions are only partial appearances drawn off from the substances we 
 have been conversant amongst and their operations, they would then per- 
 ceive that nothing is right in itself or laudable in itself, but those expres- 
 sions are applied to such dictates of the moral sense and established rules 
 as ought to be taken for first principles of conduct and sentiment by the 
 generality, who cannot trace them to their foundations ; nevertheless a 
 foundation they have, and were made laudable and right by their tendencv, 
 nearly or remotely, to the interests of mankind. This would open a door 
 to sober inquiry for discovering the nature of moral obligations, from the 
 nature of man and so much of the nature of God as lies manifested in his 
 works ; rectifying one another's misapprehensions or oversights by exa- 
 mination of what conduces most largely to the general or private happiness, 
 and by what several means it operates thereto. 
 
 And there are other persons to whom the like considerations might prove 
 serviceable if they would heed them : for our godly and gifted wholesale 
 dealers in lectures mimic the metaphysician without knowing it. Their 
 system, like his, lies altogether in abstract essences and things unsubstan- 
 tial, such as derivative wickedness, satisfaction to justice, the price paid for 
 the ransom of sin, and the like. With them justification, sanctification, and 
 imputed merit, are something that may be drawn up by faith, as water by a 
 pump : grace is an unsubstantial thing transferable from one substance to
 
 PROVIDENCE. 517 
 
 another, capable of being contained and conveyed in material elements. 
 Thus, like the conjuror, they join the cause with a very remote effect or with 
 effects not producible by it, and thereby turn religion into a kind of magic 
 and charm. But of those terms some were figurative, of common currency 
 among the Jews, which cannot remain intelligible now unless translated into 
 a language familiar among ourselves : and to find a rational sense in any 
 of them, recourse must be had to the nature of perceptive Beings, the con- 
 nection between the several members^ of the creation and several stages of 
 existence to be passed through, the nature of man, the rational and sensi- 
 tive faculties, the great importance of a well-rectified imagination, the effi- 
 cacy of forms, ceremonies, visible objects, and authority, to give a different 
 cast and tenor to this faculty. 
 
 Nor are the generality among us wholly without their abstract essences 
 and unsubstantial Beings : for what else is that nobility of blood supposed 
 to run in the veins from father to son, exerting itself naturally in grandeur 
 of sentiments ? or that liberty called the birthright of every Englishman, 
 which he sucks in with his milk, or draws with his first vital air ? But 
 nobility of birth is nothing more than the advantages enjoyed from very 
 infancy, of a noble education, noble examples, and the conversation of 
 noble company, together with the respect paid by the world restraining 
 from such meannesses as might endanger the loss of it : for if the young 
 lord be suffered to consort early among huntsmen, gamesters, and jockies, 
 the blood will be found ignoble in his veins. And if we take our notion of 
 liberty from intuitive knowledge, without examination by a reference to 
 public order and public happiness, we shall never be able to distinguish ill 
 nature, envy, petulance, and licentiousness, from that spirit of liberty for- 
 which we of these countries so justly value ourselves. 
 
 CHAP. XXV. 
 
 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 IN my general introduction I compared the niceties of abstract learning 
 to Achilles' spear, which was sometimes employed to cure the wounds itself 
 had given. It is this service I have attempted to draw from them through- 
 out the preceding chapter, which, as there hinted, was needless for the 
 unhurt, but intended solely for the relief of such as have been stunned with 
 a blow of the spear, in hopes of allaying the giddiness and confusion of 
 thought thrown upon them thereby. If my endeavours should prove effec- 
 tual for dispelling the perplexities concerning the origin of evil, the abso- 
 lute eternity of uncreated essences and things unsubstantial, I expect none 
 other benefit than that the healed will accompany me as undisturbedly as 
 the unwounded along our future progress in the examination of the pheno- 
 mena before us, and trying from thence to investigate that nature of things 
 which was the work of God, not his superior, and which is the oath he has 
 sworn and covenant he has established for the perpetual direction of his 
 conduct in the administration of his immense kingdom the Universe. 
 
 We have already seen the primary properties of substances are few, but 
 that the great variety of phenomena, which nature exhibits to our view, 
 arises from secondary qualities resulting from composition. It is now, and 
 has been ever since the time of Thales, the received opinion among natu-
 
 518 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 ralists that all matter is homogeneous, and that the diversities we find 
 amongst it are owing to the various forms and combinations whereinto it 
 is assorted. The face of the earth apparently derives its features from the 
 shape whereinto it is cast, for it is that makes the vallies and mountains, 
 the capes, promontories, and winding shores, the bays, and gulphs, and 
 oceans. It contains the same quantity of earth and water as when in that 
 smooth antediluvian form supposed by theory Burnet, wherein there was 
 neither mountain, valley, sea, nor ocean. And in the smaller productions 
 of nature, it is the form and structure of the seed that fits it for producing 
 such a particular plant, and the structure of the plant that causes it to bring 
 forth such particular leaves, flowers, and fruits, with their several colours, 
 odours, and flavours. Neither do metals, minerals, fossils, and soils, nor 
 the elements themselves, differ any otherwise than by their internal con- 
 texture. But the form and texture of compounds depend upon the position 
 of their parts with respect to one another, nor can change without their 
 changing places, or some of them flying off, or new particles acceding to 
 the mass. We see bodies continually vary their forms, being generated, 
 increasing, and decaying, some by quicker and others by slower degrees ; 
 where we do not observe them grow or decay, we perceive them altered in 
 quality or appearance : and though there be some solid bodies of which we 
 have no remembrance nor evidence of their ever having been otherwise 
 than they appear, yet is there reason to believe they did not always carry 
 the form they now bear. 
 
 2. Therefore every present position of particles in any compound or col- 
 lection whatever was generated, but before they came into their present 
 order they must have stood in some other position with respect to one 
 another, whether in different parts of the same compound or at a distance 
 therefrom : and it was the situation they lay in then, together with the 
 proximity and action of other bodies upon them, which brought them into 
 the places they now occupy, and generated the form they compose. If the 
 particles forming a blade of corn had lain anywhere else than where they 
 did last year, either in the earth, or the air, or the vapours, they would not 
 have come together into that blade : and if a grain of sand upon the shore 
 had been in any other part of the ocean than where it was, it would have 
 received a different impulse therefrom, and been thrown upon some other 
 coast. Thus the station which every particle holds in any body, whether 
 animal or vegetable, or earthly, or elementary, or ethereal, and the share 
 it contributes- to the form and secondary qualities thereof, depend upon the 
 place wherein it stood before entering thereinto, but not solely ; for they 
 depend likewise upon the contiguity, force, and direction of other particles 
 impelling it into the compound, as also upon the situation of parts in the 
 compound itself turning it different ways, or affording it a place of rest. 
 
 But the universe having nothing external, the present station of all the 
 particles therein must result from that they had before, together with the 
 quantity and direction of motions among them, which generate the laws of 
 nature and so much of the courses of fortune as are the product of material 
 causes. So that the order wherein matter now stands arranged depends 
 upon that of the last year, this again upon the preceding, and so on, with- 
 out our being able to trace it to the beginning. But though we cannot 
 trace out the first position which matter ever had, we have seen reason to 
 conclude that all the principles thereof must, either in time or from eternity, 
 have received their respective stations and motions from the First Cause 
 and that whatever motion was then impressed thereby, occasioning mutual
 
 PROVIDENCE. 519 
 
 impulses between them, threw them into that order and those combinations 
 which constitute the compound bodies we see, and give them their form 
 and their qualities. Thus upon any quantity and kind of motion imparted 
 to matter, the changes it will undergo and various assortments it will fall 
 into, follow in a necessary series until some new notion shall be impressed. 
 
 3. But though every thinking person will readily acknowledge the 
 changes of quality, form, and position, wherein matter and impulse alone 
 are concerned, to be governed by the laws of necessity, and to take place 
 precisely according to the presence and operation of the causes effecting 
 them : yet the same cannot be admitted with respect to the actions of 
 voluntary agents, which have some influence in working alterations among 
 the bodies around them, and a greater in bringing good or evil upon one 
 another. For they do not act by necessity but by volition, nor like matter, 
 barely transmit but produce the motion they give, and can stop or change 
 the course whereinto bodies had been thrown by impulse. Yet though 
 they do not act necessarily, they act exactly in consequence of certain 
 causes : for there are other causes besides motions and impulse, and another 
 law beside that of necessity to govern the turns of volition. After what has 
 been offered by Mr. Locke and in the sixth chapter of our first volume, 
 there remains no room to imagine a power of indifference in the mind, or 
 to doubt that she steadily pursues satisfaction in every motion she makes, 
 exerting her activity from time to time in that way which appears to her 
 most eligible, which the judgment represents as most expedient, or the 
 fancy as niost agreeable upon the present occasion. Thus our actions 
 follow precisely according to our present apprehension of things, according 
 to the final and ideal causes starting up to our thoughts ; neither can we 
 conceive a created Being excited to voluntary action any other way. 
 
 Let us now consider whence those apprehensions must arise, for the 
 mind does not make them for herself, it is not her act that causes a rose to 
 appear red, nor three times four to produce twelve, nor virtue to be more 
 laudable than vice : but she is always passive in perception, and only 
 discerns objects exhibited to her by something else. But we have shown 
 that the perceptive mind is one uncompounded substance, therefore that 
 something else which exhibits the ideas can be none other than the cor- 
 poreal parts of our composition, the sensitive or mental organs impressing 
 different perceptions according to their different modifications : but the 
 modifications of body can arise only from the position or motion of the 
 particles whereof it consists ; and the series of perceptions succeeding in 
 spirit, must depend upon its position in a set of organs apt to take such 
 particular modifications. 
 
 If any man makes a difficulty of perceiving how the perceptions and 
 acts of his mind can follow according to the positions of body, let him take 
 up any book to read : one book differs from another only in the position 
 of letters combined in different words and expressions, yet he will find the 
 train of thoughts springing up in his mind, as he goes along, run on 
 according to those combinations : and if he reads aloud, his action upon 
 the organs of speech will proceed conformably thereto. In this employ- 
 ment it is the satisfaction expectant upon the instruction or entertainment 
 he shall receive, which carries him through the several steps of his reading : 
 and so in all his other proceedings, some desire or satisfaction prompts 
 him to read the modifications in his sensory, and to exert his activity in 
 pursuance of the information they give. But then the action of external 
 objects passing through his mental organs, will be somewhat varied accord-
 
 520 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 ing to the condition those organs have been left in by other prior objects 
 striking upon them. Therefore if he runs over two or three pages in the 
 middle of a book, he will scarce receive the same ideas therefrom as he 
 would had he come to them regularly from the beginning, for the little 
 fibres of his organs will take a different position according to that they had 
 been put into before. So likewise if two persons read the same discourse, 
 it is odds but they will see the matters contained there in different lights ; 
 but this is owing to their degrees of sagacity depending upon their natural 
 constitution, or upon the state their imagination has been formerly cast 
 into by education, or experience, or study, or conversation. For whether 
 in reading or whatever else a man can perform, his action proceeds always 
 according to the notices of external objects, or according to the present 
 scene of ideas in his mind, the desires, the views, the apprehensions, the 
 lights, the directions, suggested by his judgment or his fancy. If we 
 examine to what these are owing, we must ascribe them either to mecha- 
 nical causes or to some former acts of his own or other persons : but 
 then those acts in like manner followed from the scene of ideas exhibited 
 to the agent at the time of performing them, and if we trace them back- 
 ward to the first act that was ever done, we shall find it terminate in the 
 condition of the sensory when exciting the first perceptions. 
 
 Thus with respect to our mental organs as well as the productions of 
 nature, every position of their parts giving them their secondary qualities of 
 affecting us with such or such perceptions, follows in consequence of a prior 
 position : not indeed always mechanically, for our own acts and those of 
 other people frequently interfere, but when we consider that those acts 
 were determined by the then state of imagination directing thereto, it will 
 appear that the changes made thereby proceed by as certain rules though 
 not in. the same manner, that is, not solely by mechanical impulse, as those 
 worked upon one another by bodies. Hence it is manifest that the talents, 
 endowments, and sentiments of percipient Beings depend upon the position 
 of material particles and the place wherein they lie respectively stationed 
 among them : and the operations of spirit as well as body must be referred 
 originally to the power and direction of the First Cause. 
 
 4. As for those who hold that the materials of their knowledge lie within 
 the mind itself, I know not how they avoid making it consist of parts, one 
 wherein the ideas composing their knowledge lie dormant and unperceived, 
 until the other fetches them forth by contemplation and recollection ; nor 
 what stuff they conceive the ideas to be made of, which remain in the mind 
 for long intervals without her discerning them. But whatever their notions 
 may be upon this article, I suppose they will hardly deny that the know- 
 ledge they have was either born with them or acquired since their birth : 
 what was born with them was given by that Power which gave them their 
 Being, and what was acquired they gained either by their own sagacity and 
 experience or by the instruction and conversation of others. Their sagacity 
 or aptness for making improvement, and the opportunities of their expe- 
 rience, must have been furnished by nature or external causes ; and what they 
 learned from others must have been first acquired by them from the same 
 sources, or received from other instructors who gained it in the same 
 manner : for instruction cannot increase the stock of knowledge in the world, 
 but only spread it : and whatever is taught, was originally discovered by 
 the teacher or somebody else. I believe it will be allowed that any two 
 men, having exactly the same turn of mind, would act alike under the same 
 circumstances : the circumstances of the case must be acknowledged to
 
 PROVIDENCE. 521 
 
 depend upon external causes, and their turn of mind was either natural, and 
 then they must ascribe it to the Author of their nature, or effected by some 
 prior act of their own, which act must likewise have depended upon the 
 turn of mind they then had when they performed it : thus turn will follow 
 turn until you come to that they received at their birth. 
 
 He must have a very peculiar way of thinking who can persuade himself 
 he should have gained the same acquisitions, had he been destitute of all 
 those means of improvement that have been afforded him : and though some 
 extraordinary advances in a particular science or profession under great dis- 
 advantages, every one is ready to acknowledge this owing to a happy genius 
 and vigour of mind with which nature had befriended them. But because 
 such persons work out their improvements by their own industry, they take 
 the merit of it to themselves, forgetting that they were prompted to that in- 
 dustry by the ease they found in the first steps of their progress, and assisted 
 therein by the greater acuteness of their faculties. Thus upon either hypo- 
 thesis we may conclude, that the qualifications of free agents whereon their 
 good conduct depends, spring from the gifts of nature or means of improve- 
 ment : all which derive either directly or remotely from that origin which 
 gave the first position and motion to matter, producing the order and variety 
 we behold upon the face of nature : and which allotted to spiritual sub- 
 stances their respective stations among the corpuscles of matter. 
 
 5. Having satisfied ourselves that the course of things, as well in the 
 natural as moral world, proceeds in a continued series or chain from the 
 operations of the First Cause, which is God omniscient and infinitely wise, 
 there needs very little reflection to convince us that this First Cause knew 
 not only the positions and motions he gave to matter and stations of the 
 spirits he had created, but likewise what changes and productions they 
 would generate by their mutual action upon one another : and if he knew 
 what would result from his work, we can as little doubt that he framed it 
 with an intention that it should have that result. This choice and adjust- 
 ment of the proper causes to work their destined effects, we call Providence : 
 for as a man provides for his children by furnishing them with the educa- 
 tion, portion, and other means, which may enable them to live a useful and 
 happy life ; as every provident person, who has any great work to do will 
 prepare the materials, engage the workmen and labourers, and give the 
 orders necessary for bringing it to perfection : so whatever God designs 
 to produce by the operation of second causes, he provides sufficient agents, 
 gives them the powers, the impulses, and the motives, requisite exactly to 
 answer his purpose. If he determines to bring plenty or scarcity upon the 
 earth, he disposes the air and the elements in such manner as necessarily to 
 produce either ; if he resolves to build up or pull down kingdoms, he raises 
 up men with peculiar talents, fitted either for improving the arts of war and 
 policy, or for throwing all things into confusion. From hence we-may gather 
 that the Providence of God is over all his works, and that in the formation 
 of sentient as well as unsentient natures, he had in view that series of 
 changes and events they would produce, and ordered his whole multitude of 
 second causes so as to execute that plan of Providence he had in his inten- 
 tion. Which plan contained the order of succession we have spoken of in 
 several places before, whereof the systems and courses of nature, the dis- 
 pensations of good and evil, the fates and fortunes of men and other sentient 
 creatures, are the several parts ; which whether it has run on forever or had 
 a beginning, owed its rise either from everlasting or at some certain time, 
 to the power and action of the Almighty.
 
 522 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 6. But though every one who believes God to be the sole First Cause 
 of all things, and not to have formed the world out of uncreated ma- 
 terials capable only of being fabricated in such or such particular manner, 
 will acknowledge that everything contained in the divine plan falls out ac- 
 cording to the divine intention, yet some have doubted whether all events 
 that have happened were comprised within that plan. For as in human 
 affairs if a man lays his measures ever so completely, there will follow other 
 consequences besides those he had in view : when the farmer ploughs his 
 ground he disturbs the vermin and insects, tears up their nests, or destroys 
 them without intending it : so in the plan of Providence there may lie un- 
 important events which God cared not whether they should happen or no, 
 not belonging to it but necessarily resulting from the parts designed, such 
 as the falling of particular leaves or floating of straws upon the water : and 
 these will be absolutely casual, as being unforeseen by any created mind and 
 unthought of by the Divine. Thus the Stoics, as we learn from Cicero, held 
 that God took care of great matters but neglected small ones : my Lord 
 Bolingbroke seems to have been of the same opinion : and if we attend to 
 the common discourses of men concerning chance and fortune, we shall be 
 ready to think this the idea generally prevailing amongst them. 
 
 Now if we examine why they entertain this idea, we shall find them in- 
 duced thereto by two considerations : one because they look upon little 
 matters as unworthy the notice of God, and esteem it derogatory from the 
 divine majesty to suppose him attentive to the crawlings of an emmet or 
 tossings of a feather in a tempestuous air ; the other because the drawing a 
 plan to contain every the minutest event without exception, they conceive 
 to lie among the absolute impossibilities, and be impracticable even by in- 
 finite wisdom and omniscience. 
 
 But for my part I can see nothing unworthy notice in itself, the wisest 
 men can attend to the motions of insects or floating of little bodies in the 
 air, when they have nothing else to do ; and if at any time they scruple 
 attending to trifles, it is to avoid contracting a habit of being drawn off by 
 them from matters of greater importance. For our notice lies confined 
 within a narrow compass, we cannot fix our eye upon one object without 
 overlooking others ; therefore must accustom ourselves to disregard some 
 objects as being unworthy to engross that observation we shall want for 
 conducting us in affairs of moment. But there is not the like reason to 
 deem anything unworthy the notice of God, unless we will suppose they 
 must so engross his attention as that he will not have enough left to 
 bestow upon the weightier affairs of his government. 
 
 Thus this objection resolves itself into the other, namely the impossibility 
 of all, even the minutest, events being comprised within one plan and cal- 
 culation : and indeed it must be owned an inconceivable thought that shall 
 contain every little motion produced and to be produced throughout the 
 universe : but so it is if we consider only the rise and fall of kingdoms, the 
 lives and deaths, successes and distresses of mankind, which whoever will 
 allow God to take care of anything, must admit to lie under his direction ; 
 for this alone requires a greater extent of design than our imagination can 
 comprehend. But we must remember that the Attributes of God are in- 
 comprehensible, his thoughts are not like our thoughts, nor his intelligence 
 like our understanding, dependent upon ideas exhibited by our organs which 
 can take only a certain number of modifications, and if we endeavour to 
 introduce more we involve ourselves in perplexity and confusion. Whereas 
 God perceives not by organs, but being present everywhere and intelligent
 
 PROVIDENCE. 523 
 
 everywhere, we may as well apprehend him to discern and direct events 
 throughout the immensity of space as in any single point of it. 
 
 7. The theory of universal Providence being thus established, let us pro- 
 ceed to examine whether there is not evidence of it in the phenomena of 
 nature. If God had thought proper to leave anything to chance or neces- 
 sity, we cannot imagine otherwise than that he would have so ordered his 
 plan as that those blind causes should not interfere to disturb or alter it in 
 any part : but in fact we find events so interlaced among one another, that 
 those of the greatest moment often depend upon others we should think the 
 most trifling and unworthy regard. The causes of dearth and fertility de- 
 pend upon the vapours and little particles floating about in the air : plague, 
 murrain, and many distempers, derive from the same sources : therefore 
 those little particles must have their commission when and where and in 
 what quantities to flow, or health and sickness, abundance and famine, 
 might overspread the earth without the knowledge or intention of the 
 Almighty. Winds and weather depend upon so many complicated causes, 
 the action of the Sun, attraction of the Moon, situation of the mountains, 
 exhalations from the ground, that no human science can investigate them : 
 yet how often has the scale of victory been turned by a particular wind 
 blowing dust in the faces of one army ? How often has a vanquished fleet 
 been saved by a favourable gale wafting them into places of security ? How 
 tken can we say God giveth victory, unless we allow him to take cognizance 
 of everything conducive thereto ? For though he gave better conduct to 
 the general and greater vigour to the soldiers on one side, these advantages 
 might be overbalanced by a certain temperature in the air, causing it to 
 move this way or that. 
 
 Perhaps it will be thought enough if the causes, operating to produce 
 this temperature, be set at work in the gross, and that it is no matter whe- 
 ther a few more or less particles be employed, nor what places or girations 
 be assigned to each particle among the whole. For when the farmer sows 
 Ir.s corn, he does not mind the exact number of grains he takes up at each 
 time into his hand, nor whether any two of them fall the tenth of an inch 
 further or nearer to one another. But man acts by the gross members of 
 his body, to which he gives an impulse by one operation of his mind ; and 
 when he acts upon several little bodies, the motions they receive depend 
 partly upon their figures, magnitudes, and situations, which are too numerous 
 and too various for him to observe. Whereas God acts not by limbs nor 
 by external stroke or pulsion upon the outside of a mass, but by actuating 
 the component parts, whereof such and no more receive such and none 
 other impulse than he impresses upon them : for he pervades and is present 
 with them all, nor can remain ignorant or inobservant of what impulses he 
 give?, or what subsequent motions they must necessarily produce by their 
 mutual action upon one another. 
 
 8. If there be any who cannot readily comprehend the force of this 
 argument, let them turn their thoughts to such incidents wherein the struc- 
 ture of particular bodies, and position of their parts, manifestly give the 
 turn to the event. Men have been killed by the fall of boughs from trees 
 or bricks from buildings as they passed under, but had the fibres of the 
 bough, or mortar holding the bricks together, been ever so little stronger 
 or weaker, or the least particles in either placed otherwise, they would have 
 fallen a moment sooner or later and the lives of the passengers been saved. 
 Some have been bitten by adders whom they trod upon as they walked 
 along : others destroyed by swallowing wasps in their liquor : these owe
 
 5-24 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 their deaths to the minute causes which brought the wasp or the adder to 
 that particular spot ; nor would the general laws of instinct guiding those 
 vermin suffice to conduct them unerringly to the very place where their 
 operation was wanted. There have been persons who have lost their lives 
 by a gun presented against them in play, without knowing of its being 
 loaded, and perhaps after having tried twenty times in vain to let it off; 
 others have been saved by a pistol flashing in the pan : here the little parti- 
 cles of rust or damps among the powder must be exactly adjusted to make 
 it take effect at the destined instant and not before. What is it marks out 
 the paths of bullets flying about in an engagement ? the strength of the 
 powder, the manner of making up the charge, its being closer or looser 
 rammed; and a hair's breadth difference of position in the muzzle from 
 whence they were discharged, will cause them to miss or to destroy : which 
 little difference may arise from inequalities of ground the soldier stands 
 upon, from the manner of his tread, the stiffness of his clothes, or what he 
 has eaten or drank a little before. Therefore all these minute circumstances 
 cannot be neglected, even if we will suppose God only to determine how 
 many shall fall in battle that day, but not to care whether John or Thomas 
 make one of the number. How many have come to their ends by sudden 
 quarrels owing to an inadvertent word, a slip of the tongue, or an expres- 
 sion misunderstood ? What havoc and devastation do fires make, occa- 
 sioned by .a single act of forgetfulness or heedlessness ? 
 
 Nor is the condition of men's lives less under the power of slight causes 
 than the issues of them : the behaviour and diet of a fantastic woman can- 
 not but influence the constitution and temperament of the child she bears : 
 the giddy carelessness of a nurse may bring on maims, fractures, or dis- 
 eases, which can never be cured. And how much soever we may fancy the 
 number of such accidents regulated by general laws, yet it can never be as- 
 certained upon whom the mischief shall fall, without attending to the fan- 
 cies and other trifling causes concurring to each of them. It can scarce be 
 doubted that the tenor of every man's conduct and fortune depends very 
 much upon the situation w T hereinto he was thrown at his birth, the natural 
 endowments and dispositions wherewith he was born, or that these depend 
 as much upon the persons who gave him birth, as theirs did upon those 
 from whom they sprung : so that he might either not have been born at all, 
 or have run a very different course of life, had his parents, or his parents' 
 parents, been otherwise matched. But who can help observing what trivial 
 causes, what turns of humour, whim, and fancy, sometimes bring people 
 together ? an accidental meeting, a ball, or an entertainment, may begin 
 the acquaintance, a lucky dress, a handsome compliment, or a lively expres- 
 sion, first engage the notice, or an officious old woman drop a word that shall 
 give the preference. Nor do the consequences of such fortuitous engage- 
 ments always terminate in the parties or their children, or children's chil- 
 dren, but may spread wide among the human species : for they may beget 
 a Genius who shall invent a new art, or improve some useful science, or 
 produce peculiar talents .fitted to make a politician or a general, who shall 
 influence the fate of nations. Perhaps the Roman commonwealth might 
 have subsisted longer, or the empire been established in another family, if 
 Caesar's grandmother had worn a different coloured ribbon upon such a cer- 
 tain festival. 
 
 Thus we see the scheme of great events can never be so surely laid but 
 that they may be defeated by little accidents, unless these likewise be taken 
 into the plan. And whoever will take pains to contemplate the whole COH-
 
 PROVIDENCE. 525 
 
 currence of causes contributing to govern the weightiest affairs of mankind, 
 will find many inconsiderable ones among them, these again depending upon 
 others as minute, and so growing still more numerous and complicated the 
 further he goes backward, until perhaps at last he be ready to believe with 
 Plato that the whole world is one tissue of causes and effects, wherein, 
 nearly or remotely, everything has an influence upon everything. From 
 hence we may conclude, not only that the young ravens are fed, and the 
 lilies of the field arrayed in the glory of Solomon, by the Divine provision, 
 but that of two sparrows which are sold for a farthing, not one of them 
 falleth to the ground, not a hair is lost out of the number upon our heads, 
 not an atom stirs throughout the material world, nor a fancy starts up in 
 the imagination of any animal, without the permission or appointment of 
 our Heavenly Father. 
 
 9. Having satisfied ourselves, as well from reason as observation of the facts 
 we experience, that the smallest no less than the greatest events lie under 
 the particular direction of Divine Providence, it remains to inquire to what 
 kind of Providence we shall ascribe them : for there are two sorts, a dispos- 
 ing and interposing Providence. For though no Theist can doubt that God 
 upon the creation so disposed his elements and other parts of nature, as 
 that they should bring forth those productions and those changes in the 
 affairs of mankind which he in his wisdom thought proper to ordain, yet 
 there are many very pious persons who conceive that the causes of particular 
 events were not provided in the original plan, but that his Providence con- 
 tinually watches over all his works, that by his secret energy from time to 
 time he alters the motions of corporeal particles, governs the ideas of ani- 
 mals, and turns the thoughts of men, to work out his intended purposes. 
 Now without denying that the case may be so, let us consider whether it 
 necessarily must be so. 
 
 The art of man can make a clock that shall strike the hours, point out 
 the minutes, and perform other more curious movements in their proper 
 order, according to the extent of the works : he may set up this clock in his 
 house for the direction of his family, to give them notice when to go about 
 their particular employments ; and thus may lay a plan containing the 
 motions of mechanism and actions of free agents. But this plan will be 
 very narrow and imperfect ; the clock will want winding up or fall out 
 of repair, his servants will not always obey orders punctually, nor his 
 family be always ready at the appointed hour. For he must frame his work 
 of such materials as he can get ; the weather and other external causes will 
 affect it, and the persons he intends to be directed by it will have schemes 
 and humours of their own which he cannot foresee nor control. But the 
 Universe having nothing external which might interfere with the play of its 
 wheels, being composed of materials prepared by the Divine Artist with 
 such powers and properties as he pleased to assign them, if it contained 
 matter alone we might easily apprehend how it might go on like an im- 
 mense clock, performing regularly and exactly all the movements projected. 
 Yet when we reflect on the inertness of matter, and how much motion is 
 consumed continually by the collision and pressure of bodies, it will appear 
 evident that this clock could not go on for ever without winding up from 
 time to time. Nevertheless, the experience we have of our own activity in 
 moving our limbs, may persuade us it is not impossible that God may have 
 given his spiritual substance sufficient power to repair the constant decays 
 of motion, and keep the material clock-work regularly wound up. Then 
 again when we reflect that the action of this substance iy alike certain with
 
 526 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 that of body, having found it to depend either upon the disposition given 
 it upon creation, or the ideas exhibited by modifications of matter thrown 
 into them by the operations of other matter, or the acts of free agents de- 
 termined likewise by the same two causes, we must acknowledge this action 
 equally capable with the impulses of matter of being comprised within the 
 original plan. 
 
 And that it might actually be so comprised, the infinitude of the Divine in- 
 telligence, to which an infinite multitude of objects cannot appear perplex- 
 ing or intricate, leaves no room to doubt : neither that all events as well 
 minute as important happening either among body or spirit, may have fol- 
 lowed in a continued succession of effects and causes from the operation of 
 the Almighty upon them at the creation. If we go on to inquire when 
 this operation was performed, we can set no limits to the time. Was it ten 
 thousand years ago ? God was omnipotent, good, and gracious, to disperse 
 happiness and manifest his glory among his creatures before that period. 
 Was it a million of years ? Neither then had the Divine Attributes their 
 beginning, but were unchangeable and eternal : the same power, and the 
 same immutable Will to exert it, having subsisted for ever. Therefore 
 there is no absurdity in imagining that the act of God might have been 
 completed an eternity ago, that he has ever since rested from his works, 
 and all things have gone on by second causes in the order of succession 
 established from everlasting. 
 
 1 0. On the other hand, an inactive Deity, doing nothing for many ages 
 past besides contemplating the play of his works, seems repugnant to our 
 idea of perfection, as that includes omnipotence and an absolute command 
 over the creatures ; which we cannot well apprehend without an actual 
 operation upon them to govern and direct their motions : for power never 
 exerted does to our thinking scarce deserve the name of power. And though 
 we cannot suppose otherwise than that God is completely happy in himself, 
 nor wants amusements to pass his time agreeably as we do : yet neither is 
 it incongruous with our notions of him to whom nothing is labour or trou- 
 ble, that he should not have dispatched his work once for all to solace 
 himself ever after in quiet and repose, but should have reserved himself 
 something still to do wherein he might find continual employment for his 
 almighty power. Nor does this supposition derogate from his infinite wis- 
 dom, because it does not represent him as making the world imperfect out 
 of necessity, for want of skill or ability to frame one which should run on 
 forever without correcting, but by choice, because he so enlarged his plan 
 as to take in, not only the motions of matter, and actions of sentient and 
 intelligent creatures, but likewise his own immediate acts ; which we may 
 say were contained among the list of second causes, second not to any prior 
 agent which might give them force or direction, but to the first determina- 
 tion of his Will, and to the plan or order of succession he laid down from 
 everlasting. Thus we see the doctrine of an interposing Providence, or 
 none, equally tenable in theory, and therefore remains a question proper to 
 be determined by evidence of facts and contemplation of nature. 
 
 1 1 . Now to consider first the nature of intelligent creatures, to whom a 
 just apprehension of their dependence upon their Maker is necessary to pre- 
 serve them in a happy tenor of mind, and to regulate their conduct with 
 respect to one another : if we should imagine God abstaining from all 
 action ever since his creation of all things, though we might still adore his 
 excellencies and acknowledge his power, we should apprehend his power 
 already executed and ourselves as having no further concern therewith ; we
 
 PROVIDENCE. 527 
 
 should look upon him as having abandoned us to the operation of second 
 causes, and that upon them only we need fix our attention ; we might be 
 apt to live as without a God in the world, esteeming it matter of mere 
 speculation whether the course of nature proceeded originally from him or 
 no. For this reason in a former place I have represented God under two 
 characters : the Creator dwells in unaccessible light whereto we cannot draw 
 near, remaining there the distant object of our adoration only ; but it is 
 the Governor of the world on whom our hope and dependence rests, to his 
 interposing Providence we look up for succour in our distresses, for a bless- 
 ing upon our endeavours, for a happy turn to our thoughts, and the course 
 of outward accidents so as that they may operate to our benefit : but with- 
 out some interposition God would be utterly lost to us in his character of 
 Governor. And though we have reason to believe there are other under- 
 standings larger than our own, we cannot conceive any who might not be 
 liable to forget there is a power above them, if they never knew a single 
 instance of its having operated 'among them. Since then God has so con- 
 stituted his intelligent creatures as that some interposition of his power is 
 requisite to manifest itself to their observation, we may presume that he 
 has accommodated their capacities to his own manner of proceeding, and 
 that he does sometimes interpose ; for else he would have given them other 
 faculties capable of entertaining a just sense of his Almighty power and 
 dominion without it. 
 
 1 2. In the next place let us cast our eye upon the form of this earth we 
 inhabit, which we find tending nearer and nearer every year to a smooth 
 surface by the higher grounds washing into the sea. I do not pretend to 
 say whether it will ever become a perfect level, nor that there may not be 
 some rocky parts which no weather can dissolve, or gravelly soils which no 
 rains can drive along ; but I do say that if the earth had been eternal, all 
 that was capable of being removed must have been gone long before this 
 time, nor could there have been any mud left to foul our rivers, but they 
 must have run pure as a limpid fountain bubbling from the ground. What 
 quantities of soil stop up the channels of the Nile ! Had the causes which 
 brought them hither been always at work, why were they not driven down 
 before the Phoenician times, when the seven mouths were all navigable ? 
 And now they are there, what powers in nature can we discover or even 
 conjecture, that shall cany them back again to the mountains of Ethiopia 
 from whence they came. 
 
 Then to turn our thoughts from the face of this globe to its annual course 
 round the Sun and that of the other planets, Sir Isaac Newton assures us 
 that the ether through which they pass, makes some though a small resist- 
 ance against their progress : this resistance, small as it is, must by degrees 
 render their orbits more and more eccentric, and consequently contract their 
 shorter diameters. Let us suppose this contraction to be no more than one 
 inch in a year, yet when we consider what an inexhaustible fund of years 
 lies within the compass of eternity, if they had moved forever they must 
 have lost inches enow long ago to reduce them, first to the condition of 
 Comets, and afterwards to throw them into the Sun ; from whence we know 
 of no power in nature that could ever get them out again. We may fancy 
 explosions in the Sun which may cast up huge masses from his body as big 
 as our earth, but then if thrown directly upwards they would fall down 
 again as soon as the impulse of the stroke was spent, like a stone tossed up 
 with one's hand : or if thrown obliquely they migl.t then make one giration 
 in a long ellipsis, which would bring them back to the spot from whence
 
 528 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 they set out. For a rectilinear or elliptical motion can never be brought 
 into a circular without a tangential impulse received at the instant when 
 the body comes into the circle wherein it is to move ; but what force or 
 what cause shall give it this tangential impulse we shall hunt for in vain 
 throughout ah 1 the stores of nature. Since then we find that earths and 
 vortices were not eternal, nor yet could be produced by any laws of matter, 
 we must conclude that the divine power interposed, if never else, at least in 
 their formation. 
 
 13. Perhaps somebody may urge against me my own hypothesis of the 
 mundane soul, to whom I have ascribed power to assort the corpuscles of 
 matter into any combinations, and thereout to form vortices, earths, plants, 
 insects, brutes, and men, and to render the animal organizations sentient 
 by infusing into them particles of its own substance. But let it be remem- 
 bered that I have all along disclaimed the use of hypothesis in proof of 
 any doctrine, as believing it too weak a foundation to support a superstruc- 
 ture alone, and proper only for illustration of truths already founded upon 
 some more solid bottom. Nevertheless, if anybody will apply my hypo- 
 thesis to the present subject, let him take the whole of it entire : for as a 
 complainant in Chancery, who would avail himself of the facts discovered in 
 an answer, must take them all together as set forth and not pick out those 
 only which suit his purpose, so in arguing from an hypothesis, it is unfair 
 to proceed upon a part of it separated from the rest. Now how much so- 
 ever I have supposed the ministry of the mundane soul employed in the 
 generation of worlds, I have never supposed him to enter upon the task 
 without an express command and particular plan exhibited to him from 
 above. I have assigned the material world for the sensory of the mundane 
 soul, presenting ideas thereto by the various modifications of its parts, as 
 our human sensories present ideas to us by the modifications of our organs : 
 and these modifications are made to change partly by the workings of our 
 corporeal mechanism and partly by our own voluntary operation. For we 
 find thoughts start up in our minds spontaneously, and others we call up 
 ourselves by recollection and study ; many of those arising mechanically 
 intrude upon us against our will, and against our utmost endeavours to keep 
 them out. But the mundane soul being intimately present throughout all 
 the parts of his immense body and having an absolute command over it, 
 will in the ordinary course of his proceedings suffer no modifications to form 
 nor ideas to appear contrary to his liking, nor can any happen unless by 
 his own act or by the mutual impulses of matter consequent upon the mo- 
 tions he gave it. Nevertheless, upon extraordinary occasions when some 
 great work is to be entered upon, he will find modifications in his sensory 
 which he did not produce by his own action, nor were produced by the ne- 
 cessary laws of matter and motion : these then he will ascribe to an imme- 
 diate operation of the Almighty, as well knowing there are no more than 
 two active powers in nature, God and himself. 
 
 If we reflect further upon what has been observed a few pages before 
 concerning the multitude of second causes influencing the affairs of this 
 world, and how intricately they lie involved and complicated among one 
 another, we shall be apt to believe them too much for the mundane soul to 
 manage, whose understanding, although prodigiously large, is not infinite ; 
 and shall judge it more likely that he should want direction from time to 
 time for conducting them, than that he should not want the like for the 
 formation of a new world and calculation of all events and consequences to 
 result from the combinations and motions he produces therein. These ma-
 
 PROVIDENCE. 529 
 
 nifestations and directions may be looked upon as revelations of the Will 
 of God, and of the measures which Divine Wisdom judges proper for 
 executing his purposes ; wherein the mundane soul will not be liable to 
 the mistakes too frequently fallen into by mortals, who take their own 
 fancies and the vapours arising mechanically in their brain for divine illu- 
 minations ; but he having a perfect knowledge of all his own motions, will be 
 able to judge unerringly what are truly such, and what owing to'the act of 
 some other agent. Thus this first of created Beings having manifestations 
 of the divine Will and designs from time to time, cannot want evidence of 
 a governing and interposing Providence : and though we have not the like 
 manifestations, yet the phenomena which we know cannot have proceeded 
 from an eternal chain of natural causes, are an evidence to us that God has 
 interposed since his original creation ; and whether we apprehend him to 
 have done this with his own hand, or by his minister particularly instructed 
 for that purpose, either opinion sufficiently attended to, will keep alive in 
 us just sentiments of his being our Governor and the supreme disposer of 
 events. 
 
 14. But how rare or how frequent soever we may imagine these inter- 
 positions, we always find the agency of second causes employed in bringing 
 forth the destined effect. Not that the method of immediate operation 
 could not have been taken, for whoever acknowledges the power and om- 
 nipresence of God must admit that he might have created his substances 
 perishable, so as to have needed his continual support to uphold them in 
 Being and actuate all their motions, as Bishop Beveridge and Dean Sher- 
 lock have supposed : or that he might have given his sentient creatures 
 their portion of happiness without the intervention of matter or space, by 
 exciting in them a succession of perceptions, in the manner Bishop Berkley 
 has imagined : but experience supplies us with no ground to believe he has 
 pursued either of these methods. We see our pains and our pleasures 
 brought upon us by the impulses of matter or dealings of our fellow-creatures, 
 and in every dispensation there is a chain of natural causes lying between 
 the divine act and event produced thereby. The most zealous favourer of 
 interposition will scarce maintain that, when a man is to be destroyed by a 
 wasp in his beer, the cup was placed in the window, or the casement 
 thrown open, or the wasp driven thither by a supernatural force, or the 
 insect rendered invisible that the person might not discern his danger : but 
 at most will suppose a secret energy influencing the fancies of the careless 
 servant who set down the liquor, or the man who snatches it up, and the 
 senses of the little animal, so as that they should all co-operate towards the 
 destined event. Thus in every act of interposing there is a disposing Pro- 
 vidence too, containing a plan of the operations that shall infallibly follow 
 upon the impulses given to the causes set at work. 
 
 It is this manner of proceeding by second causes that opens the door to 
 our deliberations and measures of conduct : for we cannot penetrate into 
 the secret purposes of God, nor know when or what immediate acts he will 
 perform, neither can we learn any more of the scheme of his Providence 
 than what may be gathered from observation of the natural causes that are 
 in act. Therefore it behoves us to investigate those causes as far as we 
 have ability and opportunity for so doing, because from them only we can 
 attain any knowledge of the divine economy, which whenever we can dis- 
 cover it will prove an unerring guide to our proceedings. The neglect of 
 this duty, and inobservance of second causes, throws men into all the delu- 
 
 VOL i. 2 M
 
 530 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 sions of superstition ami enthusiasm : for while they imagine the divine 
 power exerted upon every particular occasion, they overlook those rules of 
 prudence which God has given for their direction : they deem it unnecessary 
 even to think for themselves, expecting an especial guidance for everything 
 they are to do : which lays them open to the deceit of illuminations, 
 dreams, omens, prodigies, and such like trumpery. On the other hand, a 
 too close attachment to second causes is apt to generate profaneness, 
 making men forget the First, and substitute an undesigning change or blind 
 fatality in the room of it. But this can never happen provided they bear 
 in mind that, how far soever they may trace the chain, they must rest it iu 
 the divine operation at last, which whenever exerted they will find accom- 
 panied with a disposing Providence directing it in such manner as to pro- 
 duce the whole series of events to follow thereupon. And the longer the 
 chain, the greater number and intricacy of causes and effects it must con- 
 tain, and the larger must be that plan of disposition which gave beginning 
 to it. Therefore the more a man thinks, he will discover natural causes 
 lying still further and further behind one another : he will find his idea of 
 interposing Providence gradually diminish, and that of the disposing pro- 
 portionably increase. 
 
 Therefore let not men condemn one another too hastily of impiety or 
 superstition, for both are relative to the strength of each person's sight : 
 the philosopher may entertain so high an opinion of infinite wisdom, as 
 that upon the formation of a world it might provide for every event that is 
 to happen during the whole period of its continuance ; therefore he is not 
 impious in asserting that all things since have gone on in the course of 
 natural causes, for his idea of the first plan is so full as to leave no room 
 for anything to be interposed. This the plain man cannot comprehend, the 
 lines of his view being short, therefore he is not superstitious in imagining 
 frequent interpositions, because without them he cannot understand a Pro- 
 vidence at all. He may likewise find it impossible to conceive that every 
 motion of matter and turn of volition should be calculated or foreseen, but 
 supposes a watchful Providence continually attentive to the tendency of 
 second causes, interposing every day and every hour of the day to correct 
 the errors of chance, and secretly turning the springs of action the way 
 that wisdom and goodness recommend. And he is excusable herein, if 
 this be the best conception he can form ; for it derogates not from his idea 
 of the divine wisdom and dominion to imagine there should be room left 
 in nature for chance, so long as there is a superintending power who can 
 foresee the irregularities of chance time enough to prevent them. 
 
 15. Thus how largely soever we may ascribe to interposition, or how 
 much soever deduct therefrom to add to the disposing Providence, we can- 
 not deny that every natural cause we see is an effect of some prior cause, 
 impulse of impulse, and volition of motives and ideas suggested to the mind ; 
 therefore must refer all dispensations ultimately to the act of God : and as 
 we cannot imagine him to act without knowing what he does and what 
 will result therefrom, we must conclude that act to proceed upon a plan 
 and disposition of the causes tending to produce the particular conse- 
 quences following thereupon. The only difference between the man of 
 common sense and the studious is concerning the time when the dispo- 
 sition was made, which the one thinks a few days or a few minutes, the 
 other many ages ago, the one frequent and occasional, the other rare and 
 universal ; but both acknowledge that nothing ever happens without the 
 permission or appointment of our Almighty and ever-vigilant Governor.
 
 PROVIDENCE. 531 
 
 Since then there was a disposition made at some time or other of the causes 
 concurring to produce every event, let us try whether we can gather any 
 probable knowledge of the motives inducing to such disposition : for we 
 cannot conceive a voluntary agent providing for the completion of any 
 work without some design in view, which is the motive urging him thereto. 
 But we cannot behold God as he is, nor apprehend his manner of proceed- 
 ing any otherwise than by analogy with our own ; we being the only 
 intelligent Beings of whom we have any direct knowledge or experience. 
 
 Now it has been shown that our motives may be distributed into four 
 classes, pleasure, use, honour, and necessity : these then we must ascribe to 
 God, though with some alteration suitable to the difference between his na- 
 ture and our own. With us pleasure or satisfaction stands at the end of 
 every line in our views, it is that renders it the object of our desire, and 
 urges us to pursue it : we perform all our actions., whether considerate or 
 inadvertent, because we judge or fancy that we shall put ourselves into a 
 better condition, or gain greater complacence of mind, by doing than omitting 
 them. But pleasure in this sense we cannot with any colour of reason 
 assign as a motive with God, whose happiness we conceive essential and 
 invariable, so that nothing can be done either to enhance or diminish it ; 
 neither did he perform any act whether of creation or government to pro- 
 cure a moment's enjoyment for himself. We can descry no further point in 
 the views of God than the goodness of his sentient creatures, whom he created 
 capable of happiness, and showers down his blessings upon them, of his mere 
 bounty and goodness, without any obligation engaging or benefit of his own 
 inviting him thereto. But in our ordinary discourses concerning actions 
 whereof we cannot discern the motive, we usually ascribe them to pleasure, 
 and so we say God was pleased to create a world and fill it with good, thus 
 pleasure seems again to stand at the end of the line : but then it does not 
 carry the same signification as when applied to ourselves ; it is only a vague 
 term, employed for want of a more adequate, to express that pure bounty 
 which we conceive flowing spontaneously underived from any higher source. 
 Nevertheless, there may be some other Attribute giving birth to goodness, 
 although we cannot conceive it : at least this much we must allow, that 
 there are methods of proceeding taken which require some other induce- 
 ment to the choice of them. 
 
 Nobody can doubt, as we have observed before, that God might have 
 given his creatures their portion of happiness by his own immediate act, 
 without that complicated tissue of second causes and extensive system of 
 Providence through which it is conveyed to them ; and I believe few will 
 imagine him so confined to the present constitution of nature as that he 
 could not have contrived some other equally productive of good and enjoy- 
 ment. But goodness respects only the happiness imparted, nor casts a pre- 
 ference between the several means by which the same quantity may be con- 
 veyed : when a rich man sends money to relieve a person in distress, it is 
 kindness which prompts him to the deed, but this directs not whether to 
 send it in notes, or Portugal pieces, or English coin, whether by the 
 steward, or the butler, or the groom ; for if each species be equally conve- 
 nient, and all the servants equally trusty, kindness is satisfied with any of 
 them alike ; therefore he must have some other motive to determine his 
 choice among them. 1'hus that we receive blessings at the hand of God is 
 owing to his goodness, but that he chooses this or that method of commu- 
 nicating them, must arise from some other cause : for we cannot suppose 
 
 2 H 2
 
 532 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 him to proceed without some reason as well for the manner as the substance 
 of his proceeding, which reason we shall try to penetrate in vain, therefore 
 can refer it only to his good pleasure, the term we use for expressing every 
 principle of action whereof we cannot discern the grounds. 
 
 16. Nevertheless, since God has been pleased to pursue this method of 
 transmitting happiness to us through certain mediums, this gives rise to the 
 next class of motives, those of use : for there being many materials and in- 
 struments without which we could not attain the portion of goodness de- 
 signed for us, the provisions made for preparing them to our hand must be 
 deemed as having respect to their usefulness. Not but that the divine views 
 are large and piercing, nor ever terminate upon an intermediate point, but 
 look forward to the particular uses which everything was intended to serve: 
 but our views being short, incapable of stretching always to our ultimate 
 end, but resting upon certain stages seeming to lie in the way towards it (for 
 we bestir ourselves lustily in accumulating useful things, without knowing 
 what we shall do with them, or whether any benefit shall accrue to us there- 
 from) ; therefore we are excusable in conceiving of the divine proceedings 
 after a manner suitable to our imagination, that is, by piecemeal. For we 
 cannot follow them to that crop of particular enjoyments they were calcu- 
 lated to produce, but must stop at the materials prepared, which we appre- 
 hend serviceable in general to our conveniences and uses. Tims when we 
 consider the multitude of various plants with which God has clothed the 
 earth, we regard the admirable contrivance of their fibres and vessels, and 
 several parts as designed for the uses of the whole, to nourish it, to promote 
 its growth, and cause it to yield fruit ; and the curious structure of the seed 
 as calculated to produce a plant of its own kind. But many seeds perish 
 without producing anything, many vegetables tend to the benefit of no 
 living creature we know of, and where we do behold a man receiving benefit 
 or pleasure from them, we apprehend him applying to his own wants what 
 was provided for the general service. In all these cases we discern a wisdom 
 adapting the means proper to each production, the perfecting whereof is the 
 use of those means ; and as we sometimes cannot, and generally do not, 
 carry our thoughts further than that end, we must apprehend use to be the 
 motive in disposing such causes as bring forth the productions of nature. 
 
 17. God has given some of his creatures a capacity of knowing himself, 
 of contemplating his works and adoring his power, his wisdom, his good- 
 ness, and mercy ; and he has so ordered his courses of nature and Providence 
 as to display those excellencies evidently to the considerate mind : there- 
 fore that disposition whereby things were so ordered, we must believe made 
 with a view to the manifestation of his glory. Thus glory bears a consider- 
 able share among the motives influencing the divine operation. Yet we 
 cannot well imagine glory the ultimate end, for this would imply a want of 
 something external to complete the happiness of God, whose satisfaction 
 might be augmented by becoming the object of adoration to his creatures : 
 besides, it may be presumed there would be higher capacities and stronger 
 manifestations among them than we find by experience. But he has so 
 constituted his intelligent Beings that glorifying and entertaining just senti- 
 ments of him contributes more than anything to fill them with satisfaction 
 of mind, to ennoble their views, brighten their prospects, and inspire them, 
 with a readiness to promote one another's benefit : therefore is he jealous 
 of his glory as being a principal channel through which he conveys his 
 blessings to them. If we go to examine why he made this a channel of his 
 bounty, why man alone of all the visible creation is capable of partaking of
 
 PROVIDENCE. 533 
 
 the stream, why he gave us such and no higher capacities, such and not 
 more glaring evidences of his glory than we have, we can resolve this into 
 nothing else besides that general cause which takes in every unknown prin- 
 ciple of action, his good pleasure. It has been already shown in the proper 
 place how in our own minds use grows out of pleasure, and honour out of 
 use ; for we are led to desire things useful by their tendency to serve our 
 conveniences and pleasures, and to cultivate a principle of honour by expe- 
 rience of its usefulness to carry us through noble and arduous undertakings : 
 but because we cannot carry our views to the last consequences of our pro- 
 ceedings, therefore we rest them upon use or honour as motives of action 
 distinct from pleasure. In like manner when we contemplate the designs 
 of Providence, good or happiness of the creatures is the furthest point we 
 can imagine : the all-seeing eye of God looks always to this, or perhaps 
 beyond, but our eye, not always able to reach so far, must necessarily ter- 
 minate sometimes upon use or glory, further than which we cannot discern 
 a connection. And by observing carefully the methods taken to bring forth 
 these purposes, we may gradually improve our sense and knowledge of the 
 economy of Providence. 
 
 18. The fourth class of motives, that of necessity, arises from evil, which 
 we cannot suppose either man willingly to undergo, or God to inflict, with- 
 out a view to some greater good which could not otherwise be obtained : 
 neither is it ever sent from the fountain of goodness unless as a necessary 
 means to accomplish some gracious purpose. But this necessity was not 
 imposed by anything external, or by an independent nature of things abso- 
 lutely eternal and unalterable, for this would destroy the unity of the First 
 Cause, but by the Will of God upon his original constitution of them at the 
 creation. It were in vain to search for the motives of that Will, for we 
 know very little of him in his character of Creator, nor can pretend to 
 account for his proceedings : not that we may therefore pronounce them 
 unaccountable or arbitrary, but ought rather to believe them grounded on 
 substantial reasons to us inscrutable, as being drawn from Attributes 
 whereof we have not the least knowledge or conception. Yet we may 
 gather from observation of what we see, that he has established certain 
 laws which he has rendered unalterable, having confirmed them as it were 
 with an oath or covenant binding even upon himself in his government of 
 the world. Among these we may reckon the evil sprinkled over his works, 
 which is so interwoven among the good that one cannot be had without the 
 other. It is said that offences must needs come : now nobody can doubt 
 the Divine power could have prevented them, but then the good which was 
 to be worked out of them must have been lost. It is said likewise that God 
 chastises those whom he favours most, and tries them with sufferings and 
 afflictions as gold is tried in the fire : but then that purity which is the result 
 of the trial would not have been attained without it. And though punishment 
 be commonly understood as having respect only to the past, yet when we con- 
 sider that a righteous and dispassionate man would never puniish unless for 
 sake of some benefit redounding to the public greater than the hurt brought 
 upon the offender, we shall scarce imagine otherwise of God with whom 
 is mercy as well as justice. Therefore whatever evil we find among the dis- 
 pensations of Providence, we may conclude thrown thereinto upon a motive 
 of necessity, a necessity which God in his Character of Creator has im- 
 posed upon himself in his character of Governor, by having constituted 
 his sentient creatures in such manner as that happiness cannot be conveyed 
 to them completely unless through the road of pain and uneasiness either in
 
 534 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 themselves or others. And necessity, considered as a motive, always im- 
 plies some advantage beyond ; for we never deem it necessary to submit to 
 anything against our liking but for procuring some benefit or preventing 
 some more grievous mischief ; nor can we conceive but that the like view 
 renders necessity a motive with the disposer of all events. Wherefore we 
 may look upon the evils dispersed among mankind, the helplessness of in- 
 fancy, infirmities of age, the pains, diseases, distresses, afflictions, labours, 
 and those inconveniences of life which we do npt find turning to our account 
 here, as necessary preparations for our better living hereafter, or produc- 
 tive of advantage somehow or other to higher species of Beings. 
 
 19. For there being one Creator and one Governor of the universe, it 
 can scarce' be doubted that there is one plan of government extending 
 throughout the boundless dominion, and regulating the interests of all the 
 sentient creatures inhabiting therein. In what manner those of the invi- 
 sible regions stand affected by events befalling here below, it would be a 
 vain attempt for us to particularize ; but that there is a mutual connection 
 of interests between them and the visible, we have found abundant reason 
 in the course of this work to believe. Wherefore those phenomena which 
 Lucretius calls the faults of nature, wherewith he says she so largely 
 abounds, instead of proving that the world was not made in wisdom and 
 goodness, may with better reason be looked upon as evidences that our 
 heavenly Father has other children to provide for besides those falling under 
 our cognizance ; and that whatever appears wrong, or needless, or wasteful 
 to us, is necessary for their uses. I know that some good people persuade 
 themselves that the courses of nature and fortune are ordered for the best, 
 even with respect to the interests of man here upon earth, nor could be 
 altered in any single point without endamaging his condition in life some 
 way or other ; but it would be very hard to make this appear to an unpre- 
 judiced observer who has not more zeal than knowledge, or to convince 
 him that infinite wisdom could not have contrived a better world, wherein 
 our days might have passed more comfortably and happily than we find 
 them do ; nor need we disturb ourselves at the difficulty. For my part these 
 seeming faults, and the vast profusion of second causes, whereof many 
 serve but little to the uses of man, are so far from being stumbling-blocks 
 to me, that I look upon them as an earnest of our future expectations. We 
 have apparent marks enow of a wisdom displayed in this visible world, to 
 satisfy us that the affairs of men and all nature lie under that guidance : 
 therefore I care not how many instances may be produced wherein the pur- 
 poses of that wisdom are frustrated or incompletely answered here, because 
 I may reasonably infer from thence that they are fully completed elsewhere. 
 Our continuance here is but for a moment in comparison with the long 
 abode we are to make in the invisible world : therefore there lies our prin- 
 cipal concern, and our opinion of its value must be heightened by the cares 
 we observe bestowed upon it by Infinite Wisdom. But since we know that 
 Wisdom does nothing in vain or superfluous, whatever we find superfluous 
 to ourselves, the vast effusion of light, the boundless fields of ether, and 
 many huge masses of matter which scarce afford us a trifling benefit, must 
 be provided for the benefit of those Beings among whom we are to take up 
 our chief residence : of which residence therefore we have reason to think 
 the better, the more errors and superfluities we can find in nature. 
 
 20. Nor does animal or rational nature abound less in errors than the 
 material ;. the foolish Ostrich drops her eggs upon the sand, where many of 
 them grow addle and perish ; the simple sheep licks up the autumnal dews
 
 PROVIDENCE. 535 
 
 hanging upon her pasture which gives a rot to her flesh ; the heedless fly 
 observes not the cobwebs which entangle her in destruction. Birds, beasts, 
 and insects overpower, ensnare, and lie in wait to prey upon one ano- 
 ther : and it is necessary they should do so to keep their numbers within 
 bounds, for nature produces more of every species than she is able to main- 
 tain. Then to turn our thoughts upon imperial man who boasts his being 
 the lord of this sublunary kingdom, observe how he runs himself continu- 
 ally into vexation, disappointment, and mischief, by his folly and indiscre- 
 tion : dangers hang over him which he cannot discern, measures escape 
 him which would conduce most effectually to his purposes ; if he consults 
 his reason he finds it dark, doubtful, and erroneous, nor knows he half the 
 tendency of his proceedings in matters most nearly concerning him ; for pru- 
 dence covers her face from him as with a veil, and truth hides herself at the 
 bottom of the well. The honest-hearted labour under sickness, distress, 
 weakness, and ignorance, so that they want ability to the good they desire : 
 the wicked possess riches, power, strength, and sagacity, which they em- 
 ploy wholly in trifles or turn to the detriment of their fellow-creatures. 
 Now will any body pretend, or does he think it for the divine glory to 
 assert, that infinite wisdom could not have given his animals a completer 
 instinct to warn them against everything tending to their damage, could 
 not have formed those of the carnivorous kind so as that they might have 
 been nourished by vegetables, nor have adapted his causes of generation to 
 the provisions made for their sustenance, nor have given man a more pierc- 
 ing understanding to penetrate thoroughly into his truest interests, nor have 
 dispensed his talents where they would have been most useful. If then we 
 acknowledge these things ordered by a wise and beneficent Providence, yet 
 that they do not answer the purposes of beneficence in this visible world, we 
 must needs conclude them calculated for some benefit to the invisible : and in 
 this light we may regard them as beneficial to ourselves, we having a con- 
 cern in provisions beneficial to that community whereof we hope one dav to 
 be members. These considerations I think may persuade us that the de- 
 parted spirits do not reside in empty spaces wholly detached from the mate- 
 rial universe, whereof they remain mere spectators only, spending their 
 eternity in hymns expressive of their admiration, or at most praying for us 
 now and then to the throne of glory : but that this mighty fabric we inhabit, 
 together with the transactions and events among men and animals, serve 
 to some uses of theirs, and furnish them with employment for exerting their 
 activity in obedience to the Will of God. Surely this idea is not unworthy 
 the Majesty of our almighty and omniscient Governor : an idea which 
 binds together heaven and earth, the host of separate spirits, the distant 
 stars, the numberless planets, the elements of nature, the race of men, the 
 brutes, the reptiles, the grains of sand, the particles of air and ether, in 
 one all-comprehensive plan ; wherein nothing stands alone, but all the parts 
 connect with one another and all the springs contribute to the workings of 
 all the rest. 
 
 21 . We know not indeed how to trace out the connection, nor scarce to 
 conjecture in what particular manner our little transactions, our pleasures 
 and pains, affect the higher classes of Beings, nor yet is it needful that we 
 should : for God knows how to direct the actions of inferior creatures to 
 more distant and important purposes than they are aware of, and gives to 
 every one the senses sufficient to guide it in acting the part he designed it 
 to perform. The bee, when she lays in her honey, thinks nothing of the 
 services it may prove of to man : the silk-worm spins her thread without
 
 536 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 regard to the fine brocades and tissues that he will weave out of it ; the 
 horse pushes on before the plough to secure himself from the lash, nor has 
 any conception of his preparing the ground to bear oats for himself or wheat 
 for his master : in like manner our reason presents us with short aims and 
 scanty prospects, but God has instructed this guide to mark out the stages 
 leading to remote purposes of his own. Let us then make the best use of 
 reason's candle, for though it cast light only on a few steps just before us, 
 we may trust his Providence for having laid out the path to what length he 
 thinks proper : and while we pursue our own little interests prudently, we 
 shall without knowing it promote some advantage of other beings to whose 
 uses he has been pleased to make us instrumental. 
 
 22. Our view of Providence must be partial and imperfect at best, 
 wherefore much of the wisdom of God will appear foolishness to man ; and 
 so does wisdom always appear to such as have not capacity to discern the 
 justness of her measures, nor the ends for which they were pursued : but 
 the more attentively we observe the luminous tracts, we shall find them 
 spread further and further into the dark and exceptionable : and they will 
 quickly open before us an ample field for contemplation. For we may 
 discover wheel within wheel, trace an admirable connection between many 
 of them, discern an exact adjustment of them with each other, and per- 
 ceive one contrived to serve various purposes. 
 
 It were needless for me to undertake what has been better executed by 
 others before me, I mean, to particularize the phenomena wherein there 
 appear footsteps of wisdom striking to the eye or easily discernible with a 
 little attention ; such as the apportionment of the elements, the form of 
 this terraqueous globe, the variety of soils and fossils, the distribution of 
 rivers, the curious structure of seeds and plants, their different qualities 
 adapted respectively to the uses and conveniencies of living creatures ; the 
 wonderful machinery of animals containing within a small compass innu- 
 merable works severally performing the offices of nutrition, growth, circu- 
 lation, and instrumentality of action, yet so dexterously laid together that 
 the voluntary motions do not interrupt the mechanical ; the degrees of 
 sense and instinct given to the brute creation, sufficient to direct them in 
 providing nests, in choosing proper food and harbouring places, but not 
 sufficient to protect them against the assaults of other creatures who live by 
 their destruction ; the strength, sagacity, and docility which render them 
 serviceable to man, the parts or excrescences of their bodies applicable to 
 his uses, the honey, the wax, the silk, the oak-galls, and other works of 
 their industry, which supply him with materials of commerce and accommo- 
 dations of life. 
 
 As to the two faculties of the mind, enabling her to receive such an 
 infinite variety of perceptions, and to exert her action upon any of the par- 
 ticles lying within the sphere of her presence exclusive of the rest, these 
 are rather evidences of almighty power than of wisdom, as being primary 
 properties given to her with her existence by an immediate act, and so 
 requiring no disposition of causes to produce them. But when we reflect 
 on the human sensory, the immediate object of all her perceptions and 
 subject of her volition, we must acknowledge an admirable contrivance 
 there. Whether this sensory be the pineal gland, the anterior ventricles, 
 the centre of the ethereal cobweb, or whatever else we may imagine, it is 
 evident from anatomy that the chamber of her residence is extremely 
 small : yet within this little chamber, what multitudes of images hang 
 round ! Sensations, reflections, combinations, comparisons, distinctions,
 
 PROVIDENCE. 537 
 
 judgments, vocabularies of language, forms of expression, figures of speech, 
 remembrance of facts, faces of our acquaintance, fashion of things familiar 
 to us, knowledge of common life, professions, arts, sciences, abstractions, 
 rules of morality, measures of prudence, passions, desires, imaginations, all 
 within this narrow compass, yet all so nicely disposed as not to cover or 
 obscure one another. Besides these, within the same compass are con- 
 tained the particles serving for instruments of her activity, connected 
 severally with the other parts of the sensory or nerves of the gross body ; 
 and all in such orderly disposition as to lie under command, so that she 
 can move any limb, call up any idea, or pursue any train of thinking she 
 pleases, without mistake or disappointment. A little reflection upon these 
 things may show us, that the mental organization is still more wonderful 
 than the wonderful mechanism of our outward composition. And though 
 it may be, as we have formerly remarked, that all those images do not 
 exist together, (for we never have more than a few ideas in our view at one 
 instant,) but that the same parts of our sensory are thrown into different 
 modifications by the act of the mind, or workings of our animal circulation, 
 and so exhibit successively the several stores of our knowledge as wanted, 
 like a slate which may have written upon it successively all the pages of a 
 large volume : yet when we reflect what multitudes of springs must be 
 requisite to produce these changes of modification, in that orderly manner, 
 and under that command of the mind which we experience, it will rather 
 increase than abate our wonder. 
 
 Then if we turn our eyes from the courses of nature to those of fortune 
 and the disposal of events, we may observe how men are cast upon their 
 several professions, schemes of conduct, places of residence and alliances, 
 whereon the colour of their future life depends, by various causes ; by 
 their natural temperament, by their education, the company they consort 
 with, and accidents befalling them : how families rise to prosperity, flourish 
 a while, and then wither and fall into oblivion : how kingdoms are formed 
 out of a rude rabble, maintained with various successes and broken to 
 pieces : how sects of Religion start up from small beginnings, possess the 
 minds of the multitude, force princes to obey then* injunctions, and in pro- 
 cess of time become neglected and exploded. 
 
 Nor can we well fail to distinguish a Providence respecting'mankind in 
 general, conducting them through the stages of infancy, growth, and matu- 
 rity, similar to those of human life. We find them living in the earliest 
 ages with great simplicity of manners and narrow compass of knowledge : 
 when nations were formed they scarce had intercourse unless with their 
 next neighbours, the accounts brought them of all the rest were fabulous and 
 romantic : by degrees arts and sciences sprung up among them, and new 
 refinements as well in virtue as vice were the produce of every generation : 
 accidental discoveries by private persons, such as the invention of printing, 
 of gunpowder, of optic glasses, of the magnetic needle, have spread their 
 influence over a great part of the globe : the growing extent of commerce 
 tends to associate the nations with one another, to communicate customs, 
 opinions, and improvements, to connect them in interest, and perhaps in 
 time may unite the world into one community. 
 
 Thus we see the comprehensive plan of Providence, which by reason of 
 the narrowness of our capacities we are forced to consider by piecemeal, 
 appears to us containing innumerable under-plans relative to the interests 
 of particular persons, of the families or societies whereof they are members, 
 and of the whole human race : each provided with a disposition of second
 
 f>38 PROVIDENCE. 
 
 causes proper to bring forth the issues intended, and so admirably adjusted 
 together as to coincide instead of interfering with one another. And as 
 we have already shown how much small events may affect the greatest, all 
 this could not be effected surely unless not only the motions of bodies, but 
 the senses of animals, the thoughts and actions of men, were comprehended 
 within the plan. 
 
 23. But an objection has been raised of old against the doctrine of all 
 events, as well those depending upon the acts of voluntary agents as upon 
 mechanical causes, being directed either by a disposing or interposing 
 Providence, as leaving no room for liberty of Will, for the justice of reward 
 or punishment, of praise or blame, or for the expedience of consulting upon 
 the measures we are about to take. For why need I deliberate on a Sun- 
 day morning whether I shall go to church or to the tavern, if it be contained 
 in the decree of Heaven to which place I shall resort ? The Will of God 
 must be fulfilled do what I can to obstruct it, nor would it become me to 
 obstruct it if I were able : therefore I may be careless of my conduct, as 
 well knowing that he has planned out such a course of my actions as shall 
 conduce to the accomplishment of his purpose. Then if everything that 
 shall happen be comprised within the design of Providence, and the causes 
 provided which will unavoidably bring it to pass, what praise or reward do 
 I deserve for taking the better part, what blame or punishment for the 
 worse, since either was an event settled beforehand which I could not turn 
 aside ? Again, if it depend upon my choice whether to drink or pray, and 
 one of them be predetermined, there must be causes in act which will 
 infallibly influence my choice one particular way : therefore I have no 
 liberty of Will, no freedom of choice, nor command of my own determina- 
 tions, and though the success be left to my option, yet the option itself is 
 not left to me to make, but I am confined to that which the causes afore- 
 said shall dictate. 
 
 Nor do these difficulties lie upon the believers of Providence only, but 
 affect equally the atheists of both sorts, whether Stratonics or Epicureans. 
 The former took Necessity for the First Cause, or rather admitted no First 
 Cause at all, but held that all events proceeded by a necessary consequence 
 from the causes concurring to produce them, which causes were produced in 
 like manner by others preceding, and so on in an unbroken chain from all 
 eternity : now whether we suppose this chain upholden by an intelligent 
 Being or self-sustained, it is all one to our present purpose, for in either 
 case if the acts of voluntary agents follow necessarily upon the impulse of 
 external causes, there will be a constant fatality upon them utterly subversive 
 of liberty, estimation, and prudence. Epicurus indeed denied the reality of 
 fate, insisting that many things happened which were absolutely fortuitous : 
 but then he could not get over the argument drawn by his opposers from 
 the certainty of either the affirmative or negative of every proposition that 
 could be uttered concerning what is to come to pass hereafter, which is ap- 
 plicable to the issues of chance as well as those of necessity. If you are 
 to throw a die, how independent soever the cast may be upon prior causes, 
 yet if you say you shall throw an ace and I say that you will not, one of us 
 is certainly in the right : we know not which indeed, but when the die falls 
 we shall know without danger of a mistake. So if Epicurus in his lifetime 
 had said that on this 14th day of January, 1762, it would rain here in the 
 morning and be fair in the afternoon, now the day is ended we may know 
 that he spoke a certain truth : but truth cannot be turned into falsehood by 
 anything subsequent, therefore it was impossible any other weather should
 
 PROVIDENCE. 539 
 
 happen than has, because otherwise that might have been rendered false 
 which we know for certain was once true. Neither could the fact contained 
 in a proposition, which was true two thousand years ago, become casual 
 ever afterwards ; for if it was always to come to pass, as we know it was 
 from the event, it could never have been possible that it should not come to 
 pass, but what was always impossible could never lie under the power of any 
 cause or option of any agent to have effected. 
 
 24. On the other hand, men could never be persuaded out of their 
 liberty, nor prevailed upon to relinquish their claim to the command of their 
 own actions, a privilege they feel themselves possessed of by every day's 
 and every moment's experience : so this has remained a constant topic of 
 debate, both among orthodox and infidels, ever since men began to pursue 
 abstract reasonings and examine into the nature of action. It seems to 
 have been a point too difficult for human reason to clear up, and Milton re- 
 presents it as above the reach of the fallen angels though superior to man in 
 sagacity and penetration : for he says many of them sat on a hill apart 
 retired, and reasoned high of knowledge, fate, and Will, fixt fate, free will, 
 foreknowledge absolute, and found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. But 
 though mankind too have continually wandered in these mazes, they have 
 often taken up their quarters for a while in each particular division of them. 
 For it is observable that either side of the question has spread over large 
 territories and among numbers of people, and has become alternately the 
 received opinion of the age. To say nothing of former times, the articles 
 of our Church savour strongly of predestination, which in the next century 
 was exploded, and freewill bore all the sway. The Socinians of those days 
 I think asserted that human actions were unforeseen and contingent even 
 to God himself, and the orthodox attributed his knowledge of them to his 
 being present throughout all futurity rather than to his knowledge of their 
 causes. So his knowledge was not prescience but direct intuition : and 
 lately the other opinion seems to have been creeping in again. Hartley de- 
 clares expressly for the necessity of action ; Berkley ascribes all those 
 objects, appearances, and changes of situation or circumstance, which we 
 conceive the effects of our own conduct, to an immediate operation of the 
 divine power ; and Locke had maintained before them, that liberty is as 
 little applicable to the Will as squareness to virtue, or swiftness to sleep. 
 This shows that both have an intrinsic vigour, which, though they may lie 
 overwhelmed for a while by unfavourable accidents, enables them to rise 
 again in their original splendour, from whence it may be presumed that 
 both have some solid foundation in truth and nature : for as Tully observed 
 long ago, time wipes away the inventions of imagination, but confirms the 
 judgments of nature. 
 
 And we may remark that the partizans on either side remain safe while 
 they keep within their own trenches, for the arguments proving that every 
 effect must have adequate causes to produce it, that all causes derive their 
 efficacy originally from the act of God, that he does not act without know- 
 ing the issues of his proceedings, are invincible : on the other hand, the 
 common transactions of life, the resolves we daily make, and pursue in our 
 conduct, are evidences that we have a choice and command of our actions 
 to every one who will not distrust his senses and his experience, the only 
 basis of all our other knowledge. Wherefore the litigants do not endeavour 
 so much to invalidate one another's arguments as to overpower them with 
 other arguments they think stronger, and the dispute may be drawn into 
 the following syllogisms. An universal Providence disposing all events
 
 540 FREEWILL. 
 
 without exception, leaves no room for freedom, But there is such a Provi- 
 dence, Therefore no freedom : or on the other side, There is a freedom of 
 Will, Therefore no such Providence. Thus both parties lay down the same 
 Major, without which they would make no scruple to admit the Minor 
 assumed by their antagonists. But the most sober and considerate part of 
 mankind, induced by the strong evidences both of freedom and Providence, 
 have forborne to pronounce them incompatible, the only obstacle against the 
 reception of either : yet look upon their consistency as one of those mys- 
 teries which we are forced to admit though we cannot explain. Neverthe- 
 less, there have been mysteries in nature which time and industry have 
 unravelled, and as there are some observations we have picked up m the 
 progress of this work which I conceive may loosen some of the knots in 
 this intricate subject, I shall hardly be blamed' for making what use I can of 
 them, which I purpose to do in the following chapter. 
 
 CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 FREEWILL. 
 
 BEHOLD us now arrived at the most intricate part of our journey, an 
 impracticable wilderness, puzzled with mazes, and perplexed with errors, 
 where many mighty have fallen, and many sagacious lest their way: for 
 shadows, clouds, and darkness cover it ; or what flashes of light break out 
 from time to time, present the image of truth on opposite sides ; the wind- 
 ing paths lead round the disappointed traveller to the spot from whence he 
 set out, or involve him in difficulties wherein neither Protestant nor Papist, 
 neither Divine nor Philosopher has yet found an opening, and which the 
 sacred muse of Milton pronounced insuperable, even by the Devil himself. 
 
 In this dangerous road we may be allowed, with better reason than the 
 Poets, to call in some superior power to our aid, but what Muse, what 
 Spirit, what God shall we invoke ? For here are no private transactions 
 unseen by mortal eye, no dreams of Rhesus broken off by the sleep of death, 
 no secrets of nature lying beyond our reach to be discovered : we need not 
 dive into the bowels of the earth, nor ascend to mix among the dances of 
 the planets, nor dissect the human frame to find all the curious threads of 
 its organization. But our business lies with the common actions of life, 
 familiar to every one's and every day's experience : we want only to know,, 
 whether a man may act freely who makes his choice upon motives suggested 
 by external objects, whether he may know beforehand what his neighbour 
 will do, or offer inducements which will infallibly prevail on him to one par- 
 ticular manner of behaviour, without infringing upon his liberty. Questions 
 that one would think could scarce admit of a dispute ; nor do they with 
 common understandings, until men of uncommon refinements have, by their 
 abstractions, spun them into a sense not naturally belonging to them, and 
 introduced a confusion into their ideas, by an inaccuracy of language. 
 Therefore upon this subject I conceive we shall have more to do with words 
 than with things, nor find so much difficulty in ascertaining the facts to be 
 taken under consideration, as the proper import of the expressions em- 
 ployed in speaking of them. 
 
 Come then, thou solemn power, Philology, pioneer of the abstruser 
 Sciences, to prepare the way for v their passage : enwrap me in thy close-
 
 FREEWILL. 541 
 
 bodied leathern jacket, that I may creep through the brakes and brambles 
 of equivocation without their catching hold of me ; lend me thy needle- 
 pointed pencil, that I may trace out the hair-breadth differences of language, 
 assist me with thy microscope to discern the minute changes of ideas pass- 
 ing to and fro among the same words, as they change their places in dif- 
 ferent phrases. 
 
 If any one will follow me while I travel under thy guidance, let him look 
 for other-guised entertainment than when bestriding Pegasus we bounded 
 along the rapid rays of solar or stellar light, to visit the Athenian and 
 Samian Sages, to behold the wonders of the vehicular state, and boundless 
 glories of the mundane soul. 
 
 For thou, Goddess, consortest not with the Muses nor the Genii, the 
 flights of imagination affright thee : figure and ornament are thine abhor- 
 rence, for they blend together in wanton assemblages those ideas which 
 thou art most solicitous to keep asunder : familiar example alone, of all the 
 flowery train, thou admittest to shed his lustre upon the print of thy minc- 
 ing feet, and render the marks of them more easily discernible to the strain- 
 ing eye. But industry, and scrupulous exactness, are thy constant com- 
 panions ; labour and vigilance, thy delight ; thorns and briars, the favourite 
 plants of thy garden. Whoever undertakes to accompany thee there must 
 prepare himself for toil and attention ; he must observe the path exactly in 
 which thou leadest him, mark all the outlets on either hand, pass and repass 
 the whole length again and again before he venture into another turning : 
 that he may fix so perfect an idea of it upon his memory, as never to mistake 
 another similar ally for the same. 
 
 But say, Goddess, by what avenue shall we enter the wilderness ? Does 
 not thy methodical prudence direct, that upon every question we should- 
 first know precisely the terms concerning which the question is proposed ? 
 Where then can we better begin an inquiry into the Freedom of Action, 
 than by ascertaining the proper import of freedom ? 
 
 2. Liberty, says Mr. Locke, is a power, and so is Will ; therefore they 
 cannot be predicated of another, for it would be absurd to affirm of a power 
 that it has a power. But with submission to the authority of so great a 
 Master, I conceive Liberty a more complex term than he has made it, and 
 though it includes an idea of power, it contains other ideas beside. And as 
 I apprehend it to be a negative term implying more than a denial of re- 
 straint and force ; for when we say a man is free, we mean nothing else 
 than that there is no hindrance against his doing or forbearing what he has 
 a mind ; therefore it will be expedient to consider how we come by the no- 
 tion of Restraint or Force. 
 
 We find ourselves possessed of several powers of action, we can walk, or 
 speak, or think, or can let them alone : sometimes diseases or other acci- 
 dents deprive us of our powers, and then we can no longer perform the 
 functions of them ; but at other times, though we remain possessed of our 
 powers entire, yet we cannot exert them, by reason of something stronger 
 counteracting them. Thus a man in the stocks has not lost his power of 
 walking, the vigour of his muscles is not abated, nor is he less able to bear 
 the fatigue of a journey on foot than he was before ; nevertheless, he cannot 
 walk at all, because the closeness of the wood resists the motion of his legs, 
 therefore he is under a restraint which hinders him from using the power 
 nature has given him. So if he be pushed along by another, stronger 
 than himself, he must move forward whether he will or no; not that 
 he has lost the natural command of his limbs to put them in motion or
 
 542 FREEWILL. 
 
 keep them at rest, but because he 13 under a force greater than ne can 
 resist. 
 
 Thus Restraint is a comparison between some power and an impediment 
 preventing it from performing its proper function, as Force is the like com- 
 parison between the power of forbearance, and some external impulse which 
 renders action necessary, but forbearance impracticable ; and Liberty de- 
 notes the absence of the other two ; for when we pronounce a man free, we 
 understand thereby that there is nothing either impelling him to do what 
 he would not, or restraining him from doing what he would. So that all 
 three, Restraint and Force as well as Liberty, include the idea of Power, 
 nor can either of them subsist where there is none ; for the bars of a prison 
 are no restraint to a paralytic, nor will you give him liberty by unlocking 
 them, neither can you force a man to fly, or a horse to speak. 
 
 We may observe further, that Liberty is so far from being the same 
 with Power, that it may be restored by the loss, and lessened by the acces- 
 sion of it. Were an act of parliament made to prohibit me from going out 
 of London for a twelvemonth, I should think it a grievous restraint upon 
 my liberty; but should I be rendered unable to stir abroad by gout or palsy, 
 or some other complaint which I could not hope to get rid of in the time, 
 the restriction would no longer be such to me, and I should remain as 
 much at liberty, as if the statute had never been made. On the other hand, 
 our clothes are made to fit our bodies, so that we can move all our limbs 
 freely, notwithstanding the many ligatures and coverings wherewith we are 
 enveloped ; but should it please God to cause a pair of wings to sprout out 
 from our sides, we should find our clothes a troublesome restraint upon us; 
 and we must send for our tailors to cut slits in them for letting out the 
 wings, in order to restore us that liberty we had lost by the superaddition 
 of a new power. 
 
 Hence we see that liberty is so far from being inapplicable to power, that 
 it is properly applicable to nothing else ; nor is it an absurd question to 
 ask, whether a power be free, for it implies no more than to inquire how 
 such power stands circumstanced with regard to any force or impediment 
 which might compel or obstruct the exertion of it. And when we apply 
 such questions to the agent, they bear a reference always to some power he 
 possesses, therefore a man may be free and restrained at the same time with 
 respect to different powers of action : for he that is locked fast in a room 
 may be free to think or speak, though he is not to go abroad ; but a 
 power to do some particuler act cannot be free while constrained, nor the 
 contrary. 
 
 Indeed there are degrees of freedom, not incompatible with a partial 
 restraint, but rather implying it, as when we find some impediment obstruct- 
 ing us, though not so great as that we cannot surmount it ; for a man with 
 heavy jack-boots on can still walk, though not so freely and alertly as in a 
 neat pair of shoes ; such obstacles do not debar us the use of our powers, 
 but render it difficult and laborious, or limit them in compass. 
 
 3. Let us now cast back our eyes upon the path we have trodden, in 
 order to discover what equivocal outlets there may be to mislead the unwary 
 traveller. We get our idea of power, says Mr. Locke, from the changes 
 we see made in substances by one another : therefore the word Power 
 originally and properly denotes a quality or property in something to cause 
 those changes, and is synonymous with ability, and we have hitherto used 
 it in that sense. But it often carries a larger signification, comprehending 
 other circumstances besides ability ; so that according to the various lights
 
 FREEWILL. 543 
 
 wherein we place it, a man may have power when he has it not ; that is, he 
 may have it in one sense -while he wants it in another. 
 
 Suppose a person of full health and vigour bound down in his bed by a 
 multitude of threads wound all over him ; another seeing him lie motion- 
 less, but not knowing the occasion, fancies him struck with some sudden dis- 
 temper that has taken away the use of his limbs ; he laments his unhappy 
 condition, in being at once deprived of all his powers of action ; must not 
 we pronounce this complainant mistaken, for that the man has lost none of 
 his powers, but they ah 1 remain entire as ever, though he cannot use them 
 until the strings that tie him down be loosened ? If a second person comes 
 into the room who takes the case differently, ascribing the man's inactivity 
 to a fit of laziness with which he upbraids him, shall we not plead in his 
 excuse, that it is no fault of his that he does not rise, for that the bandages 
 hold him down so tight, he has no power to stir either hand or foot ? 
 
 Thus we see that power may be truly affirmed or denied in the same in- 
 stance, according to the manner where the question is proposed, or thoughts 
 of the person proposing it : and a man may have ability sufficient for per- 
 forming a work, which yet he is not able to do, by reason of some obstacle, 
 want of some instrument or material, or other circumstance standing in 
 the way. 
 
 We may presume Mr. Locke understood Power in this extensive latitude, 
 when he made it the same with Liberty; for where he observes that a 
 man on the south side of a prison has power to walk northwards, but not 
 southwards, this were not true, if spoken of natural ability : for the same 
 vigour of limbs which might carry him one way, would suffice to carry 
 him any other : therefore if he want power to walk southwards because 
 the walls of the prison obstruct his passage, the term must be so construed 
 as to include liberty ; and in this sense it would indeed be as absurd to 
 ask, whether a Power be free, as whether Blueness be blue, or Hardness 
 hard. 
 
 4. We may remark further, that Knowledge is often confounded with 
 Power ; for ideal causes being requisite to direct us in the choice of proper 
 actions, we can no more proceed without them than we can without ability. 
 If I have a paper in my custody which I have mislaid, upon being urged to 
 produce it instantly, I shall be apt to allege that it is out of my power so 
 to do ; not because I have not the key of the drawer where it lies, nor 
 strength in my fingers to take it out as well as any other paper, but be- 
 cause I know not where to look for it. So if a countryman wants to speak 
 with a person living at the further end of the town, he may say it is out of 
 his power to find the house ; not that he wants pliancy in his joints to carry 
 him through all the turnings leading thither as well as any citizen, but 
 because he should lose his way for want of knowing the right. But this 
 idea does not enter into disputes concerning freedom, for ignorance is 
 esteemed a defect of power rather than an abridgment of liberty. 
 
 It has been shown at p. 22 of this Volume that what we generally call 
 an Action is not one, but a series of many actions ; and when we go about 
 to do a thing, we proceed to the accomplishment of it by several interme- 
 diate steps, each whereof requires a particular exertion of power to perform 
 it. Now if there stand an impediment anywhere in the way, we cannot do 
 the thing proposed ; nevertheless we remain still at liberty to take the steps 
 lying on this side the impediment, and at all events can use our endeavours, 
 how ineffectual soever they may prove. Thus if a man be hindered from 
 going to London by floods out in the road, he may yet go up to the edge
 
 544 FREEWILL. 
 
 of the flood without obstacle : if he be locked into a room, he may push 
 against the door : and if his fingers be bound round with a packthread, he 
 may try to expand them, being at full liberty to give his muscles the infla- 
 tion proper for spreading them open. 
 
 It is observable likewise, that restraint is often confounded with impo- 
 tence, nor can we easily avoid doing go : for restraint being a comparison 
 between our powers and anything that might obstruct their exercise, may 
 cease upon their increase, or may be generated by a diminution of our 
 powers, rendering that an obstacle to our motions which was none before. 
 Thus Sampson, after being shorn of his strength, was brought under con- 
 finement by the same cords which were no infringement of his liberty afore- 
 time, and if they had remained on him until his hair had grown again, he 
 would have been restored to liberty by the return of his strength, without 
 any alteration in the strength of the bandage. 
 
 Therefore we pronounce upon the same case, as being a defect of power 
 or of liberty, according to the light wherein we place it : the laws prohibit- 
 ing the alienation of church lands are called sometimes disabling, and some- 
 times restraining statutes ; and we speak indifferently of a man being dis- 
 abled to go abroad or confined at home by a distemper. But in strictness, 
 the beginning of a fever works no disability, for there is generally then an 
 unusual strength and flow of spirits, so that the patient might do as he did 
 at other times, if it were not for the necessary regard to his health, which 
 is a bar against his stirring out of the house ; whereas a palsy does not pro- 
 perly confine, for air and exercise might be wholesome, and nothing hinders 
 you from going abroad, but you are not able, the use of your limbs being 
 suspended by the distemper. 
 
 Mr. Locke says, that active power belongs only to spirit : however this 
 be, we certainly conceive it, and in our common discourses speak of it as 
 residing in things inanimate ; therefore we apply the terms Force and 
 Restraint when we perceive them acting or moving in a manner different to 
 that we should expect from their natural properties, as we do Liberty, when 
 nothing hinders their operations : we talk of a free air, a pendulum swing- 
 ing, or a river running freely, where there is no obstruction against their 
 motions ; of water being forced upwards by an engine, or a stream confined 
 within its channel, by raising the banks. 
 
 Hence it appears that the force of inertness ascribed by naturalists .to 
 matter, and the force of impulse causing its changes of state from motion 
 or rest to the contrary, does not carry precisely the same signification with 
 force in vulgar language ; for it is the impulse of gravitation, together with 
 its own inertness, or perseverance in a motion once received, that makes a 
 torrent rush violently into the sea ; yet every common man apprehends 
 water to run downwards of itself, nor ever esteems it under a force, unless 
 when he sees it driven upwards by some other power, nor under restraint, 
 unless when something obstructs the course it would naturally take. And 
 though we talk frequently of the force of a torrent, we do not understand 
 thereby any force the water itself lies under, but that we suppose it able to 
 put upon whatever may happen to stand in its way. 
 
 Whoever will examine the language of mankind, may find that we apply 
 expressions to bodies which belong properly to our own manner of proceed- 
 ing ; and how well soever we know the contrary, speak of them as volun- 
 tary agents, exercising powers of their own ; thus it is said the wind bloweth 
 where it listeth, and we say of water, that it will not mingle with oil, that 
 it will yield to the rarefying action of heat, but will force its way through
 
 FREEWILL. 545 
 
 the pores of gold rather than bear condensing by the greatest pressure ; 
 terms expressive of a choice, compliance, and resolution, similar to those 
 exercised by man. 
 
 Nor do the learned abstain from the like catachresis, when they talk of 
 the tendencies and nitencies, the conatus recedendi of bodies, the sponta- 
 neous or authentic motions of clock-work, or the laws of matter ; and even 
 when they abstract from the secondary properties resulting from composi- 
 tion, they seem to conceive rest as the natural state and choice of body 
 which it exerts its powers to preserve itself in ; as one may gather from 
 their calling the momentum or quantity of motion in any body a force, 
 which conveys an idea similar to that of a man carried along against his 
 inclination by some impulse he strives in vain to resist. 
 
 5. I take notice of these niceties, not so much for any benefit they may 
 be of towards determining the present question, as for a caution to be- 
 ware of letting such variations of language lead us astray : for the proper 
 and genuine signification of freedom being the absence of all obstruction 
 which might thwart us in the exercise of any power we possess, we are free 
 when upon employing our power it will take effect, but under restraint, 
 when something impedes us in the exercise of our power, so that although 
 we should exert it, the proper consequence of such exertion would not 
 follow. 
 
 Thus a man is at liberty to walk, if upon using his legs they will carry 
 him to the place he purposes ; but if there stand any wall or bar in the way, 
 so that with his utmost endeavours he cannot move forwards, then he is not 
 at liberty. And so in all actions we have ability to perform, if they would 
 not ensue upon our efforts, it must be owing to some hindrance which 
 cramps and prevents them from taking effect. 
 
 From hence it appears, that Freedom relates to the event of our endea- 
 vours, not to the causes of them ; for whether any or no inducement pre- 
 vails on me to walk, I am equally free, provided nothing hinders me from 
 walking if I stand so inclined. For Liberty does not depend upon anything 
 priq^o the exercise of my power, but upon what would or would not stand 
 in the way after having exerted it, and therefore is not inconsistent with 
 any antecedent causes or disposition of Providence influencing me to walk ; 
 for how much soever they may impel me to go out of the room, I am not 
 at liberty to do it while the door is locked, and when the door is opened 
 I am set at liberty, how much soever they may withhold me from using it. 
 
 But it will be said, all this may be very true, and yet affects not the case 
 under consideration, as it relates only to freedom of action concerning 
 which there is no controversy, not to freedom of Will : for no Arminian will 
 doubt a man being debarred of his liberty by shutting him up in a gaol ; nor 
 will the most rigid Calvinist deny, that upon being let loose he is at liberty 
 to go which way he pleases. So the dispute turns, not upon our freedom 
 to do as we will, but upon our freedom to choose out of several actions in 
 our power : and both seem to agree, that whatever act is contained in the 
 plan of Providence must be performed, nor can we will the contrary if we 
 would. 
 
 6. Before we enter upon the discussion of this question, it will be neces- 
 sary to understand ourselves in the proposing it ; for men seem to me not 
 always very clear in the term Will, as it stands in either branch of the 
 sentence. 
 
 We learn upon Mr. Locke's authority, that we are capable of no more 
 VOL. i. 2 N'
 
 546 FREEWILL. 
 
 than one determination of the Will at once, and whoever observes the mo- 
 tions of the human mind will find her volitions transient and momentary ; 
 she varies her actions perpetually, willing this instant what she rejects the 
 next ; and if she perseveres for a time in one purpose, it is by a train of 
 numerically distinct, though similar and correspondent volitions : therefore 
 to ask, whether we can will this present instant, if we will this present 
 instant, would be an idle and trifling question ; it must indeed be answered 
 in the affirmative, and so must every other of the like sort ; for I can walk 
 if I walk, ride if I ride, or do anything else you can name, if I do it. And 
 such hypothetical affirmations may be true of things which categorically 
 proposed were absolutely impossible : for it is true that I can lift the house 
 if I lift it, or jump over the moon if I jump over it, as that I can take up 
 a pin if I take it up : such propositions are merely identical, making a show 
 of something profound, but adding nothing to our information. 
 
 Therefore the question, to mean anything, must relate to different Times 
 or different Wills, and the drift of it be to inquire either, whether by 
 willing a thing now I can cause myself to will it by-and-by ; or whether if 
 I happen to will opposite things at the same time, as to buy a costly trinket 
 and to save my money, I can by one Will control the other, or by a third 
 Will choose which of the two shall have the guidance of my conduct. 
 
 To the first of these inquiries, one cannot give a direct answer, it being 
 notorious by every day's experience, that we do determine upon what we 
 will do beforehand, and many times do it accordingly, but at other times 
 do it not, and that upon two accounts ; either because we have changed 
 our mind, or because, though we continue in the same, we find some desire, 
 or terror, or difficulty, rise upon us too strong for our resolution. But 
 changes of mind create no doubts concerning liberty : for nobody imagines 
 that our resolving upon a thing lays us under a necessity of performing it, 
 although good reasons should occur to the contrary, or our judgment should 
 alter ; nor will deny, that how strongly soever I have determined to leave 
 London seven years hence, I may remain perfectly free all the while to de- 
 termine otherwise whenever I think proper. 
 
 Which by the way shows Liberty not incongruous with prior causes ; for 
 if I do something because I had resolved upon it beforehand, and this we 
 practise every day of our lives, the volition whereby I perform it must be 
 acknowledged an effect of my former determination, nevertheless will be 
 counted a free act in everybody's estimation, provided nothing hinders but 
 that I might omit it ; therefore if my first determination were contained 
 within the plan of Providence, the performance may make a part of that 
 plan without infringement of my liberty. For even supposing me influenced 
 to resolve by some irresistible grace, or supernatural impulse, though I was 
 not free in making, I am yet free in keeping the resolution, nor does there 
 need any more than to keep ofT all suggestions which might alter my judg- 
 ment, or temptations which might overpower it, and I shall execute what 
 was resolved on by virtue of the freedom remaining with me. 
 
 But when we change our conduct without changing our mind, and do 
 not prosecute what we have in our intention, by reason of some appetite 
 drawing the contrary way, then disputes and difficulties arise ; because we 
 conceive our Will still exerting itself, but prevented from taking efiect by a 
 superior force or impediment counteracting it, which presents the genuine 
 idea of a want of Liberty. 
 
 Thus the question, whether by our present Will we may determine what
 
 FREEWILL. 5-17 
 
 we shall will at some future time, becomes reduced into that other, whether 
 one Will may control or confine another co- existent Will. 
 
 7. And no wonder we find perplexities in examining metaphysically a 
 question, the terms whereof have no place in the metaphysical vocabulary ; 
 for there is a philosophical, and there is a vulgar language, and if studious 
 men will mingle their abstractions among vulgar ideas, they must unavoid- 
 ably bewilder themselves in mazes and darkness. 
 
 The notion of a diversity of Wills is unknown to him that carefully 
 studies the motions of the human mind, for her acts are instantaneous and 
 transitory; nor can she perform any more than one at the same time : we 
 have various powers of action, and they all lie under the command of the 
 mind to turn them upon one particular object ; her giving them that turn 
 is properly volition, and it is as absurd to imagine she should exert opposite 
 volitions together, as that the wind should blow east and west. 
 
 We may be restrained in the use of our powers, because their operation 
 passes through several stages ; we work upon certain unknown nerves, they 
 inflate the muscles, the muscles pull the tendons, the tendons move the 
 limbs, and if there be an obstruction anywhere, we have not liberty to per- 
 form the action intended, how much soever we may endeavour it. But the 
 acts of the mind upon the first corporeal fibre receiving her impulse are 
 immediate, so there is no room for any impediment to interfere in stopping 
 their progress : we may indeed imagine her to lose her power by the fibre 
 becoming incapable, or being removed out of her reach ; but we have seen 
 that when power is gone, there is no place either for Liberty or Restraint. 
 Nor let it be asked, whether the mind be free to determine her own 
 acts ; for this implies, that one volition is the consequence of another, and 
 so it may be remotely ; but we have shown in a former place, that the 
 mind never acts upon herself, unless by the mediation of motives : for 
 there is no one action of our lives which we do not enter upon through 
 some motive of judgment, or inclination, or present fancy ; and even if 
 we had an elective power besides our active, how much soever that might 
 determine the latter, it must itself be determined by some satisfaction ap- 
 prehended in the choice. 
 
 But the suggestion of motives to our thoughts is as much an action, as 
 the moving of our limbs, and if anything obstructs their rising, notwith- 
 standing our endeavours to call them up, we may be free or restrained 
 with respect to that action ; but in respect to our first endeavours, we are 
 no more capable of either, in one case than the other. 
 
 Therefore we may agree with Mr. Locke in pronouncing Liberty as little 
 to Volition, taken in the philosophical sense, as Squareness is to Virtue, or 
 Swiftness to Sleep. 
 
 8. But if we listen to the common discourses of mankind, we shall find 
 them speaking of several Wills, several agents, in the same person, re- 
 sisting, counteracting, overpowering, and controlling one another : hence 
 the so usual expressions of the spiritual and carnal Wills, of the man and 
 of the beast, of self-will and reason, of denying our Wills, subduing our 
 passions, or being enslaved by them, of acting unwillingly or against our 
 Will, and the like. All which take rise from a metonyme of the cause for 
 the effect ; for our actions being constantly determined either by the deci- 
 sions of our judgment, or solicitations of our desires, we mistake them for 
 the Will itself : nor is it a little confirmation of the Will being actuated 
 by motives, to find them so intimately connected therewith that a common 
 eye cannot distinguish them apart.
 
 548 FREEWILL. 
 
 "When in our sober moods we deliberate and afterwards fix upon our 
 measures of conduct, we look upon such determination as our Will, which 
 we conceive not a transient act, but an abiding power, exerting itself from 
 time to time as opportunities offer, until either the design be completed, or 
 fresh reasons prevail on us to alter it. 
 
 But it often happens, that some inordinate passion or inveterate habit 
 comes athwart our way, and puts us by from the prosecution of our design, 
 without making us change it : this we likewise regard as our Will, being 
 sensible that what we do by its instigation is still our own act ; and because 
 we find the same desire prompting us at different times, we apprehend this 
 too a permanent power lying in us, ready to be exerted upon the proper 
 objects presenting. Thus we get the idea of two Wills, opposing, impeding, 
 restraining, and mastering one another. 
 
 Sometimes there ensues a contest between them, the mind hovering 
 uncertain for a while, until at last she settles on either side : hence comes 
 the idea of a third Will, determining between the other two ; and I believe 
 this gave rise to the notion of an elective, besides our active power. 
 
 But these struggles are owing to the fluctuations of strength in our 
 motives, and the victory to some one of them catching the idea of Satis- 
 faction away from the rest : for it is well known, that motives as well of 
 reason as passion, do not always appear in equal colours, nor press with 
 equal force, but urge vehemently or feebly by turns, with frequent and 
 sudden variations. And we may perceive the like wavering in our coolest 
 deliberations between two measures of conduct or two diversions ; wherein 
 the mind cannot be suspected of giving a preference, being disposed all 
 along to follow whichever shall be found the best or most entertaining ; 
 but both appear such alternately, until at last the balance of judgment or 
 fancy settles, without intervention of the Will to cast it either way. 
 
 9. Nevertheless, men cannot be put out of their accustomed manner of 
 talking and thinking ; therefore in compliance with their conceptions, let us 
 suppose a diversity of Wills, that those Wills exert permanent acts, lasting 
 for hours and days without intermission, and that we may will at one time, 
 what we shall will at another. In this light there is certainly room for 
 applying restraint and freedom to the Will ; for its operations being now 
 conceived .passing through a length of time before they take effect, may be 
 obstructed, or turned aside in their passage by something else : so if I do 
 in the afternoon what I had determined in the morning to forbear, my 
 former Will still continuing the same, I am under a force, and the Will I 
 have at present is a different Will from that remaining with me from the 
 morning's determination, and counteracts it. 
 
 But it being obvious that we can exert our power only one way at a time, 
 we are apt to entertain a contradictory notion that, while we have a diver- 
 sity of Wills within us, one of them only is our own, and esteem each of 
 them such in turn according as we chance to be in the humour. Some- 
 times it is the Will of inclination, and must be so taken in all expressions 
 relating to self-denial, to curbing our W T ills, or to things we do unwillingly, 
 or against our Will, that is, against our liking : but more commonly we 
 understand the determination of our judgment to be our Will, because there 
 are none of us without this Will ; for I suppose nobody ever refuses to do 
 what his present judgment represents as best, provided it give him no 
 trouble in the performance, nor thwart any inclination, or fancy whatever; 
 therefore this is a Will always subsisting in us, though not always taking 
 effect.
 
 FREEWILL. . 549 
 
 As to the third Will, thut of Election, this takes place only occasionally, 
 when there is a contest between the other two : for as nobody ever chooses 
 to act against his judgment without some inclination drawing him, or un- 
 easiness driving him the other way ; so likewise I imagine nobody ever 
 chooses to abstain from doing what he likes, when he sees no reason in the 
 world why he should forbear. When Reason and Inclination urge the same 
 way, or one alone solicits, the other remaining totally silent, which fre- 
 quently happens, there is but one object presented to the mind, who in that 
 case has no room to make any choice or election at all. 
 
 Therefore the Will of Judgment or Resolution, in common propriety of 
 language, is to be esteemed our Will ; our freedom depending upon the 
 presence or absence of any impediment which might prevent that from 
 directing our motions : and so St. Paul understood it, where he represents the 
 carnal man as omitting to do the things he would, and doing the things he 
 would not, which he justly styles, a wretched bondage. Nor can that glo- 
 rious liberty of the Sons of God, which we are exhorted to assert, be better 
 expounded than by an exemption from all inordinate desires and temptations, 
 so that we may perform whatever our reason and duty recommend with 
 ease and readiness. 
 
 10. But there is a restraint which our judgment lays upon itself, when 
 an action occurs we judge eligible regarded alone, but cannot be done with- 
 out omitting something else we judge more expedient, we think ourselves 
 not at liberty to do it. Thus if I am asked to do some little good of rice for 
 a friend, when some business of importance calls me another way, I shall 
 excuse myself by saying, I would gladly oblige him if I were aot under u 
 necessity of attending to my business. 
 
 It is this opposition of things eligible to the judgment, if considered apart, 
 that gives birth to those we have called Motives of Necessity, to Obligation, 
 to Duty, the command of a Superior, the regard for our Health, our Pre- 
 servation, the avoidance of Mischief, or Damage ; all which compel us many 
 times to act otherwise than we wish, or than our judgment would choose, 
 if these bars did not stand in the way : but this kind of necessity is a very 
 unstable term, the same case being esteemed such in one light which is not 
 in another. 
 
 A man having a seal put forcibly into his hand, and the hand with the 
 same violence pressed down upon wax affixed to a deed, containing a- con- 
 veyance of his estate, will be counted by everybody under necessity ; but 
 then the sealing is no more his act than k is the aet of the seal employed 
 therein, for both act by impulse without anything that can be called freedom. 
 
 But what if his hands being left at liberty, he be only locked up in a 
 room, and threatened to be kept there without victuals or drink until he 
 shall seal ? Perhaps he has a wife and children who must be ruined by the 
 loss of his estate, and being a man of resolution, he determines bravely to 
 perish rather than bring them to destruction ; in this forlorn condition, he 
 lolls out at a window, where he sees an intimate friend of his, a lawyer, 
 who advises him to execute, for that no damage can ensue therefrom : he 
 then calls for the deed, sets to his seal, and obtains his enlargement. This 
 the Philosopher will not allow to be an aet of necessity, for it was in his 
 power to have forborne : and he did actually forbear until his friend's ad- 
 monition having altered his judgment, he chose voluntarily to seal, upon a 
 prudential motive of saving his life without detriment -to his family. The 
 Grantees bring ejectment for the land in Westminster-hall, where the whole 
 case appearing upon evidence as above, the judge and jury pronounce llxj
 
 550 FREEWILL. 
 
 deed void, for that the man was under duresse, and his act not voluntary 
 but imposed upon him by force. Thus we find the same act adjudged 
 necessary in legal construction, which was free and voluntary in the philo- 
 sophical. 
 
 Now to change the case a little, imagine the confinement were in a 
 public gaol for a lawful debt, which the party has no means of paying, nor 
 credit to procure bail ; somebody offers to purchase a farm contiguous to his 
 house, and which it would be greatly inconvenient for him to part with, 
 nevertheless he considers his health is infirm, and if he remains in prison it 
 would inevitably prove his death : so he accepts the offer as the only pos- 
 sible means of extricating himself. If he be afterwards blamed for so im- 
 prudent a bargain, he will allege the necessity of his affairs compelling him 
 to it ; and this allegation will be readily admitted as a full excuse. If upon 
 ejectment brought, he offers to refund the money, and refuses to deliver 
 possession, urging the necessity he lay under, I am afraid this plea will 
 not avail him ; for the court will say, his act was free and voluntary, 
 nor was he under any compulsion when he did it, therefore it must stand 
 good. 
 
 Let us now vary our circumstances once more, and suppose the man 
 under no confinement or debt at all ; but he has taken a fancy to some 
 girl of the town ; she wants a sum of money to throw away upon an 
 extravagance, and will leave him for some other gallant, unless he will 
 supply her, which he has no means of doing any other way than by sale of 
 the farm above-mentioned : he is so besotted with her allurements that he 
 cannot live without her; so he executes the conveyance, though sorely 
 against the grain, and against his judgment. He will be apt to plead ne- 
 cessity in excuse for this foolish proceeding ; but no indifferent person will 
 admit it for such : here then is a necessity men deem so themselves, though 
 nobody else will call it by that name. 
 
 But Necessity being constantly opposed to Freewill, the changeableness 
 of these terms, according to the lights wherein you regard them, gives 
 rise to as notable disputes among us, as those canvassed of old among the 
 philosophers concerning the proper colour of the feathers of a cock-pigeon's 
 neck, which presents a different aspect upon every little motion of the bird. 
 
 1 1 . Everybody esteems freedom the basis of morality ; for no man de- 
 serves praise or blame for doing what he could not help, omitting what he 
 was not at liberty to perform : we are justified in doing things upon the 
 command of a superior, which were blameable had we done them upon our 
 own accord ; and it is a received maxim, that necessity has no law. Never- 
 theless the restraints laid upon us by our vices justify us not, and the slave 
 of sin is always thought answerable for the drudgery he goes through in 
 obedience to his tyrant. On the other hand, we may merit commendation, 
 by complying with the necessary obligations of our religion and our duty. 
 
 Oftentimes, as has been already remarked, we blend the idea of im- 
 potence with want of liberty, or attribute to the one what proceeds from 
 the other; and indeed the latter in some measure depends upon the 
 former ; for whatever obstacle stands in our way, were our strength in- 
 creased so as greatly to surmount it, would become none, but we should be 
 set at liberty from its opposition. A man bound hand and foot with cords, 
 upon having the strength of Sampson given him, would regain his liberty 
 without being untied : and a cobweb wound about our hands makes no 
 abatement in our freedom, though it destroys that of a fly ; not that it does 
 not oppose the same resistance against our fingers as it does against the
 
 FREEWILL. 551 
 
 Iocs of the fly, but because that resistance is nothing m comparison with 
 our greater strength. 
 
 \Vlien some fond passion captivates the heart, and forces us upon actions 
 our present judgment disapproves, we are said to labour under an impotence 
 of mind ; and the compliance with such temptations as few or none can 
 resist, is attributed to the weakness of human nature. When honour or 
 duty calls a man to some very painful enterprise, like those of Sczevola, 
 Regulus, or the Christian Martyrs, he does not want freedom of action to 
 accomplish it ; for his hands will as readily obey the command of the mind 
 to thrust them into burning coals, as into a bason of water, if he can but 
 bring his mind to give the command. Perhaps some of us might resolve 
 upon such an exploit, but should probably flinch in the attempt ; and we 
 many times do enter confidently upon undertakings where we find our 
 courage fail in the execution : here then is an effort of the Will directing 
 her own volitions, which yet are forcibly turned a contrary way by the 
 terrors of the pain. So then here, if ever, the Will is not free to follow 
 her own choice and election : nevertheless, when trials of this sort have been 
 undergone, we do not reckon them instances of greater freewill, but greater 
 strength of virtue and extraordinary vigour of mind. 
 
 So if a covetous man intends to give money in charity, but when he 
 comes to take his guineas out of the bag, has not the heart to part with 
 them ; he has a Will to do a generous deed, and would execute it if not 
 restrained by his fondness for the pelf ; yet we do not ordinarily reckon him 
 destitute of Freewill, but that he has not power to give anything away. 
 Thus we esteem the same case a defect of Libert}', or of Power, according 
 as we fix our eye upon the strength of the obstacle, or feebleness of the 
 agent. 
 
 12. The Speculative talk much of a free and necessary Agency, terms 
 not in use among the vulgar, nor do they lose anything by the want of 
 them : for if we go to examine what Free Agency is, we shall find it to be 
 no more than the dependency of actions upon volition ; therefore man is a 
 free Agent, because his limbs move according to the directions of his Will, 
 but Matter a necessary Agent, as having no Will, and acting solely by 
 virtue of the motion, or impulse imparted to it. 
 
 Not but upon a man's being pushed violently down to the ground his fall 
 is necessary, but then it is properly no act of his ; for though we are apt 
 to say he hurt himself by the fall, which implies something done by him, 
 yet, upon mature consideration, we never attribute the hurt to him, but to 
 the person who threw him down : for in this case his motion is similar to 
 that of body, which does not properly act, but only transmits the action of 
 something else that moved it. When a stone strikes against a wall it serves 
 only as a channel of conveyance for the force of the engine from whence it 
 was cast ; that again of the springs and wheels whereby it was worked ; 
 and so backwards in a series of effects and causes, until you come to some 
 voluntary agent giving the first impulse, whose act it is, whether he intend 
 the consequence or no. If a man shoots another, the wound made by the 
 bullet is his act, and he chargeable with the murder ; or if he shot at a crow 
 and happened to kill a man, though he be guilty of no crime, still the 
 slaughter is his act ; but an undesigned and accidental one. And if we 
 commonly ascribe powers to body, it is because we cannot trace them buck 
 to the causes from whence they originally sprung. 
 
 Upon this view of the matter, we see that free Agency has nothing to do 
 with questions concerning Liberty, for the one may remain after the other
 
 552 FREEWILL. 
 
 being taken away. A man shut up in a prison still continues a free agent 
 of such actions as he can perform ; if he would gladly go abroad, but sits 
 still in his wicker chair, as knowing the doors are locked, his quiescence is 
 an act of free Agency, not like that of the chair he sits on, for he might have 
 risen from it if he would. Or if he be shoved along by the shoulders, 
 though he must move, being under a force, yet he is a free agent in the mo- 
 tion of his legs ; for a statue pushed along in like manner, being a necessary 
 agent, would have fallen upon its face. 
 
 Thus how much soever we may be abridged or confined in our powers, 
 while there is anything left that we can do, our free agency subsists entire, 
 for this relates only to our manner of doing those actions we perform, that 
 is, by willing them ; and consequently in everything a man does which 
 is properly his act, whether by compulsion or restraint, or free choice, he is 
 in that instance a free agent, or in other words, he is such whenever he is an 
 agent at all. 
 
 13. But all this will not satisfy the curious, for they ask further, whether 
 a man have free agency to will such a particular exertion of his power as 
 well as to execute it. Now this is another kind of Agency from that we 
 have been speaking of hitherto ; and for distinction sake we shall beg leave 
 to call it free Volency (for the Speculative will allow one another to coin a 
 word upon occasion) : so the question is not whether a man be a free Agent 
 but a free Volent ; for his agency remains the same, provided his actions 
 follow according to his volition, whatever laws this latter be subject to. 
 
 Now in order to raise a question upon this head we must suppose our 
 Volition the effect of some prior or other act of the Will besides the Voli- 
 tion itself under examination : but we have seen in the progress of this work, 
 that the Will is no subject of her own operation, but takes her turns from 
 time to time, according to the present state of the judgment and imagina- 
 tion ; therefore the epithet Free can neither be affirmed, nor denied, nor any 
 ways applied to Volency: this not being immediately produced by any 
 exertion of our power. It is true, we do often determine beforehand what 
 we will do, and pursue measures accordingly, which we should have omit- 
 ted, had it not been for such determination ; and in this sense the Will acts 
 upon herself, but then she does it immediately by fixing such ideas, resolu- 
 tions, or propensities upon the memory and imagination as will serve her 
 for motives by-and-by ; and it is plain her agency terminates with the im- 
 pressing such ideas, because if they slip out of our head, or something hap- 
 pens to render the determination inexpedient, though we act contrary to itv 
 yet no doubts arise concerning our free Agency, either in the first determi- 
 nation or subsequent volition. 
 
 Besides, some of our actions leave room for no more than one operation 
 of the Will ; a man turning the corner of a street sees somebody come has- 
 tily against him, and suddenly starts back ; here the first act of his will is 
 that whereby he moves his limbs, so there is no prior Agency whereto the 
 term free may be applied. 
 
 There are some who hold two consubsisting Wills, an active and an elec- 
 tive, the latter continually directing the former, how truly I shall not exa- 
 mine ; but upon this supposition man is a free Agent, and a free Volent ; 
 for free Agency is the dependency of his actions upon volition, and free 
 volency the dependence of volition upon his choice ; but you cannot go on 
 further to entitle him a free electant too ; for I never heard of anybody 
 spinning the thread so fine as to suppose another election determining that 
 which determines the Will : all who hold an elective power making it either
 
 FREEWILL. 553 
 
 dependent upon motives, or self-moving independent on all causes what- 
 ever, even on any prior, or other act of the Will : so the term Free cannot 
 be applicable to it, because we are free only in such things as will ensue upon 
 some previous act of the Will exerted to produce them. 
 
 We do indeed often talk in common conversation of a free, and a forced 
 choice ; but this relates to the consequence of our choice not to the manner 
 of making it, and depends not so much upon our being able to choose, as to 
 obtain the thing chosen. We say indeed, a man has not liberty to choose 
 when he knows the thing is not to be had, because he cannot will an im- 
 possibility ; for how much soever we may wish or desire, we never actually 
 Will without a present apprehension of something feasible : but this proves 
 volition dependent upon final causes occurring to the imagination, for an 
 unattainable end is no end at all, because it is not a thing wherein our efforts 
 may terminate, nor can the mind raise a volition of it by any power she 
 possesses. Besides that choice, in vulgar acceptation, lies undoubtedly liable 
 to constraint, we meet with numberless instances every day of our being 
 confined in our choice ; which shows that choice in this sense is a different 
 thing from the elective power spoken of just now ; for that the maintainers 
 of it insist upon as a privilege inherent in human nature, which nothing can 
 divest us of, nor any external force, or circumstances of situation control ; 
 but that we have always power to will, how much soever we may be re- 
 strained from doing. 
 
 14. Thus have I endeavoured to point out some of those variations of 
 sense our words are liable to, according to the occasion introducing them, 
 or light wherein they are placed : and it is this fluctuation of language that 
 makes the labyrinth, and throws up the briars and thorns that entangle us in 
 our reasonings upon human Liberty. For men set out with one question, 
 but scarce have gone a few steps before they slide insensibly into another, 
 from thence into a third, and so on without limitation ; no wonder then 
 they cannot come to a satisfactory conclusion upon a subject perpetually 
 changing. 
 
 I know of none other use in the discussion above attempted of those 
 several changes, unless to warn men against being beguiled by them, for 
 let them keep their ideas steady, and I believe they will find no difficulties. 
 Therefore I hold it wrong to enter upon a debate concerning free Will in 
 general, that being a variable term, as well in our common discourses, as 
 in our abstract speculations ; for the Will is always free, that is, always 
 doing something or other while we wake, yet at the same time may be con- 
 fined to one, or a few ways of exerting herself : but let them take into 
 consideration particular acts of the Will, and they will find her sometimes 
 free, sometimes under force or restraint, and sometimes neither of the three 
 applicable to her, according to the different lights wherein they regard the 
 matter, according to what they understand by the term Will, and what they 
 apprehend to be an act of her's. 
 
 But with respect to our main point the consistency of human Freedom 
 with Providence, it is not much matter what notions men entertain of 
 Liberty, of Agency, of Will, or Choice ; provided they contemplate each 
 instance singly by itself, and do not blend them together, nor change them, 
 by juggling like a conjuror with cups and balls. For they must discern so 
 much similitude in all cases of Liberty that can be produced, if they will 
 but keep their ideas clear, and under such discipline as not to jostle, or run 
 into one another, that the same consequences will always follow, how
 
 554 FREEWILL 
 
 variously soever they may understand Liberty in the several cases pro- 
 posed. 
 
 15. Let us consider a man just enlarged out of prison, who we shall say 
 has regained his liberty, because he can stay at home, or go abroad this way 
 or that, north or south, as he pleases. So his freedom consists in the de- 
 pendence of his motions upon his Will, in his standing so circumstanced 
 as that nothing hinders but that rest, or motion, or any particular motion 
 he shall direct, shall ensue upon his willing ; it does not at all relate to the 
 inducemunts he may have for willing, whether some prudential motive, or 
 sudden start of fancy, or impulse of passion, or whether he put it to the 
 cast of a die ; in each case he remains at full liberty to do as he will. 
 
 Well, but suppose him under the authority of some master who gives 
 him a holyday to divert himself at home, or go abroad wherever he chooses. 
 I shall not dispute, whether the injunctions of a superior be strictly an 
 abridgment of human Liberty, for that they may be disobeyed by any one 
 who shall disregard the consequences : let us grant for the present, that he 
 could not do the thing whereon his choice shall fall, if any prohibition were 
 given against it, yet there being no such prohibition, leaves him, besides his 
 liberty of action, a liberty of choice in what manner he shall use his other 
 liberty. Now this liberty, like the former, consists in the dependence of 
 his actions upon his choice ; for where he has free choice, nobody can doubt 
 he will do as he chooses ; and where he has not, he may be forced to do 
 what he does not choose : but it has no concern with the causes of his 
 choice, whether he spend his holyday prudently, or foolishly, according to 
 his own whims, or the persuasions of an acquaintance. 
 
 But suppose he has strong reasons either of religion, or duty, or respect 
 to some Relation who may leave him a good legacy, which urge him to go 
 one way, but his companions, or his own jovial disposition, solicit him 
 another, to the alehouse, and nobody has any authority to interpose ; so he 
 remains still at liberty to choose between them, because he may take either 
 way as his Will and his choice shall direct. No, you say, it is not clear that 
 he has a freedom of choice ; for though I admit he may do as he chooses, 
 yet I doubt his being free to choose ; because his evil habit of tippling 
 may force a choice upon him whether he will or no. Beware, my friend, 
 of the mazes in the labyrinth, for we are now striking into another allev, 
 and starting a different question from that we had under contemplation before. 
 
 In common usage, we apply Liberty indifferently to the power or act 
 performed thereby ; for we say the choice is free when nothing hinders, but 
 that we may do whatever it shall pitch upon, and the act free when it follows 
 in consequence of our choice, and not of any compulsion obliging us to per- 
 form it. And one of the most dangerous sources of perplexity arises from 
 the want of distinguishing in our inquiries concerning the freedom of a 
 power, whether we regard it as a cause or an effect ; for while we behold 
 it in a double light, as too frequently is done, we shall never see distinctly 
 where to find an issue. According to your present stating the doubt we 
 must consider it as an effect, the proper object of some power the man has 
 to influence his choice, unless the prevalence of habit should give it a con- 
 trary bias. 
 
 As to cases of restraint they will conduce nothing to our main purpose ; 
 therefore we will consider only such cases wherein you may suppose a 
 freedom of choice in our present sense of the Term, that is, as an effect of 
 some power we possess.
 
 FREEWILL. 555 
 
 1 G. Suppose a man deliberating in the morning how he shall lay out his 
 afternoon ; there are no bolts nor bars in his way, no authority of a superior, 
 nor restraint of law, duty, honour, or obligation, intervening in the matters 
 under deliberation : so we know his afternoon's actions will be such as his 
 Will and Choice shall then direct ; but neither is there any strong inclina- 
 tion, or passion at work, which might drive him upon one way of employing 
 him preferable to the rest ; so he stands indifferent to choose now in what 
 manner he shall dispose of himself in the afternoon, nor has he any choice 
 until he shall determine it by some present act of his Will. 
 
 I do not give this as a philosophical representation of the case, but certain 
 it is, we often do conceive ourselves in a situation (how justly it> is no 
 matter) to will or choose what we shall will and do by-and-by ; for if upon 
 asking a friend to walk with you in the Park, this afternoon, he should 
 gravely reply, Good Sir, I cannot possibly tell you, for the present moment 
 only is in our power ; my future actions depend upon my future volitions, 
 and the Will cannot act upon itself, nor is what I shall do five hours hence 
 the subject of my present option : you would think he bantered you, and be 
 apt to cry, pry'thee cannot you choose either to walk or let it alone, cannot 
 you tell me whether you will or no ? 
 
 Therefore unless we will talk in a strain contrary to the language and 
 conceptions of all mankind, we must acknowledge that a person in the case 
 before us has a perfect freedom of choice. But wherein does this freedom 
 consist ? where, unless in the absence of all impediment, restraint, authority, 
 obligation, or force whatsoever against his power of choosing ; so that his 
 choice will continue such as he fixes it, and his afternoon's actions follow 
 precisely according to his present determination ; nor has it anything to do 
 with the motives or causes inducing him to choose riding rather than walk- 
 ing or staying at home before both. 
 
 But we have not done yet ; for some there be who insist upon an elective 
 Power consubsisting with our power of Volition, and determining it as well 
 in giving the preference to what we are to do hereafter, as in the present 
 exercise of our bodily powers. Be it so, since they will have it so. Then 
 the freedom of this elective Power depends upon the removal of all force or 
 impediment against the Will taking such determination as is elected, but not 
 at all upon the cause of- such election. Add further, that when we do what 
 AVC had elected or determined beforehand, nobody will deny our being free 
 in the volitions exerted at the time of execution : which proves Freedom 
 consistent with precaution, for otherwise either our Election and Prede- 
 termination must have no avail nor influence upon our future conduct, or 
 else must put a force upon the Will, constraining it to act conformably to 
 them until they were completed. 
 
 1 7 . Thus how many powers soever we may conceive in the mind direct- 
 ing one another, the proper and genuine idea of Freedom, with respect to 
 each of them, will be the same : for in order to discuss the point of freedom, 
 we must consider some operating power as the cause, and some exertion of 
 the power operated upon as an effect to be produced thereby : if such effect 
 will follow as may be expected from the cause, then are we free in the ope- 
 rating power, and our exertion of the operated is our own free act ; but if a 
 different effect will follow, then are we under force or restraint. 
 
 If we inquire further whether we be free to use this operating power, this 
 is a new question which must be discussed in like manner with the former, 
 by considering the operating power as an effect, and some other power not 
 thought of before as a cause.
 
 556 FREEWILL. 
 
 For let the mind have ever so much power to act upon herself, either by 
 predetermination, or coexistent election, such her acting is an action as 
 much as acting upon the liinhs, and the freedom of it must be tried by the 
 same rules : for as I have freedom of action so long as there lies no bar or 
 obstacle against using my bodily powers in such manner as my Will shall, 
 direct, whatever causes may incline me to employ them one particular way ; 
 so have I freedom of Will while nothing hinders, but that such volition shall 
 take place as I predetermine or elect, whatever may give occasion to my so 
 determining or electing. For liberty bears no connection with anything 
 antecedent to the operation of that power whose liberty we inquire into, but 
 solely with what shall follow after it, and with the removal of all obstruction 
 which might prevent it from taking effect : therefore may well consist with 
 causes prior to such operation, and with the dominion of that Providence 
 whose disposal those causes lie under. 
 
 Thus while we can keep a Disputant to any one settled point, one stated 
 case of acting, or willing, we shall manage well enough with him ; but men 
 are apt to dodge about the post, alleging, that we may will as we choose, 
 and choose if we will, without understanding themselves in the use of those 
 terms, or settling the distinction between them ; but one moment taking 
 them for synonymous, and the next for different acts producing one another. 
 Whereas if we fix the meaning of choice to a predetermination, then in such 
 cases where our determination stands confined to certain limits, or we are 
 compelled to take a course contrary to that we determine, our volitions, and 
 consequently our actions, depend upon the causes applying such force or 
 restraint : but in cases where we remain perfectly free to prosecute what- 
 ever we may determine upon, they depend upon the motives occurring to 
 our judgment, or imagination, in making the determination, or upon our 
 former cares in forming the condition of our mind ; which cares depended 
 upon the like causes, and so on as far as the Will was concerned, until 
 you come to some first determination, or act of the mind to which there 
 was none other act preceding ; which act must depend upon external causes ; 
 and consequently so must all subsequent volitions dependent thereon. 
 
 18. As to the co-existent elective power, self-moving and independent 
 on all causes, whether of external objects, motives of judgment and imagi- 
 nation, or prior determinations of our own, if this could once be well esta- 
 blished, then farewell to all prudence, deliberation, and dependence upon 
 our own conduct, and that of other people : for what avails it to contrive a 
 plan of my measures ever so wisely, to inculcate salutary maxims upon my 
 mind, to nourish sentiments of honour, or duty, or moral senses for my 
 guidance, if I may afterwards chance to elect the wildest and most extrava- 
 gant actions in defiance of all reason, or inclination, or former resolutions 
 to the contrary ? or how can I depend that my best and dearest friend will 
 not murder me, while there is a hazard that he may elect in opposition to 
 all the judgment and discretion in his head, the sentiments and desires in 
 his heart ? 
 
 But such terrors as these the most zealous devotees of an elective power 
 do not lie under; they depend upon men's acting conformably to their charac- 
 ters ; if they know a hardened villain, they make no question of his electing 
 acts of violence, injury, and dishonesty whenever opportunity shall serve, 
 and confide in themselves for making just and wise elections in their future 
 conduct. 
 
 What then occasions the difference between man and man ? for there 
 must be some cause of the moral character, some account to be given why
 
 FREEWILL. 557 
 
 we know what use each person will make of his elective power. The differ- 
 ence, say they, lies in the Will itself, which has a peculiar bent, or ply, or 
 I know not what, different from that of another person : the villain has a 
 perverseness of Will, therefore will always choose perversely : and they 
 .themselves a rectitude of Will, so of course they will choose rightly and 
 wisely. But whence got they this I know not what in their Will ? was it 
 innate ? was it the natural constitution of tkeir mind ? Then they ought to 
 bless the Author of their nature, who gave them this happy constitution on 
 creating them. But no, this must not be the case ; for they will lose all 
 merit of their rectitude, unless it was of their own acquiring ; therefore thev 
 gave this right Ply to their Wills themselves by their former cares, and in- 
 dustry, and right management of their elective power. Be it so ; for we 
 are in the humour to admit everything they please to assume ; still we must 
 ask, what moved them to such right management ? it could not be the Ply 
 of their Will ; for if this were acquired, they could not have it before they 
 acquired it, nor could they derive from thence their choice of the right me- 
 thods taken in the acquisition. What then, did they light upon those me- 
 thods by mere chance ? I do not suspect they will say this ; for this would 
 make Virtue nothing more than a lucky hit, which one Simpleton might 
 stumble upon as well as another. If then their choice had a source, there 
 remains none other we can guess besides education, example, company, the 
 temperament of their body, state of their mental organization, objects sur- 
 rounding them, events touching their notice, and the like ; causes antecedent 
 and external to the mind electing, under the direction of that power whom 
 they must acknowledge to govern all things external. 
 
 19. Upon the whole, we may conclude Freedom, in whatever light we 
 place it, or to whatever power, whether real or imaginary, apply it, by no 
 means repugnant to the operation of prior causes moving us to the exercise 
 of that power ; nor to the dominion of Providence, having all those causes 
 and their causes at disposal : so that the Plan of Providence may well take 
 effect without infringing a tittle upon our Liberty. Events which neither 
 our judgment nor our appetite would incline us to produce, are placed out 
 of our power, and entrusted in the hands of other agents, so come to pass 
 by necessity with respect to us ; the returns of summer and winter do not 
 depend upon our option, because we might be apt to choose a perpetual 
 spring : but wherever God thinks proper to employ us in executing any part 
 of his plan, there needs only to give us the powers, the talents, the oppor- 
 tunities, the judgments, the motives requisite, and we shall complete the lines 
 allotted us by the exercise of our freedom. 
 
 So far as you can penetrate into a man's sentiments and desires, and 
 nave the proper objects at command, you may put him upon any work you 
 tnall require : if money be his idol, and you have enough to bribe him, you 
 may make him do whatever you please ; if he make his belly his god, you 
 may draw him from Milbank to lladcliffe-highway by an exquisite enter- 
 tainment ; or if good nature be his ruling principle, you may employ him 
 in any kind office you shall want. Your politicians know how to turn the 
 passions of men independent on their authority to serve their designs : and 
 the Divine Politician may do this more completely, not only as he knows 
 perfectly the secrets of all hearts, but as he gave them that understanding 
 and those appetites, which determine the colour of their actions ; and we 
 need not doubt of his having given them such as will effectually answer the 
 purposes intended by them. 
 
 In some few instances where we know the hearts of men, we can effect
 
 558 FREEWILL. 
 
 our purposes with them as surely as we can with any corporeal instalments 
 in our hands : if you want to give a ball, or an entertainment, it is but 
 sending an invitation to persons fond of these diversions, and you will 
 have your company resort to you of their own free choice, nor could you 
 bring them more effectually, if you had the authority of an absolute monarch 
 over them ; so that in this instance you govern their motions either to 
 Hickford's, or the Apollo near Temple Bar, or your own dining-room, 
 without the least impeachment of their liberty. And we have a present 
 example before our eyes of a monarch, who having the love of his sub- 
 jects, can by their free services resist the combined efforts of the mightiest 
 despotic powers upon earth. Nor can despotism itself do any great matters 
 without aid of Free Will : for rewards, honours, and encouragements, 
 those engines of free agency, contribute more to the valour of armies than 
 any scourges of punishment, or peremptory edicts concluding, For such is 
 our Will. 
 
 Since then experience testifies, that man can make so much use of li- 
 berty towards accomplishing his designs, why should we scruple to think 
 the same of God in a larger extent ? for he not only has all the objects in 
 his power which touch the springs of action, but fabricated the springs 
 themselves, and set them to receive what touches they shall take. 
 
 20. But we judge of the workings of Providence by our own narrow 
 way of proceeding ; we take our measures from time to time as the expe- 
 dience of them occurs to our thoughts, and then must make what use we 
 can of the materials or instruments before us, be they such as exactly 
 suit our purpose, or not ; and even if we had the making of our instruments, 
 yet not always knowing what we should want to do with them, we shall 
 often find them inconvenient for our service : nor is it unfrequent that the 
 works we performed yesterday stand in the way of those we are to perform 
 to-day, because new schemes and new occasions of employing ourselves 
 occur to us perpetually. 
 
 In like manner we vulgarly imagine God acting occasionally, and taking 
 up purposes he had not thought of before until a concurrence of circum- 
 stances rendered them expedient. We apprehend him as having turned 
 the numerous race of men loose into the wide world, endowed them with 
 various powers, talents, appetites, and characters, without knowing pre- 
 cisely, or without caring what they will produce. We allow him indeed 
 to have formed the main lines of a plan ; but left large vacancies between 
 to be filled up by chance, whose wild workings lie under his control to 
 divert their course when they would interfere with the strokes of his 
 pencil. For the eye of Providence watches over the motions of human 
 creatures ; when he sees them running counter to his designs, he turns 
 them aside, or guides them by his secret influence to co-operate there- 
 with. 
 
 Now, considering the vast variety of humours, the discordant aims and 
 interests among mankind, it must be acknowledged that the government 
 of the world, in this view of it, could not be administered without either 
 continual miraculous interpositions in the motions of matter, or compul- 
 sions and restraints upon free Agency, giving our volition another turn than 
 it would take from the motives present before us, or causing other motions 
 to arise in our limbs, and thoughts in our minds, than our present volition 
 would naturally produce. 
 
 But when we reflect that even the wanton gambols of chance must result 
 from agents and causes originally set at work by the Almighty, when we
 
 FREEWILL. 559 
 
 ca:l to mind his infinite Wisdom and Omniscience, which nothing can 
 escape, nothing perplex or overload ; it seems more congruous with that 
 boundless attribute to imagine that no single, nor most distant effect of 
 the powers and motions he gave was overlooked, no chasms or empty spaces 
 left in his design : but that upon the formation of the world he laid a full 
 and perfect plan of aJl the operations that should ensue during the period 
 of its continuance. 
 
 And what interpositions there are (for I would leave every one to his 
 own opinion concerning the frequency or rarity of them,) how much soever 
 they may operate secretly to us, were not sudden expedients to answer 
 unforeseen emergencies, but contained in the original plan ; which was 
 purposely so framed as to need his interposing hand when, and where, and 
 as often as he predetermined to apply to it. But in those parts wherein 
 he has thought proper to employ us as his instruments for executing them, 
 to control us in the exercise of our powers would be to defeat his own 
 designs, by disturbing the operation of those causes himself had chosen 
 for the accomplishment of them. 
 
 Thus he governs all things in heaven and earth by power and wisdom 
 conjointly ; matter by necessity and impulse, brutes by sense and instinct, 
 the blessed spirits above by significations of his Will, which they gladly 
 and freely set themselves to fulfil, man partly by necessary agents affecting 
 him, partly by laws, restrictions, apprehensions of mischief and danger 
 controlling him, and partly by leaving him to his free choice in following 
 such portion of understanding and appetites as himself has allotted him. 
 
 21. Nor need we fancy ourselves always in shackles, because every 
 moment under the dominion and conduct of Providence ; for it has been 
 shown that Liberty has no concern with causes antecedent to the exercise 
 of our power, but solely with what might stand in our way upon such 
 exercise : if I can do what I will, I have freedom of action, no matter how 
 I came to will this or that particular employment : if I can choose as I 
 will, I have freedom of choice, no matter what induced me to make one 
 choice preferable to all others. 
 
 What then, are we mere puppets, actuated by springs and wires, because 
 it was given us both to will and to do ? By no means ; for when they are 
 given us, we have as full and free liberty to use them both, as if they had 
 fallen upon us by chance, or we had made them for ourselves. If my 
 father left me a good portion, I can do the same with it, and have as free 
 disposal of it, as if I had made the gold myself by transmutation with the 
 Philosopher's stone ; and if he brought me by the cares of his education 
 from a lavish temper to prudence and economy, this does not impeach my 
 liberty to squander it all away. 
 
 Nor have we reason to disturb ourselves with imaginations of a thraldom 
 from secret influences, and unseen springs, when those that are manifest 
 and seen do not work upon us by constraint ; for sometimes we may 
 discern the influence that guides us, and yet find no thraldom in following 
 whither it leads. 
 
 How much of our employment depends upon the natural appetites of 
 hunger and thirst ? You may pretend indeed that these are acts of 
 necessity, because we must eat, or starve : but follow men to their meals, 
 and you will not see one in a thousand that eats because he must, but 
 because he likes it. Which of us ever sits down to table by compulsion, 
 or feels himself constrained to cut the joint before him, or perceives his 
 tongue moved by strings like a puppet when he calls for a glass of wine ?
 
 560 FREEWILL. 
 
 What shall we say to the mutual propensity between the sexes, another 
 main spring in the hand of God, by which he preserves the race of men 
 upon earth ? How many under twigs, what fashions, contrivances, amuse- 
 ments, accomplishments, grow from that stem ? but wherein does it check 
 or overshadow human liberty ? Do boys and girls meet together by com- 
 pulsion or choice ? Is the Miss under a force when she culls among her 
 trinkets with curious toil to tiff herself out in the most engaging manner, 
 or teazes papa for money to buy a new-fashioned silk ? Is the Beau com- 
 pelled against his Will to practise winning airs before the glass, or employ 
 for whole hours all the thought withinside his noddle to bepowder and 
 becurl the outside ? 
 
 How strongly does parental instinct operate upon us ! It is by this 
 channel that God transmits arts and sciences, education, estates, conve- 
 niences of life, knowledge, and old experience from generation to genera- 
 tion. In this we see the finger of Providence and feel its potent touches, 
 yet feel no limitation in our liberty therefrom : for what parent does not 
 willingly go about the provisions he makes for his children, or finds himself 
 under any other direction than his own choice and judgment in the appli- 
 cation of his cares for their advantage, or perceives himself moved by 
 clock-work to procure any little toy or diversion for them ? 
 
 22. Our powers of action stand limited to a certain extent of ground, 
 but within the enclosure we may ramble about as we please to take our 
 pasture or our pastime. Sometimes there are restraints hanging over us, 
 which confine us to particular walks ; obligations and duties to be fulfilled, 
 authority to be obeyed, wants to be supplied, necessaries of life to be pro- 
 vided, and it behoves us to regard these restrictions, or mischief will 
 ensue ; but in many of our hours we have no limitations upon our conduct, 
 and then we may move easily and lightly without the weight of any secret 
 force or impediment encumbering us. 
 
 Nor need we fear lest we may defeat the purposes of God, or make any 
 breaches in the plan of his Providence : for he knew what uses we would 
 make of our liberty, and has provided his plan accordingly. Let the 
 Princes run madly into broils, and the Grecians suffer, the Will of Jove is 
 fulfilled by their madness, and will be, whatever conduct man shall pursue. 
 Therefore we have but our own will to take care of ; only let us not consult 
 solely our present Will and Fancy, but pay a due regard to what we may 
 will to-morrow ; and in our deliberations and execution of the prudential 
 measures for procuring what we shall will to have another time, we may 
 proceed with the same freedom as if there were no superior power able to 
 control us in the exercise of our faculties. 
 
 And the most useful deliberation we can enter upon, is how to enlarge 
 our freedom, for all are ready enough to allow that Happiness consists in 
 liberty to do what we will ; nor shall I contradict them, so they do not 
 restrain Will to that of the present moment. We commonly understand 
 by our Will what our Judgment represents as most eligible, or our Inclina- 
 tion prompts to as most alluring ; and whenever these two coincide, our 
 Will is quite free. Therefore, so far as we can bring desire to tally with 
 reason, we shall enlarge the bounds of our liberty ; and if we could do this 
 completely so as to make a virtue of every necessity, and a pleasure of 
 every obligation, we should never have any restraint hanging over us, but 
 attain a perfect liberty; because willing always what was right and feasible, 
 we should ahvays do what we would. 
 
 And this perfect liberty would more apparently, though not more really,
 
 FREEWILL. 561 
 
 coincide with tne plan of Providence than that pittance of it we now pos- 
 sess ; for then we should fulfil the Will of God knowingly, whereas now 
 we fulfil it, but unknowingly, and many times by setting ourselves most 
 strenuously to oppose it. 
 
 23. And now we might think the controversy ended, and all difficulties 
 gotten over, the freedom of Will being fully reconciled with the authority 
 and dominion of God : but the busy mind of man, ingenious in finding new 
 perplexities to involve itself in, will not let us rest quiet so ; but seeing light 
 open upon one spot, shifts the scene to some other corner, where it may 
 cover itself with clouds and obscurity ; and, as if fond of slavery, endea- 
 vours to derive a title thereto from some other quarter, namely, that of 
 Fore-knowledge. 
 
 For, say the fine Reasoners, if your actions are foreknown, you can do 
 no otherwise than it is known you will do ; so your hands are tied down to 
 one particular manner of proceeding, nor are you at liberty to take any 
 other than that you shall pursue. 
 
 But why so ? what connection is there between another's knowledge and 
 my behaviour ? it may possibly direct his own measures, but has no in- 
 fluence at all upon mine. You allow that while my actions remain unknown 
 to everybody I may be free ; what then if after my being in possession of 
 this freedom some shrewd Politician should discover what I will do, how 
 does that divest me of it, in what respect alter my condition, or by what 
 channel of communication does this discovery operate upon me. 
 
 No, say they, you must mistake the grounds of our objection ; we do 
 not assign his knowledge as a cause of anything you do, nor pretend it lays 
 any restraint upon your liberty ; we only produce it as an evidence of an- 
 other restraint hanging over you ; for he could not know how you will be- 
 ha-ve, unless it were certain ; therefore his knowledge is a proof that you 
 will certainly do as he knows ; but what will certainly come to pass cannot 
 fall out otherwise; so you have no liberty left, because you cannot do what 
 will never be done. 
 
 But how does this alter the case? wherein is the difference between Cer- 
 tainty and Knowledge ? Why yes, the difference lies here, that Certainty 
 is the object of Knowledge, though she may not have cast her eye upon it ; 
 therefore is a different thing, as having existed before it ; for his discovery 
 did not make the certainty, but presupposes it ; for the thing was certain 
 before, though he did not know it. 
 
 But what sort of thing is this Certainty, to which you ascribe such irre- 
 sistible force ? let us know what rank of Beings to place it under ? is it a 
 substance ? or if a quality or accident, in what substance does it reside ? for 
 we generally apply it to propositions which are only judgments of the mind. 
 It is no agent, it is no power, nor has any efficacy in its state of pre-exist- 
 ence to knowledge ; for were it ever so certain the house was on fire, this 
 would influence none cf my actions until I know it. 
 
 24. If certainties have any active virtue, it is to generate one another ; all 
 our rules of -logic show that some truths are such in consequence of other 
 truths : if it certainly will rain to-morrow, it is certain there will be clouds 
 in the air ; if it be certain the gun I made trial of will go off, then the flint 
 will certainly strike fire ; and in general the certainty of Events infers the 
 certainty of all causes operating to produce them ; therefore whatever acts 
 of my Freewill are certain, I must certainly have the freedom to do them. 
 We may indeed frame propositions concerning future events, without 
 
 VOL. I. 2 O
 
 5(12 FREEWILL. 
 
 thinking of the manner now they will come to pass ; but remcmoer your 
 own observation, that knowledge does not make certainty, but finds it ; 
 much less can any form of words make, or the omission of them destroy it : 
 therefore whether you speak and think of them or no, the same propositions 
 may be applied, and the same certainty belong to the operating causes, be 
 they Force or Freewill, as to the events, and the certainty of each recipro- 
 cally implies the other. 
 
 Suppose you under an engagement to meet a person at any particular 
 place, and have a strong inclination to go somewhere else,, nevertheless you 
 have too much honour to break your word ; but perhaps the man will send 
 five minutes hence to release you from the engagement, and then you will 
 go where you like ; now if it be certain you shall go there, must it not be 
 equally certain the restraint will be taken off, and you set at perfect liberty 
 to follow your choice ? And if anybody had affirmed both a thousand years 
 ago, he would have spoken truth ; for while the one remained fortuitous, 
 the other could not be certain : so likewise iu all instances of free Agency, 
 the certainty of the action casts a certainty upon the freedom of the Agent : 
 and the certain Foreknowledge of our voluntary proceedings is so far from 
 overthrowing, that it establishes human liberty upon a firmer bottom than it 
 has really belonging to it. 
 
 For we may observe further, that this argument unluckily proves too 
 much ; because if whatever shall happen 'it be absolutely impossible that it 
 should not happen ; then in such instances wherein we have ouf Freedom, 
 the debarring us the use of it was from all eternity an absolute impossibility, 
 insurmountable even by Omnipotence itself ; so that instead of being de- 
 pendent in all our motions upon necessary causes, we shall become inde- 
 pendent on the first, the supreme Fountain of all power and action. 
 
 And for aught I know, the Devil might have employed this sophism when 
 he rebelled, to prove himself his own master ; for feeling himself in posses- 
 sion of freedom, it was always true, that he should be free ; nor could Om- 
 nipotence itself prevent his being so : or he might have beguiled himself 
 into his fall, and justified his disobedience, by arguing in the following 
 manner. If any one had said before I was made, that I should be, he 
 would have spoken truth; therefore it was certain that I should be, there- 
 fore an absolute impossibility that I should not be ; so God could not help 
 creating me ; nor do I owe any thanks to the Almighty for my existence. 
 25. What dependence or countenance does this argument deserve ? which 
 is such a Drawcansir, as to cut down both friend and foe ; or like a swivel- 
 gun, may be pointed upon any quarter, fore and aft, starboard and larboard; 
 and what is worse, we find it generally in the hands of sloth and depravity, 
 turned against the lawful authority of reason and prudence. 
 
 For when men are too lazy to bestir themselves, or too fond of a foolish 
 thing to be put aside from it by their clearest judgment, they then catch 
 hold of this idle pretence, what will be, must be; therefore why need I take 
 pains, or deliberate at all ? for my actions will have some certain issue, and 
 if certain, it is necessary, and if necessary, the event will work itself out 
 some how or other without my giving myself any trouble to compass it. 
 
 But whoever argues in this manner, when they have some favourite pas- 
 sion to gratify ? They then can study and contrive, set all their wits to 
 work, and use all their might to accomplish their designs : whereas if they 
 think consistently, there is the same certainty in matters of inclination, as 
 of prudence and duty ; whatever they wish, must have some certain issue 
 one way or other, and is either unattainable in spite of their utmost en-
 
 FREEWILL 5G3 
 
 doavours, or will drop into their mouths without their seeking. And thus 
 they may go on to argue themselves out of all activity whatever, so as 
 neither to take up the victuals from their plate, or move away from the fire 
 when it hums their shins. 
 
 26. But these fantastical remoras do not obstruct us in the familiar 
 transactions of life, nor do they ever enter into the head of a common man. 
 If a poor fellow has done me some signal sen-ice, and I call to him Hark 
 ye, Tim ; do you see that sack of pease in the harn-floor yonder ? there are 
 a couple of guineas in it somewhere ; if you can find them they are your 
 own. Now I know well enough he will get the money ; for he will take 
 out every pea one by one but he will come at it ; but I know as well that he 
 cannot find it without a great deal of pains and rummaging. 
 
 Suppose one of your profound Speculatists were by, and should tell him, 
 Why, Tim, you need not put yourself in a hurry to go a rummaging ; you 
 may as well sit with your nose over the kitchen fire ; for Search knows 
 you will get the money ; therefore it is a thing certain, and you must have 
 it whether you do anything or no. This logic would hardly prevail upon 
 Tim to stop his speed for a moment. 
 
 Or suppose another subtile refiner sets the matter in a different light : 
 Tim, says he, is a mere machine in this case utterly destitute of liberty : 
 for not only his getting the money, but his rummaging the sack is fore- 
 known ; so his action is certain and necessary, nor can he help rummaging 
 any more than the great clock can help striking. Tim being an arch fellow 
 replies, Ay, but Master, for all that I could stay here and never meddle with 
 the sack, if I were fool enough to run the hazard of somebody else getting 
 away the money before me : and if you will give me three and forty shillings 
 to try, I will show you what I can do. 
 
 How many times a day do we foreknow our own actions, and those of 
 other people, yet feel ourselves and perceive them free in the performance ? 
 Our liberty is so apparent that the Philosopher with his microscope, and the 
 Ploughman with his half an eye, can discern it distinctly through the veil 
 of Certainty and Foreknowledge : it is only the half-reasoner, who hangs 
 between both, and uses a glass full of flaws, that hunts for it in vain, 
 or sees it confusedly. 
 
 27. It is the crinkles in this glass making objects appear double, and 
 representing each individual as two distinct things, which produces that dis- 
 tinction urged by some people between human Prescience and divine, 
 as if one might be compatible with human Liberty, though the other were 
 repugnant. 
 
 But why so ? for it is not the party knowing, but the intrinsic certainty 
 of the fact that lays the restraint : now as man cannot know what is uncer- 
 tain, so neither if there were anything absolutely fortuitous, could it be 
 foreknown even to God ; therefore Knowledge, wherever residing, is alike 
 evidence of Certainty. 
 
 Very true, say they, where the knowledge is of the same kind ; but ours 
 is only conjectural ; whereas that of God is absolute : we all confess the 
 human Understanding fallible at best, nor ever so sure of her hits, but there 
 remains a possibility of her being mistaken ; and it is this possibility that 
 opens the door to Liberty. 
 
 Here, by the way, I cannot help remarking how ready some folks are to 
 blow hot and cold with the same breath, as either serves the turn : if I hap- 
 pen in company to drop a hint like those suggested in mv chapter on Judg- 
 
 2o2
 
 5G4 FREEWILL. 
 
 ment, that Certainty, mathematical Certainty, was not made for man, and 
 that we know no more, if so much, than the appearances exhibited this pre- 
 sent moment to our senses, and the ideas actually in our thought ; I am 
 exclaimed against for an arrant Sceptic, a Visionary, a Trifler, advancing 
 things I do not believe* myself. -What ! cry they, do not we know certahily 
 that the Judges will sit in Westminster-hall this term ; that the servant will 
 lay the cloth for dinner ; that we ourselves shall go to bed to-night ? Yet 
 these very people, like crafty Politicians, now the interests of their argument 
 require it, can take the opposite side, and strike up a coalition with the 
 fallibility of human understanding in its strongest assurances. Perhaps the 
 Judges will not sit, for the hall may be swallowed up by an earthquake ; 
 perhaps the Servant will not lay the cloth, for he may be stricken with an 
 apoplexy ; perhaps we shall not go to bed, for the house may take fire. 
 Were these casualties, which depend upon external causes, alleged in 
 diminution of Liberty, they might carry some weight ; but what efficacy 
 they can have to increase it, I cannot discern with the best use of the 
 microscope. 
 
 But waving this, if bare Possibility may give opening enough to set us 
 free, this same Mr. Liberty must be a very slender gentleman, to creep in 
 at such an augur-hole : yet let us consider whether he does get his whole 
 body through, or only thrust in a little finger at most ; for we have seen 
 there are degrees of Liberty consistent with a partial Restraint. When I 
 put on my great coat and boots, I can still move my limbs, though not so 
 freely as before : when in town I have not the same liberty as in the 
 country ; I must not go out in my cap and slippers ; I must not carry a bundle 
 under my -arm; if Elizabeth Petrowna, whom I never saw nor cared for, 
 happens to die two thousand miles off, I must not wear a coloured coat, for 
 so the great goddess, Fashion, that Diana of Ephesus, whom all the world 
 worshippeth, ordains : yet she graciously allows me some latitude in my 
 dress and motions ; for I may go armed with a sword I know not how to 
 use, and saunter away the day in coffee-houses, or spend the night in tossing 
 .bout a pack of cards, without offence to her delicacy. 
 
 Now I believe my antagonists and I, how slightingly soever we have 
 spoken of human Understanding, shall agree that in some instances our 
 Knowledge grounds upon evidence, which makes it a million to one we are 
 .in the Bright : and since an event may be probable, as well as certain, though 
 we do not know so much, it must then contain an intrinsic probability inde- 
 pendent on our knowledge or conjecture. But this probability, being so 
 near of kin to certainty, that the acutest Philosophers could never find a 
 .criterion to distinguish them, may be presumed to have the family strength, 
 though not in equal measure ; and if one totally overthrows liberty, the 
 other must fasten a clog upon it proportionable to the degree of the proba- 
 bility ; so that in cases of the highest assurance we should find ourselves 
 reduced to the condition of a person who should have so many weights 
 hung about him, that one millionth part added more, would render him in- 
 capable of stirring at all. 
 
 28. But if. this will not do, and they insist upon Probability being totally 
 different from Certainty in kind and efficacy, and that one has no force at 
 all, though the other be irresistible, let them contemplate an object, wherein 
 they must needs acknowledge both perpetual Freedom and absolute Fore- 
 knowledge ; for I hope they will not deny God to be perfectly free in all his 
 proceedings. If there be such a thing in nature as freedom, where can it 
 reside, if not in the supreme Author of all powers to whom there is nothing
 
 FREEWILL. 565 
 
 superior that mignt control him ? Yet I suppose they will scarce imagine 
 all his measures sudden, and his actions fortuitous, or that he does not know 
 to-day what he will do to-morrow. 
 
 But if certainty infers necessity, then either he foresees no better than we 
 do, that is conjecturally, when he will stop the torrents of blood that 
 overwhelm Europe, the distresses, the ruins, the horror and desolation 
 that spread over land and sea, and restore peace to Christendom ; or his 
 hands in the interim remain tied to do it at one precise time, nor is he at 
 liberty to advance the happy event one moment sooner. Nay, we shall not 
 stop here ; for if a proposition had been affirmed from everlasting concern- 
 ing any work of Providence that has been performed, it would have been 
 true : therefore God from all eternity was necessitated to create and govern 
 his worlds precisely in the manner he has done : and so, according to the 
 devilish fine reasoning used at the end of 24, we are not obliged to him, 
 but to the iron-handed goddess, Necessity, for our life, our health, our daily 
 bread, and all the blessings we receive. 
 
 i'erhaps they will allege the case is different here : for the acts of God 
 are such only as he had determined upon himself, therefore in performing 
 them he executed his own Will : but let them remember, that they placed 
 the necessity in the intrinsic certainty of the fact, not in the causes operat- 
 ing to produce it ; for if they admit these, then the cause of our free actions 
 being the freedom we have to perform them, will evidence itself, instead of 
 proving our bondage : but, according to them, when a fact is certain, it is 
 necessary, no matter why, or how, it came to be so ; and equally certain, 
 whether proceeding from the agent's own determination, or some external 
 cause : for if what will be, must be, then whatever God foreknows will be 
 done by himself as well as by us, becomes alike certain, nor can even omni- 
 potence prevent it from taking effect. Let them consider further that every 
 pious man esteems it certain, that God will reward the good and punish the 
 evil-doer ; that he will maintain the laws of natare, not throw all things 
 into confusion, nor annihilate the Beings he has created. Thus human 
 prescience extends in some cases to the divine agency. Bat if certainty in- 
 ferred necessity, then either God must not be free to dispose of us in what 
 manner he judges proper, or it must remain totally uncertain how he will 
 use his power. 
 
 Thus we see the same ill luck attends the argument wherever we turn it ; 
 for if it proves anything, it proves more than it should ; nor can it infringe 
 upon human liberty, without encroaching upon God himself. 
 
 Neither let them throw in my teeth what I have reported from Pytha- 
 goras concerning the oath of Jove ; for this was only a figurative expression, 
 to denote the unchangeableness of the divine nature : if God has sworn, his 
 oath is sacred, because we know he will keep it, being not liable, like man, 
 to change his sentiments, or design one thing to-day and the contrary to- 
 morrow ; but nobody imagines him under any compulsion or necessity, in 
 case he could be supposed at any time desirous of violating it ; so that 
 when he performs, he acts with the same pure bounty and unlimited free- 
 dom as when he promises. 
 
 29. When we examine what gave rise to this notable discovery of every- 
 thing certain being necessary, we shall find it spring from a mere quibble 
 of words. What you will do, say they, you must do ; for you cannot do 
 otherwise so long as you are to do that, because you cannot do both. Who 
 doubts it ? Therefore I allow this to be a matter of necessity, not of pru- 
 dence : nor would I recommend it to anv man to deliberate, or make trial,
 
 566 FREEWILL. 
 
 how he shall run and sit still at the same time, or ride on horseback while 
 he goes in a coach : but for all that, what ails him that he might not omit 
 the thing he has resolved upon, or will do, and take a contrary course ? 
 How sure soever I am of going to bed, still I may sit up all night, if I 
 please, for neither God nor man hinders me ; but I know I shall not, be- 
 cause I know it is in my option, and know what I choose to do : so my 
 knowledge stands upon my freedom ; for if I had it not, I might be com- 
 pelled to do what I do not choose, and my action would be uncertain. 
 
 But my knowledge, they say, is only conjectural. What then ? does not 
 God know it too ? and does not he know likewise, that he has left the issue 
 to my option ? and whether he has given me so much discretion as will 
 withhold me from doing a silly thing merely to show what I can do ? So 
 these three points of Knowledge, the Discretion, the Liberty to use it, and 
 the Event, are so far from overthrowing that they sustain and strengthen 
 one another. 
 
 The difficulties we make spring from our conceiving too narrowly of the 
 divine prescience ; we consider God as foreknowing an event separately, 
 without knowing or without contemplating the causes giving it birth : in 
 this case indeed the foreknowledge must have a something, an inexplicable 
 fatality attending it, for else it could not be absolute, because there might 
 some unforeseen cause intervene to render it abortive. But the prescience 
 of God is universal as well as absolute ; when he knows what will come to 
 pass, he knows the causes himself has provided for accomplishing it, nor 
 can anybody who considers the matter at all, imagine him ever ignorant or 
 forgetful of either ; nay, he knows the one, because he knows the other ; 
 for if we could suppose him ignorant of the causes, he would not know their 
 issue. Therefore in such instances where freedom is one of those causes, 
 he foreknows that freedom, the motives inclining us to use it, and how those 
 motives will operate ; and consequently by the rule insisted on, it is as ne- 
 cessary we should enjoy that freedom, as in what manner we shall employ it. 
 30. Nevertheless they go on still to urge, that we cannot do otherwise 
 than we shall do, not only because we cannot do both, but because we can- 
 not omit what we certainly shall do, and take another course : for an event 
 tiiat will certainly happen, cannot fail of coming to pass, nor can the con- 
 trary take effect ; but the divine prescience is an irrefragable evidence of 
 this certainty, because if the thing were uncertain, the foreknowledge could 
 not be absolute. Now there is no possibility that God should be mistaken ; 
 therefore none that anything foreknown by him should not take effect, or 
 the contrary should fall out ; then it is not possible for us to omit whatever 
 it is impossible should fail of being done ; so our power is gone ; or if we 
 have a natural ability either to do or to omit, we have no liberty to use it, 
 bing confined to that particular way which is foreknown. 
 
 Now if they will please to throw this curious reasoning into the logical 
 form of a syllogism, we may chance to show them it has four terms, and 
 therefore concludes nothing. Whatever God foreknows, it is impossible 
 the contrary should be done ; what is impossible to be done, it is out of 
 my power to do ; therefore whatever God foreknows, it is out of my power 
 to do to the contrary. 
 
 I shall not deny major nor minor ; but if the word impossible should 
 carry different senses as it stands in either, the whole chain will become a 
 rope of sand, and the consequence limp lame behind. In order to canvass 
 this point, let us have recourse to our present patroness, Philology, to 
 mark out the several uses wherein we employ that term, together with
 
 FREEWILL. 567 
 
 others relative thereto, such as, must, may, can, necessary, and the like, 
 both in our familiar and serious discourses. 
 
 Possible, relates originally and most obviously to Power ; for things are 
 possible as far as we have power to perform them, but no further : and if 
 it be asked, Whether it is possible to transmute lead into gold ? you will 
 understand by the question, whether it is in the power of man, by chymical 
 process, or any other art or contrivance, to effect it. 
 
 But we often apply the term where we have nothing of power in our 
 thoughts. Suppose, in playing at whist, I have only two cards left in my 
 hand, but must win both tricks to save the game ; my partner leads a 
 trump, and the king was turned up on my left hand ; in this case I shall 
 put down the ace with hopes of succeeding, because it is possible the king 
 may be alone. Now by possible, I do not mean in the power of anybody, 
 or anything to make the king alone, or guarded : if chance ever had any 
 [lower, she has executed it as soon as the cards were shuffled and cut, nor 
 has she now any further concern in the affair. Therefore here the term 
 denotes only the contingency of what other card lies in the same hand with 
 the king, and is relative ; for to him who holds the cards it is not possible 
 they should be any other than what he sees them, though to me who do 
 not see them, guarded or not guarded are equally possible. 
 
 On the other hand, whoever considers the pains I have taken on this 
 crabbed subject, will think it impossible I should throw my labours into the 
 tire as soon as I have completed them ; not that he thinks anything of my 
 powers, or supposes me to plod on until my arm is so benumbed that I 
 cannot extend it to the grate ; or that I write upon cloth of Asbetos, 
 which will not consume in the flames ; but because he thinks there is no 
 chance I should instantly destroy what I have been so earnest to produce. 
 
 Thus Possible sometimes denotes the Power or Liberty we have to do a 
 thing, as Impossible does the want of it, and sometimes only the contin- 
 gency, or our knowledge or ignorance of an event,. without the least refer- 
 ence to the powers producing it. There may be different degrees of 
 possibility in what manner I shall spend my afternoon, according as people 
 know more or less of my character, disposition, or ways of employing my 
 time ; but my power and my liberty must be the same, whatever other folks 
 may think of me, or though there should be a hundred different opinions 
 or degrees of knowledge about me. If I am under engagement to go with 
 another whither he wants me, and somebody asks which way I am bound, 
 I may say, it is possible to the Exchange, or it is possible to St. James's ; 
 but this leaves me no more at liberty than if it were absolutely impossible 
 that one of them should not be the place. Or if I want to speak with a 
 person whom I know not readily where he is, but am so sure of finding 
 him, that I say it is impossible but I must see him ; this does not abridge 
 or any ways alter the liberty I should have to pursue or forbear my 
 inquiries, were it possible my endeavours might prove ineffectual. 
 
 It avails nothing to tell us, that our knowledge at best can amount only 
 to the highest probability of conjecture ; for our business now lies with the 
 propriety of language, and natural import of those expressions, wherein we 
 use the words Possible or Impossible. Whatever refined notions we may 
 have in our closets, we leave them behind, and take up common concep- 
 tions when we go abroad upon our common transactions : be our clearest 
 knowledge ever so conjectural, we esteem it certain upon these occasions. 
 Which of us in setting out upon a visit, a diversion, or an affair of business, 
 apprehends a possibility of not arriving at the place of his destination : yet
 
 568 FREEWILL. 
 
 at the same time does not apprehend himself at liberty to alter his course 
 in any part of his progress ? but if the impossibility of an event failing, 
 implied necessity in the agent, the idea of such impossibility, however 
 erroneous, yet while entertained, must banish the idea of freedom ; but 
 whether it does so, I appeal to the judgment and hourly experience of all 
 mankind. And if our Antagonists have found a new sense in the word 
 Impossible, unknown to the rest of the world, they will do well to explain 
 their idea in a manner enabling us to understand their peculiar meaning. 
 
 To consider the other words of the like import, we say it may rain, or be 
 fair to-morrow ; and when we say this, we think nothing of any choice in 
 the clouds or the air to produce either weather, as the word naturally 
 implies ; for what we may do lies in our option to do, or to forbear. And 
 it is one thing when speaking of a prisoner for debt, for whom we have 
 just procured a release, we say, Now he may go home to his family ; and 
 quite another, when speaking of a person gone out upon a tour of diversion, 
 \ve say, He may come home to-day : in one case, May expresses the liberty 
 he has to do as he likes : in the other, it denotes only the chance there is 
 in what manner he will use his liberty ; for though I should know the 
 released debtor would not go home, still I shall think he may if he will ; 
 but if I know the traveller's intention to stay out longer, I shall not think 
 it possible he may come home to-day. 
 
 Nor shall we scruple to use the word Can upon this occasion ; for if we 
 judge it not possible that he may come, it is the same thing as believing it 
 certain that he cannot come, yet without idea of any imbecility or restraint 
 to prevent him. 
 
 So likewise Must and Necessary, considered by themselves, imply a 
 force compelling to one particular action, or an insurmountable bar against 
 all others : if I must attend upon a trial, I am not at liberty to stay away ; 
 if my health renders exercise necessary, I must go abroad some how 01 
 other, and in that case am necessitated to walk when debarred the use of 
 all conveyances. But suppose a friend has some business with me, which 
 requires no sort of haste, but I know he loves to take the first convenient 
 opportunity for dispatching whatever he has to do : upon being asked when 
 I expect to see him, I may say, perhaps, not to-day, nor to-morrow, nor all 
 this week ; but I think he must necessarily come before the month is out. 
 
 Nor do we scruple applying the same terms to things inanimate, which 
 though really necessary agents we generally conceive and speak of as 
 having powers and liberty. Water compressed in a fire engine must 
 necessarily rush through the spout, being forced to mount upwards against 
 its nature, and because it can find none other vent. But if a careless 
 servant does not mind to thrust the spigot fast into the barrel, the beer 
 must necessarily run all away : in using this expression, we think nothing 
 of the force of gravitation impelling bodies downwards, but only the cer- 
 tainty of the mischief ensuing which we apprehend : for that the liquor 
 being left to its liberty will follow the natural propensity it has to descend, 
 and will exert a power to drive away the loose spigot obstructing its 
 passage. 
 
 31. Anybody with a little attention, may recollect a thousand instances 
 wherein the impossibility ofan event not coming to pass, implies nomore 
 than a denial of all hazard that it may not come to pass ; which is neither 
 an affirmation nor denial of power or freedom in the causes bringing it forth 
 to produce the contrary. Therefore in cases where we need not, or lie under 
 no necessity of doing a thing, where we can, aud:may, and it is easily pos-
 
 FREEWILL. 569 
 
 sible for us to act differently ; yet we may be so sure of our measures as that 
 they must necessarily take effect, that they cannot, there is an impossibility 
 they should fail of succeeding, or we should omit to employ them ; which 
 latter impossibility is a foundation strong enough to support the highest 
 degree of Foreknowledge, and consequently Foreknowledge may well be 
 absolute without putting a force upon us, or cramping us the least in our 
 liberty. 
 
 Thus have I endeavoured to rescue mankind from slavery, from the dread 
 of force, restraint, and control, hanging continually over them, not like 
 Epicurus by pulling Providence from her throne, and setting up the Anarchy 
 of Chance in her stead ; but by showing the consistency of her governmenl 
 with the free use of those powers allotted us, and proving human liberty 
 one of the ministers to execute her purposes. 
 
 If the foregoing Observations upon this dark and intricate subject shall 
 render it intelligible to others, and shall have the same weight upon them 
 as they seem to me to deserve : then in those seasons wherein, as I may 
 say, God gives them a holyday to follow their own inclinations, they will 
 move briskly and cheerfully, without thought- of any other restraint than, 
 what I hope they will never wish to throw aside, Innocence and Propriety ; 
 and when he calls them to his services, if they do but manage to bring 
 their minds into a proper disposition, they will find the performance of them 
 a state of perfect Freedom. 
 
 32. Nevertheless, we have not done with our Disputants yet, for if we 
 can defend our Liberty against infringement by universal Providence and 
 absolute Foreknowledge, they change their attack upon another quarter, 
 namely, the justice of Reward and Punishment in the situation of mankind 
 we have represented : for, say they, if the Will of God be fulfilled on earth 
 as well as in heaven, who hath ever resisted his Will ? why then doth he 
 punish ? As to Reward, they find no fault with that being conferred upon 
 them unmerited, so the only difficulty remains with respect to punishment ; 
 and in order to answer their question, let us examine what is the proper 
 and natural foundation of Punishment. 
 
 Men are apt enough to inflict it for injuries received, with none other 
 view than to wreak their resentment ; and the Righteous, when having most 
 completely mastered their passions, still feel an abhorrence rise in their 
 breasts against enormous crimes, although no ways affecting themselves, 
 nor capable of hurting them. What, then, is this Resentment and this 
 Abhorrence innate ? Suppose they were, yet we cannot ascribe our pas- 
 sions and aversions to the Almighty, or imagine him punishing in order to 
 remove a loathsome object from his sight which it gives him pain to behold. 
 But Mr. Locke has long since exploded the doctrine of innate ideas, and if 
 the idea of Injury was acquired, those of Resentment and Abhorrence, being 
 its offspring, must be younger. 
 
 In our chapter on the Passions we have traced Anger to its origin, and 
 found it derived from Expedience ; for children having often relieved 
 themselves from whatever oppressed them by a violent exertion of their 
 power against the cause of it, contract a habit of violence, and practise it 
 afterwards without view to the consequences ; satisfaction being translated 
 from the end to the. means. 
 
 The abhorrence of villany, as well when proposed to ourselves, as prac- 
 tised by others, is one of the moral senses, which we have shown in the 
 proper place, issue from the same fountain ; they may indeed be conveyed 
 to particular persons by education, by precept, by example, and sympathy ;
 
 570 FREEWILL. 
 
 but whoever acquired them first, learned them by ooscrvation of their ne- 
 cessary tendency to good order and happiness, and by experience of the 
 mischiefs resulting from those practices they would restrain. The frequent 
 view of these good effects casts a value upon the sentiments producing them, 
 and the translation being once completely made, desire fixes upon them as 
 upon its ultimate object. 
 
 We find judgment does the same with respect to truth translated from 
 the Postulata to the Problem demonstrated : the equality between the 
 squares of the two sides and hypotenuse in a rectangular triangle, serves 
 for a basis in mathematical and mechanical operations without our running 
 back perpetually through the whole process whereby Euclid convinced us of 
 its being a truth. In like manner when our moral senses are grown vigor- 
 ous, we follow their impulse without thinking of any higher principle first 
 recommending them, and many of us without acknowledging any such prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 Now I would not by any means lessen their influence, I rather wish it 
 were stronger than it is, for we very seldom stand in a situation to discern 
 the expedience of our actions, nor, where it lies anything remote, have we 
 strength of mind enough to pursue it ; but these moral senses serve as ex- 
 cellent guides to direct, and spurs to stimulate us towards the attainment 
 of happiness that would otherwise escape us. Nevertheless it must be 
 owned they partake of the nature of passion, having the like qualities, the 
 like vehemence and manner of operation, and may be styled virtuous ap- 
 petites, as being the produce of reason and industry rather than of nature. 
 They are to be ranked among the Scyons which Plato told us Urania grafted 
 upon the wild stocks in Psyche's garden ; and which his master afterwards 
 put us in mind were apt to run luxuriant, unless kept within bounds by a 
 proper tendance. 
 
 Therefore it is one thing to consult our rules of action for shaping our 
 conduct thereby, and another to examine the rules themselves for determin- 
 ing in what manner we shall establish, or rectify them. For a military dis- 
 cipline consists in the strict subordination of the soldiers to the officers, and 
 the officers to the general ; so the little state of man is never so well dis- 
 ciplined as when the moral senses have the entire command of our motions, 
 but lie themselves under control of sober consideration and sound judg- 
 ment. While in the hurry of action, we have not leisure to consult the 
 general, but must push bravely on whither our immediate officers lead us ; 
 nor indeed is consultation the business then, but intrepidity, vigour, and 
 alertness. Therefore the virtuous man acts because it is right and just, 
 becoming and laudable, and forbears what appears wrong and base, un- 
 worthy and shocking to his thought; he follows the motions of zeal, 
 honour, shame, decency, natural affection, civility, as he feels them rise in 
 his breast ; or if doubts arise he tries the moral senses by one another, and 
 adheres to that which carries the strongest lustre, and highest excellency 
 in his imagination, without considering further why he suffers himself to 
 be guided by their influence, or whence it was derived. For the greatest 
 part of mankind know not a why nor a whence, but take up their principles 
 partly from their parents and tutors, partly from custom and general esti- 
 mation ; and those who do investigate them to the fountain, cannot carry 
 their investigations in their head upon common occasions. 
 
 But in seasons of deliberation, when admitted into the general's tent, 
 having the instructions and intelligences laid before us, and sitting in coun- 
 cil upon the operations of the campaign, it would be absurd to take an ofli-
 
 FREEWILL. 571 
 
 cer s own testimonial of his merit, or give him his orders because they are 
 such as lie is most fond of executing ; we are only to regard the public ser- 
 vice, what are each man's abilities, and how he may best conduct himself 
 to promote it. So if we have sufficient lights and opportunity to take our 
 moral senses under examination, in order to moderate what extravagancies 
 they may have run into, or determine the rank among them in the com- 
 mand of our powers : it would be no less preposterous to try their rectitude 
 by what themselves suggest to be right, or to settle their degrees of autho- 
 rity upon any other foundation than their several tendencies towards the 
 general happiness, wherein we shall always find our own contained. 
 
 33. Now in matters of punishment, when we have it in our power, let 
 us regard the heinousness of the offence, together with all circumstances 
 that may aggravate or abate our abhorrence of it as beheld by our moral 
 sense ; but when we are to examine the foundation we have for entertain- 
 ing this abhorrence, we shall find none other than the expedience and neces- 
 sity of punishment to preserve order, and good faith, and honesty among 
 mankind. Even those who take private revenge, when called upon to jus- 
 tify their conduct, always plead that otherwise they should lie open to per- 
 petual insults ; which shows that the only reasonable excuse for resentment 
 is not strictly the injury received, bat the prevention of injuries for the 
 future. Therefore reason, as well as authority, enjoins us to forgive our 
 brother not only seven times, but until seventy times seven, unless where 
 animadversion is necessary either for our own quiet and benefit, or that of 
 others. 
 
 And there is a species of punishment called chastisement, which has none 
 other object beside the benefit of the party upon whom it is exercised. 
 Parents and schoolmasters may not be displeased at unlucky tricks played 
 by their lads, as showing a sagacity and sprightliness they delight to be- 
 hold ; yet they will not suffer them to pass with impunity, lest it should 
 generate idleness and other mischiefs ; here is no abhorrence striking the 
 moral sense, nor are the boys disliked the worse for their sallies of youth 
 and ingenuity ill applied ; so the chastisement is not for miscarriages com- 
 mitted, but for future enormities which might be committed. 
 
 It is true the judge passes sentence upon criminals, by stated rules, be- 
 cause he is no more than a minister to speak the sense of the law ; but the 
 legislature in establishing the law regards none other rules than those respect- 
 ing the public utility ; therefore equal punishments are appointed for offences 
 of unequal enormity. For the law hangs for stealing the value of five shil- 
 lings, but does no more for murder ; and some go wholly unpunished, such 
 as- ingratitude, intemperance, entailing diseases or poverty upon families by 
 gallantries or extravagance, because they cannot be inquired into without 
 causing confusion and worse inconveniences. On the other hand, when the 
 title to a throne is so disputable that many honest well-disposed persons 
 are drawn by mere error of judgment to take part on the unfortunate side ; 
 they are adjudged and executed as rebels, because it is necessary to main- 
 tain the authority of government, and tranquillity of the state. 
 
 34. Should it be objected, that this proves the contrary to what we have 
 laid down, because the law, whose basis is utility, does not govern us in 
 our estimation of Demerit ; for we compassionate instead of detesting the 
 deluded malcontent, while we acknowledge the expedience and necessity 
 of the law which condemns him, and think the abandoned debauchee de- 
 serving of punishment which the law cannot provide for him ; therefore we 
 build our judgment upon other grounds than those of utility. I shall uuswer,
 
 572 FREEWILL. 
 
 that as the law is not the sole measure of justice, so neither is it the sole 
 fountain of utility : for be the polity of a nation ever so well regulated, 
 or ever so wisely administered, the people must still do something for 
 themselves in order to complete their happiness ; and Providence has 
 reserved to his own management the putting a check upon some enormities 
 which the law cannot reach, nor human sagacity discover or prevent. 
 
 Therefore that utility which the provisions of the law cannot totally 
 compass, may still remain for the foundation of private animadversion and 
 censure : nor is it a small argument of its being so, that we naturally 
 look upon the greatness of mischief done as an aggravation of guilt in the 
 perpetrator. If an unwholesome potion be given to make a man sick for 
 a week, it is an injury ; if it bring on an incurable disease, it is a more 
 heinous offence ; if death ensue, it is a crying sin of murder. 
 
 Well, but you say the mischief must be designed, or there will be no 
 crime at all : the greater degree of mischief is only an evidence of deeper 
 blackness in the design : so that properly speaking it is not the damage 
 done, but depravity of heart in the doer, which raises your abhorrence and 
 wishes for vengeance ; for when assured of the design, you pronounce the 
 guilt the same, feel the same abhorrence and wish, although its purpose be 
 utterly frustrated, and no damage at all ensue. 
 
 Why-this is the very thing I have been contending for all along, that 
 the true ground of punishment is not the mischief done, or the crime com- 
 mitted, but the prevention of future enormities, productive of future mis- 
 chiefs, and this object I think may fairly rank under the class of utility. 
 
 We have found in the former part of this work, that the volitions giving 
 birth to our actions depend upon the .present motives occurring to our 
 thought, which are either what our judgment represents as most expedient 
 or our imagination as most alluring and desirable ; and these motives are 
 suggested by the opinions, the sentiments, the inclinations and habits we 
 have contracted : when desire fixes upon practices of pernicious tendency, 
 this is called a Depravity of mind, or vulgarly, though improperly, a De- 
 pravity of Will, by a metonyme of cause for effect, because the state of 
 the mind, and desires in the heart, influence the Will, and of course pro- 
 duce actions conformable thereto ; for a good tree cannot bring forth evil 
 fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 
 
 Therefore this depravity of heart being productive of bad effects, when- 
 ever the season and opportunity serves to bring them to maturity, becomes 
 justly odious upon account of the poisonous fruits it bears. But as punish- 
 ment, animadversion, and censure, being grievous to the party suffering 
 them, tend to dissociate desire from the sentiments whereto they are 
 annexed, and work amendment, or in other words, to give men a disgust 
 for the vices rendering them obnoxious thereto : or at least to restrain them 
 from breaking forth into act, and discourage others from entertaining the 
 like ; it is this use which renders the punishment merited and just : for I 
 appeal to any considerate person, whether he would punish, or ascribe to 
 a depravity of heart, any action or sentiment whatever, which could never 
 do the least hurt either to the owner, or any person in the world beside. 
 
 35. For this reason freedom of action, and so much understanding as 
 may make the party sensible for what the punishment was inflicted, are 
 always esteemed necessary requisites to render him obnoxious thereto ; be- 
 cause punishment operating upon the imagination, and through that upon 
 the Will, where either of these two channels are wanting, becomes useless, 
 and consequently unjust. Therefore sly revenges which may be mistaken for
 
 FREEWILL. 573" 
 
 accidents, and nobody can know they were the effect of resentment, though 
 sometimes practised by spiteful persons, have never been holden warrant- 
 able by the judicious : nor will a righteous man punish where the trans- 
 gressor had not liberty of choice, nor where the reason of his punishing 
 cannot be understood. 
 
 If a brick tumbles down upon you, it would be ridiculous to fall a' whip- 
 pin r , or breaking it, because such discipline could contribute nothing to- 
 wards preventing other bricks afterwards from tumbling upon your own or 
 somebody else's head ; but had our treatment with brickbats any influence 
 upon their future motions, we should form rules of justice for our dealings 
 with them as well as with one another. When the puppy dog fouls your 
 parlour, you beat him for it ; but then you rub his nose in the filth to make 
 him sensible why he is beaten ; and you think this severity justifiable, with- 
 out discerning any depravity of heart in the beast, only because it secures 
 your rooms against the like disaster for the future : but if he has stolen a 
 woodcock from the larder, and you do not discover the theft till next morn- 
 ing, when your correction can do no good, it would be cruelty to chastise 
 him. 
 
 Mischiefs done by mere accident are judged pardonable : but why ? be- 
 cause punishment has no influence upon accidents : for in some cases where 
 better care may prevent them, we do not scruple to animadvert in order to 
 spur men to greater vigilance : the statute of Anne lays a heavy penalty 
 upon servants setting a house on fire undesignedly ; nor did I ever hear that 
 statute complained of as contrary to natural justice. 
 
 Why are military punishments severer than all others ? Is there greater 
 depravity in disobedience to an officer, than to a civil magistrate, a parent, 
 or a master ? Not so, but because the service requires a stricter discipline 
 and a more implicit obedience. Nor can you pretend the soldiers consent 
 upon enlisting, for many of them are inveigled to enlist by drink, or by the 
 bounty-money, without knowing what they undertake, or considering the 
 rules they submit to : besides that you subject the impressed man to the 
 same severities with the volunteer. 
 
 Why is the law of fashion so strict upon little matters that a man would 
 make himself more ignominious by wearing his wig the wrong side out- 
 wards, than by corresponding with the Pope, or the Pretender ? unless be- 
 cause censure, exclamation, and ridicule, being the only penalties you have 
 to enforce it, you must lay them on the more lustily to keep the thought- 
 less world to decency in matters wherein they have none other restraint 
 upon them. 
 
 Thus whatever species of punishment we fix our eye upon, we shall al- 
 ways find it deducible from utility ; but the deduction is too long to carry 
 constantly in our heads, nor can every head trace it out ; neither do we 
 upon all occasion stand in a situation to discern the consequences of our 
 punishing, or sparing : therefore the judicious, from their observation of 
 those causes, so far as they can investigate them, strike out rules of justice, 
 and distinguish degrees of wickedness, which they hang up in public as 
 marks, or erect as posts of direction, to guide our steps in the journey 
 of life ; and inculcate a moral sense or abhorrence of evil, to serve as a 
 guard to protect us against inordinate desires that might tempt us to in- 
 justice, and as a measure to apportion our resentment against the heinous- 
 ness of an offence, or depravity of an offender. 
 
 Such of us as are well disciplined look up to these marks continually, and 
 shape their steps accordingly, both with respect to what they shall avoid
 
 574 FREEWILL. 
 
 themselves, and what notice they shall take of the proceedings and senti- 
 ments of their fellow-travellers^ without thinking of anything further ; and 
 much the greater part of us without knowing of anything further to be 
 thought of : when these latter get a smattering of philosophy, you hear 
 them declaim incessantly upon the essential and unalterable rules of right 
 and wrong, independent on God himself, having a nature he did not give 
 them, and being an obligation upon him that he must not break through. 
 
 36. But the all-seeing eye of God stretches wide and far, beholds all na- 
 ture and all futurity in one unbounded prospect : therefore needs no marks 
 nor rules to direct his measures, nor moral senses to protect against temp- 
 tations which cannot approach him : for in every application of second causes 
 he bears his ultimate end constantly in view, and pursues it unnerringly 
 and invariably. What this end may be, perhaps it were in vain for us to 
 inquire, but the utmost point beyond which we can conceive nothing fur- 
 ther, is the good and happiness of his creatures : this then we must regard 
 as the centre wherein all his dispensations terminate, and by the tendency 
 whereto he regulates his measures of justice. 
 
 Now Punishment must be acknowledged an evil to the sufferer while 
 under the lash of it, therefore unless we will suppose the fountain of Good- 
 ness sometimes to terminate his views upon evil, we must allow that he never 
 punishes, unless from some greater benefit to redound therefrom, either to 
 the offender or some other part of the creation. What other benefits may 
 arise therefrom we know not, but we know its tendency to check or cure a 
 depravity of heart where it is, to discourage the contracting of it where it 
 is not, and consequently to prevent the mischievous fruits growing from 
 that evil root. 
 
 Therefore as men are constituted, this remedy is necessary to restrain 
 enormities from abounding among them, unless you will suppose a miracu- 
 lous interposition, which is not the usual method of providence ; and it is 
 this necessity which justifies the punishment, and ascertains the measure of 
 it. If we go on to inquire further, why men are so constituted, this will 
 involve us in another question, which never was, and perhaps never will be 
 determined by the sons of Adam, namely, why pain, distress, affliction, and 
 uneasiness of all kinds, were permitted at all in the world ; for moral evil 
 were no evil if there were no natural ; because how could I do wrong, if 
 no hurt or damage could ensue therefrom to anybody ? and is no greater 
 than the mischiefs whereof it may be productive. Therefore it is natural 
 evil which creates the difficulty, and the quantity of this evil is the same from 
 whatever causes arising. " Think ye those eighteen, upon whom the 
 tower of Siloam fell, were sinners above all other inhabitants of Jerusalem ?" 
 We are told, nay : yet the pain, the loss of life, and other damages they 
 sustained, were the same in quantity as if they had brought down the ruin 
 upon their own heads for their misconduct. 
 
 Let any man explain to me clearly how the permission of mischievous 
 accidents is consistent with our ideas of infinite goodness, and I will under- 
 take to show him by the lights he shall afford me, how the permission of 
 moral evil is likewise consistent. The only solution of this difficulty I appre- 
 hend must be taken from the imperfection of our understanding, for we have 
 observed in a former place, that infinite Goodness and infinite Power, con- 
 sidered in the abstract, seem incompatible ; which shows there is something 
 wrong in our conceptions, and that we are not competent judges of what 
 belongs, and what is repugnant to goodness. But God knows though we do 
 not, and is good and righteous in all his ways ; therefore whatever method
 
 FREEWILL. 575. 
 
 he pursues is an evidence of its rectitude beyond all other evidences that 
 can offer to us for the contrary. 
 
 37. Justice regards solely the degree of depravity existent, nor has any 
 concern with the manner how it came to exist : a man bribed with a large 
 sum of money is not excused by the guilt of the employer, although perhaps 
 he would never have thought of committing the crime without that temp- 
 tation ; and if evil communication corrupts good manners, the corruption 
 coming through this channel does not exempt it from censure. The per- 
 petration indeed of villanies, without any instigation or inducement, ag- 
 gravates their heinousness, because it indicates a greater depravity of heart; 
 but the degree of depravity once ascertained, always sets the measure to 
 the detestation and the demerit of the offender, without inquiring into 
 the source from whence it was derived ; and we shall find it so in whatever 
 case we consider maturely and candidly. 
 
 Suppose you and I delegated by Heaven to govern some little district, 
 with absolute power of life and death over the inhabitants, with perfect 
 knowledge of the secrets of their hearts, and were sitting in council toge- 
 ther upon the measures of executing our commission, which we were re- 
 solved to do with exact justice and integrity. Suppose further, what has 
 been shown not to be the real fact, but in order to make our case the 
 stronger for our present puqiose, let us suppose that men had been hitherto 
 utterly destitute of Freewill, but guided in all their motions by an external 
 influence ; and their sentiments and dispositions thrown upon them, with- 
 out their own act, by the impulse of necessary causes ; but at the moment 
 when we entered upon our office, this influence and impulse were taken off, 
 and they were put into the condition of common men, whom we have con- 
 versed with in the world : how should we proceed to manage with them ? 
 
 In the first place, it may be presumed we should agree upon a general 
 amnesty for the past, in consideration of the force they had lain under ; and 
 in the next we should contrive measures for their future well-being, and 
 finding them in possession of powers of action, together with liberty to use 
 them, we should study to turn their Freewill into courses most advantageous 
 to the community. If we saw vices and malignity among them, we might 
 probably feel an abhorrence and detestation thereof, for I do not suppose 
 ourselves divested of the moral senses we had acquired before ; but this sen- 
 timent would be like that aversion we have to spiders, toads, and adders, 
 who did not make themselves what they are, but received their venom and 
 ugliness from the hand of nature ; yet I hope we should be too equitable to 
 punish any man merely because we did not like his looks, unless where those 
 looks manifested a badness of heart, productive of mischief to himself or his 
 neighbours, and then we should apply such punishments, notes of infamy, 
 or censures, as we judged most proper for preventing his ill qualities from 
 breaking forth into act, or spreading the contagion elsewhere ; thinking our 
 proceedings justifiable by their experience, and regulating the measure of 
 our punishments by their several aptness to answer the purpose intended. 
 
 38. If then we find that human reason, when acting most conformably to 
 our ideas of prudence and equity, would restrain depravity, from whatever 
 sources arising, by adequate punishments, why should we arraign the justice 
 of God for proceeding in the like manner ? For he beholds the works of 
 his hands, and discerns whereof they are made, nor is he unacquainted with 
 the operations and uses of second causes. He has made moral evil the 
 general, and, as some believe, the sole fountain of natural : He has given 
 man freedom to choose between good and evil : He knows that vices will
 
 576 . FREEWILL. 
 
 abound among them, which will influence them to use their freedom to per- 
 nicious purposes, and has appointed punishment as one of the springs to 
 operate upon the human mind for restraining the growth of wickedness, and 
 preventing its bad effects. Can we then doubt that he will employ all the 
 springs of action in those uses, and upon those occasions, wherein he in his 
 wisdom judges them respectively proper ? or what rule of justice does he 
 violate by so doing ? 
 
 Why he permitted moral evil, is a consideration quite foreign to the pre- 
 sent subject, and can only produce that entanglement naturally consequent 
 upon blending discussions of different natures together : for whether we can 
 reconcile that permission with our ideas, or no, still evil being once per- 
 mitted, becomes a foundation for justice to ward off the bad effects that 
 might ensue from it : for -justice cannot stand at variance with goodness, 
 nor can one ever forbid what the other recommends. 
 
 As the judge passes sentence upon the house-breaker and the assassin, 
 not in animosity to them, but in regard to the honest man, that he may 
 sleep quietly in his bed, and go about his lawful occasions without hazard 
 of his life: so God punishes the wicked not in wrath and detestation, but in 
 mercy and loving-kindness, many times to the delinquent himself, but al- 
 ways either to him or his fellow-creatures. 
 
 Therefore to the question, Who hath ever resisted his Will ? Why then 
 doth he punish ? It may be answered, To secure the further accomplish- 
 ment of his Will, and to effect his gracious purposes towards those whom 
 he intended to preserve from the like wickedness or the pernicious conse- 
 quences springing therefrom : views wherein we cannot find the least tinc- 
 ture of injustice or arbitrary proceeding. 
 
 39. But it is not enough to justify the ways of God, unless we endeavour 
 likewise to obviate the perverse consequences men sometimes draw from the 
 Will of God being constantly fulfilled. For, say they, if that will always 
 take place, then we have no Will of our own, being pinned down to one 
 particular manner of proceeding, which it is his Will should be taken. 
 
 But if human action were necessary, as indeed it is not, we have seen 
 that would not excuse iniquity from punishment, as being an application of 
 the proper cause for preventing the growth and mischiefs of it : and this 
 persuasion sufficiently inculcated, would necessarily, if the operation of 
 motives be necessary, drive them into a course of thinking and acting pro- 
 ductive of happiness ; and if they attain the possession of this treasure, it is 
 not much matter whether they apprehend themselves procuring it by ne- 
 cessary or voluntary agency : therefore they will do well to contemplate the 
 penalties annexed to evil-doing ; for it will do them good one way or other, 
 if not as exhortation to work upon a free agent, at least as a salutary me- 
 dicine to rectify the disorders in their machine. 
 
 But an event being agreeable to the Will of another, does not always 
 hinder it from being the choice of our own Will too : what I do by the 
 command of a superior, while I pay him a cheerful and ready obedience, is 
 done by the Will of both. It is lucky, you say, I stand so disposed, for I 
 must have done the thing had I been ever so desirous of the contrary ; so I 
 am in the condition of a man sitting in a room where the doors are locked 
 upon him without his perceiving it ; he is actually a prisoner, though he 
 does not feel his confinement, because he happens to choose the only thing 
 he has in his power, that is, to stay where he is. 
 
 But what if I do a good office for an acquaintance to whom I owe no ob- 
 ligation, nor have other inducement than good nature ? do not I gratify his
 
 FREEWILL. 577 
 
 Will and my own at the same time ? Or what if an artful politician, who 
 can see through and through me, leads me dexterously to co-operate with 
 his designs : although the issue should fall out beside or contrary to my in- 
 tention, still the steps I am made to take hy his management were the work 
 of my own Will. So when God puts in use the proper causes for producing 
 an event, we need not fear but he will adapt them so wisely as that they 
 shall not fail to accomplish his Will ; nevertheless, if among these causes 
 there be the motives fit to work upon a free agent, the act performed is as 
 completely the Will of that agent, as if his ideas had derived from any other 
 source, or been thrown up by the fortuitous declination of Epicurus' atoms. 
 
 The fallacy here lies in the same equivocation of language taken notice of 
 in the foregoing pages, to which I refer anybody who thinks it needful to 
 revise what has been already offered : for the Will of God must be fulfilled 
 in none other sense than what was absolutely foreknown, or contained in 
 the plan of Providence, must come to pass ; not by compulsion or neces- 
 sity, but by removal of all hazard to the contrary. 
 
 40. Another fond imagination may start up in men's heads from the 
 never-failing completion of the divine Will, as if it justified them in all the 
 follies they have been guilty of; for, say they, whatever we have done must 
 have been agreeable to the Will of God, because having taken effect ; for 
 nothing has fallen out that was not so ; therefore wherein have we done 
 amiss ? for who hath ever resisted his will ? And they put this question 
 by way of defiance, to give any other than one certain answer. 
 
 But they deceive themselves by their manner of wording the question ; 
 for had it been asked, who hath defeated his Will ? we could not have pro- 
 duced an instance, nor yet would it have served their purpose, nor furnished 
 an excuse for their misconduct, that we could not ; but who hath resisted 
 his Will ? is no such unanswerable question ; for the Will may be resisted 
 without success, and then come to pass notwithstanding ; or it may be mis- 
 understood, and in that case accomplished by the very endeavour to do 
 something contrary to it. 
 
 Suppose you lend money to a friend upon his note ; he being at a dis- 
 tance, and fully confiding in your honour, sends you a letter with the value 
 inclosed, only desiring you will burn the note, that your executors may not 
 find it to charge him with the debt ; but before you can fulfil his request, 
 somebody else finds the note, who, having a spite against you, throws it 
 into the fire with intention to disable you from recovering the sum con- 
 tained in it : here he acts in direct opposition to your Will ; his design is 
 nothing else than to cross and thwart you ; yet in so doing he does the 
 very thing you will should be done, and would have done yourself, if he 
 had not been beforehand with you. In like manner we may, and too fre- 
 quently do, resist the Will of God, but by that very resistance accomplish 
 it ; for we act in the dark, scarce ever knowing what is his real Will, or 
 that, its constant aim, the good of his creation, with the greatest part 
 whereof we have no visible connection, nor the least suspicion of what con- 
 cern their interests have with our proceedings. 
 
 We have often heard of a distinction between the secret and declared 
 Will ; the latter is so much as we can discover by the best use of our un- 
 derstanding, which being fallible, will sometimes discover to us what is not 
 the truth ; yet this is the guide God has given us for our direction, and 
 while we act conformably thereto, although the event by disappointing 
 our endeavours should prove the secret Will to have been otherwise, never- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 P
 
 578 FREEWILL. 
 
 theless our honest, though mistaken zeal for his service, will stand approved 
 in his sight, and engage his bountiful favour towards us. 
 
 Whereas on the other hand, if we perversely run counter to the admoni- 
 tions of this guide, it will avail us nothing that our being permitted to take 
 our course proves it agreeable to the secret Will ; for God does not punish 
 in anger, nor for having been disappointed of his purpose ; a cause of re- 
 sentment which can never befall him ; but with the view of a physician who 
 prescribes a smart operation necessary to cure a distemper that would de- 
 stroy the patient, or infect the neighbourhood. And if we regard our vicious 
 dispositions in this light, which is the true one, We must behold them with 
 the same aversion we should a loathsome disease, whether we apprehend it 
 brought upon us by our mismanagement, or inflicted by the hand of heaven ; 
 which aversion once become hearty and strong, may be trusted to take its 
 chance for the effect it will have upon our conduct. 
 
 41. For it is not so material to give a right judgment upon what is past 
 and cannot be undone, as to take right measures for the future. Therefore 
 lest any should encourage themselves in indolence, or wrong doing, under 
 pretence that since the Will of God is always punctually fulfilled, whatever 
 shall be done, good or bad, must be conformable to that Will, so they need 
 not scruple to take the courses they like, being sure to accomplish it at all 
 events ; let them consider, that since that Will shall take effect at all events, 
 they may as well accomplish it by doing right as wrong, being equally sure 
 either way, that what they shall do will be the thing that was to come to 
 pass : if then the Will of God be done in both cases, and they have their 
 choice in what manner they shall accomplish it, had they not better choose 
 the manner most advantageous to themselves, than one pernicious and de- 
 structive to them ? 
 
 For our business is to pursue our own truest interests ; we have nothing 
 to do with the secret Will ; that will work itself out without our solicitude 
 to complete it ; the end assigned us to work out, is none other than our 
 own happiness, to be pursued carefully and industriously, according to the 
 lights afforded us. 
 
 Good and evil lie before us ; we have powers of action, with liberty to 
 use them : if our powers at any time be limited, we have still some scope 
 to range in ; if our passions or evil habits abridge our liberty, still we may 
 strive and struggle against them : in all cases there is something or other 
 wherein we may exert our endeavours : let us then apply them where they 
 may turn most to our benefit ; but above all beware of reducing ourselves 
 to such a deplorable condition, as that even rnercy and loving kindness 
 must lay a heavy weight of punishment upon us in order to effect its gra- 
 cious purposes. 
 
 42. There is still another quarter of the wilderness we have not yet ex- 
 plored, where the giant Fate stalks along with irresistible strides, bearing 
 down the forest like tender blades of corn before him, forcing his passage 
 through ramparts and rocks : the textures of human contrivance are but as 
 the dewy cobwebs of autumn across his way : nor can Freewill find a place 
 for the sole of her foot among the heapy ruins wherewith he bestrews the 
 ground. 
 
 But before we enter into an examination of the courses of Fate, let us, 
 according to our usual custom, endeavour to understand what is properly 
 meant by the word. We find it often Confounded with Necessity, or the 
 impulsive operation of necessary causes : for the Stratonic and Democritic 
 Atheists understood it, when they ascribed all events to Fate, that is, to
 
 FREEWILL. 579 
 
 the actions of matter depending upon one another in a continued series 
 from all eternity : and Homer's Moira crataia, strong- handed Fate, has 
 been generally translated by the Latin poets, dura Necessitas, inflexible 
 Necessity. 
 
 But I conceive these two very different things in common understanding, 
 if we may reckon Necessity as here used a common idea, for I rather take 
 necessary agency to be terms belonging to the speculative vocabulary ; but 
 apprehend that operations whereto they may be applicable, cannot upon 
 that account be styled the Work of Fate, in propriety of language. The 
 circulation of sap in vegetables, the contraction and dilatation of their 
 fibres, the action of the sun, air, and mould, contributing to make them 
 yield their several fruits, are all necessary agencies : yet when a man plants 
 a peach-tree, can you properly say it is therefore fated that he shall gather 
 peaches and not plums or filberts therefrom ? or if he sows oats in his field, 
 does he think anything of a "fatality against his reaping wheat or barley ? 
 So neither if we knew a collection of atoms having motions among them 
 which must form a regular world, should we esteem everything fatal that 
 might be produced by them. 
 
 But Fate, derived from the Latin, Fari, signifying to speak, must 
 denote the word spoken by some intelligent Being, who has power to make 
 his words good : so that whatever he says shall be done, will infallibly come 
 to pass ; and does not at all relate to the causes or manner whereby it is 
 accomplished, unless those causes be made to act in consequence of the 
 word spoken. 
 
 As to the Parcse, supposed in heathen mythology to spin the thread of 
 life, and by their scissors to determine the period of it, I should understand 
 this thread only to express the series of events befalling every- man, not the 
 series of .causes operating to bring them forth. And the Pagans seem 
 unsettled in their notions concerning the author of Fate ; sometimes it is 
 their Jove who fixes it by his arbitrary decree, as in the ill successes of the 
 Grecian army ; sometimes he is only an executive power, subordinate to 
 the Parcae, compelled by their spinning to do or permit what he does not 
 like, as in the death of Sarpedon. 
 
 However, leaving them to their own imaginations, with us who acknow- 
 ledge one supreme Governor subordinate in nothing nor controllable by 
 any other Power, Fate, or Destiny, must be the same with the decree of 
 the Almighty ; nor can we doubt that whatever he has decreed will not 
 fail of coming to pass. 
 
 43. But this decree works no effect of itself, being no efficient cause; 
 for if you order your servant to do a thing, the business is done by the 
 efficacy of his action, not of your's ; a command given to a subordinate, 
 we shall acknowledge compulsive ; therefore if any man knows of a decree 
 issued from the Almighty concerning something he is to do, I shall never 
 advise him to strive against it, nor think himself at liberty to do the 
 contrary. 
 
 But it is not this kind of decrees that are supposed to generate Fatality, 
 which arises from those unknown to us, confining our actions to the course 
 suited for bringing forth the destined event : yet even in this case it is not 
 the word spoken and never heard by us, but something consequent upon it 
 that imposes the Fatality. We are told indeed, that God said, Let there 
 be Light, and there was Light ; yet we cannot imagine the Light sprung 
 forth without some exertion of Omnipotence to produce it : for when after- 
 
 2p2
 
 580 FREEWILL. 
 
 wards he said, Let ns make man after our own image, nevertheless 
 was not made until he moulded the dust of the earth into a human body, 
 and breathed thereinto the breath of life : therefore when we say God 
 created all things by his word, we do not understand that they produced 
 themselves out of nonentity, in obedience to the order given, nor that this 
 order was an efficient cause of their existence ; but intend only to express 
 the facility wherewith the divine operations are performed, similar to that 
 of a man in authority, causing what he pleased to be done upon the word 
 of command. 
 
 Very true, you say : nobody imagines the sound of words spoken can 
 work anything. But when God pronounces his decree, he accompanies it 
 with some act of power efficacious and irresistible to enforce the execution : 
 or he watches over the tendency of second causes, and turns them by his 
 secret influence to co-operate towards bringing forth the destined event : 
 in both cases he abridges human liberty ; for what is ordained must 
 inevitably come to pass ; nor can all the art or power of man turn it aside ; 
 for the Fatality hanging over us confines our choice to one certain train of 
 objects, or by privately counteracting us, baffles our utmost endeavours, 
 when turned the contrary way. 
 
 44. This seems to he the ordinary way of considering this matter, and 
 the concomitant exertion of power makes the difference between a decree 
 and a command, for both are supposed to proceed from the word cf God. 
 We are told, he said, Let there be Light, and there was light : we are 
 likewise told, that he said, Thou shalt not murder ; thou shalt not steal ; 
 thou shalt not commit adultery ; nevertheless men do still murder, and 
 steal, and commit adultery, notwithstanding the word spoken. So the 
 word of God operates nothing of itself when delivered as a command, nor 
 unless when delivered as a decree : because in the latter case only, it is 
 accompanied with an exertion of Omnipotence, or a determination to exert 
 it when occasion shall require. 
 
 But the idea of a determination, to use power whenever requisite for 
 accomplishing a decree, arises from our narrow conception of the proceed- 
 ings of God taken from our own manner of proceeding, as observed already 
 in 20, and the latter part of 29. For when we resolve upon the com- 
 passing of any distant purpose, we can scarce ever lay our measures so 
 surely but that they may fail of the issue intended; -so we are forced to 
 watch over and correct them from time to time as we shall find occasion ; 
 or accidents may intervene which will require our further endeavours to 
 prevent their defeating our design : or many times we know not what 
 measures are proper until we have seen the tendency of other causes, and 
 conduct of other persons any ways affecting the end we have in view ; and 
 then we must employ such power and skill as we are masters of, in order 
 to bring tlu'ngs into the train we would have them take. From this expe- 
 rience of ourselves, we are led to think the same of the Almighty, whom 
 we conceive as having destined certain particular events, but in general 
 left the powers of nature and free agents to take their own course, until 
 they chance to take a tendency contrary to his designs, and then he 
 controls and turns them by his secret influence, so as to make them co- 
 operate therewith. 
 
 Now a little reflection may show how injurious this notion is to the 
 wisdom and power of God, representing him as fixing indeed upon certain 
 purposes, but uncertain in what manner they shall be brought to pass until 
 the tendency his second causes shall happen to take points out the measures
 
 FREEWILL. 581 
 
 necessary for turning them into their destined course ; and thus giving 
 chance a share in the government of the world, liable indeed to his control, 
 but working of herself whenever he does not interfere, and even furnishing 
 employment for his wisdom and power, by the errors she commits. 
 
 45. But when we consider, that all events, as well those esteemed 
 fortuitous as others, must proceed from certain causes, which derived their 
 existence and efficacy mediately or immediately from the first ; and when 
 we contemplate his Omniscience, extending to everything that can be 
 supposed the object of knowledge, we shall find reason to convince us that 
 nothing comes to pass unless in consequence of some act of his ; and that 
 whenever he acts, he knows precisely what he does, together with the 
 remotest and minutest consequences to result from his doings. 
 
 For what bounds shall we set to his intelligence ? If our own lies 
 confined within a small compass, it is owing to the scantiness of our organs, 
 those necessary instruments of our perception. We have but two hands, 
 so can touch no more than they will reach to ; we have eyes only before 
 us, so can behold no further than half the circle surrounding us : the tablet 
 of -our memory, the chart of our imagination, the line of our reflection, 
 have their appointed measures, so we can recollect, or calculate, or contem- 
 plate, no more than the ideas they contain. 
 
 But God perceives not by organs, neither meditates by animal spirits, or 
 the little fibres of the brain, nor receives his notices by channels, whose 
 number or contents might be computed, so as to determine the precise quan- 
 tity they are capable of conveying. What then is there to set the limita- 
 tion to his knowledge ; or by what rule or measure can we ascertain the 
 bounds ? Can he comprehend a million of ideas and no more-? Does he 
 clearly discover all events to happen within the ensuing century, and no 
 longer ? Do the concerns of empires so occupy his thoughts that he has 
 none to spare for the peasant, the labourer, or the beggar ? Are the affairs 
 of men so burthensorae to his mind, that he has no room to think of the 
 mouse and the wren, the emmet and the mite, and the green myriads of 
 the peopled grass, the many-tribed weeds of the field, or the dancing 
 motes that glitter in the noontide beams ? 
 
 Since then we know of no boundaries to circumscribe the divine Omni- 
 science, but that it may extend to everything without overlooking anything, 
 and discern remotest consequences in their present causes, why should we 
 scruple to admit that he gave being to those causes with a view to their 
 consequences ? and on the formation of a world disposed his substances, 
 material and spiritual, with such properties, powers, situations, motions, 
 and ideas, as should produce the exact series of events he intended to 
 bring forth ? 
 
 In this ca?e there is no occasion nor room for controlling or altering the 
 operation of second causes, they being already adjusted to answer all the 
 purposes they were destined to complete. And if there be supernatural 
 interpositions (which I neither affirm nor deny) we cannot suppose them 
 made upon unforeseen emergencies to supply defects in the original con- 
 trivance ; but comprised therein, as being judged proper for manifestation 
 of the divine power and government to intelligent creatures, and worked 
 up into one uniform plan, together with the operations of secondary agents. 
 46. In this view of the economy of Providence, we see that any absolute 
 decree or secret fatality to enforce the execution of a design against the ten- 
 dency of second causes to turn it aside, must be superfluous, provision 
 being already made in perfect wisdom for every event, which is to take
 
 582 FREEWILL. 
 
 effect, by disposition of the causes proper to give it birth. Nor will any of 
 those causes deviate into another tendency than that they were calculated to 
 take. 
 
 Thus it appears that all things fall out according to the will and disposi- 
 tion of God, and conformably to the scheme of his Providence, working for 
 the most part, if not always, by the ministry of material or voluntary agents : 
 but the methods whereby this ministry is conducted are various. Some 
 parts of the plan are accomplished by the choice and industry of man, 
 instigated thereto by appetites, judgments, imaginations, desires, obliga- 
 tions, dangers, and other motives ; other parts are executed by the stated 
 laws of nature, such as the instinct of brutes, action of the elements, 
 powers of vegetation, qualities of soils, changes of seasons, and vicissitudes 
 of night and day ; and others brought about by the courses of fortune 
 dependent upon the situations of substances, and their mutual applications 
 upon one another, to us accidental and uninvestigable. 
 
 But what proceeds from the two first of these causes we do not usually 
 ascribe to the hand of Fate : for nobody looks upon it as a Fatality that last 
 winter is now succeeded by summer ; that the days are long, the air warm, 
 the corn and fruits begin to ripen, for all these are natural, nor could any- 
 body expect things should have fallen out otherwise. So neither do we 
 think a parent fated to put his son out to school, for it was his desire to 
 give him a good education, and his choice and judgment directed him to the 
 proper methods for effecting it. 
 
 Therefore the last class of causes only remains for the province of Fate, 
 to wit, such whose operations are fortuitous and unaccountable, that is be- 
 yond the reach of human foresight and sagacity to discover ; nevertheless 
 they must have some certain springs and issues, as well as the motions of 
 nature or actions of men. 
 
 47. Thus the same events lie under the disposal of Fate and of Fortune, 
 and both terms take their rise from our manner of conceiving things. 
 Chance is no agent nor power, but the creature only of imagination, deriv- 
 ing its birth from our ignorance ; for when we see causes at work, but know 
 not their tendency, we say it is chance what they will produce : therefore 
 that which is chance to one man may be none to another, who has better 
 information or more judgment to discern the train things are taking. 
 
 If a die were to be thrown, the cast would be produced by the motions 
 of the thrower's arm, the shape of the box, inequalities of the table, and 
 other imperceptible circumstances, of which we can make no estimate, there- 
 fore we deem it to lie under the power of Chance ; but were the cast to de- 
 termine between two malefactors which of them should suffer, we should 
 then think it a matter worthy referring to the Supreme Disposer of all 
 events, for the lot cometh from the Lord ; yet still being uncertain what 
 means he will employ, or what effect they will take, we attribute the deci- 
 sion to his Will or Decree, skipping over that undiscernible chain of causes 
 lying between his first appointment and those now in act. 
 
 Therefore Fate and Fortune seem for the most part to claim a concurrent 
 jurisdiction, many tracts lying within the province of both : and under this 
 apprehension we express ourselves upon common occasions ; for when we 
 hear of a man falling in battle, we say indifferently, it was his Fate, or 
 his Fortune to be slain ; and of a young person intended to be sent abroad, 
 but uncertain in what business, or what place he may find opportunities for 
 settling, we say, it is doubtful where his lot may fall, where fortune may 
 carry him, or his fate or destiny fix him.
 
 FREEWILL. 583 
 
 But to which of these powers we shall ascribe the influence, depends 
 upon the objects we take into contemplation : while we regard only the secret 
 springs and unforeseen incidents which may affect an event, we deem it in 
 the hand of Fortune : but when we lock on further to that intelligent Being, 
 who is the disposer of all events, we conceive that those springs will work, 
 and incidents fall out, according to his direction and decree. 
 
 Nevertheless it is obvious, as we observed before, that a decree will 
 work nothing without an application of power to enforce the execution of 
 it ; and when such application has been made by provision of the proper 
 means for bringing an event to pass, a decree or declaration of the purpose 
 intended becomes needless : for the requisite measures being once taken, 
 will have their effect, whether any word be spoken concerning them or no. 
 Therefore the issues of things proceed, and fortune derives her efficacy from 
 the provision, not the decree of the Almighty, from the work of his hand, 
 not the word of his mouth ; and this latter, if any such there were, added 
 nothing to the acts of Omnipotence, but must be delivered for some other 
 purpose than to insure the completion of his design. 
 
 48. Hence it appears, that in using the terms Fate, Decree, or Destiny, 
 we speak after the manner of men ; for it being customary with us, when- 
 ever we resolve upon some distant work, to declare our intentions to per- 
 sons under our influence, who may assist in completing it, and to fix a 
 determination in our minds which may render us vigorous, and keep us 
 watchful in the prosecution, we conceive of God as making the like de- 
 clared or mental determination with regard to every spot he comprises 
 within the plan of his Providence. 
 
 Then, again, being sensible this determination cannot operate upon the 
 courses of fortune as a command, yet that something must operate to put 
 them in motion ; and being unable to trace, or even to conceive, a chain of 
 causes extending from the first formation of the plan to all those multi- 
 farious events, which we cannot help acknowledging must come to pass by 
 the divine appointment ; we get an obscure idea cf an irresistible force, a 
 something we cannot explain nor account for its existence, which we call a 
 Fatality, which perpetually hangs over second causes, constraining their 
 motions, or like an adamantine wall, confining them within their appointed 
 course, from whence they would have a natural propensity to deviate. 
 Thus Fatality becomes disjoined from the decree, and loses the proper im- 
 port belonging to it by its derivation, being now no longer a fatum or word 
 spoken, but -one knows not well what ; an emanation from it, like light from 
 the sunbeams, a power without an agent to exert it ; for when God has 
 spoken his action ceases, and the Fatality is a consequence of what he 
 has said. 
 
 That this is the sense, if a sense it may be called, that men ordinarily 
 affix to the term, appears by the Atheists employing it, who acknowledge 
 no intelligent Being who might fari, that is, speak or issue a decree : for 
 being called upon to assign a cause for the laws and establishments of na- 
 ture, they ascribed them to a blind Fatality, working upon the mass of mat- 
 ter throughout the universe, and driving it into a regular form. But if we 
 regard etymology, a blind fatality is as absurd an expression as that of 
 a dumb decree, or an unintended design. The Epicureans alone discarded 
 Fate upon a most unphilosophical principle, that events may ensue, such as 
 the declinaton of atoms, without any prior cause whatever to produce them ; 
 but all who admitted an eternal First Cause, whether intelligent or nnsen- 
 tient, seem to have entertained a notion of Fatality.
 
 584 FREEWILL. 
 
 This confused and indeterminate notion opened the door to judicial 
 Astrology, for though the stars were supposed by their positions to affect 
 the lives of men, I never yet heard it attempted to be shown in what man- 
 ner, Or by what mediums they operated : but a conformity being once 
 fancied between the successes of human transactions and aspects of the hea- 
 venly bodies, it was a short way to talk of a Fatality, though nobody could 
 tell why, or how, or by what channels the connexion should be effected. 
 
 The like may be said of the Parcse, whose singing answers to the decree 
 uttered, and could have none other effect than to amuse themselves and 
 lighten their task ; but it was the thread they spun which determined the 
 duration and colour of men's lives beyond the power of Jove himself to 
 alter : yet we never hear of their having any communication with sub- 
 lunary affairs or acting as efficient causes upon any moving here ; neverthe- 
 less, upon their spinning, there instantly arose a sympathetic energy in the 
 causes at work upon earth, drawing them to produce an issue conformable 
 to what was spun. 
 
 49. We see from the foregoing observations, how the term Fate has 
 slidden off its original basis, being departed from its first signification, that 
 of a decree or resolve of the Almighty to a something generated thereby, 
 an undefinable influence, residing neither in body nor soul, nor substance, 
 but an abstract force or activity, hovering as it were in the air, and ope- 
 rating upon the causes of things as they severally begin to act. 
 
 Nor yet do men keep always steady to this idea of Fate in their common 
 conversation ; for we often hear them talk of the Fate of a convict criminal 
 lying in the hand of the Prince who has power to pardon or to order exe- 
 cution ; the lover waits for the decision of his mistress to fix his Fate ; the 
 poet talks of physicians issuing mandates in arrest of Fate, and an unex- 
 pected accident or arrival of a timely succour is thought sometimes to 
 change the Fate of a battle : whereas if we regard the genuine notion of 
 Fate, it was fixed long ago by the decree of Heaven ; nor is it in the power 
 of man, nor any natural agent, to determine, or stop, or change, or affect it 
 in any respect. 
 
 These variations of language do not disturb us in our ordinary discourses, 
 for the context or occasion introducing them moulds our words into the 
 shape that is proper ; but men of thought and abstraction, desirous of affix- 
 ing constantly the same ideas to their words, find themselves disappointed 
 when they light upon a term of vague and unstable signification : for as we 
 generally think in words, and their sense in the various phrases whereto we 
 join them is determined -oy custom ; we are led insensibly in the progress 
 of our reasonings to understand them differently, from whence great con- 
 fusion and perplexity must unavoidably ensue. 
 
 Therefore the science of language, and exact observation of ideas adher- 
 ing thereto, would help us greatly in our discoveries of nature ; for if men 
 could fix upon terms not liable to variation of sense or misapprehension, 
 their disputes would be shortened, and they might quickly arrive at so much 
 knowledge as is attainable by human understanding. We have found no 
 reason hitherto to disregard the admonitions of our present patroness, 
 Philology, they having been helpful to us upon several occasions ; and she 
 informs us, the word. Fate carries a very loose and indeterminate signi- 
 fication. 
 
 For this reason I wish it were quite expunged from the philosophical 
 vocabulary, and Providence substituted in its room, which I conceive would 
 render our thoughts dearer iand less intricate, and give them a freer pro-
 
 FREEWILL. 585 
 
 gress when turned upon the government of the world ; for the provisions 
 of heaven in the original disposition of adequate causes may answer all pur- 
 poses, as well those accomplished by natural as accidental means, or the 
 motions of free agency. 
 
 50. But men find a difficulty in conceiving of absolute dominion, without a 
 coercive authority or compulsion exercised upon the subjects under it ; 
 which makes us all so fond of power as a necessary means of bringing our 
 purposes to bear against the opposition of other agents which might attempt 
 to defeat them. Yet in many instances, as has been remarked in 19, we 
 ourselves can make provision for designs wherein other persons are to 
 concur, and guide their conduct, so far as we know what will move them, 
 and have the proper motives in our hands, without pretending to any 
 authority or compulsive power over them. And if there be always some 
 hazard of a disappointment, it is because we can never see thoroughly the 
 exact state of then" desires, nor what external accidents, such as weather, 
 disease, or the like, may disturb the success of our schemes : but were there 
 nothing extraneous to interfere, and had we a perfect knowledge of men's 
 minds, much more were their inclinations and judgments of our framing, 
 we should need no despotic jurisdiction nor controlling power to guide them 
 into what courses of behaviour we pleased. 
 
 Now there is nothing external to the work of God. The laws of. nature 
 bringing forth her various productions were of his establishment : the work- 
 ings of chance followed from some determinate causes, though to us un- 
 known ; these again from other prior, and so on in a continual channel 
 from the sources first opened by the exertion of his power ; for no event, 
 however casual, can happen without something occasioning it to fall out in 
 that manner : the actions of men proceed according to their apprehensions 
 and judgments thrown upon them by their constitution or temperament, by 
 education, by company and occurrences befalling them in life ; all which 
 were conveyed by nature or fortune, and therefore must be referred to the 
 origin from whence they derived. For every effect must be produced by the 
 action of some agent, material or spiritual, or the concurrence of several, 
 and must follow according to the manner of that action being exerted; 
 which manner was determined by some impulse or motive impressed from 
 elsewhere ; nor can we stop until we arrive at some act of Omnipotence. 
 
 Thus the face of things, as well in the moral as natural kingdoms, results 
 from the qualities, positions, and motions God gave to his substances at the 
 formation of a world. It remains only that we ask ourselves the question, 
 whether he extended his plan to a compass larger than he could compre- 
 hend himself, or gave birth to causes which might produce events unthought 
 of by him, or more numerous than he could grasp in his Omniscience ? If 
 we answer in the negative, we must needs acknowledge that provision was 
 made at the beginning for all that train of events, and accomplishment of 
 those purposes we have seen, or shall hereafter see effected. 
 
 But experience testifies, that this provision leaves many things in our 
 power, and circumscribes us in many other respects ; we lay schemes, and 
 take measures appearing certain to succeed, but find them fail in the issue, 
 and that by accidents we could not have expected, nor can account for their 
 happening ; our reason deserts us in time of need; we commit blunders, and 
 give into follies we could not have thought ourselves capable of : tempests, 
 earthquakes, famines, pestilences, and destructive diseases, arise from no 
 natural causes that we can discern ; and our experience of those things give 
 us the notion of Fatality. Therefore Fate, if we will needs employ the
 
 586 FREEWILL. 
 
 term in our speculations, is that part of the divine provision producing 
 events which would not have ensued by the known laws of nature, nor 
 operation of observable causes, nor contrivances of man, but are rather 
 contrary to his endeavours. 
 
 SI. Seneca, in Nat. Qusest. Lib. II. cap. 36, defines Fate the necessity 
 of all things and actions, which no force can break through, and he seems 
 herein to have given Fate the import belonging to it in common propriety 
 of language : for the courses of Fate are always deemed irresistible and un- 
 alterable ; nor do we apply the term unless to cases wherein the Will and 
 power of man has no concern. 
 
 Therefore when a person fails in a distemper, we say it was his fate to 
 die, because we suppose his wish and endeavours were bent upon prevent- 
 ing it : but if he escapes, we do not say he was fated to recover, but at 
 most that his fate was not yet come, that is, has not yet operated upon him ; 
 for this was the effect of the cares taken to save him. 
 
 If we happen to ruin a scheme we were extremely fond of accomplishing, 
 through some palpable misconduct of our own, we think ourselves under a 
 fatal infatuation, because everybody is conceived willing to employ his best 
 judgment for his own benefit ; from whence comes the observation, that 
 whom Jove would destroy, he first deprives of their understanding : but if 
 we chance to succeed beyond expectation by a more than ordinary dexterity 
 of management, we think nothing of Fatality, because the unusual clearness 
 of judgment and success consequent thereupon, were things agreeable to 
 our wish, and effects of bestirring ourselves in the exercise of our faculties. 
 
 So likewise a fatal accident is that which brings on an event we are ex- 
 tremely averse to : whereas a lucky incident is never termed fatal, because 
 tending to further our advancement towards something we desire. 
 
 But if Seneca was right in calling Fate a Necessity, which no force can 
 break through, we cannot think him so in the extent he has given to its 
 dominion, comprehending all things and all actions : for this swallows up 
 the whole province of Freewill, to which Fate and Necessity, in every 
 body's understanding, are counted diametrically opposite : for what is fated 
 to happen does not lie in my power to prevent, and what depends upon my 
 pleasure and option is yet undetermined by any Fatality. 
 
 Nor let it be thought we injure him, by taking his expression too strictly ; 
 for he goes on, in cap. 38, to particularize in matters belonging directly to 
 human management. If, says he, it be fated that such a young person shall 
 become eloquent, it is likewise fated that he shall study rhetoric ; if that he 
 shall grow rich, it is fated that he shall trade to foreign parts. In like 
 manner his brother Stoic, Chrysippus, insists, in Tully de Fato, cap. 13, 
 that when a sick man is fated to recover, it is confated that he shall send for 
 a physician ; to which it might be added, and that the doctor shall use his 
 best skill, and the apothecary dispense his recipes properly. 
 
 But any common eye may see, that these Fates do not carry such a ne- 
 cessity as the force of man cannot break through : for the scholar, if he 
 pleases, may neglect his studies, the young trader squander away his stock 
 in extravagancies and debaucheries, the sick person persist obstinately in 
 refusing help, the doctor destroy his patient, or the apothecary impose upon 
 both by neglecting to provide good drugs, or mixing up ingredients that will 
 do mischief. 
 
 What then ! are not eloquence, riches, and health, the blessings of 
 hcaVen ? are they not given to those whom God thinks proper, and with- 
 holden from whom he pleases ? Or can any, to whom he designs a favour,
 
 FREEWILL. 587 
 
 ever fail of receiving the effects of his bounty ? By no means ; nor does 
 this consequence follow from our rejection of Fatality : for though all things 
 are not fated, yet all things are wisely provided, so as to take the train re- 
 quisite for completing whatever events were contained within his plan. 
 Thus the orator and merchant were provided by education, example, and 
 other natural means, with a disposition for improving the talents and oppor- 
 tunities put into their hands ; the sick man is provided with sense to know 
 the value of life, and fondness for its preservation ; the medical assistants 
 with compassion to a fellow- creature in distress, with skill and diligence and 
 a desire to maintain their credit in their professions ; and these dispositions 
 will infallibly put them upon taking those measures voluntarily, which they 
 had full power and free liberty to have omitted. 
 
 Thus the Will of God is done without employing the compulsive force of 
 Fate, or rigid arm of Necessity. But the difficulties that have always per- 
 plexed the speculative upon this subject spring from their not observing the 
 double sense of the word possible, as it relates to power or to contingency, 
 remarked in the foregoing passages, 30, 31 ; for want of which they could 
 not conceive how anything could be left to the power and opinion of man, 
 without inferring a possibility that he might defeat the purposes of God. 
 But having well settled that distinction in our minds, and taking along with 
 us that the behaviour of men follows upon their apprehensions and senti- 
 ments, which result from the seen and unseen springs employed by God in 
 his administration of the moral world, we may easily comprehend how it 
 may be possible, that is, in the power of man, in many instances to frustrate 
 his designs ; nevertheless he may so perfectly know what will be the desires 
 and thoughts of their hearts, that there is no possibility, that is, no danger, 
 they should pursue any other than the particular tenor of conduct most con- 
 ducive thereto. 
 
 52. The essence of Fate lying in its unchangeableness and independence 
 on the turns of Freewill, the powers of different persons being various, and 
 coming or going according as opportunity changes, there is no paradox in 
 asserting, that the same event may be under the arbitrary disposal of one 
 man, which is fated and necessary to another, and may be matter of choice 
 to-day, which was esteemed the work of Fate yesterday, and may be so 
 again to-morrow. 
 
 Suppose you and I could give evidence against somebody of a capital 
 offence unknown to anybody else ; but there being some favourable circum- 
 stances in his case, we went into a room together to consult whether we 
 should make the discovery or no : this we should be apt to call sitting to fix 
 his Fate ; and anybody upon seeing us come out, and knowing what we had 
 been about, might properly ask, well, what is his Fate ? is he doomed to die ? 
 But though our decision be reckoned Fate, with respect to the culprit, as 
 being unalterable and inevitable by him, yet we should not esteem our- 
 selves under a Fatality or Necessity to prosecute, because it would still 
 remain in our power to do it or forbear. 
 
 Marriages are commonly said to be made in heaven : yet it is of the very 
 essence of marriage to have the free consent of the parties ; for the solem- 
 nization follows upon their Will and desire ; but the causes influencing their 
 choice were not of their own procurement, but extraneous and fortuitous 
 to them. A man determined to settle in the world, but unprovided of his 
 object, may think it in the hand of Fate or Fortune what qualified party he 
 shall meet with ; but when the acquaintance is made, the liking fixed, and 
 matters agreed on both sides, things proceed thenceforward under the di-
 
 588 FREEWILL. 
 
 rection of Choice and Freewill : then again, if afterwards she prove a shrew 
 he may chance to curse his stars for subjecting him to so cruel a Fate. 
 
 The fall of Troy was said to be written in the book of Fate before its 
 foundation ; yet the parties instrumental thereto, Paris and Helen, the 
 Grecian Princes, the council of Priam refusing restitution, acted by pas- 
 sion, contrivance, design, and deliberation, those springs of free agency : 
 and, during the siege, the poor Trojans used their utmost efforts to ward 
 off the stroke of Fate, which nevertheless fell inevitably upon them. 
 
 Thus when Fate has begun his course, it opens at intervals to let in Free- 
 will, who, having played her part, the stream closes again, and involves tM 
 before it in irresistible necessity. 
 
 From hence it appears, that, in disquisitions upon this subject, our busi- 
 ness is to inquire not so much into the nature of things, as the import of 
 expressions and state of ideas under contemplation ; and we shall often find 
 that the same event, according to the persons concerned in it, to the light 
 wherein we place it, or to our considering the whole or some part only of 
 the chain whereon it hangs, shall be either the work of Fate, the effect of 
 Chance, or the product of human Industry, Forethought, and Option. For 
 Fate and Necessity being always opposed to free Choice, maybe applicable 
 to an Event or not, according to whose choice, or what act of the Will you 
 refer it. 
 
 If I lie under the power of a superior in what manner to dispose of me, 
 the determination is Fate to me, though matter of choice and deliberation 
 to him. So I may esteem it in the hand of Fate to determine how I shall 
 dispose of myself seven years hence, if I cannot by any present act of mine 
 certainly direct my future resolves ; but when the time of action comes, I 
 shall then have it in my power and option which way to turn myself ; then 
 again, after I have executed my choice and fixed my situation, if I run back 
 through the whole chain of causes bringing me thereinto, the opportunities 
 enabling, and inducements prevailing on me to take the part I did, which 
 were not of my own procurement, I may be apt to call it the work of Fate. 
 
 No wonder then that so variable and slippery a turn should often present 
 us with double lights, bewildering the most cautious traveller, like an ignis 
 fatuus : wherefore, as I said before, it were better we could do entirely 
 without it ; for Providence seems a much clearer and steadier idea ; nor are 
 there the like difficulties in understanding how this, by the apt disposition 
 of causes suited to each respective purpose, may generate the laws of na- 
 ture, shape the windings of fortune, and produce the motives giving the 
 turn to human volition. 
 
 53. Let us now consider how far our conduct and condition in life may 
 be cramped and controlled by this universal provision. We find ourselves 
 circumscribed in our powers, our knowledge, and the scope allotted us to 
 exercise them. This nobody doubts. The severities of winter succeed 
 the conveniences of summer ; our weight binds us down to the earth, nor 
 can we soar aloft like the swallow. Tempests, diseases, and sinister acci- 
 dents, come upon us inevitably, and many things fall out beyond our skill 
 or power to prevent them : but want of skill and power is not want of 
 liberty. Bars, obstructions, and restraints confine us in the exercise of 
 those powers we have ; but there is a difference between freedom of action 
 and freedom of Will : the latter respects only such things as we have a 
 natural ability to perform, and against which there lies no impediment to 
 prevent the success of our endeavours. But Freewill cannot proceed with- 
 out inducements to move, and ideas to direct it ; therefore that provision
 
 FREEWILL. 589 
 
 which supplies us with these is so far from overthrowing, that it is the basis 
 and support of our freedom. 
 
 Nor would doubts arise concerning our possession of this privilege, if we 
 did not generally extend it beyond its proper object, which, strictly speak- 
 ing, is none other than the present action in our power ; but our present 
 endeavours often have a tendency to distant purposes ; and experience 
 teaches us what they have been used to produce ; therefore we esteem the 
 consequences to be effected by them as under our power, and subjects of 
 our option : then, if such remote events fall out otherwise than expected, 
 we ascribe it to a Fatality ; whereas the failure was really owing to parti- 
 cular circumstances we did not attend to, or the interfering of natural 
 causes we did not take into account. 
 
 More especially we conceive ourselves masters of our own ideas, and to 
 have the constant use of that judgment and discretion we possess ; there- 
 fore if they fail us at any time in some egregious misconduct, we apprehend 
 ourselves as having been under a secret infatuation.; because the proceeding 
 being contrary to our present and former Will and judgment, which we can 
 scarce believe could have varied so greatly in the interval, we conclude 
 a force must have been put upon our Will to make it act so opposite to its 
 own designs. 
 
 But it is well known, that our apprehensions are not always the same, 
 nor does reason always operate with equal vigour ; imagination varies her 
 scenes, discretion falls off her guard, fancies start up, desires intrude, pas- 
 sions beguile, and things present themselves in unusual aspects, owing to 
 the state of our bodily humours, the mechanical play of our organization, 
 prevalency of our habits, and appearance of external objects; all which 
 are natural causes, acting with a regularity undiscernible to ourselves. So 
 there is no occasion for recurring to that unsubstantial Fatality spoken of 
 in 48 ; for Fate is so much of the order of second causes, as our Will has 
 no share in carrying on, and our Understanding no light to discover. 
 
 Thus Fate and Freewill have their distinct provinces, nor ever appear to 
 clash unless when we happen to mistake the boundaries ; but if we esteem 
 events within our power which depend upon other causes, we may find our- 
 selves frustrated, not by a force upon our Will, but by having undertaken 
 more, and carried our expectations further than we were warranted. For 
 the giant Fate, though enormous in strength and stature, never tramples 
 upon Liberty, nor so covers t'he ground as not to leave some space for hu- 
 man Agency while employ ed.in its proper offices. 
 
 54. For we have nothing to do with Events lying within the bosom 
 of Fate, nor are we to take our measures upon any thing we fancy con- 
 tained there-: it may affect the success, but cannot alter the prudence of 
 our conduct, which consists in the conformity of our actions with the best 
 lights of our judgment. 
 
 If God has any secret purpose to accomplish, no doubt he has provided 
 causes to work it out ; our business lies only with those causes, whose ex- 
 istence and tendency we can discern; while we make the due use of them, 
 so far as we have power and opportunity, we shall perform our little share 
 in the execution of his plan. 
 
 When we ha-ve determined upon our point ever so wisely, and projected 
 our scheme ever so prudently, perhaps there may be a decree to a contrary 
 effect which will baffle all our endeavours ; but this can be no guide to us, 
 nor object of our contemplation, until manifesting itself by the completion : 
 in the mean time, if we find things take a wrong turn unexpectedly, we are
 
 590 FREEWILL. 
 
 not from thence to infer there is a Fatality upon them, for we cannot ex- 
 pect to penetrate into the secret workings of Fate, which are purposely con- 
 cealed from us, but must employ our skill and industry to rectify our mea- 
 sures, while there remains any probability of success, that is, until we per- 
 ceive invincible obstacles standing apparently in the way. 
 
 Nor have we the less range of action for the secret springs of events 
 taking their certain course by the divine appointment, neither would our 
 liberty be at all enlarged, if they were set in motion by the fortuitous de- 
 clination of Epicurus' atoms. Experience teaches that our strongest ex- 
 pectations are liable to be frustrated, and our best projected schemes ren- 
 dered abortive unaccountably ; and we should stand equally at a loss how 
 to ward off the disappointment whether it were to come by chance or by 
 Fate, for we can as little conjecture what the wild workings of chance 
 would produce, as the stated provisions of wisdom : in both cases we can 
 only proceed according to what we see, and put in use those methods which 
 we judge most expedient. Nor would it prove less destructive of care and 
 industry, if we should entertain a notion of luck running against us, than a 
 Fatality. 
 
 55. There is one species of Fate respecting the condition of each man in 
 another life dependent on his conduct in this, commonly called Predestina- 
 tion. This, in many people's apprehension, carries with it the idea of a 
 Fatality ; for they say the Saint cannot sin, nor the Sinner do right : yet it 
 being obvious there can be nothing right nor wrong, unless in things within 
 our power and option, they suppose that though we have power to perform, 
 we have none to choose ; so there lies a force upon the Will constraining it 
 to one particular choice. 
 
 But experience does not support this doctrine, for the wicked now and 
 then use their power well, and it is too notorious that the righteous often 
 fail of doing the good they might. Did Peter act right when he thrice de- 
 nied his master ? Or did Pilate act wrong in using endeavours to get Jesus 
 released instead of Barabbas ? and does not this manifest that neither were 
 under a constant Fatality, but left sometimes at least at liberty to depart 
 from their general tenor of conduct ? 
 
 Then if any pretend that this general tenor, so far as requisite to deno 
 minate the party good or bad, is influenced by the fatality of a decree ; let 
 them search into the recesses of the human heart, examine the judgments, 
 desires, imaginations harbouring there, understand perfectly all the natural 
 causes anywise affecting them, and clearly discern that none of these are 
 adequate to the effect, before they are warranted to assert this. Nor let 
 them build too hastily upon the dictates of authority, which are best ex- 
 plained by experience of facts, and are delivered in a language accommo- 
 dated to the common conceptions of men, wherein we often ascribe events 
 to the act of God, which were the result of second causes established by 
 him. 
 
 Therefore it may be true that God giveth us both to will and to do, with- 
 out constraining our Wills by his immediate and irresistible influence ; as it 
 is true, that he giveth us our daily bread, though he sends it not by 
 special messengers, as he did to Elias, but by the provisions he made 
 for the fruits of nature in the structure of plants, fertility of soils, kindly 
 warmth of the sun, seasonable refreshments of dews and showers, and 
 by the provisions he made for exerting human industry, and fixing an 
 attachment to their several professions hi the farmer, the miller, the meal- 
 man, and the baker.
 
 FREEWILL. 591 
 
 56. It must he acknowledged that the final state of even' man, as well 
 as all other events without exception, depends upon causes flowing from 
 springs originally provided by the Almighty ; and in this light it may be 
 said that none shall be saved whose names were not written in the book 
 of life : but the writing in this book, if we will employ the figure, has no 
 efficacy, nor can limit our freedom, being no more than a declaration or re- 
 cord of the causes in act, and operations of under-causes flowing from them ; 
 which are equally matter of record, whether running in the channel of free- 
 will, or of impulse, force, and necessity. 
 
 And the provisions now spoken of encroach least of any upon the pro- 
 vince of free agency ; a man may have his bones broken, his fortune ruined, 
 his life destroyed by earthquakes, tempests, plagues, or other accidents he 
 cannot possibly guard against nor prevent ; but his interests in futurity cannot 
 be hurt, unless by some action he has power and liberty to forbear. There- 
 fore is he free in whatever he does affecting those interests, notwithstand- 
 ing the entry recorded, or provision pre-ordained ; for liberty, as we have 
 seen before, depends upon the act ensuing the exertion of our power, not 
 upon anything antecedent, nor upon the motives or causes inciting us to 
 exert it : if we have talents, opportunities, understanding, and discretion, 
 we have the same freedom to use them by what means soever they came 
 to us, whether by a sudden and accidental good fortune, or by a long series 
 of causes pre-appointed for that purpose. 
 
 But men are led by their averseness to trouble to extend the idea of their 
 power beyond its proper bounds ; they want to do something to-day 
 whereby to insure an indefeasible title to future happiness, without leaving 
 anything for to-morrow, but to take their pastime in the manner most 
 agreeable to themselves. This is mistaking their province, for they can 
 never do their work so completely but there will always remain something 
 further to do : yet this does not affect their liberty to take such measures 
 as at present are feasible ; for whatever be predestined concerning them 
 to-morrow, they may still do as much for themselves as the actions now in 
 their power amount to. 
 
 Therefore it behoves us to stand always upon the watch, to observe every 
 succeeding moment what comes into our power, and to employ it so as may 
 turn most for our benefit : for Predestination rightly understood, operates 
 by our hands, and the course we steer is always that it takes upon every 
 particular occasion, unless when it employs external causes not under our 
 control : and these we have no business with : where indeed we could 
 know the success depends solely upon such causes, our cares and endeavours 
 were superfluous, but in matters depending upon ourselves, our opinion or 
 disbelief of their being predestined in the manner above described by a 
 provision of the proper causes for enabling, moving, and directing us, how 
 to bestir ourselves, makes no alteration in the rule of our conduct. For if 
 a merchant breeds up his son to industry, instructs him in the mysteries of 
 trade, and furnishes him a competent stock, with a certain foreknowledge 
 and determination that he shall make a fortune thereby : nevertheless the 
 same diligence, the same circumspection, and the same methods of proceeding 
 will be requisite as if those advantages had fallen upon him accidentally, 
 and the success been absolutely unknown to everybody. 
 
 57. But it is not enough to take off the discouragements against deli- 
 beration and activity, unless we quiet the apprehensions arising in men's 
 minds concerning their future proceedings : for some disturb themselves 
 with the dread of a predetermination upon all their motions, which may
 
 592 FREEWILL. 
 
 turn them hereafter into the road of destruction, notwithstanding the best 
 dispositions they find at present in their hearts. But let them consider, 
 that their present actions were as much predestined as any they shall per- 
 form hereafter, yet they find themselves at full liberty to shape them in 
 such manner as they judge expedient ; therefore they may depend upon 
 having the like freedom at other times. 
 
 Well, but they know not what ideas may then start up in their minds 
 urging them to misapply their powers. Is there not the like hazard 
 attending the common affairs of life ? for other events, as well as those 
 affecting the moral character, are equally predestined by the provisiom of 
 causes suited to bring them forth. Yet who that lives in peace and plenty 
 ever affrights himself with the thought that there may be secret springs at 
 work which may deprive him of his health, his limbs, or his substance ? 
 While things go on in a good train, and no danger discernible to human 
 circumspection threatens, we rest contented with our situation, unmolested 
 by imaginary terrors ; and so we may with respect to our spiritual concerns, 
 for virtue improves itself, and good habits grow stronger by exercise : 
 therefore, though our final state remains in the hand of Providence, and 
 we cannot penetrate the secret councils of heaven, yet the right dispositions 
 we feel at present are an evidence that provision is made for a happy issue 
 at last, an evidence sufficient to exclude everything more than a possibility 
 of our failing : nor were it expedient that this should be excluded, as being 
 serviceaye *c keep us vigilant, and guard us against a supineness of temper 
 that might creep upon us insensibly. 
 
 Besides, let us examine wherein it would better our condition, if God 
 were to revoke his Predestination, and undo his provision of causes, so far 
 as relates to ourselves : would this enable us by our present cares so to 
 bind our future conduct as that it could never run amiss ? and if not, how 
 would matters be mended with us ? There would still remain a possibility 
 that after having begun well we might faint in the midway, and this event 
 would become absolutely fortuitous : but we should hardly find more com- 
 fort in thinking that our Fate depended upon the cast of a die than upon a 
 Predetermination . 
 
 So then it might fairly be put to men's choice whether they had rather 
 believe themselves in the hand of Chance, or of a wise and gracious 
 Governor ; for the proceedings of wisdom are regular, and though we know 
 not perfectly what belongs to goodness, we may form a judgment thereon 
 satisfactory to any reasonable person ; but the flighty gambols of chance 
 are objects of no science, nor grounds of any dependence whatever. 
 
 Nor should we find greater security in the privilege of indifference so 
 much vaunted by some, for this being controllable by no motives, it would 
 avail us little to have a sober understanding and virtuous inclinations 
 moving us to take a salutary course ; for our Freewill of indifference might 
 run counter to them all, nor could we have any assurance what turns it 
 might take : which must throw us again into all the anxieties attendant 
 upon the dominion of chance. 
 
 Thus whatever hypothesis we can frame, leaves as much room for appre- 
 hensions as that of Predestination above described ; for while we conceive 
 it operating, not by a Fatality, but by an apt disposition of second causes, 
 it gives as large a scope to human freedom and forecast, and industry, as 
 we have reason from experience to think ourselves possessed of, and as 
 good ground of expectation from the success of our measures as we are 
 warranted in any light to entertain.
 
 FREEWILL. 593 
 
 58. Nevertheless, if the mind appears to nave taken a wrong turn, are 
 there not just grounds of apprehension ? Most assuredly. But this turn 
 manifests itself most evidently in the prevalence of evil hahits, and attach- 
 ment to present pleasures, without regard to the consequences ; therefore 
 those who stand in greatest danger are least apt to take the alarm, and 
 whoever could raise it in them, would do them an inestimable kindness. 
 On the contrary, such in whom disquietudes abound, have upon that very 
 account the less reason to entertain them ; for an earnest concern for the 
 future being the first and principal spring provided for bringing men into 
 the right way, where this appears strongly it is of itself alone an evidence 
 that provision has been made in their favour. 
 
 But despondencies of this kind are often owing to the indiscretion of 
 teachers, who insist too strenuously upon higher perfections of virtue than 
 human nature can attain, and are found to prevail most upon women, or 
 persons of small ability, and in their contemplative hours rather than seasons 
 of action. For the consolation of such persons therefore let it be observed, 
 that righteousness does not consist in the quantity of good we do, but in 
 our doing so much, be it little, or be it much, as lies in our power. There 
 are pegs and pins in a building as well as beams and columns, nor can we 
 doubt that God distributes to every man the talents suited to the task he is 
 to perform ; therefore if we attend only to family affairs, or making broths 
 for the sick, provided this be all we have had ability to do, we have com- 
 pleted our part. 
 
 Let it next be remarked, that our imagination does not lie under our 
 absolute command to raise ideas there, in what strength and vividness of 
 colour we please : the Poet cannot always fill himself with inspiration, nor 
 the Philosopher with his clear discernment of abstracted truth, nor the 
 religious man with his ardours and transports : therefore the want of a 
 fervent faith and glowing zeal is not so much the mark of reprobation, as 
 of a present indisposition of the organs. 
 
 Let it further be remembered, that notwithstanding what may have been 
 inculcated of a constant attention to the duties of religion, our business lies 
 chiefly in action, and the common duties of life : so that when perplexities 
 overcloud us, instead of foreboding melancholy omens from the gloom they 
 cast, we should rather take them as admonitions, that it is not now the 
 season to puzzle our brains with thinking ; but to bestir ourselves in some 
 active employment, or pursue some innocent recreation, which may supply us 
 with a flow of spirits for reason to work with to better purpose afterwards. 
 
 For if fear and trembling be a duty, a becoming confidence and just re- 
 pose in the divine Goodness is a duty likewise ; nor is fortitude less a 
 virtue than prudence, and the proper province of both is ascertained by 
 their usefulness. Therefore when anxieties arise, it behoves us to consider 
 what purpose they may answer : while they serve to keep us vigilant, and 
 spur on our activity in helping ourselves, we do well to encourage them ; 
 but when they tend to no good, nor urge us to anything we should not 
 have done as well without them, w*e cannot do better than to turn our face 
 from them, and use any expedient at hand to banish them out of our thoughts. 
 
 But Predestination, though formerly making much noise in the world, is 
 now. grown an unfashionable topic, nor am I sorry that it is so ; for though 
 I think it might be so explained as to render it neither formidable nor sub- 
 versive of diligence, yet I fear such explanation would not take effect with 
 common apprehensions, but they would still annex to it an idea of Fatality , 
 
 VOL. I. 2 Q
 
 594 FREEWILL. 
 
 which must unavoidably nourish despondencies in phlegmatic tempers, 
 
 presumption and fatal security in the sanguine. 
 
 59. I have now rummaged every corner of the wilderness, and left no 
 thicket untried that I could think of : it has been my endeavour to open 
 the passages as I went along, and disentangle the boughs where they had 
 matted themselves together, or been interlaced by persons of an unlucky 
 shrewdness in perplexing ; so that the traveller may never be driven against 
 the thorns without finding an opening to escape them, nor bewildered in 
 mazes, without feeling a clue to direct him. 
 
 Yet I do not pretend so to have cleared the way, as that he may run 
 carelessly along ; for the boughs will still overhang, the paths remain dark 
 rugged, and intricate, and the clue put into his hands be apt to slip away 
 from him ; therefore he must not proceed in a hurry, but take every step 
 warily and circumspectly, putting the twigs aside that they may not strike 
 against his eyes, nor intercept his view of the ground as he goes along, and 
 keeping good hold of his several clues while necessary for his guidance. 
 
 If I have not done my work completely to the satisfaction of everybody, 
 allowance may be made for the difficulty of the subject ; which has foiled 
 so many men of deep thought and learning, that should anything be found 
 here to render it clearer, I should rather look upon it as a lucky hit, than 
 any claim to extraordinary merit. For I have not pretended to manage 
 the same train of argument better than any other people, but have proceeded 
 in a method of my own, which, if pursued imperfectly, may still serve as a 
 hint, that others may improve upon to greater advantage. I have, at least 
 to my own content, effected a perfect reconcilement between Freewill and 
 Universal Providence ; and if this could be done to the general content, it 
 would be no small service to the serious part of mankind ; for neither of 
 these points can easily be given up, nor has it hitherto been found easy to 
 show them consistent with one another. 
 
 For our reason affords us so many grounds of assurance, that affairs as 
 well in the moral as natural world are administered by the power and 
 wisdom of God ; and yet so many important events, such as the rise and 
 fall of empires, the lives and deaths, the fortunes and distresses of men, de- 
 pend upon their behaviour among one another, that we cannot but be per- 
 suaded he governs the thoughts and actions of mankind with as full and 
 absolute a dominion as he does the courses of nature. On the other hand, 
 daily experience bears witness that our motions lie under our own control, 
 and we can do this thing or that as we please, without any force constraining, 
 or dominion compelling us to the contrary. Then, upon comparing these 
 two considerations together, while they appear to clash, we are tempted to 
 distrust either our reason or our experience ; and, according to which part 
 we take, either are thrown off our discretion and tenor of conduct, by the 
 imagination of a secret influence and compulsion hanging over us, or lose 
 our dependence upon Providence, that truest solace of our minds in time of 
 danger and distress, and surest direction of our conduct in seasons of ease 
 and prosperity. 
 
 Whereas, were the inconsistency taken off, we might then allow both 
 human agency and divine government their full extent, because they might 
 co-operate in the same work without interfering with each other : we should 
 see no discouragement against making observations upon the things about 
 us relative to our conduct, and taking our measures accordingly with free- 
 dom, and a decent confidence in their success ; and we should depend con- 
 tentedly upon the guidance of Providence for turning the courses of fortune
 
 EQUALITY. 595 
 
 and actions of persons with whom we have any concern, so as to procure all 
 the good intended to be bestowed upon us. 
 
 Nay, further, when we consider that things visible and invisible lie under 
 the dominion of one governor, connecting all in one wisely regulated polity, 
 wherein nothing is established in vain, and reflect how much of our time is 
 lost in sleep and infancy, how many pains, diseases, and troubles fall upon 
 us, how many unavailing hours pass over our heads, and how often we are 
 forced to bestir ourselves to very little purposes of our own ; there is a 
 probable presumption that all these things turn some how or other to the 
 account of other Beings. So that our little concerns and transactions may 
 be of greater importance than we imagine, and ourselves made unknowingly 
 to work out the advantage of fellow-creatures, whereof we have not the 
 least knowledge, nor even suspicion. Nor need we want hopes from the 
 goodness of God, that we shall one day reap the benefit of those services 
 wherein we have been made, though undesignedly, instrumental. 
 
 But how simple and confined, or how extensive and complicated schemes 
 soever we may conceive contained within the divine plan, the stumbling- 
 block of compulsion upon free Agency being removed, we may conclude 
 that every purpose comprised therein has adequate causes provided for its 
 execution, and every cause in act, whether voluntary or necessary agent, 
 contributes its share towards the completion of some purpose. 
 
 Therefore the doctrine of universal Providence being, as it seems to me, 
 well established, I may go on without further scruple to raise what super- 
 structure I can upon this foundation. 
 
 CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 EQUALITY. 
 
 HAIL, glorious Liberty ! thou choicest privilege of imperial man ! the 
 prerogative by which he exercises his dominion over this sublunary king- 
 dom ! Inspire a spark of thy spirit into thy votary, who has laboured 
 through thorns and briers to collect evidence of thy charter from all ruling 
 Providence, impowering thee to act as one of her principal ministers in 
 executing her designs ; and has produced the divine mandate to irresistible 
 Fate, commanding him to leave an ample province for thee to range in. 
 
 But where better delightest thou to dwell than in this my native land, the 
 happy Britain ? whose sons in former times have struggled hard for thee, 
 enduring distresses, toils, and bloody conflicts, that they might transmit 
 thy blessings to us their children. Thou hast snapped short the iron rod of 
 despotic sway, broken through the enormous rule of Many made for One, 
 and taught Power wherein its real strength and true glory consist. Thou 
 hast dragged tongue-tyed Superstition at thy chariot wheels, and bound in 
 fetters that dastard slave, implicit Faith, that used to fetter the very thoughts 
 of men. Thou openest the chambers of science, bursting asunder the Jpse 
 dixits that had barred up more than half the avenues. Thou clearest away 
 the films from our eyes, that we may see for ourselves ; and strengthenest 
 our feet, that we may walk without the leading-string. O ! let us never 
 part with the valuable inheritance our ancestors have left us. Nor, I trust, 
 shall we ever suffer it to be wrested out of our hands ; let us only beware 
 
 2 Q2
 
 596 EQUALITY. 
 
 that we be not beguiled by false appearances, nor enticed away from ooi 
 goddess by a phantom representing her likeness. 
 
 For there are counterfeits abroad, pretenders that assume thy robes and 
 gestures. The mimic ape, Licentiousness, imitates thine intrepid air and 
 confident gait. The blatant Beast profanes thy daring language with his 
 unbridled tongue. Conceited pertness teaches the new-loosened school-boy 
 and novel-studied girl thy scorn of tutorage and control. Irreverent Me- 
 thodism, ill-copier of thine easy carriage before superiors, rushes with saucy 
 familiarity into the council-chamber of heaven. And lion-skinned Free- 
 thinking, safe aff'ector of thy bravery, insults whom thou hast disarmed, ten 
 times slays the slain, and claims to be the sole gatherer up of thy spoils. 
 They range the world with a boisterous rabble tagging at their heels : 
 Clamour, Arrogance, Misrepresentation, Perverseness, Cavil, intemperate 
 Jest, loud-laughing Mockery, and hood-winked Misrule. They spare not 
 things sacred nor profane ; but pluck the gray beard of old Experience, 
 tear the prelate's lawn, revile the rulers of the people, nor refrain from the 
 Lord's anointed. The unlucky monkeys toss all about them into confusion, 
 and grin at the wild work they make : they scatter abroad firebrands and 
 arrows, and cry, Are we not in sport ? they delight to trip up the unwary, 
 or entangle the feeble in their webby filaments, and then chuckle with joy 
 to see the perplexities they have occasioned. 
 
 But thou, genuine Liberty, offspring of all-protecting Jove, and. sister of 
 Uranian Venus, who dispenseth his blessings from her horn of plenty ; thou 
 lovest order and decency. For thou knowest the world is upholden by 
 order, and the bliss of heaven maintained by free obedience. Therefore 
 thou recommendest regularity and subordination to the sons of men. Thou 
 standest upon law and ordinance as thy basis ; rule and authority are thy 
 supporters : sound reason, and uniform prudence, the ground thou walkest 
 upon. Discretion and cautious Reserve go before as thy harbingers, and 
 much-enduring Charity departeth not from thy side. The modest virgins 
 warn thee which way to direct thy steps, that thou hurt not the simple ; or 
 cover thee with veils, that thou give them not offence. For the weak- 
 sighted cannot sustain thy piercing look, nor the feeble stand against the 
 brush of thy sturdy tread : when thou walkest forth in the fields of specula- 
 tion, and stretchest thy ken to the distant sources of useful science. 
 
 How shall I follow thee in this adventurous course whereto thou callest 
 me ? For the deep-thinking mind will not rest satisfied with practical 
 knowledge, unless we trace the channels to the fountain head. But the 
 sources of truth, as of the Nile, lie far concealed in distant regions : we have 
 cataracts to clirnb, slippery ground to pass over, and stumbling-blocks to 
 remove, before we can investigate them. Give charge to thine attendant 
 virgins that they assist me, while I strew sand upon the icy paths, and work 
 a safe passage over the dangerous rocks of offence. Yet with all their care 
 they cannot so plain the road as that the common traveller shall pass secure : 
 but the steepy precipice will make him giddy, the sliding surface beguile,his 
 trembling steps, and unyielding rubs cause his feet to stumble. 
 
 O ! for the warning voice of sage Pythagoras, Hence, ye profane : That 
 none but the hardy Adept might be admitted to tread the perilous path. 
 But thou, Goddess, in these latter times, ordamest there shall be no con- 
 cealment of mysteries. The sons of Faustus now are the only priests of 
 thine oracle : they lift up the voice on high, proclaiming everything to 
 everybody : they watch in the streets to gather whoso pleases to accompany 
 us in all our excursions. So we can onlv caution the too curious traveller
 
 EQUALITY. 597 
 
 to beware for himself: for we are going upon a dangerous expedition, 
 wherein we cannot insure him against accidents ; being to cut a course 
 through unpractised ground from the sources opened before. Wherefore if 
 there be any in this wise generation who knows himself not to be an Adept, 
 he had better let us work for a while by ourselves, and wait for our coming 
 down again to the old rivers lying within his accustomed walks. For the 
 water may run foul and unwholesome through the new-dug channel, until 
 being purified in its passage, he may find it suitable to his taste and diges- 
 tion. But if the veteran Adept, inured to toils and dangers, to range the 
 fields of contemplation with steady tread and sober boldness, will vouchsafe 
 his company : let him review with us the sources we have explored, and ob- 
 serve which way they first discharge their stream. 
 
 2. We have examined the human mind, and found that all our motions 
 depend upon motives, thrown upon her from external objects, or conveyed 
 by the channels of experience, education, and example, or procured by her 
 own cares and industry, whereto she was instigated by former motives. We 
 have surveyed external nature, tracing effects to causes until we arrived at 
 the First Cause, the origin of all activity and efficacy ; acting with full in- 
 telligence of all he does, and preconcerted design of whatever shall fall out 
 in immediate or remote consequence of his operation : from hence it follows 
 that the whole series of events throughout the world takes precisely the 
 course ordained by Providence : which course was heretofore supposed to 
 run under-ground along the passages of a secret fatality, whose rocky banks 
 dammed up the side bubblings of chance and freewill, drawing them forcibly 
 into its own channel. But we have cleared away the matted weeds that 
 overhung the ground, and laid open the veins from whence those bubblings 
 arise : whereby it appears that Chance is the child of Ignorance, for her 
 workings proceed from certain causes, yet such only whose existence or 
 tendency we want sagacity to discern ; that freewill needs no compulsive 
 force to keep her steady, for she communicates, by antecedent and external 
 causes giving birth to her motives, with the fountain whence all the other 
 streams derive. 
 
 Thus nature, chance, and industry, become only different channels of 
 the same river ; and what virtues, good qualities, and enjoyments men 
 have worked out for themselves, were as much given them as what came with- 
 out their seeking : so that whatever portion of happiness every man pos- 
 sesses, is such and none other than was allotted him by the divine bounty. 
 We have seen reason likewise to conclude from contemplation of the divine 
 nature, exempt from want or passion or humour or weakness, that God is 
 righteous in all his dealings and equal in all his ways, being no respecter 
 of persons ; that his mercy is over all his works, and that equity is the At- 
 tribute whereof we can have the clearest conception, as implying nothing 
 more than an impartial distribution of the divine bounty among all creatures 
 capable of receiving it. Since then none of us have anything besides what 
 WQ received from the divine bounty, and that bounty flows alike upon all, 
 it follows unavoidably that there must be an exact equality of fortunes among 1 
 us, and the value of each persoa's existence, computed throughout the 
 whole extent of his Being, precisely the same. 
 
 3. This conclusion doubtless will shock the vanity of mankind, to whom 
 happiness itself is not welcome unless they can engross the monopoly of it 
 to themselves : and who esteem the advantages and accomplishments they 
 respectively possess as the only blessings worth receiving. The politician, 
 the soldier, the scholar, the philosopher, the rich merchant, the poet, the
 
 598 EQUALITY. 
 
 player, and the fiddler, have a sovereign contempt for each other's endow- 
 ments in comparison with their own : believing themselves the peculiar 
 favourites of fortune with respect to their mental capacities, and claiming an 
 intrinsic merit to be found in none besides. But they will all be scandal- 
 ized to find themselves put upon a level with the greasy ploughman, the 
 illiterate porter, the contemptible ideot, the unenlightened savage, and the 
 scarce human Hottentot. Nevertheless, let them point out wherein we 
 have been mistaken in our premises or faulty in our deductions. Let them 
 show the single thing they have which they did not receive ; or if they 
 worked it out for themselves, that the talents and opportunities enabling, 
 the dispositions inclining them, were not given ; and themselves furnished 
 by certain causes as well with inclination and spirit to will as with powers 
 to do. 
 
 If there be some characters more agreeable in the sight of God and more 
 deserving of his favours than others, still those characters arose either from 
 a happy constitution and temper bestowed by nature, or from education, 
 company, and example, fallen into by good fortune ; or if we suppose a 
 particular effusion of divine grace to make the difference, God is able of 
 these stones to raise up children unto Abraham ; so that the same Power 
 being the Author of nature, the Guider of fortune and free Dispenser of 
 grace, was the origin of whatever flowed upon us through either of those 
 channels. When in our state of nonentity, we were all equally devoid of 
 merit or demerit, and were called forth from thence to the stations and pro- 
 perties and springs of action he thought proper to allot us : nor can he see 
 anything to engage his favour in one man rather than another, which was 
 not nearly or remotely the effect of his bounty. 
 
 Let them next examine their ideas of the divine nature, and from thence, 
 if they can, assign a cause that should make this bounty flow unequally. I 
 know we are all in the hands of God to give us more or less as he pleases ; 
 nor have any of us cause to complain at receiving a smaller portion than his 
 neighbours, for we have no demands upon him whatever : but how is it 
 likely he does so ? what attribute is there to require, or even render it pro- 
 bable ? if justice requires that the virtuous should fare better than the vici- 
 ous, yet does justice hinder that the same measure of virtue should be allotted 
 to every one ? But our virtues must be of our own acquiring, or they will 
 not deserve the name. Granted. Yet since the Will to make the acquisi- 
 tion derived from above, what rule of justice prohibits the incitements to 
 raise that Will, and opportunities to exercise it, from being distributed to 
 all alike ? 
 
 Let them further reflect that their talents and accomplishments contribute 
 to the protection, the benefit, or the entertainment of others ; their very 
 piety and virtue, to be genuine, must extend their good effects beyond the 
 possessors, to all who come within their reach : so that the rude rabble they 
 despise, have a share in the favours bestowed upon themselves; nor is 
 there a man possessing some extraordinary gift which was given for his own 
 sake alone. 
 
 They may likewise consider that happiness is the only thing valuable, all 
 other things being so in proportion as they conduce towards that : but hap- 
 piness consists in the aggregate of pleasures, or rather in the balance of 
 that above the aggregate of pains ; and by pleasure we understand every 
 satisfaction or complacence of mind, as by pain every uneasiness or disturb- 
 ance. Now it has been observed in a former place that we are very bad 
 Arithmeticians in the article of treasure, nor can keep account of one day'a
 
 EQUALITY. 599 
 
 enjoyments, so as to compute the balance of them with the next, with any 
 tiling like the exactness we could do in our money receipts and disburse 
 ments. For we fix our eye upon one favourite object, whose value we 
 estimate by the eagerness of desire we feel rising towards it ; but desire 
 often proves delusive, or where it does not, yet pursues intense pleasures ; 
 whereas it has been shown that those of the gentler kind yield us a larger 
 income upon the whole. That quick sensibility which enhances our joys 
 and enables us to feel what would not touch another, adds pungency like- 
 wise to our vexations, and renders us liable to such -as would not fall upon 
 persons of duller apprehension. And if a readiness of reflection tends to 
 prolong our enjoyments : so likewise it does to lengthen our grievances. 
 Cares and troubles enter the houses of the great, which the vulgar know 
 nothing of : and comforts take up their abode in the cottage, where the rich 
 man never sees them. 
 
 Besides that Pleasure being relative to Taste and Desire, which vary 
 infinitely among mankind, we cannot tell what another feels by what we 
 should feel ourselves in his situation. Many things delight us extremely, 
 that he would not care a rush for : though we should think it dreadful to 
 want them, he may rest fully contented without them. Labour, scarcity, 
 nastiness, ignorance, subjection, and contempt, that would oppress us sorely, 
 may sit light and easy upon his shoulders. And though an exchange of 
 fortunes would be thought grievous to us, and desirable by him, which 
 seems to imply a concession on both sides of ours having the preference ; 
 yet is this judgment not to be depended on, as being passed upon the 
 entrance into a new state of life, rather than the continuance in an old one. 
 But the common labourer raised to riches, or man of affluence reduced to 
 poverty, would feel himself affected in another manner than one who had 
 never known the contrary : therefore is not a competent judge of his case. 
 For Nature has established this rule tending greatly towards an equality, 
 that our organs lose their power of affecting us by use, both pleasures and 
 pains abating of their vigour upon frequent repetition. Habit and custom 
 brings us to a liking of the way of life we have long continued in, and desire 
 in some measure conforms itself to the objects usually occurring to gratify 
 it. From all which we may justly infer, there is not such an immense dif- 
 ference between the happiness of men as is commonly apprehended. 
 
 4. Could we lay aside for a while our remembrance of the good and evil 
 we have seen befalling mankind, we should be apt to conclude that the 
 pleasures and pains, the successes and disappointments of all were in 
 quantity alike. For though it be certain God may uncontrollably and law- 
 fully deal with his creatures as he pleases, yet can we find no reason in any 
 conceptions we can form of him, to believe he will please to deal with them 
 arbitrarily, or partially: from whence it would follow, that the value of 
 human life must be the same in all. But when we resume our observation 
 of what passes in the world, we find our theory contradicted by experience,: 
 yet this does not totally overthrow it. For though our ideas of the divine 
 Nature be so imperfect, that it behoves us to correct them from time to time 
 by experience of facts : nevertheless, in matters whereof we can have no 
 experience, they remain in full vigour. Nor can we judge anything con- 
 cerning those matters otherwise than from the best conception we can form 
 of the character of that Being under whose disposal they lie. As clearly as 
 we may discover upon a full and fair examination, that the conditions of men 
 differ less in value than ordinarily imagined, there will remain a consider- 
 able difference : nor ''an we heln acknowledging that some possess in much
 
 COO EQUALITY. 
 
 larger measure the good things of the external, the bodily, the mental, and 
 moral kind, than others. And in one respect the difference is too obvious 
 and glaring to be overlooked. The aggregate of pleasures constituting hap- 
 piness, is made up of their intenseness and duration jointly, and therefore, 
 Under the same circumstances of condition, must depend upon the length ot 
 life. From whence it follows undeniably, that children cut off in their 
 cradles do not receive the same portion as some persons who hold out their 
 full period. 
 
 But then the perceptive Spirit, surviving after dissolution of the Body, 
 remains capable of further enjoyments, which may compensate for those lost 
 by its hasty separation. Thus we find by reasoning from experience, that 
 there must be a difference in the future conditions of men because there is 
 in the present : for Equity requires inequalities hereafter to compensate for 
 inequalities here ; and if Dives receive good things now, and Lazarus evil 
 things, the latter must then be comforted, or the other tormented. But 
 Equity requires no greater inequalities than just enough to balance those 
 already passed through : nor have we grounds to expect any greater, unless 
 it should appear by-and-by, in the sequel of these inquiries, that divine 
 Justice requires greater differences in another life than have been made in 
 this. Nevertheless, the Attributes cannot clash with one another, nor can 
 Justice ever run such lengths as to overthrow Equity : therefore the evils 
 inflicted by it cannot be absolutely perpetual ; because evil falling all into 
 one scale, the balance can never come even, unless there be time left for 
 good to pour afterwards into the opposite. Therefore it was, that at the 
 end of 2, I explained an equality of fortunes by an equal value of each 
 person's existence computed throughout the whole extent of his Being. For 
 though Equity may well consist with partiality and favour in particular 
 stages of Being, and with the various distributions of Justice according to 
 the demerits of "individuals ; yet after Favour has had her Course, and Jus- 
 tice been satisfied, it remains that Equity should be satisfied too ; which 
 seems to require there should be a certain period assigned, wherein the ac- 
 counts of all may rise to the same amount. But how long, or how short 
 this period may be, we cannot pretend to determine : for there lies an Eter- 
 nity before us, from whereout may be cut an immense length of time to pass 
 before the balance comes even. 
 
 5. In what manner this equality shall be effected it may be difficult to 
 conjecture, and impossible to ascertain. If we give a loose imagination in 
 pursuing the old heathen inventions, as sketched out in the Lecture of 
 Pythagoras in the vision, wherein the doctrines of transmigration is ex- 
 tended, beyond this narrow earth with the men and animals crawling 
 thereon, to ail the states of immersion into matter throughout the Uni- 
 verse ; I think "a scheme may be stricken out, which will appear specious, 
 if not too closely scrutinized, and contain some particulars well worth our 
 consideration. For one cannot well conceive a more perfect Equality than 
 is therein represented ; because though Existence be divided into many 
 various forms of Being, some containing a mixture of evil and others no- 
 thing else, yet the spiritual substance, taking its turn in rotation among the 
 several forms, the fates of all will remain alike upon having passed through 
 the whole. 
 
 Nor yet is it necessary the whole must be run through in order to level 
 accounts ; although this cannot be accomplished between every migration 
 from the Spiritual Substance, and the return into it again. For if, as 
 Jaoklen by all Theists in general the virtuous shall enjov a life of happiness
 
 EQUALITY. 601 
 
 in the intermediate state, and pass from thence directly into the final ; 
 there must be at least two journeys through matter, to bring the balance 
 even : and this will stretch the balancing period to an immense length ; 
 because the interval of abode among the Spiritual Substance must exceed 
 that of the excursion from it, as much as the number of unembodied spirits 
 does that of the embodied. But if natural evil be the consequence of moral, 
 then only those states endowed with imperfect reason, liable to be mastered 
 by passion, and tempted into transgression, will be hazardous states : and 
 those of children dying in the womb, or before arriving at the use of rea- 
 son, may be reckoned safe states. But Equity seems to require, that after 
 having passed through one hazardous state, the next migrations should be 
 through the safe, in proportion to the number there is of them in nature, 
 which will lengthen the period still further. 
 
 6. Nor are these imaginations to be looked upon as matters of mere 
 curiosity, fit only to amuse the speculative in an idle hour ; but they may 
 serve to enlarge our conception of our Almighty Governor, to give us a better 
 opinion of his Creation, and render as more regardful of one another, and 
 more attentive in our conduct to the good of our fellow creatures. For 
 what can raise our idea higher of the Glory, the Power, the Greatness, the 
 Magnificence, the Benignity of God, than to imagine his vast Empire, the 
 Universe, fully inhabited, all space, not occupied by matter, being replete 
 with spiritual substance, continually receiving supplies of happiness from his 
 inexhaustible bounty ? What can better exemplify his exact Equity, and 
 Impartiality among his children, than to describe him allotting them a like 
 share of abode in all the many mansions throughout their Father's house ? 
 What can approach our conception of his goodness nearer to infinitude, or 
 make us better pleased and satisfied with our existence, than that immense 
 disproportion of good to evil dispersed over his boundless dominion ? 
 
 Many learned men have assigned the corporeal machinery whereto we 
 are vitally united, for the origin, as they call it, of evil, or as I should ra- 
 ther term it, the sole channel by which that odious stream is cast upon us. 
 I know that so far as we may take experience for our guide, we have reason 
 to believe our perceptions of all kinds, our enjoyments, as well as our pains 
 and troubles, cdme upon us by the action of matter ; but there is great dif- 
 ference between a vital union therewith, and a voluntary or occasional ap- 
 plication thereto, in such manner and such times as we choose to make it ; 
 between perceptions impressed mechanically or necessarily, and those se- 
 lected by spiritual substance, to be communicated for mutual benefit. Our 
 goods, our utensils, and instruments of diversion, answer our convenience 
 and entertainment, while we can take them up, or lay them aside as we 
 please : but did they grow to our hands, we should find them a great hin- 
 drance and trouble to us in all our motions. Our clothes serve us to good 
 purpose for protection and ornament, because we can pull them off, and put 
 on others, as we will; but were they adhering to our skin, we must endure 
 grievous smart and torment to get rid of them when worn ragged. Now 
 if we compare the small quantity of matter existent, with the vast expanse 
 containing it, we must conclude, that for every Spirit imprisoned in some 
 body, or organization, there are many millions of millions lying at large in 
 the voids between. And so great will be the length of our abode in our 
 own country, the spiritual substance, totally exempt from evil, in com- 
 parison with our excursion through the vale of mortality. 
 
 Nor is it a small confirmation of these suppositions, that our clearest ideas 
 of goodness incline us to believe, that God never terminates his views ulti-
 
 602 EQUALITY. 
 
 mately upon evil, nor sends it unless for some greater good to be produced 
 thereby. Then if we cast about in our thoughts for the manner how evil 
 may produce good, it must occur that our industry for the most part is em- 
 ployed in the avoidance of mischief, or preservation of what enjoyments, or 
 means of enjoyment, we possess : so that a man without notion of any 
 hurt or damage that could befall him, would have no inducement to bestir 
 himself at all, and thereby lose all the pleasure he feels in the exercise of 
 his activity; and this might probably be the case with all created spirits, 
 however circumstanced. But the bare apprehension of mischief, seen falling' 
 upon others, will answer the purpose, yet the mischief must fall somewhere 
 for us to see it ; but the sufferings of a few may raise an apprehension of 
 it in multitudes. Therefore gross bodies, and fine corpuscles of matter, 
 are dispersed up and down, at proper distances, throughout the universe, 
 that there may be samples everywhere of actual suffering, or loss of happi- 
 ness through ignorance and misconduct, among the spirits imprisoned 
 therein, for spurring up the disengaged to activity. 
 
 We may remark likewise, upon our own experience, that a small degree 
 of pain and disappointment, like sours and bitters mixed in sauces, gives a 
 eest to our pleasures. So it is in games of chance, where the variations 
 of luck, and opposition of the adversary, furnish the amusement : so it is 
 in sports of the field, where the labours and difficulties of the chase create 
 the diversion : so it is in the common affairs of life where little displeasures 
 and disappointments hold us closer to the engagement ; and were there a 
 man who should never meet a cross or rub in his desires, perhaps he 
 would pass his time the most insipidly of any creature breathing. What 
 then should hinder but that the pure spirits, by applying externally to the 
 sensories of the embodied and inorganized, may take such sensations of 
 all disagreeable kinds therefrom, and communicate them among one an- 
 other, as they find requisite to give a smartness and a poignancy to their 
 own enjoyments ? Or if they stand so happily circumstanced as to have no- 
 thing to do for promoting or securing their own bliss, they may make it 
 their sole contrivance and employment to lessen, as much as possible, the 
 burdens of their immersed brethren, of the same origin and capacities with 
 themselves. As some people, having nothing else to do, find their whole 
 amusement in the tendency and nurture of birds, or other animals, sup- 
 plying them constantly with such accommodations and pleasures as they are 
 capable of enjoying equally with themselves. Only with this difference 
 between the two cases, that the former do not their work by occasional or 
 arbitrary operations, but by administering the laws of nature, and courses 
 of fortune ordained by the Almighty. 
 
 Now if anybody shall ask the Pythagorean how he knows these things to 
 be as above imagined, the latter will ask in return, how his antagonist 
 knows they cannot be so ; and whether, if the phenomena falling under oui 
 observation leave an equal uncertainty on both sides, he does not think their 
 congruity with our best ideas of the divine attributes a weight inclining the 
 balance in their favour. Nor need he be afraid of indulging such imagina- 
 tions, which if a mistake, are a pleasing and innocent, or I may rather say, 
 a lucky and beneficial mistake. 
 
 7. For, wherever fully entertained, they must effectually banish all pride v 
 self-sufficiency, contempt, and claim to superior merit, all malice, rancour, 
 revenge, and hardness of heart : there being no intrinsic and personal, but 
 only a circumstantial and temporary, difference between man and man; 
 who are all drawn from the same spiritual substance, but diversely lodged,
 
 EQUALITY. 603 
 
 and accommodated for the present, and must take their turn in rotation 
 through the several habitations occupied by one another. So that the op- 
 pressor and the scorner may actually stand one day in the very place of the 
 persons they injure or despise. 
 
 Yet this consideration, taken partially, may be perverted to bad purposes : 
 for the thought of our being intrinsically as good as the nobles and 
 princes above us, will be more apt to engender pride than to mortify it, 
 unless we reflect at the same time, that the black shoe-boy, and the cinder- 
 wench, are as good as ourselves. Neither does this reflection hinder that 
 we should behave differently to different persons, as they stand circum- 
 stanced upon earth : for order and public good require us to respect them 
 according to their several stations, situations and endowments. The Senator 
 of ancient Rome, or Alderman of the present times, have always owed an 
 obedience to the Consul, or Mayor, for the time being, whom perhaps they 
 might command in the succeeding year. And in all the changes of state 
 officers, the people are to take their directions successively from those 
 whom they find invested with power ; yet perhaps without esteeming them 
 better qualified, or more meritorious, than others whose places they supply. 
 For in reverencing the ministers, we reverence the prince, who lends them 
 his authority, when and how long he judges proper ; and in paying the re- 
 spect and honour severally belonging to power, rank, learning, sagacity, 
 riches, and other favours of Heaven, we respect and honour the supreme 
 Monarch, who giveth and taketh away as he pleases. 
 
 Nevertheless, if the value of every one's existence, computed throughout 
 the whole extent of bis being, be equal, and the same with our own ; we 
 shall retain an inward esteem for the person of every man equally with our- 
 selves, notwithstanding some adventitious temporary difference there may 
 be between us. Just as if we found a person of our own rank and fortune, 
 but at a distance from his estate, struggling with hardship and distress, for 
 want of convenient remittances ; or if we saw one of equal understanding 
 and sagacity with ourselves, under some distemper that stupefied him for 
 a while : we should still esteem them both upon a par with ourselves. 
 And as esteem naturally begets love, this will go a great way towards 
 bringing us into obedience to that grand precept, both of natural and re- 
 vealed Religion, to love our neighbour as ourselves. It will give us a fellow- 
 feeling of all the pains, distresses, vexations, and even little disappointments, 
 or cross accidents, we see ; for upon the Hypothesis of a rotation, we 
 shall ourselves stand, some time or other, in the situation wherein we be- 
 hold another. 
 
 Nor can we harbour an inveterate hatred against anybody : for Achilles 
 and Hector, the Pope and Calvin, Charles and Cromwell, our bitterest 
 enemy, if we have one, and ourselves, may chance in some future migration 
 to be intimates, coparceners in interest, father and son, or husband and 
 wife. Or if this should never happen, still during our long abode in the 
 Mundane Soul, we shall become bosom friends, living in perfect uninter- 
 rupted harmony, pursuing each other's interests and pleasures alike ardently 
 with our own, and joining in one form of adoration to the Author of our 
 unspeakable happiness. And though we may be forced many times to 
 bring punishment, vexation, and displeasure, upon others, we shall never 
 do it in anger, nor willingly, nor unconcernedly, but as an unavoidable 
 means for attaining some greater good, or in compliance with the rules of 
 prudence and justice, founded upon expedience. For we shall regard vice 
 as a distemper of the mind, and afford what help and comfort to the patient
 
 604 EQUALITY. 
 
 the circumstances of his case will admit ; wishing well to the offender, while 
 we detest the offence, as the symptom of a loathsome and infectious disease. 
 
 8. And as we readily think well of those to whom we wish well, we shall 
 not be so forward to censure, and calumniate, and damn one another, as 
 many of us are ; but make all fair allowance for errors and miscarriages, and 
 strive to extend the hope of salvation, as far as there can be found any solid 
 ground to support it. Selfishness and insensibility to all around us seem 
 to be made the characteristics of high perfection in Religion : our fellow- 
 creatures of a different language, or make, or way of thinking, or sentiment 
 on some speculative point, are not thought worth our concern ; but so we 
 ourselves, together with a few of the same orthodox stamp, be safe, the 
 devil take all the world beside, as deserving victims of a divine wrath never 
 to be appeased. For my part, I cannot help being shocked to hear with 
 what calmness the most pious people will talk of the innumerable multitudes 
 that are to perish in everlasting flames ; and with what glee the Methodists 
 regale upon the thought, that at the day of Judgment, the rich and mighty 
 of this world shall be dragged by devils, for Whitefield and his mob of 
 carmen and basket women to trample under foot. 
 
 Nor do the Freethinkers less contract the pale of their Church : for 
 though they affect to ridicule Satan and his brimstone, yet they have a 
 damnation of their own, which they spread as liberally, and as unreluctantly, 
 as the fiery Papist, the rigid Presbyterian, or the enthusiastic Methodist. 
 For they tell you that right reason is the only road to happiness in this 
 world and the next ; but when you come to examine what right reason is, 
 you will find it confined to their particular notions, or those of a few choice 
 spirits of their own cast ; and all the rest of mankind, being infected more 
 or less with bigotry and superstition, must inevitably fall into misery and 
 unhappiness, from which God himself cannot rescue them. For though he 
 be merciful, incapable of revenge, nor ever angry with anybody, yet he durst 
 not interpose, for fear Dame Necessity, enthroned above him in her eternal 
 and unalterable nature of things, should take it amiss. 
 
 But if we claim no more than an equality among our brethren, the children 
 of the same Father, and subjects of the same kingdom, we shall look upon 
 the state of suffering as sinks and cesspools of the universe, to drain off the 
 evil therein from all the rest ; and the drudgery of wading through them, 
 as a necessary service to be shared in rotation by all alike. This of course 
 will turn our prejudice the contrary way, and set us upon hunting for argu- 
 ments to contract the number and lessen the misery of them, so far as we 
 can find warrant in calm and impartial reason. And we shall become so- 
 licitous to inculcate other incitements to virtue, in order to render the ne- 
 cessity of multiplying terrors among mankind as little as possible. IBut as 
 Charity covers a multitude of sins and blemishes, so it likewise discovers a 
 world of good qualities and external advantages, that escape the eye of the 
 sordid and narrow-minded. Our idea of equality and rotation will make us 
 glad to find enjoyments, valuable possessions, and excuses for misconduct 
 of others-, in cases which may one day become our own : and our desire will 
 quicken our sagacity in finding more of them than could be well imagined 
 before setting out. We shall discern pleasures where we could have tasted 
 none ourselves, comforts under burdens that would have galled us extremely, 
 prudence in measures that we should have esteemed foolish, unavoidable 
 mistake in what we should have judged perverseness, and sources of enjoy- 
 ment we should never have dreamt of. 
 
 This must redound to our own benefit, by opening a more delightful
 
 EQUALITY. 05 
 
 prospect of Nature than we could otherwise have obtained : for we shall 
 regard ourselves as citizens of the World, interested in everything passing 
 there, though not -immediately concerning us; and shall behold with plea- 
 sure the various blessings and salves for every sore, diffused everywhere, 
 whereof we are to be partakers in some form of being or other. We shall 
 esteem everything, even vexation, disappointment, and punishment, as 
 useful, and consider the mischiefs and troubles befalling ourselves or our 
 dearest friends, as the purchase of a portion in those scenes of lasting bliss, 
 which they are a necessary foundation to support. And as the pressure of 
 our grievances increases, we may from thence augurate how great must be 
 those treasures of happiness, which our indulgent and tender Father judges 
 worth our purchasing at so high a price. Nor need we be disturbed at the 
 displeasures we are forced sometimes to bring upon one another, every un- 
 avoidable evil being a purchase of something more valuable than the pay- 
 ment. I do not know whether I shall give offence by taking notice, that 
 the brutes often end their lives in misery and torment, and inferring from 
 thence, that since God, who never terminates his views upon evil, calls 
 upon them too for their payments, he will find methods of securing to them 
 likewise their purchase. This we may look upon as our warrant for those 
 slaughters, and hard services, we put them to for our necessary occasions : 
 but will not justify us in abusing them wantonly. For whatever evil we 
 bring needlessly either upon man or beast, however it may be a purchase 
 for them, will purchase nothing for ourselves, but what we shall vehemently 
 dislike when we enter upon the possession. 
 
 9. Nevertheless, I more than suspect that exceptions have occurred to 
 the Reader against this doctrine of rotation ; for, to say the truth, they have 
 occurred to me, and in a formidable aspect : yet the advantages we have 
 found resulting therefrom were the temptation with me to pursue it until 
 I could reach them. And the like purpose may plead my excuse for em- 
 ploying it again hereafter occasionally in the like service : for whatever, 
 whether fable, or hypothesis, gives scope to salutary reflections and opens 
 imagination to the reception of good sentiments, which may find establish- 
 ment afterwards upon some better foundation, may be allowably applied 
 that way. But notwithstanding that these advantages give the doctrine an 
 inviting look, while holden with their side towards the eye, it will scarce 
 be judged tenable, when turned round for examination on another quarter. 
 For it supposes a pre-existence, and a future fall, of the blessed spirits 
 into weakness, sin, and misery : both which are contrary to the generally 
 received opinion, That our entrance into human life was the beginning of 
 our existence, and that it is appointed all men once to die, and then to 
 judgment, whereby their fates will be fixed so as never more to change. 
 But the most fatal and invincible objection is this, that it must appear 
 shocking to the thought and what no man can admit the supposition of, 
 that he himself, and the most righteous person ever living, shall, in some 
 future migration, become a reprobate, a thief, a debauchee, a murderer, 
 profane, sacrilegious, atheistical, obnoxious to the utmost severities of 
 divine justice. For though many pious people can think with calmness 
 and indifference on the multitudes of other persons doomed to eternal 
 punishment by an absolute decree, or drawn thereinto by the unlucky 
 circumstances of their birth, education, and company, cast upon them by 
 Providence : yet if you suggest a bare possibility of themselves becoming 
 the objects of vengeance, though at the remotest distance of time, they feel 
 it abhorrent to their thoughts, nor can ever bring it reconcileable with
 
 606 EQUALITY. 
 
 their idea of infinite goodness. So partial are we to ourselves, that what 
 appears agreeable to righteousness, and mercy, and goodness, in the case of 
 another, we see plainly cannot he so upon supposal of the case being our 
 own ! For these imperfections therefore we must reject this scheme of a 
 rotation, and however it may be innocently entertained for a while as an 
 hypothesis, so long as serving any profitable purpose, we can by no means 
 receive it as an article of faith. 
 
 10. Let us then look for some other way wherein to account for an 
 equality: and this we have already found in CHAP. XIX. 18. For the 
 balance maybe levelled by an amends made in value to the sufferer, without 
 any other person suffering at all : because an increase of good in one scale 
 will have the like effect with a weight of evil thrown into the other. If 
 D ; ves receive good things, and Lazarus evil things, the latter must be com- 
 forted, or the former tormented. I give this conclusion in the disjunctive, 
 because either branch will answer the purpose : although Dives had not 
 been tormented, yet such ample comforts might have been afforded to 
 Lazarus as would have made his fortune equal upon the whole with that of 
 the other. Nor is it at all impossible that God may have such treasures 
 of mercy in store, that the party receiving them shall see he was not un- 
 equally dealt with by the severest degrees of punishment which divine 
 Justice judged fitting to inflict upon him. 
 
 Many learned and pious men hold two future states, an intermediate and 
 a final, and though the former be a state of happiness to the virtuous, yet 
 the bliss of the latter will be incomparably greater. Why then may not 
 the balance be evened by the period of suffering being made so much 
 shorter than that of the intermediate happiness, as that the quicker passage 
 obtained thereby into the final may compensate for the evils undergone ? 
 
 Or it may be, that the reprobate shall, after a length of time which 
 nobody can limit, be brought to a right mind by the extremity of their 
 torments so as to take an utter detestation against the courses which brought 
 them thereinto, to feel a sincere and ardent love of virtue, stronger than 
 can be attained in this life : whereby they may obtain a higher seat of hap- 
 piness, during the remainder of the intermediate state, and so, like Lazarus, 
 be comforted to a degree that will bring their fortunes equal upon the whole 
 with those who have not been tormented. 
 
 Or as suggested in the Vision 35, the state of punishment may be 
 naturally eternal, as that of fallen man was, and the compensation brought 
 about by a miraculous interposition, or irresistible grace, bringing them to 
 a tenor of mind which may make them become objects of reward, instead 
 of wrath they were before. For we must always bear in mind that virtue 
 is the sole and certain road to happiness, as wickedness is to misery; there- 
 fore if a deliverance ever be effected, it must be worked out by a Metanoia, 
 which we translate Repentance ; that is, a thorough change of disposition 
 and character : so that there must be an equality of virtues, before there can 
 possibly be an equality of fortunes. 
 
 11. It may perhaps be deemed inconsistent with our ideas of goodness to 
 imagine that he who is the fountain of it, and in whom it is inexhaustible, 
 will inflict intolerable torments upon persons who are so far the object of 
 that Attribute, as that he designs them an equal portion of happiness upon 
 the whole with his best and most favoured servants. But let us reflect 
 upon what we have already seen in the Chapter upon that article, how 
 imperfect our ideas of Goodness are, and wrong beyond our skil] to rectify 
 them, or discover in what particular point their deficiency lies. Were we
 
 EQUALITY 607 
 
 to follow them implicitly, we must conclude there is neither pain, nor dis- 
 tress, nor disappointment, nor uneasiness of any kind in the world : but 
 this conclusion daily experience forbids, and thereby throws us quite off our 
 reckoning. We acknowledge God infinitely good, and the permission ot 
 evil forces us likewise to acknowledge a mixture of it consistent with 
 infinite goodness : but what limitation that Attribute must set to the mix- 
 ture, or what proportion to good it must require, we have no rule to ascer- 
 tain. The most we can gather with tolerable assurance is this, that the 
 good must greatly preponderate the evil : but we know the riches of God 
 are inexhaustible, so that he may have enjoyments in store for his creatures, 
 sufficient to compensate either by their intenseness, or duration, for the 
 severest sufferings we can imagine. 
 
 I know Wollaston lays down, that there are some pains a wise man 
 would not choose to undergo upon any consideration whatsoever ; and I 
 am so far from contradicting him, that instead of advising anybody to 
 choose, or even run the hazard of, the pains I have been speaking of, I 
 would exhort him earnestly to use all his wits and diligence to escape 
 them ; nor do I believe any man ever did run the hazard deliberately upon 
 the recommendation of such wisdom as our frail nature is capable of, but 
 whenever they are incurred, it is always owing to the prevalence of folly, 
 or corrupt appetite overpowering or perverting the judgment. But may 
 there not likewise be some enjoyments so engaging, that the wise man 
 would not forego them upon any consideration ? We see daily how intense 
 pleasures drive men knowingly into grievous mischiefs. For the strongest 
 idea always carries our choice, and it is difficult to raise so lively an imagi- 
 nation of what we have in prospect, as of what we feel. The wise man 
 may bring himself by long practice to do this better than another, yet he is 
 still but a man : and where the impression either of pleasure or pain is 
 very strong, he will scarce Le able to find anything in his stores of re- 
 flection to overpower it. So all this amounts to no more, than that the 
 present outweighs the future in our estimation. 
 
 But the wisdom of God is greater than that of the wise man, and his 
 views more capacious : to him a thousand years are but as one day : for he 
 sees things in their essences, not by their representative ideas, which the 
 strongest of us can raise no higher than the narrowness of his organs will 
 permit. Therefore we cannot judge what he will choose for his creatures 
 by what the wisest of them would choose for himself : for he may discern 
 the greatest evils he inflicts to be no more, compared with the bliss beyond, 
 than the plucking a hair out of a man's beard, to a year of health, and 
 plenty, and pleasure. 
 
 Thus much we may rest assured of, that punishment is inflicted by the 
 same God, infinitely good, and gracious, and merciful, who gives rewards 
 to the righteous : therefore there can be nothing in it not consistent with 
 goodness. Neither does he punish in anger, but for the benefit necessarily 
 to result therefrom to the rest of his creation : whence it follows there may 
 be a good redounding to make the punishment appear eligible to infinite 
 wisdom ; and if the good of others can render it so, there is less difficulty 
 in comprehending that a compensation to the party himself may weigh 
 with equal force. Besides, the most pious persons, who think themselves 
 most intimately persuaded of God being infinitely good, do not stagger at 
 the doctrine of punishment absolutely eternal inflicted upon far the greater 
 part of mankind, including Children born out of the Christian pale : if 
 then an inveteracy of vengeance, never to be satisfied, nor appeased to all
 
 608 EQUALITY. 
 
 eternity, be compatible with their idea of infinite goodness, surely a tern - 
 porary suffering to be followed some time or other, though nobody knows 
 when, by a course of virtue, reconcilement, and happiness, is much more so. 
 12. Yet there is no encouragement to evil doing upon prospect of the 
 solace to follow after an immeasurable length of misery : for though divine 
 wisdom may discern the compensation to be adequate, yet there are suffer- 
 ings so shocking to human nature, that no man who does not shut his 
 eyes against them can submit to undergo them willingly upon any account : 
 so there is no ground for the sinner to avail himself of what shall happen 
 after so long an interval. Moralists indeed exhort men continually to 
 regard the future alike with the present, but there is a moderation in all 
 things : one may stretch one's view too far, as well as confine it too near. 
 He that goes along with his eye fixed upon the ground, will be liable to 
 miss his way, or run into danger ; so we exhort him to look up, that he 
 may see the windings of the path before him, and take direction from the 
 bearings of the country : but if he keep gaping at the distant horizon, it 
 will be as bad as to keep poring upon the ground. The proper measure of 
 our regards for the future, is their usefulness : for our speculations and our 
 apprehensions, as well as our actions, ought to bear a reference to use. 
 Therefore moral exhortations urge us to consider the remotest consequences 
 of our conduct, but remain indifferent to events whereon that can have no 
 influence. And if we are enjoined against an unavailing solicitude for the 
 morrow, because sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; much more 
 must it be faulty to stretch our eye to a distant good beyond the reach of 
 mortal ken, when it can only tend to make us careless in guarding against 
 intolerable mischiefs running along the line between to a length which 
 cannot be computed. Since then our condition in the next life will depend 
 upon our behaviour here, it behoves us to hold that object constantly in 
 view for keeping us circumspect and diligent in our proceedings : but what 
 further returns of life may lie beyond the next, will not be affected by any- 
 thing done now, so we have nothing to do nor to think of with respect to 
 them. 
 
 Or if the sinner could be assured that he might purchase an adequate 
 compensation by incurring the utmost severity of torments, there could be 
 no prudence in accepting the terms, because he can get nothing by the 
 bargain, nor have any advantage upon the whole over those who reject it : 
 for the compensation must be barely equal to the suffering, or the equality 
 between him and such as do not purchase it will be destroyed. For my 
 part, I had rather bear a little toothache once a month, than racking pains 
 of the stone once in seven years, though I were assured the quantity of both 
 should be alike : much more had I rather escape such racking pains, than 
 endure them to purchase a pleasure but just equal to their weight. 
 
 And I believe he would scarce choose to go through the severe persecu- 
 tions of the primitive Christians : he had rather content himself without 
 that greater weight of glory they earned thereby. Yet they acted pru- 
 dently, the purchase being much more valuable than the price demanded, 
 and they being supported under the burden of the payment by their glowing 
 hope in the mercies of God, who was able to recompense them abundantly 
 for their labours. But the sinner will not have this hope to support him, 
 for he will see God only in wrath and vengeance, the amiable parts of his 
 character will be hidden from his eyes ; and when the soul is reduced to 
 that worst of agonies, not to. be borne by any mere creature, so as to cry 
 out, My God, my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? this is a situation that
 
 EQUALITY. 609 
 
 no wise man, or I may say no man in his senses, having a just apprehension 
 of his danger, but would do his utmost to escape. Therefore we find those 
 who are in these dreadful courses armed with an insensibility that stupefies 
 them against all alarms. They can familiarize themselves with the thought 
 of devils, as of a diverting story, and make merry with their tortures, as 
 with the tricks of a Harlequin : they have no feeling but for the present, 
 and are wholly regardless of what shall befall them in time to come : agree- 
 ably to that ancient saying, Whom Jove would destroy he infatuates. 
 
 1 3 . There may still lie another exception against the theory of compen- 
 sation, which will be thought enough to overthrow all arguments whatever 
 that can be produced in its favour ; for many will count it heterodox, as 
 contradicting that endless duration of punishment so strongly inculcated in 
 our sacred oracles. But there have been persons of eminent piety, and 
 great knowledge in the holy Scriptures, who have given them a milder 
 construction : such as our learned Archbishop Tillotson, and one of the 
 primitive fathers, Origen, who cannot be suspected of too hasty a temper in 
 departing from the literal sense, since he adhered too closely to it in that 
 text which speaks of some who have made themselves eunuchs for the king- 
 dom of heaven. 
 
 And there is one passage in Luke 16, which seems to countenance the 
 doctrine of equity by employing it as a principle of reasoning, in the answer 
 made by Abraham to the rich man, which term we commonly turn into a 
 proper name, and call Dives : for Abraham does not allege the former 
 behaviour of Dives and Lazarus, but their former fortunes, to account for 
 the present difference between them. The commentators in the Synopsis 
 tell us, that " it will add to the torments of the damned to hear and con- 
 sider the former means and advantages they have been under for salvation, 
 if they have descended from godly parents, or have been members of the 
 Church of Christ :" therefore Abraham called him Son, to increase his vex- 
 ation by putting him in mind of his g-dly lineage, and communion with the 
 true Church. I do not know upon what authority they assign the office of 
 a devil to the father of the faithful, making him forward to heighten the 
 torments of the damned : his answer seems rather to bespeak a sentiment 
 of mildness and compassion : the appellation of Son or Child is an expres- 
 sion of fondness : he can give little comfort, it is true, but what he can he 
 gives him, which tends only to teach him patience, by reflecting on the 
 equitableness of his treatment. As if he had said, Be content, my child, 
 you have no hardship done you : remember that Providence cast you into 
 a state of enjoyment in the other world, and Lazarus into wretchedness ; it 
 is but reason the tables should now be turned, that you should be the un- 
 happy man, and he comforted. And lest he should be mortified at thinking 
 himself utterly abandoned and neglected by the blessed Spirits, the patriarch 
 takes care to let him know this was not the case, and that it was not for 
 want of Will, but of Power, that he did not hasten to endeavour some relief 
 for him : for, besides all this, there is a great chasm or vacuity between us 
 and you, neither ground to walk upon, water to swim, nor air to fly along, 
 so there is no possibility of passage from one to the other. 
 
 From hence we may gather that the glorified Saints, who do the Will of 
 God as it is done in heaven, not as it is done upon earth, that is, invariably 
 and knowingly, still have a tender regard for their unhappy brethren lying 
 under the divine vengeance. And since they enjoy the beatific vision, we 
 may take their sentiments for true copies of the glorious original the" con- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 B
 
 610 EQUALITY. 
 
 template : from whence may be inferred that God himself bears the like 
 tender regard; nor can we doubt whether any to whom he bears such re 
 gard shall ever fail of receiving the good effects of it in due time, as soon 
 as the necessary services of the universe, to be worked out by their suffer- 
 ings, shall be completed. 
 
 Observe moreover, that the answer to Dives being framed upon this 
 principle, there was room for him to draw a further consolation from it than 
 was expressed : for the change of conditions between him and Lazarus 
 being put upon the footing of equity, without any notice taken of reward 
 and punishment, if his sufferings were so intense as to cast the balance 
 much lower in his disfavour, than it had ever been raised to his advan- 
 tage before, he might augurate that the same equity would require there 
 should be an amends kept in store for him, sufficient to bring the balance 
 exactly even between both : for it could hardly consist with equity that, be- 
 cause one had lived in pleasure and the other in wretchedness forty or fifty 
 years, therefore the latter must be comforted and the former tormented to 
 all eternity. Nor would the unnavigable gulph utterly exclude his hopes, 
 for though declared impassable in width, nothing was said to show it im 
 measurable in length : so he might think it not impossible that, by a long 
 journey round the coast, he might arrive at the end of it, where he should 
 find the region of darkness joining with that of light. 
 
 I know very well that texts are best interpreted by construing everything 
 with a reference to the principal design for which they were delivered, but 
 that design in the parable before us can scarce be thought having anything 
 to do with equality ; it is generally holden to look no further than the per- 
 suading such as possess the good things of this world to make such pru- 
 dentrapplication of them as may improve their interests in futurity. Yet 
 nothing is more common than to draw separate inferences from particular 
 expressions, which have no relation to the main tenor of the context : the 
 Synopsis writers have done it copiously upon this very parable. And there 
 is the better reason for building upon occasional hints in the present case, 
 because it is not a subject proper to be entered upon professedly in a 
 Gospel preached to the poor, nor fit to be ranked among those things 
 which are written in such legible characters, as that he who runs may read : 
 therefore no more could be expected than a slender hint, or by-intimation, 
 for this is enough to the considerate who have ears to hear, and more might 
 have been mischievous to the inconsiderate. Besides, those who believe 
 every part of the Gospels dictated by the Holy Ghost, with a view to the 
 instruction of future ages, as well as of the first disciples, may the more 
 easily admit, there might be something in this parable not convenient to be 
 too strongly insisted upon, because of its being omitted by the other three 
 evangelists. 
 
 14. And I am so sensible of the inexpedience there may be in descanting 
 trpon these topics of equality and compensation among the generality, that 
 I should gladly have suppressed them, if the course of my argument would 
 have permitted me. For I am of a more timid constitution than Tillotson, 
 nor, had I been authorized to speak from the pulpit, should have ventured 
 so far there as he has gone : yet we do not find his discourse has done mis- 
 chief in the world, or sapped any part in the foundations of Religion. I 
 have remarked before in 10 of the Vision, that the ancients had an ad- 
 vantage over us moderns ; for dealing out their tenets in parcels by lectures 
 to different companies, they could adapt their discourses to their audience, 
 whereas we who have none other way of communicating our thoughts than by
 
 EQUALITY. 61 1 
 
 the press, are forced to pour out all promiscuously before all comers. So 
 can do no more than I have already done in the introductory section of this 
 Chapter, by cautioning the too curious traveller to take that care of him- 
 self, which it is not in my power to take for him, and to leave me during 
 my excursions, waiting until he sees me come down again to the old chan- 
 nels running along within his accustomed purlieus. Or should he despise 
 this warning as believing it useless to himself, still it is my comfort to think 
 that I am not in a situation to prove dangerous anywhere : the thinking, 
 who can judge for themselves, will be led by nobody, so I cannot mislead 
 them ; and the populace, whenever misled, are drawn by a great name and 
 authority, which I neither expect nor pretend to, nor desire ; so they can 
 never be hurt by an obscure man, who has neither title, nor dignity, nor a 
 seat in the House, nor yet those spiritual gifts which make the possessor 
 powerful in utterance, able to draw followers by thousands, to all the several 
 skirts around this great Metropolis. 
 
 But though not bounden to such strict guard upon my steps as the emi- 
 nent and the popular, neither have I thrown out things wantonly and 
 thoughtlessly, nor unless compelled thereto by the necessity of attaining 
 my principal aim : which was effectually to recommend universal Charity, 
 that sum of natural Religion, and grand cardinal virtue, whereon are de- 
 clared to hang all the law and the prophets. For without an equality I 
 could find no certain means for coming at the mutual connection of interests 
 between all perceptive creatures throughout the universe, intended for the 
 subject of the next ensuing Chapter : because if there be any doomed to 
 miseries absolutely eternal, there can be no participation of interests be- 
 tween them and other creatures. But such connection seemed to me the 
 only medium discernible by the light of nature wherewith Charity might be 
 established on its surest bottom, Self-interest, by showing that it is rather 
 a measure of highest prudence, than an obligation of duty. And none other 
 ways have occurred to me, by which an equality may be effected, besides 
 those suggested above. So that the valuableness of my principal aim may 
 atone for running some little hazard of giving offence in the manner of 
 pursuing it. 
 
 I shall add further that my concern lies only with the point of equality : 
 nor have I a fondness for the theory of compensation any longer than while 
 it appears a necessary avenue to that. If another method can be found by 
 which an equality may be made out, or if it shall be ranked among those 
 mysteries which we must admit though we cannot explain them, it will 
 serve my purpose as well. 
 
 But the arguments evincing an equality, as set out in 2, 3, appear to 
 me irrefragable, and whoever would controvert them, ought to prove either 
 that the virtues we possess are entirely our own, not derived from God by 
 the channel of his grace, nor a dispensation of his ordinary providence in 
 our favour, or else that he is partial, creating some to everlasting bliss, and 
 .thers to everlasting misery. Therefore until one of those two points be 
 clearly made out, I may look upon the doctrine of equality as sufficiently 
 established, and take it for the foundation of what I have next to offer. 
 
 2R 2
 
 CI2 
 
 CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 IT has been frequently said, that if horses knew their own strength, they 
 would never submit to all the drudgeries and hardships they are made to 
 undergo. But it might with better justice be said, that if men knew the 
 force of that reason and discretion in their power to exert, they would 
 never submit to all those inconveniences, troubles, and vexations, they 
 might relieve themselves from by a proper application of these talents. 
 For there is industry and contrivance enough in quantity throughout the 
 world, to supply all our wants and desires ; they fail only through misap- 
 plication. We see daily how indefatigable men are in their several pursuits, 
 how vigilant in watching opportunities to gratify a predominant passion, 
 how attentive and sagacious in practising little artifices to compass a fa- 
 vourite purpose. But the misfortune is, that they spend their industry for 
 the most part upon trifles, or in the service of some fond humour suggested 
 accidentally by fancy, or at best for the accomplishment of narrow views, 
 terminating solely upon themselves. Whereas the most beneficial enter- 
 prises can only be achieved by the united endeavours of many, concurring 
 in some work that may redound to the advantage of them all. We see this 
 exemplified in the benefits of society, where the operations of war, the con- 
 veniencies of commerce, and regulations of civil policy, are promoted by 
 the persons concerned acting in partnership and concert. The common 
 transactions of life go on more easily, and conversation becomes more 
 agreeable, for a readiness to assist and oblige. 
 
 Nature designed the whole species for one society, as we may judge from 
 the variety of productions serviceable to all, the different materials and op- 
 portunities for cultivating the arts and sciences, which she has distributed 
 about among the countries upon earth : so that no one of them furnishes 
 the accommodations of life completely without communication with the rest. 
 But foHy, selfishness, and passion, have prevented our growing into a 
 vigorous healthy body ; we are a disjointed multitude, each caring only for 
 himself, and thereby losing those innumerable advantages we might work 
 out by our unanimity. Whose place is ill supplied by succedaneums, such 
 as the desire of riches or honour, the lash of necessity or dread of dangers 
 too glaring to escape our dull optics : which prove a feeble cement to join 
 us into those partial societies and temporary engagements conveying the 
 blessings we do enjoy. Nay, what is worse, our greediness and ill humour 
 often drive us to endeavour the damage and displeasure of one another : 
 which occasions a double waste of industry, by obliging others, who might 
 employ it better, to apply theirs in relieving or defending themselves against 
 our attacks. But unanimity cannot subsist without universal charity and 
 unreserved good will, which nothing can better promote than the persuasion 
 of there being a real connection of interests and mutual dependence of hap- 
 piness among mankind, and this persuasion our doctrine of equality seems 
 particularly well suited to propagate. 
 
 2. It was with a view to bring men better disposed towards one another 
 that I entered upon my task. For how much soever I may have seemed to 
 trifle and play the wanton sometimes, I have all along had grand designs in 
 my eye, being no less than to contribute, so far as in me lay, towards exci-
 
 GENERAL GOOD. G13 
 
 ting a general concern and mutual benevolence among my'fellow creatures. 
 For I cannot help being persuaded that if this could be completely effected, 
 so as that every man should become a friend and hearty well-wisher to every 
 man, this alone wouldrestorea paradise upon earth; although earthquakes should 
 still continue to overthrow, tempests to sweep away, blights to destroy, and 
 wild beasts to devour as usual : for I doubt not that the united skill and 
 labours of mankind might remove all intolerable evils, and teach the art of 
 bearing easily all that could not be avoided. Yet I am not so romantic as to 
 think of completing this design, or even making any large stride towards it. 
 But Rome was not built in a day, nor by the hands of a single laborer : yet 
 years and ages are composed of days, and the most stupendous works per- 
 formed by numbers made up of single labourers. 
 
 The world seems growing more humanized, more enlarged in their no- 
 tions, and readier to take concern in distant joys and sorrows, than they 
 were in former times : and as these advances are made insensibly by parti 
 cular persons, each contributing a little towards promoting them, it becomes 
 every one to lend a helping hand to so salutary a work, in such way as he 
 finds himself best suited to take. As I have not much intercourse among 
 mankind, nor acquired an expertness in the management of topics prevailing 
 with the Many : it seemed that I could not do better than address myself 
 to the thinking and studious, by collecting a chain of observations which 
 might serve as a hint for them to improve, towards bringing themselves 
 into a conformity of sentiment and openness of temper. For if, instead of 
 entering the lists as adversaries contending for victory, they would consider 
 one another as persons consulting together upon the methods of accom- 
 plishing a purpose they all had at heart : however they might vary for a 
 while, they could not be long without discerning which were the best. And 
 if they would employ their talents sincerely for the public good, in prefer- 
 ence to any private views or favorite schemes or pre-contracted prejudices, 
 they must quickly draw the rest of the world after them. For the multitude 
 are ready enough to follow their leaders; nor evrer desert them, unless 
 enticed away by opposite leaders. 
 
 But to deal with the sagacious and deep-thinking one must go to the 
 bottom of things, for they will not take up with strong assertions nor super- 
 ficial appearances, how shining soever : but to bring them into one mind 
 one must proceed upon premises they can examine themselves and approve 
 of. Therefore they fail in their transactions among one another by dealing 
 too much in abstractions, ideal differences of right and wrong, of laudable 
 and blamable, and intrinsic value of rules and qualities : which as men's 
 ideas vary infinitely, being modelled according to their several turns of 
 thought, they can never settle to mutual satisfaction. For this reason I have 
 endeavored to dig down to a foundation they will all agree strong enough to 
 bear a superstructure : for I suppose the most righteous and unprejudiced 
 will allow it commendable for a man to do what he can for himself, provi- 
 ded he do no hurt to another thereby, nor thwart any rule of Religion or 
 duty. Therefore self-interest of itself is a proper consideration to put us 
 upon action : and I have taken this for my basis to work upon. It must be 
 owned indeed that all others propose happiness and truest interest, as the 
 ultimate aim to be attained by the several systems : but then they either 
 carry their road through the wilds of abstraction, or take large leaps from 
 stage to stage, by which methods they do not render the continuity visible 
 even to one another. Therefore I have been careful to keep my feet all 
 along upon the solid ground of experience, employing such abstractions and
 
 614 GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 reasonings from time to time as could be drawn thereupon, and attempting 
 to trace the connection, step by step, from self-interest to the virtues : so 
 that whoever thinks fit to follow me may do it without leaping hedges or 
 flying in the air, and judge for himself in what particulars I have been de- 
 fective. Only I must desire he will distinguish between excursions I make 
 for illustration or for removing obstructions that would stop my passage or 
 for other particular purposes, and the main parts of my road conducting di>- 
 rectly towards the journey's end. 
 
 I have examined human nature and found that Satisfaction, every man's 
 own satisfaction, is the spring that actuates all his motions. I have investi- 
 gated the sources of satisfaction, which is conveyed for the most part through 
 the channel of desire ; observed that desire may be turned into new courses 
 by good management; inquired what turns of desire afford the most copious 
 stream; and shown that the ideas exciting desire, derive, nearly or re- 
 motely, from external and prior causes. I have then proceeded to the con- 
 templation of external nature ; and from thence attempted to rise to the 
 Author of nature, together with so much as can be discovered from his works 
 concerning his attributes and character : wherein there appears no weakness 
 nor humour, no spark of arbitrary or inequitable disposition, but unreserved 
 and unniggardly goodness. From this height I have returned downwards, 
 to show that all causes in act derive their efficacy and destination from the 
 act of the First, exerted with certain foreknowledge and deliberate design 
 of whatever should follow thereupon. I have likewise scrutinized minutely 
 the motions of freewill, explained the difference between necessity and cer- 
 tainty, and shown the consistence of liberty with pre-appointment ; whereby 
 it appears that human action is among the causes depending in a chain upon 
 the First. From all this I have concluded that all events, whether yielding 
 enjoyment or trouble, effected as well by the choice and activity of man as 
 by chance or nature, were of the divine provision : and this provision being 
 made in perfect equity, that there is an equality of happiness, upon the 
 whole balance of good and evil, allotted to every creature. 
 
 Thus far we have travelled already, and our next step shall be, from this 
 equality to deduce a reciprocal connection of interests among the creation : 
 from whence will naturally flow an universal charity and steady attention 
 to the general good. As to the methods whereby this is most effectually 
 promoted, these are copious enough to supply materials for another work, 
 if we should have strength and opportunity to undertake it : it is enough 
 that we furnish ourselves here with a fundamental and ruling principle of 
 action, in lieu of that we had established before. For we set out at first 
 with the position, that a man has nothing else to do than pursue his own 
 interests in such a way as his judgment shall represent most feasible and 
 effectual : nor need we still recant our opinion, but having found our own 
 interest indissolubly connected with that of others, we may discard our old 
 aim securely, and take up this, as answering the very purpose driven at by 
 the former ; keeping our eye constantly upon it as a mark to direct us in 
 all our proceeding*. 
 
 3. For if the accounts of all are to be set even, we can get nothing by 
 obtaining a little advantage at the expense of greater damage to another ; 
 and lose nothing by submitting to some pain for procuring him a greater 
 pleasure. Because in the former case we depress his balance more than 
 we raise our own, and thereby cut ourselves off from so much of the expec- 
 tations we were entitled to by the rule of equality as the diffeeence amounts 
 to : in the latter we raise his balance more than we depress our own,
 
 GENERAL GOOD. C15 
 
 ontl thereby increase our future expectations in like proportion. For so if 
 there be two merchants in partnership, each of them during the course of 
 trade would think himself interested in the balance appearing from time to 
 time upon the other's books : and would judge it prudent to throw any 
 branch of trade into the other's hands, if it would turn to greater profit 
 there than in his own. Nor would it alter his measures, that his partner 
 had a larger balance of cash in hand already ; for while he could supply 
 himself by his own industry, he would choose to do it that way rather than 
 draw out of what lay elsewhere in reserve for his future occasions. 
 
 Now it is the rule of equality, entitling each adventurer to a share in the 
 whole profits of the business, that constitutes a partnership ; whether im- 
 posed by the authority of a superior, or settled by mutual compact. For if 
 a merchant sends his sons with a competent stock to trade in different 
 parts of the globe, upon condition that when they return home, the gains of 
 all shall be divided equally among them ; this is a partnership as much as 
 if they had entered into it by voluntary agreement : and the King's frigates 
 ordered out upon a joint cruize, are as much partners as a company of pri- 
 vateers. 
 
 Therefore the universe may be justly regarded as an innumerable host of 
 partners dealing together in the traffic of happiness : and it is our business 
 to apply all our contrivance and industry towards improving the common 
 stock, and adding to the quantity of enjoyments in nature wherever we can. 
 It is no matter whether we do this in the hands of another or of ourselves, 
 we shall advance our own benefit either way alike ; because our share or 
 interest must always rise and fall proportionably with that of the public. 
 But there are disbursements to be made in all traffic : labour, trouble, dan- 
 ger, disappointment, self-denial, pain, and punishment, are the disburse- 
 ments necessary in the commerce of nature ; and the prudent merchant 
 will grudge no expense likely to yield a larger return. Only he will manage 
 parsimoniously, driving his bargains hard, that the cost may not run higher 
 than the occasion absolutely requires ; nor yet will he scruple to advance 
 any sums because the returns may fall into other hands, for the common 
 stock will be the object he has constantly at heart, as knowing himself so 
 much the richer man as that can be made to increase. 
 
 4. Thus the general good becomes the root whereout all our schemes and 
 contrivances, all our rules of conduct and sentiments of honour are to branch : 
 and the centre whereto all our particular lines of direction are to point. 
 But this general good, although much in men's mouths, seems but little 
 understood, being supposed always to imply something redounding to the 
 benefit of the whole community ; whereas we are too inconsiderable to do any 
 good whereof the universe may partake. Nevertheless, let it be remem- 
 bered that the whole is made up of individuals ; so that every pleasure we 
 do our neighbour, is an addition to the quantity of happiness in nature. 
 Just as a merchant, sending goods to one partner, which may be disposed 
 of to great advantage, thereby enlarges the common stock, although the rest 
 of the company should know nothing of the matter. Therefore whatever good 
 we do to any particular creature, we do to the universe : agreeably to that 
 expression of him who represented a community as their head. What ye 
 have done unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done unto 
 me. 
 
 But though universal good be promoted by the good of any single per- 
 son, yet it is more promoted by what redounds to the benefit of numbers ; 
 which therefore deserves the preference whenever opportunity serves, or
 
 616 GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 the two come into competition : and this is so evident, that nobody can 
 doubt of it. Hence the mighty bustle commonly made with public spirit, 
 which as bandied about in the world, is become an empty sound, with no- 
 thing of spirit in it ; or used as a pretence to varnish over selfish designs ; 
 or employed as an artifice to bring others into a disinterested zeal, which 
 those who recommend it laugh at in their sleeve as a weakness. But if 
 such as have abilities would set themselves in earnest to trace the relation 
 between self-interest and general through the channels of nature and Pro- 
 vidence, in the manner I have attempted, they might perhaps clear the pas- 
 sage more demonstratively : and by their greater sagacity and skill in 
 casting light upon objects, might render the connection visible to common 
 apprehensions, so as to make them intimately persuaded of its realitv, and 
 embrace it as a practical principle of action. ' Nevertheless, to take off from 
 their trouble as much as I can, since men are remarkably ingenious at start- 
 ing objections against the best evidenced truths they do not like, I shall en- 
 deavour to obviate such as I apprehend may arise against this rule now laid 
 down as the most prudential. 
 
 5. It may be alleged that the quantity of good and evil in nature is such 
 and none other than God in his wisdom and bounty nas thought proper to 
 make it : and consequently the portion of each individual must be such 
 precisely as falls to his share, according to the number of creatures existent, 
 beyond the power of any thing to alter it. Therefore it matters not what 
 good or hurt they bring upon their neighbour, because they cannot diminish 
 the portion of either allotted to him, they can only anticipate the times of 
 his receiving it : for if they do the former, he has so much less to expect ; 
 if the latter, so much less to fear, in the remainder of his period. 
 
 ! Now this allegation might have some colour of reason, if we knew the 
 precise portion assigned to each creature, or if it were to be ascertained by 
 an unalterable fatality : but we know not the one, and know the other, from 
 our experience, not to be the case. So that whenever we do good, we see 
 the immediate benefit of it ; but we cannot see, nor rationally conclude, that 
 some remote loss or damage shall ensue from it. And with respect to the 
 portion, the whole measure of that is secured no otherwise than the several 
 articles composing it, and the times of their being given : that is, not bj' a 
 fatality, but by a provision of adequate causes. Let but men turn the tables, 
 and they will see the hollowness of their excuse : for if another goes to 
 hurt them, or debar them from taking the pleasures in their power, they 
 will not bear to be told, it is only an anticipation or retardment of what 
 they must receive some time or other. And in gratifications of desire or 
 self-interest, they will not hear of a fatality ; whereas in reality these matters 
 are as much under appointment by the provision of causes as anything else 
 whatever. Therefore let them only raise their desire to its proper object to 
 wit, the advancement of good wherever feasible, and their objection will 
 vanish of itself. I have endeavoured to make appear in the last Chapter 
 but one, that the secret Will of God can be no guide to Our conduct which 
 we are to form upon the declared Will, evidenced to us by our reason judg- 
 ing upon the consequences of measures, or by rules built upon our former 
 experience or upon the authority of those who know the tendency of actions 
 better than ourselves ; therefore we have nothing to do with appointments 
 any further than as manifested to our apprehension. For the decree or de- 
 termination of God is nothing else than the provision of causes adapted to 
 each particular event ; and the operation of. those causes is requisite to exe- 
 cute the decree ; but in matters within our power, our own deliberation and
 
 GENERAL GOOD. 617 
 
 industry are among those causes ; wherefore we must think and strive foi 
 ourselves notwithstanding the decree. 
 
 This is apparent in common affairs of life : for who that lives in plenty 
 does not see that he has his daily bread appointedfhim by having the means 
 in his hands of procuring it, for which he ought to be thankful ? yet doea 
 not see at the same time that this appointment by no means supersedes his 
 cares in sending to market and ordering his family ? Thus, although the 
 portion of happiness be of divine appointment, yet the application of our 
 cares and industry, for conveying the parts of it administered by our own 
 agency, is requisite and advisable. In these instances the Will of God is 
 done by our Will : but that Will orders all things for the best. Yet though 
 whatever we shall do must therefore be agreeable to his Will, and best to 
 be done, because done : still this does not take away the use of judgment 
 and deliberation to direct our choice between the several measures of con- 
 duct. If a man having it in his power to do something whereby he should 
 get a thousand pounds seven years hence, should be told that whether he 
 did it or let it alone, either way would be the best he could take : I make no 
 doubt he would prefer that which afforded him a visible gain, rather than 
 depend upon the unknown profit to arise from his rejecting it. So if, how- 
 ever we conduct ourselves, we shall unerringly pursue that unknown Best 
 appointed by divine provision, it behoves us to take the way apparently 
 best to our own judgment. 
 
 But men never employ these sophisms unless in justification of their gra- 
 tifying some present fancy ; whereas if they had any weight, they must 
 avail against inclination as well as judgment, the omission of either being 
 alike the best thing could have been done, whenever done : so that all 
 choice and preference of any kind whatever will be taken away, and a total 
 stagnation of activity ensue. But if between things equal in themselves, 
 liking and fancy may cast the balance, surely the weights of reason and pru- 
 dence are greater. Yet we cannot allow them intrinsically equal, for our 
 fortunes in futurity, as well as present time, are in great measure of our own 
 making : therefore if we hurt them by misconduct, what remains will be 
 the quantity thought best to be allotted us by Divine Wisdom ; and if we 
 improve them, the quantity so increased will likewise be that thought best 
 by the same wisdom. Thus the best we may attain by the road of virtue 
 and discretion will be (if I may so speak) a better Best, than any we can 
 arrive at through the paths of folly and indulgence. 
 
 6. Another handle may be taken for cavilling, from our having laid down 
 that every evil is to be considered as the payment for a purchase of some- 
 thing more valuable : from whence it may be inferred that by plaguing and 
 hurting another, we do him no injury, for we only compel him thereby to 
 make an advantageous purchase. Or if the value of the estate and the price 
 be settled by divine appointment, we only call upon him for a part of his 
 payment, which it is all one whether he makes to-day or to-morrow, since 
 he must have made it some time or other. But this may be answered in the 
 same manner with the former ; for we know not either the certain value of 
 the estate or the price, nor whether one shall be enhanced in proportion to 
 the other : therefore by doing hurt we visibly increase the payment, without 
 knowing whether we shall increase the purchase. 
 
 Besides, by this rule it would be incumbent upon every man to make 
 himself as miserable as possible, because by so doing he would purchase a 
 larger fund of happiness : but I believe no man in his sober senses and dis- 
 passionate moods, ever run himself wilfullv into miseries upon this account ;
 
 CIS GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 nor unless called thereto by some rule of duty, which was a particular as- 
 surance that the sufferings he submitted to were worth his while to undergo. 
 We -know not what proportion of evil is necessary for the services of the 
 universe, therefore ought to use all means in our power for lessening it, 
 being well assured that we cannot reduce it lower than the sum imposed 
 for the necessary services. The public taxes are a payment for the pro- 
 tection afforded by the state : yet he that should compel his neighbour to 
 pay a shilling in the pound more than the law demands, or than he knows 
 the exigencies of the state require, would be deemed to do an injury. So 
 he who puts another to a pain or trouble from whence he sees not the 
 benefit resulting, does him a wrong ; by exacting a payment he cannot be 
 assured would ever have been demanded. 
 
 7. But the most plausible exception lying against the expedience of 
 labouring for the general good, arises from our inability to contribute 
 so much towards it as to make our share worth the consideration. For it 
 may be urged, if you had it in your power to do something that would make 
 a thousand people happy for fifty years together : though this would seem 
 a vast addition to the common stock of enjoyment, yet when you reflect 
 what prodigious multitudes it is to be divided amongst, your own part will 
 scarce amount to the value of once smelling at a rose. So there is no in- 
 ducement to bestir yourself, because with your utmost endeavours you can- 
 not make an addition to your own fortune sufficient to be perceived. 
 
 But let us consider, that if this doctrine were to prevail, most of the 
 blessings of nature, the benefits of society, and conveniences of life, would 
 be lost : the most valuable of which are procured by the operation of feeble, 
 inconsiderable agents. The planets are holden in their orbits by the attrac- 
 tion of minute particles, undiscernible with a microscope, composing the 
 body of the sun : the earth is clothed with pasture by little seeds, each 
 whereof cannot throw up herbage enough to make a bite for a sheep : if we 
 admit a Mundane Soul, the worlds are formed and the courses of nature 
 kept in order, by spirits which singly could not heave a mote in the Sun 
 beams. What is a single soldier in those armies that have kept the 
 mightiest potentates in awe ? If he lag behind you do not stop for him, or 
 if he be slain you do not miss him. What is a private person's quota to 
 those immense supplies supporting our armaments in all quarters of the 
 globe ? If he has not wherewithal to pay, the operations go on as before, 
 and none but the collector or his nearest neighbours know anything of his 
 failure. Yet a wise man, finding himself to have courage and ability for 
 the service, would not desert in time of battle although there were no courts 
 martial to overawe him : nor withhold his proportion of the taxes although 
 his goods were liable to no distress. For he would regard what he con- 
 tributes by his person or his pocket as entitling him to a share of the ad- 
 vantages procured by all the others he joins with : an object well worth his 
 contemplation. Nor let it be made a discouragement that some unreason- 
 able creatures refuse their helping hand : for there are enow concurring 
 some way or other in the public service to render the benefits worked out 
 by them a sufficient inducement to become one of their number. 
 
 8. But we need not undervalue our particular services because they yield 
 but little profit : for though the performance of them cannot do much 
 good, yet it may prevent great mischiefs which might have ensued upon 
 the omission . The negligence of a single sentinel may give the enemy an 
 opportunity of surprising a whole camp, and a little carelessness in placing 
 a candle may produce a fire that a'.; all burn down a whole town. There-
 
 GENERAL GOOD. 619 
 
 fore we can never be too vigilant, because we can never know what waste 
 of destruction may ensue upon the want of it. What though our persons 
 be single and our efforts small, nobody can say what multitudes they may 
 not affect, nor what tides of industry they may not excite. It is notorious 
 of how spreading a nature both the virtues and the vices are : for example 
 and sympathy diffuse the stream to all quarters from a single fountain : and 
 a man may sometimes find that in his power wherein all mankind shall have 
 concern in the consequences. Noah built his ark to save his little family 
 consisting of eight persons : but in so doing he saved all the generations 
 of men that have since overspread the earth. The founders of Religions 
 and sects in philosophy, inventors of arts and sciences, though imparting 
 their thoughts to a few, have thereby opened channels which overflowed 
 whole nations and countries. And as we know not how far the people of 
 the intermediate state stand affected by what passes here, nor what effect 
 their transactions have upon the spiritual substance ; it is not impossible 
 nor improbable, that a single person may do that which shall be felt by the 
 whole universe. 
 
 It may be said this might happen perhaps to extraordinary persons once 
 in an age, but a private man never stands in a situation Jto work conse- 
 quences that can possibly extend beyond the narrow circle of his acquaint- 
 ance. But I would ask him how he knows that ? For we have shown in 
 our Chapter of Providence, that the affairs of the world are all complicated 
 and interwoven among one another into one tissue; that the greatest 
 events depend upon the minutest, and the constitution of the Roman empire, 
 together with that of the kingdoms branched out from thence, might be 
 determined by some such inconsiderable circumstance as the wearing a par- 
 ticular coloured riband upon a certain festival. So that there is no such 
 thing as trifle in nature, every little incident and sudden fancy being pro- 
 vided for by perfect wisdom with a regard to the whole. For how narrow 
 soever the views of creatures may be, God beholds the universe, and directs 
 every little stroke in his all-comprehensive plan, so as to contribute its 
 share towards the general good. Or if there be such things as trifles, they 
 are so intermingled among the imperceptible springs of important events, 
 that the most prying eye cannot distinguish them apart. 
 
 Therefore we ought always to stand upon our guard, and shape our 
 minute motions by such discretion and regard to rectitude as is proper upon 
 the occasion, for the chance of effecting what unseen good or escaping 
 what unthought of evil may possibly depend upon them. For the 
 chain of causes and effects runs to such immeasurable lengths and divides 
 into so many unperceivable threads, that no man can be sure his manner of 
 stirring the fire or buttoning his coat shall not be attended with conse- 
 quences greater than he is aware of. But it would be in vain to take his 
 measures upon consequences that human sagacity cannot investigate : 
 therefore he has nothing to do with them, nor with anything else besides 
 the rules of prudence, charity, propriety, and innocence, so far as in the 
 present circumstances of the case he can discern them. For since the 
 wisest men have always maintained that moral good is the ready road to 
 natural, while he follows the best lights of his judgment, he may trust Pro- 
 vidence for leading him unknowingly into all those secret advantages pos- 
 sible in his situation to be attained. For though God no doubt has apr 
 pointed each of us his certain portion, yet he deals out to us, perhaps the 
 whole, or at least a great part of it, by our own or one another's hands. 
 For we have seen more than once before, that things certain may neverthe-
 
 620 GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 less depend upon human contrivance and industry. Therefore it Behoves 
 us to use the proper degree of circumspection as well in matters of trifle as 
 of moment : because according to our conduct in either, our portion will be 
 better or worse ; and that in a measure greater than we think of, and large 
 enough to deserve our notice and overpay the trouble of the acquisition. 
 
 9 . Yet even supposing this was not the case, but that it were impossible for 
 us, either directly or in consequence, to add so largely to the general fund as 
 may raise the least perceivable difference in each private share ; still there 
 would not want encouragement to bestir ourselves : for it is not necessary 
 that every particular profit must be divided among the whole company, be- 
 cause the members may have equal shares, though assigned them out of 
 different funds. Were there a million of traders dispersed up and down in 
 different quarters, and destined to make the same fortunes, they might be 
 divided into distinct partnerships of ten in a company, who might traffic 
 and settle their balances from time to time among themselves, without 
 intercourse among the other decads. Equality might still be preserved, 
 provided there were an able superintendent of the whole, who should take 
 care there were the like opportunities of trade among the several decads, 
 or that particular persons were removed in due order from a less to a more 
 gainful fellowship. And, in fact, we find the creation, so far as our expe- 
 rience reaches, divided into distinct species and limited societies, the effects 
 of whose actions extend no further than to a certain number of those with 
 whom they have intercourse. Nor can we presume otherwise of those un- 
 seen consequences depending upon the secret concatenation of causes, which 
 however they may in part extend to innumerable multitudes, are likely to affect 
 some particular class of beings principally, with whom we stand nearest 
 concerned. And upon removal into a new fellowship, the rule of equality 
 will require that the place assigned us should be such as may secure to us 
 the balance due upon our former account. For though these changes be 
 brought about by natural courses, yet God, being the author and disposer of 
 nature, establishes all her provisions in equity ; as well those respecting the 
 changes from one state into another, as those regulating accounts in the 
 same. So that by our diligence in the branch of trade before us, we deter- 
 mine what interest we shall have in the branches to be allotted us hereafter. 
 Thus, in every stage of being, the main of what profits we can make will 
 accrue to the benefit of such a competent number as that our proportion shall 
 remain weighty enough to be felt in our hands. 
 
 Or even if we suppose all the gains accruing thrown into the general 
 fund upon account of the whole partnership, there is no necessity they 
 should be drawn out again by little fractions from each, so minute as 
 to reduce them below our notice. Could a man raise a profit of a thousand 
 pounds, to receive it again by a farthing a year, he might despise the addi- 
 tion of a farthing to his annual income ; but if it came by fifties or hundreds 
 of pounds at a time, he would find the convenience of them for his occa- 
 sions. So the share of happiness we earn by some effort of our industry, 
 being dealt out to us in serviceable portions, will answer our future wants 
 some time or other, without detriment to our fellow-creatures receiving 
 theirs in like manner. This would evidently be the case upon admitting an 
 universal rotation : for then every person falling in some part of his course 
 into the place of every other, must receive the very same good, both in 
 kind and quantity, as he does to his neighbour ; and if he can do that 
 which redounds to many, he will reap the benefit of it so many times as 
 there are persons to whom he has done service. But should there be no
 
 GENERAL GOOD. 621 
 
 such exact retaliation in kind, yet equity requiring that the good befalling 
 one should likewise hcfall another, there must be a compensation equal in 
 value. Therefore, though we do not receive just the same sized notes, or 
 the same species of coin we carried in, we shall be sure of receiving the full 
 amount in good negotiable cash. 
 
 So that since the allegory of books has been employed by the best autho- 
 rities, we may consider the provisions of Heaven as an universal bank, 
 wherein accounts are regularly kept, and every man debited or credited for 
 the least farthing, he takes out or brings in. All the good we procure to 
 another, the labour and self-denial we go through prudently, and evil we 
 suffer unavoidably, are written down as articles in our favour ; all the evil 
 we do, the fond indulgences we give into, or good we receive, entered per 
 contra as so much drawn out of our cash. Perhaps something may be 
 taken out for the public services, but then we have the benefit of this in the 
 public conveniences and protection whereof we partake ; but the remainder 
 lies placed to each private account for answering our calls or supplying our 
 occasions. 
 
 And this is a better bank than that of England to keep our current cash ; 
 I shall not say, for its greater security, because the monied men of this and 
 foreign nations think the other secure enough ; but the Bank of England 
 give no interest upon their notes, whereas the Bank of the Universe im- 
 prove what we have lying there to immense advantage, far beyond what 
 could be made in script by any Jew or clerk in the secretary office let into 
 secrets ; and the application to our several occasions lies under wiser ma- 
 nagement than our own. If I have an account with the Bank of England, 
 and should take it into my head, because other folks are fond of the like, to 
 throw away a large sum in punch and ale for gaining me the huzzas of 
 a drunken mob, and procuring me an opportunity of serving my country 
 which I want abilities to use ; or to buy a horse of noble lineage descended 
 from Turkish or Barbarian ancestors to run at Newmarket : upon applying 
 to the cashier in Threadueedle-street for a thousand pounds, he will in- 
 stantly order payment without asking questions : though I may want the mo- 
 ney grievously next year to make up a portion for nay Serena or my Sparkler. 
 Or should I chance on some distant journey to be reduced low in pocket, if 
 I have no checked paper along with me, I cannot draw for a single six- 
 pence to buy me a little bread and cheese. 
 
 But the directors of the bank above have constant intelligence from all 
 parts of the universe, and their runners traversing to and fro among their 
 customers : so that whatever I have belonging to me there, if I call for a 
 sum to squander away upon some vice or folly, though I beg and pray nevei 
 so hard, the cashier will not issue me a farthing, because he knows it had 
 better be kept in reserve for more necessary occasions. But if I chance to 
 fall into distress in any disconsolate spot of nature, where a supply would 
 do me real service, though I should not see the danger of my situation, 
 nor have sent advice with the needful per post, I shall have the runner angel 
 privately slip the proper sum into my hand at a time when I least expect 
 it. So we have no need to trouble ourselves about the improvement of our 
 money there, or the laying it out for our particular uses : it is our business 
 to use all our judgment and industry and vigilance for throwing as much as 
 we can continually into bank. Yet this does not hinder us from taking pre- 
 sent enjoyments from time to time, where innocent and lying properly 
 within our reach : for though this be a lessening of our future demands, yet 
 the future were of no avail if it were never to be present ; nor is money
 
 622 GENERAL GOOD. 
 
 good for anything but to be spent, provided it be spent prudently, and no 
 more given for things than they are worth. 
 
 10. Nor have we concern only with the articles of our own account, but 
 with those likewise of other persons ; from whence we may receive a plea- 
 sure not to be found in the ordinary course of worldly commerce. If on 
 attending at the earthly accountant office, the eye, while the clerks turn over 
 the leaves of their books, happens to catch upon somebody else's balance, 
 which appears ten times larger than our own, one may be mortified to find 
 oneself so inconsiderable in point of riches, compared with him. 
 
 But in the accounts of Providence, a like discovery could prove no such 
 mortification : for we dealing all in partnership, the profits whereof are to 
 be made equal to each in some shape or other in some part of our period, 
 whatever virtues, talents, or successes we see elsewhere, adding more largely 
 to the common stock than we can do ourselves, must become matter of rejoic- 
 ing- rather than vexation. Because the rule of equality insures to us that 
 we shall either immediately partake of the fruits gathered therefrom, or at 
 some future time be instated in a branch of trade we see to be more profit- 
 able than that now under our management. 
 
 And this consideration, duly attended to, must put an end to that humour 
 of depreciating the characters, the abilities, and the enjoyments of other 
 creatures, so generally prevailing among mankind. For as the more good, 
 so the less evil we can find in others, the better it is for ourselves. For my 
 part, I am so far from any temptation to believe myself the happiest of my 
 species, that 1 would thank anybody who should prove me the most miser- 
 able creature in the universe : I do not mean, who should bring mischief 
 upon me, or discover misfortunes in store which I do not know of, for this 
 would be madness to desire : but should show the condition I now stand in, 
 such as it is, inferior to that of every other being : so that the common 
 labourer, the galley-slave, the negro, the flea, the mite, and every departed 
 soul, possessed greater enjoyments than those within my reach. Such a 
 discovery would afford me a most ravishing prospect of nature, and without 
 hurting me in present, give me more hopeful expectations for the future : for 
 since I am not always to continue in the same state, I could make no change 
 unless for the better. 
 
 But I am too sensible of the blessings vouchsafed me, to be persuaded 
 into this imagination : on the contrary, when I behold miseries anywhere 
 appearing far greater than anything I ever underwent, which yet I have 
 found troublesome enough ; it raises, besides a fellow feeling for the suf- 
 ferer, a melancholy reflection to think that the lot of existence is subjected 
 to so severe a condition. However, my partiality to wish it easier makes 
 me ready to embrace every evidence that offers for believing it so : and it is 
 with pleasure I find alleviations, from custom, difference of apprehension or 
 insensibility, for every natural evil ; and extenuations from ignorance, 
 inadvertency, and surprise, for every moral. Or if this cannot be done, find 
 benefits resulting therefrom ; enjoyments and advantages compensating them. 
 
 Thus the doctrine of equality tends directly to nourish benevolence, 
 mutual esteem, good wishes, and favourable judgments, between fellow- 
 creatures ; and how much soever it may appear at first sight to encourage 
 indolence, by making men trust to the diligence of their partners, yet when 
 fairly examined, it proves as strong a recommendation and solid ground of 
 care and industry in particular persons, as any principle whatever. There- 
 fore, those who should not admit it, might yet allow it excuse, for sake of 
 the desirable ends aimed at by proposing it to their consideration.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 623 
 
 CHAP. XXIX. 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 THE attentive reader will please to remember, that at the close of my 
 chapters upon the Attributes, I took notice of some others usually placed 
 upon the list, which I there called secondary Attributes, as not arising from 
 contemplation of the Divine nature regarded apart : whereof this of justice was 
 one, which I could not take fully into consideration until I had collected 
 further materials necessary for the purpose. He will now see why I post- 
 poned this article, to wit, that I might first go through what observations 
 I had to make upon the manner of God's governing his creatures, whereof 
 the proper distribution of rewards and punishments is one of the engines 
 employed. 
 
 We have no means of forming any conception of the moral attributes, 
 unless by analogy with something we have observed among ourselves : and 
 it has been found at several times in the course of these inquiries, that a wise 
 man would never punish for punishing sake ; nor unless driven into it by the 
 necessity of attaining some greater good which could not be procured with- 
 out it. For true wisdom always includes goodness, and goodness will never 
 put a man upon any measure that is not beneficial : it may urge him some- 
 times to hurt another for preventing greater mischief, or reaping good fruits 
 that will overpay the hurt ; as in cases of medicine or surgery, or forcing a 
 child into the discipline of a school, or drudgeries of an apprenticeship ; but 
 wherever it takes the road of severity, there is always some benefit lying in 
 prospect beyond. 
 
 Now, we have shown in the proper place, that the motive of action is that 
 end occurring to view at the time of acting : the intermediate steps have 
 no weight in the scale, being only ideal causes directing us how to proceed. 
 Therefore, whenever the suffering of an offender is the real motive or sole 
 object in contemplation, it proceeds from passion, ill-nature, or weakness. 
 Not but that the best men often punish without looking to the good fruits 
 resulting therefrom ; but then they do it in compliance with their rules of 
 justice, which are to them an evidence of good they cannot discern. For 
 human reason is so short sighted as seldom to see to the end of her road, 
 therefore we should lose our way perpetually, if we had not rules to direct 
 us, and though our rules branch and receive evidence from one another, yet 
 it is the expedience of following rules that gives them their sanction, and be- 
 gets the general idea of rectitude. For what else is right, unless that which 
 had better be done than let alone ? and what can we understand by better, 
 unless more beneficial and more productive of good ? 
 
 But when we turn our thoughts upon the Divine nature, we shall find 
 nothing of passion or malice, or weakness there : nor are the views of God 
 so narrow as to want those helps to direct him in the course of his proceeding, 
 which are necessary to weak-sighted mortals. For he sees the whole im- 
 mensity of space and shoreless ocean of eternity in one unbounded prospect : 
 he discerns distinctly the fullest length of chain and most complicated tissue 
 of causes requisite to complete his every purpose : nor follows other rule in 
 taking measures for conferring what blessings he judges proper for his 
 creatures, than his own gracious bounty and the constitution of universal 
 nature he established from everlasting. Therefore we have no reason to be-
 
 624 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 lieve he ever terminates his views upon evil, or has nothing further in his 
 thought, when he takes vengeance, than the sufferings of the sinner. 
 
 2. Were there an immediate and necessary connection between offence 
 and punishment, there could be no place for mercy ; much less could the 
 exercise of it deserve commendation, but must rather be deemed an erro- 
 neous and unnatural proceeding. Yet we find, that in the judgment of the 
 wisest, an aptness to show mercy, and to forgive or forget injuries, is alwavs 
 regarded as one of the brightest jewels in a man's character : which shows 
 there is some medium making the connection, which when wanting in the 
 circumstances of the case, mercy may laudably interpose. And this medium 
 can be none other than the necessity or expedience of punishing ; in order 
 to prevent the mischiefs expectant upon future enormities. Therefore it is 
 that repentance sheathes the sword of justice, which it could not do if de- 
 merit was essential to transgression ; because nothing subsequent can alter 
 the quality or essence of a deed already perpetrated : but the thorough 
 amendment of the party preventing his ever offending again, renders punish- 
 ment needless, by answering the purpose intended thereby, and so removing 
 the medium of necessity, destroys the connection. Therefore when punish- 
 ment is necessary for example to others, repentance will not be accepted : 
 because there the medium consisting of many strings, though one be cut 
 asunder, the rest remain entire, to shut out the entrance of mercy. 
 
 Nor can we conceive the matter beholden otherwise by the all-seeing eye 
 of God, with whom is mercy as well as judgment : but if in his original con- 
 stitution of nature, he had established an immediate and essential connection 
 between offence and punishment, we cannot suppose he would ever have 
 broken through his own constitutions. Yet Mercy has always been counted 
 his favourite Attribute : and when, in condescension to our weakness, he has 
 been represented by figures taken from human sentiments, we find him de- 
 scribed as being uneasy and anxious to have the sinner escape. As I live, 
 saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he 
 should turn from his evil ways and live. But neither God nor man can be 
 supposed to submit to a thing they have no pleasure in, unless for some 
 greater benefit to redound therefrom : and in such case act upon a motive of 
 necessity. 
 
 But necessity, when operating as a motive, always weighs by the idea of 
 advantage, which the thing we do is necessary to attain, and which renders 
 it more beneficial to be done than omitted. Therefore since God is no re- 
 specter of persons, nor consequently entertains a personal hatred or grudg- 
 ing against any one, but his mercy is over all his works and he would not 
 that any should perish : we may rationally conclude, that whenever he exe- 
 cutes vengeance, he does it not in wrath, but in wisdom, as a means to work 
 out some good that shall overbalance the sufferings of the delinquent. For 
 his mercy never sleeps, but would always interpose whenever justice goes to 
 lift the thunder, unless goodness and wisdom did sometimes withhold her, 
 by showing the greater profit redounding from punishment. Which profit 
 equity enters in her books of account, apportioning to the sinner his share of 
 whatever is earned by his sufferings. For God orders all things for the best, 
 whereby must be meant, not the best for himself, because he wants nothing 
 from us, nor can his riches or happiness receive addition by anything passing 
 among us, but the best for his creatures : whose interests we have already 
 seen are so involved together, that whatever promotes the general good of 
 the Universe or of any community comprehended therein, must promote 
 that of every particular.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 625 
 
 3. Thus punishment follows the rule directing all other evil, which our 
 idea of infinite goodness may convince us always terminates in some event 
 more desirable than the escaping it. It will not be amiss in the next place 
 to trace the origin of vengeance, which we shall not find arising immediately 
 from the divine nature, as goodness and equity do, but from the constitution 
 of the creatures, rendering it a necessary spring in the hand of Providence 
 for working out its gracious purposes and securing the accomplishment of 
 its plan. We know by experience that God has been pleased to intermingle 
 a portion of evil among his works, and this may be distinguished into three 
 kinds : first, labour, self-denial, and inconveniences, we are instructed to sub- 
 mit to voluntarily for the good fruits to be gathered from them, or by rules 
 established by others upon the knowledge of their expedience ; next, diseases, 
 sinister accidents and infirmities of old age, brought upon us by the courses 
 of nature or fortune ; and thirdly, punishment inflicted by the act of some 
 superior power, to drive us into a tenor of conduct we should not have pur- 
 sued without. 
 
 I know some have holden all the trouble, labor iousn ess, and disasters of 
 life, to be conditions annexed to human nature, in consequence of offences 
 committed in a former state : but if so, they fall within our definition of 
 punishment above given, for though they cannot have the proper effect 
 here, they may make us examples to some other Beings, or to ourselves in 
 some future state, wherein we may have faculties given to discern the causes 
 of them. Yet we cannot rega. J them as such now, because we cannot know 
 for what misbehaviour they are inflicted ; and therefore they can be no warn- 
 ing to us what practices to avoid. I know likewise that man too often 
 punishes the fellow-creatures in his power, for disobedience of his commands 
 given without any regard to their benefit, but solely for his own advantage 
 or humour. As when the lordly West-Indian tortures his poor Negroes 
 for not doing more than they could do in cultivating his plantations ; whose 
 produce he never means to share among his slaves, but sends it all to 
 market, to raise wealth for supplying his own wanton and wasteful luxury. 
 But God, as we .observed before, has no advantage of his own, nor humour 
 to consult : so can give his commands for none other end than the advan- 
 tage and happiness of his creatures, nor punish upon other motive than to 
 enforce obedience to those commands, and thereby secure the benefits con- 
 sequent thereupon. 
 
 4. Therefore the divine commands may be regarded as the advices of an 
 indulgent, tender parent or unerring monitor, instead of the injunctions of 
 an Almighty Governor ; and must operate as strongly in one light as the 
 other upon a prudent man, having an earnest attachment to his own inte- 
 rests. If I had never heard of the Decalogue, nor had other rule to go by 
 beside that left with the Reader at the end of my first Volume, of taking 
 care of myself whenever reduced to a condition wherein I could not be the 
 better for any good befalling others ; yet suppose an Angel were sent from 
 Heaven to stand before me, with authentic and undoubted credentials of his 
 mission, and delivered his message in the following tenor : 
 
 Thus saith the Lord Almighty, the Creator and Governor of all things 
 visible and invisible, Behold, I have given thee powers of action to do this 
 or that as thou pleasest : I have given thee freedom of Will, to choose be- 
 tween the things before thee ; and I have given thee desire, to quicken thee 
 up to activity, that thou lose not the use of thy powers. What hast thou 
 now to do, but to fulfil thy heart's desire in any way whereto thou canst 
 
 VOL. i. 2s
 
 626 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 turn thy hand ? For I have bound thee by no law, nor hung any restriction 
 over thee, which might withhold thee from doing the thing that is in thy 
 mind. Because I am mild and gracious, and my mercy endureth for ever": 
 neither is there wrath or vengeance before me. Am I a man, that I should 
 suffer passion ? or the son of man, that I should resent or be angry ? Can 
 injury approach me, that I should be vexed ? or damage, be done, that I 
 should retaliate ? Therefore fear not my terrors, for there are none with 
 me; nor my judgments, for I do not execute them. For I delight to do 
 good, and not evil. My beloved office which I have chosen for myself is to 
 guide, not to rule ; to admonish, not to punish. 
 
 I behold the present and future : the issues of events are before me ; 
 and I alone know unerringly what is good. Have not I, the Lord, created 
 the heavens and the earth ? Are they not interwoven together in one 
 universal tissue, connecting all natures, visible and invisible, by one indis- 
 soluble chain of causes and effects ? But have I done more work than mine 
 eye can survey ? Are there any limits to my intelligence, or any line in 
 my plan so minute as to escape me ? Do not I then know the means of 
 gratifying the desire of happiness implanted in my creatures, and all the 
 turnings in the road of expedience ? or want I loving kindness and bowels 
 of compassion, to lead them thereinto by proper directions, according to 
 their several natures ? To man I have given reason and forecast to discern 
 the things at a distance, and guide him into the way that leadeth to bis 
 peace. And if I have not bestowed these in sufficient measure to answer 
 all his occasions, I will vouchsafe him other lights to supply the deficiency, 
 that nothing needful be withholden from him. For this cause have I sent 
 my messenger to declare unto thee what thou wast not able to discern by 
 thine own sagacity. Hearken unto his admonition, for I have put into his 
 mouth the words of wisdom and truth. 
 
 Know, then, that if thou shalt worship Chance, or Necessity, an uncreated 
 Nature, or any other God besides me. 
 
 If thou shalt rest thy dependence upon anything in the visible heavens 
 above, or on the earth beneath, or that cometh forth from the bowels of the 
 earth. 
 
 If thou shalt cast aside thy reverence of my Majesty, or swear by my 
 name to the thing that is not, or use it lightly, until it become an empty 
 sound in thy mouth. 
 
 If thou shalt lay out thy whole time upon thy worldly concerns, thy 
 pleasures, and thy fancies ; or, trusting to the strength of thy reason, shall 
 neglect those expedients necessary for preserving alive the remembrance of 
 me in thine imagination. 
 
 If thou shalt withhold due honour from thy superiors whom I have set 
 over thee, whether of thy house or of thy people, to preserve order and 
 economy therein. 
 
 If thou shalt destroy or hurt thy brother without lawful warrant. 
 If thou shalt indulge the lusts of thy flesh, which thou sharest in common 
 with the beasts. 
 
 If thou shalt purloin thy neighbour's goods, or overreach him when ye 
 commune together in your dealings. 
 
 If thou shalt charge him falsely with that for which the judge will give 
 sentence, or asperse his character in the streets, or calumniate him in secret. 
 If thou shalt harbour a desire of getting away from him his possessions, 
 or his reputation, or the thins: wherein he delightetb, or whatsoever is va- 
 luable unto him.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 627 
 
 Know that in so doing thou actest foolishly, for by all these things thou 
 wilt lose far greater enjoyment than thou canst gain for the present, and 
 bring down intolerable mischiefs upon thy head : which shall afflict thee 
 sorely, and make thy heart sicken with desire to be delivered from them, 
 but in vain ; for thy desire shall no where find gratification. Because the 
 order of nature is so established, and the chains of connection between thy 
 present and thy future state so carried on, that the issue will surely fall out 
 as I have forewarned thee. 
 
 See, now, I have set good and evil before thee this day : choose therefore 
 whether of the twain liketh thee best. Nor murmur against me as a hard 
 master : for I set thee no task, lay thee under no commands, nor turn thee 
 from the path thou wouldst go by my threatenings ; but leave thee to thine 
 own judgment and prudence to conduct thee into the course they shall re- 
 present to thee the most desirable. 
 
 Now upon supposition of such a declaration coming from the fountain of 
 knowledge and truth, I appeal to any man of common sense and the least 
 forethought of anything beyond the present moment, whether it would not 
 be as incumbent upon me to follow the admonition, as if I had seen a visi- 
 ble appearance descending upon mount Sinai, surrounded with thunders 
 and lightnings and ineffable glories, engraving the same with a finger upon 
 two tables of stone, and subjoining a denunciation underneath, The soul 
 that keepeth not all the words of this writing shall surely be cut off. So 
 there needs no more than to enlighten our understandings, that we might 
 discern the natural consequences of our actions, to make the paths of 
 righteousness eligible : for we should see her so closely embraced by pru- 
 dence and interest, that we could not know which was which : nor would 
 any other road be the right, were there no future judgment, than that we 
 are driven into by the terrors of it. 
 
 5. Nevertheless I should be very averse against persuading mankind, if 
 I could do it, into a belief that such a message had ever been really de- 
 livered : and very sorry to have such a delusion gain credit upon myself. 
 For though it would make no alteration in what is right, nor render other 
 measures expedient to be pursued than arc so already ; yet I fear it would 
 make a fatal alteration in our conduct. For how much soever we may fancy 
 ourselves guided by reason and prudence, it is too notorious by every day's 
 experience, that they have not strength enough to influence our actions. 
 Mr. Locke, although misled at first by the notion prevailing among learned 
 men, yet discovered upon second thoughts, and proved demonstrably by 
 many instances drawn from common life, that good, the greater good, 
 acknowledged and apprehended to be such, does not determine the Will : 
 which constantly follows satisfaction upon whatever object appearing in the 
 thought. For while the mind can satisfy herself completely with a present 
 pleasure, she never stirs a step towards the attainment of distant good ; nor 
 unless she apprehends a present uneasiness would accompany the missing 
 her opportunity. But it is the resting of satisfaction upon an object, that 
 makes it our desire, or raises an appetite towards it, and renders it an aim 
 of our pursuit. 
 
 Therefore our desires and appetites are the officers having the leading of 
 our powers, nor can reason do anything unless by their ministry : her office 
 being only to put such of them into command as will do their duty well. 
 The virtues have no avail upon us while remaining in theory, nor become 
 practical until grown into appetites : so derive their very name and essence 
 
 2s2
 
 628 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 from being incorporated into that family. Therefore the bare knowledge of 
 what makes for our happiness would help us but little forward towards it, 
 unless there was a desire which should aiford us an immediate satisfaction 
 or uneasiness, according as we found ourselves in the way. But the gene- 
 ral idea of good is of too thin and abstracted a nature to catch hold on de- 
 sire, without a view of some particular good, similar to those we have 
 experienced, and a clear exposition of the manner or chain of consequences, 
 whereby our conduct should produce it. For though the love of rectitude 
 for itself has been cried up as capable of everything, and perhaps justly sup- 
 posing the attainment of it were feasible, it has never yet been found among 
 the sons of men. But should the particular benefits resulting from our 
 good works be manifested, and the manner of their growing from thence 
 ever so clearly explained, still we might find them so remote as that the 
 prospect would be too hazy to excite our desire. For were it to accrue by 
 rotation, casting every man at some time or other into the places of those 
 to whom he does service, he might not think it worth his while to concern 
 himself with what shall happen millions of millions of years hence. Or 
 which is more probable, we might find them dependent upon the joint 
 endeavours of such innumerable multitudes that our own would appear not 
 to deserve the pains of applying them. For if the principal branches of the 
 general good he worked out by the concurrence of all the creatures, contri- 
 buting thereto in their several stations, we might think our share of the con- 
 tribution could never be missed, and our own loss upon withholding it too 
 small to be perceived. 
 
 6. Since then we are so constituted as that good, not clearly appre- 
 hended, or lying at a distance very remote from us, or requiring vast num- 
 bers to concur in procuring it, does not influence us to action : there needs 
 something more prevalent to be annexed for giving it activity and vigour. 
 And this we cannot doubt but God has provided in his constitutions of na- 
 ture : for he established them in wisdom, and adapts his causes respectively 
 to the subjects whereon they are to operate. To matter he has given the 
 capacity of impulse and agency, directed by such well-policied laws, as that 
 every atom performs its office in carrying on the stupendous courses of na- 
 ture, and preparing for events to fall out many ages to come : to brutes he 
 has given appetites and instinct, guiding them to do all the little services 
 required at their hands : to man he has given freedom of Will, determined 
 by motives urging him to the choice of such actions within his narrow 
 sphere of power, as conduce most effectually to the general good of the 
 creation. But since he has not afforded him understanding large enough 
 to discern this good, and the way by which he contributes towards it : nor 
 sensibility to be touched with objects removed to a great distance ; nor 
 penetration to see the value of small powers in conjunction with those of 
 other agents : he has supplied the deficiency by providing other incitements 
 to turn his steps into the way that full intelligence and unslackening pru- 
 dence would have led. Whereof this of punishment is one, which drives 
 him into measures whose good fruits he does not know, creates an expedi- 
 ence nearer to his view, and holds up an object strong enough to engage his 
 desire. 
 
 Nor do we want experience enough to teach us the use of this engine in 
 our dealings with one another : I do not mean only by that lash of punish- 
 ment which the law holds over villains for the peace and security of honest 
 men, but in those few instances wherein we imitate our heavenly Father, 
 by exercising our government for the benefit of those under our power.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE 629 
 
 We bring children, by threatening them with the rod, into those little arts 
 of managing their limbs and into the rudiments of learning, whose neces- 
 sary uses they are not sensible of. We keep young lads, by restrictions 
 and penalties, from idleness, excesses and indulgencies, whose pernicious 
 consequences, though not ignorant of, they are not touched with. And 
 when an army or a naval armament is sent out upon some enterprise, the 
 whole plunder whereof is to be divided among them : yet there are courts 
 martial binding each man to his duty, which otherwise he would think might 
 be spared for that the work would go on as well without him. 
 
 7. Hence we see the origin of vengeance, when found in the breast of 
 any wise and beneficent Governor : namely, from the imperfection of under- 
 standing, which cannot discover the consequences of every course of be- 
 haviour ; and from the weakness of reason, which has not colours lively 
 enough to paint a strong representation of distant objects upon imagination, 
 nor force enough to urge desire to the prosecution of advantages she does 
 discern. Thus divine justice springs, not from the nature of God, but of 
 his creatures ; and is a branch of wisdom discerning and providing the pro- 
 per springs for actuating them in their motions. Therefore we may rest 
 assured that God will take vengeance whenever necessary, and will not take 
 it in greater measure than necessary for the purpose intended thereby. 
 
 Hence likewise we may learn the proper idea of punishment, which is 
 that species of evil annexed by the act of a superior to some kind of be- 
 haviour, as a motive to deter from behaving in the like manner for the 
 future. And herein it differs from labour and mere misfortune, which though 
 often attendant upon our actions, are not, or ought not to be, a discourage- 
 ment to a repetition of them. For though ill success may justly induce us 
 to alter our conduct, it operates as an information to our judgment, not as 
 an adventitious help to assist where it was too weak. Nevertheless this 
 does not hinder, but that the punisment may follow by natural consequence ; 
 it will still retain its essence because the work of nature is the work of God : 
 only then we must conceive that God, in so constituting nature as to bring 
 it on, had a view to that particular consequence, without which he would 
 not have comprised it in his original plan. 
 
 8. But we may observe, it is not so much actual suffering, as the terror 
 of it, that operates upon freewill, wherefore it is not necessary that punish- 
 ment should be universal or perpetual : because a severity gone through 
 may dwell upon the remembrance of the sufferer, and spread a terror among 
 multitudes, so as to answer the effect wanted upon their minds. 
 
 In this light of punishment it appears, that the party undergoing it does 
 a signal service to his fellow- creatures, by exhibiting to them an example 
 of the utmost importance, and necessary to preserve them in happiness : for 
 which service, I see nothing in our ideas of our gracious Governor, that 
 should hinder his making him amends ; I do not say reward him, for this 
 would be against reason, because he underwent it not willingly nor for the 
 public good ; but repay him the cost he has been put to compulsorily. If 
 punishment be necessary, offences must needs come, to make that punishment 
 just : and though wo be to them by whom they come, yet this wo may be 
 taken into account as an article in the portion of evil thought proper to be 
 allotted them in the length of their period. 
 
 We are told it was expedient for manifestation of the divine glory to the 
 Israelites, and through them to the other nations upon earth, that Pharaoh 
 and his host should be overwhelmed in the Red Sea : for which cause God 
 hardened the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants that they should pursue.
 
 630 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 Shall then the righteous judge of all the earth exact so rigorous a service with- 
 out any wages to compensate for the severity of it ? Let any man make the 
 case his own, and then answer me, what he would not be ready to hope from 
 the' fountain of goodness and righteousness. Nor let him fancy the case could 
 not have heen his own : for who caused him to be born lately, instead 
 of three thousand years ago ? or cast his lot in England, rather than Egypt ? 
 If his father begat a child, had his father the option of what particular Spirit 
 should inhabit the body of his child ? Neither let him harbour such an 
 overweening conceit of his own ungiven strength, as to imagine that he 
 should not have acted just as Pharaoh did, if God had hardened his heart 
 in like manner. And it is all one whether he apprehends this hardening 
 effected by a supernatural act or by nature, education, and the popish arti- 
 fices of the magicians : for there is nothing in nature or her productions or 
 the occurrences passing among them, unless by divine appointment or per- 
 mission. 
 
 But if what has been here argued in favour of hardened sinners shall seem 
 to him an encouragement to list himself in the number, let him reflect upon 
 the considerations on that head in the last Chapter : where he will find, that 
 although my notion of the compensation should be right, (which I will not 
 ensure him, as never pretending to infallibility) yet does it give no en- 
 couragement to run himself upon intolerable sufferings ; because at best he 
 will have no more than a bare compensation, nor gain the least tittle of ad- 
 vantage in a bargain over us, who think it deserving our most strenuous 
 and uninterrupted endeavours to escape them. 
 
 9. This idea of punishment being a beneficial provision, established for 
 preserving order and good rule in the world, may explain the justice of 
 punishing children for the faults of their parents. For justice being an off- 
 spring of wisdom, will always shape her course wherever necessity and ex- 
 perience lead. But when the parents are dead and gone, their personal 
 punishment, being unseen here, can have no effect upon mankind : there- 
 fore if an example be necessary, it must be upon their descendants. Or if 
 they were known to suffer in their own persons, still the terror is greater, 
 when the mischief spreads to their whole family and dependants. Accor- 
 dingly the civil laws often confer good and evil upon the children for their 
 father's sake : and nature entails diseases, poverty, and impotence, upon 
 the descendants of debauched and vicious ancestors. Nor will it avail to 
 allege, that this comes to pass by natural consequence, for nature is the work 
 of God : and if in making this provision we will allow him to have had in 
 view the good we see resulting from it, this will bring it under our definition 
 of punishment. 
 
 But those who raise this objection conceive of God as punishing in anger: 
 and then indeed it would be an unbecoming thought, to imagine him angry 
 with the innocent for offences committed by the guilty. Therefore one 
 would think our experience, that sometimes he does involve the innocent in 
 his punishments, might convince them that neither anger, nor any intrinsic 
 essence of guilt, is his motive in punishing. Another basis they build their 
 objection upon is, the injury done to the innocent : but this basis stands 
 upon none other ground than their apprehending him to act occasionally, 
 and that he never thought of punishing the children until roused to vengeance 
 by the wickedness of the father. But surely those who pretend to a larger 
 compass of reason than other people, might comprehend that God, at the 
 formation of a world, may have his whole plan lying distinctly before him 
 and determine every good or evil event to befal his creatures.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 631 
 
 Now whether they hold a pre-existent state, in which case there will be 
 none other evil than that of punishment, they may take for granted that the 
 child deserved what it suffers, by some former misbehaviour. Or whether 
 they believe every birth an original creation, in which case there will be 
 prudential evils, such as hard labour, self-denial, poverty, and disaster, sent 
 for some good ends to be produced by them ; they may trust the divine 
 wisdom, which often works out many ends by one and the same means, to 
 contrive that the same evil shall prove both prudential and punitory. la 
 either case there is no injury done the child, whose concern lies only with 
 the quantity of evil he undergoes : it is no matter of what species it is, or by 
 what channel derived, so long as it is no greater in measure than was judged 
 proper to be allotted him upon his own account. The Jews crushed under 
 the tower of Siloam, felt the same pain and sustained the same damage as if 
 they had been sinners above all other Jews : or as if an Angel had over- 
 thrown it upon their heads, declaring he came down to take vengeance for 
 the idolatries of their ancestors. So a child, allotted a certain portion of 
 pain or distress, or infirmities, receives no injury, whether they be brought 
 upon him by nature, by accident, or the wicked courses of his father : 
 nor is he hurt by their serving for an example, to deter other parents from 
 bringing the like misery upon their children. 
 
 10. But since offence must needs come, this suggests a reason for the 
 unequal distribution of justice here on earth, for the slowness of vengeance, 
 and why some notorious villains pass their whole lives in a course of unin- 
 terrupted success and security. For were punishment to follow close upon 
 the heels of transgression, and the difference between good and bad made 
 obvious to every eye, it must totally put a stop to offence : duty would be- 
 come instinct, and rectitude the object of sense. So we should have no use 
 for habits of virtue or exercises of reason : which seem growing powers 
 within us, destined for greater services than we can perform with them in 
 these gloomy tabernacles and clumsy bodies we inhabit. And though of- 
 fences must needs come, there are other uses of their coming besides that of 
 making punishment just : for God produces good out of evil, which good 
 must then be lost, unless the evil productive of it were permitted. 
 
 It is true, as we have observed before, that God often causes one pro- 
 vision to answer several purposes, and so may make moral evil, as well as 
 natural, at the same time both prudential and punitory : but it is not appa- 
 rent from experience that he always does so. And indeed, if offence were 
 not necessary, it would not have been permitted, and consequently there 
 would have been no necessity for punishment ; whose use being only to re- 
 strain offence within due bounds, could have been none had there been 
 nothing to restrain. Hence it follows there is a difference made between 
 offences which, though all equally obnoxious to justice, do not all draw after 
 them their respective adequate punishment. For when wisdom has ad- 
 judged the proper bounds to be set to offence, mercy withholds the arm of 
 justice from taking vengeance where it is not necessary. But what else 
 can we conceive to make the difference between pardonable and punishable 
 offences better than repentance ? For this, if it does not take away, yet 
 certainly lessens the necessity of punishment, by rendering it needless with 
 respect to the party himself : because his amendment works the same effect 
 upon his future conduct as was intended by punishing him. But if the first 
 offence were constantly forgiven, it would be looked upon as a general 
 license to offend once : or if repentance were admitted at any time to wipe 
 off old scores, it would encourage mankind, as we find the notion of it does
 
 632 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 many of them, to sin on without scruple, presuming upon the sponge of a 
 distant repentance. For we see that neither God nor man will accept of 
 repentance in all cases indiscriminately : let the debauchee or the lecher 
 repent never so sincerely, he shall not presently deliver himself from the 
 diseases which God, by his laws of nature, has annexed as a punishment to 
 his vices. And I think it cannot do either hurt to Religion, or violence to 
 reason, if we were to suppose that repentance, however it may abate, does 
 never wholly take off, the punishment due to sins already committed : so 
 that the principal, and that no contemptible, benefit accruing from it is to 
 prevent the heaping up further stores of vengeance by future offences. 
 
 If this be so, we have no reason to be grieved at anything we suffer here 
 for our misbehaviour : because then we have paid our penalty, which would 
 have been exacted from us some time or other. This opinion, while it 
 leaves the expedience even of a death-bed repentance, shows it less valuable 
 than an earlier, or than a life spent in piety and virtue : so that, without 
 cutting off all hopes from any, it removes the common excuse for delay, 
 under pretence that the business may be done as well at another time ; for, 
 though it might be done another time, if you were sure of having another 
 time to do it in, yet it can never be done so well, nor to so good effect, as 
 now. Therefore it seems not improbable that no man carries with him out 
 of the world so great a load of sins as to merit intolerable sufferings : ne- 
 vertheless, the difference is very material between man and man. For the 
 wicked, besides the long list of debts already contracted, carries with him 
 an inveteracy of evil habits, that will prompt him to contract more : so that 
 he can never clear his score, because new articles will multiply as fast as 
 he pays off the old ones. And this is agreeable to the general belief, that 
 the reprobate shall abound in moral evil as much as in natural. On the 
 other hand, the righteous and truly penitent, carrying with them a dispo- 
 sition to act rightly, wherein they may persevere after being delivered from 
 the temptations of the body, will have nothing wanting to complete their 
 happiness, but to fetch up their old arrears. 
 
 1 1 . The same origin we have assigned for vengeance gives birth to the 
 other branch of justice respecting rewards. But it is not every good, nor 
 the thousandth part of that abounding throughout the universe, proceeds 
 from justice ; for we must distinguish between reward and bounty. That 
 ample portion of happiness allotted the creatures in some part or other ot 
 their Being, we can ascribe to nothing else than pure unmerited bounty ; 
 and is itself the ultimate end, or at least the ultimate we can conceive, 
 causing that bounty to flow ; being not given as a means of effecting any- 
 thing subsequent, nor in consideration of any former behaviour. Never- 
 theless, it is not poured upon us by an immediate act of omnipotence, but 
 powers are given us to work it out for ourselves and one another by our own 
 activity, duly exerted in our several stations. And this alone might suffice 
 to make us bestir ourselves effectually, if we had largeness of understanding 
 to discern, and strength of mind to pursue it before present gratification. 
 But since we have not always a knowledge of the good effects of our mea- 
 sures, nor feel them weigh with us when removed too far, nor can distin- 
 guish the avail of our industry in conjunction with many fellow-labourers, 
 it becomes necessary that some part of the blessings assigned us should be 
 brought nearer to our view, and annexed to certain actions in such measure 
 as may touch our desire, in order to serve as incitements to pursue the 
 courses of behaviour most beneficial to our interests. And these encourage- 
 ments are what we may properly understand by rewards : which are the
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. C33 
 
 provisions of wisdom rather than the largesses of bounty, and given not so 
 much for their own sakes as for something they are calculated to produce. 
 Thus justice in both her branches springs from the narrowness and weak- 
 ness of our faculties : for, though expedience be the foundation of merit, 
 nevertheless, as we have said in our Chapter upon honour, which is one 
 species of reward, so every other species in general belongs to things, not 
 always where they are useful, but where it may be usefully conferred upon 
 them. For where we have prudence enough to discern the usefulness of 
 measures, and to pursue them, there needs no encouragement of reward : 
 whose use is only to supply the deficiencies of prudence, and conduct us 
 along a road of expedience we wanted light or vigour to travel through. 
 
 Nor can we fail to see this idea confirmed if we look into the common 
 transactions of life : while a man can attend properly to the management 
 of his family, his estate, or his business, upon contemplation of the expedi- 
 ence, or by a habit he has acquired, he wants nothing more for his benefit ; 
 but if he finds himself grow remiss and indolent, what can he do better 
 than consider what the world will say of him, or he shall think of himself, 
 according as he amends or persists in his negligence ? thus giving a spring 
 to his industry by the terror of shame and compunction, or the prospect of 
 general or self-approbation. We invite children to their task by rewards, 
 which, when they have gotten a liking, or seen the expedience of their 
 learning, we-lay aside, or turn to some other beneficial acquisition, whereto 
 they have no propensity. Privileges and immunities are granted to persons 
 of a particular profession wanted in some country ; but after the success of 
 these first adventurers is become notorious, those encouragements are no 
 longer needful. Public honours and emoluments may be regarded as en- 
 gines of state, serviceable to actuate men's endeavours in promoting the 
 public service. Nor might it be amiss if those in power would consider 
 them in this light, as matters of reward, not of favour, under the disposal 
 of justice, not of ambition or personal liking, and to be bestowed accordingly 
 where most conducive to the general good. Nor would it save them a little 
 trouble, if they could infuse the like notion into such as teaze them perpe- 
 tually at their levees ; so as not to think themselves entitled to ask for ho- 
 nour or preferment, unless when the conferring it would prove an example 
 encouraging to some useful conduct. 
 
 12. It is remarkable that generosity gains greater applause than fruga- 
 lity, although equally a virtue, insomuch that noble and generous are be- 
 come synonymous terms : the reason of which is, because applause is ne- 
 cessary to the one, to overcome that greediness of temper inclining men to 
 engross everything to themselves ; whereas the expedience and convenience 
 visible to every considerate person are sufficient inducements to the other. 
 Hence we may learn that virtue is not laudable in herself, her value arising 
 from the good fruits she bears ; but approbation, whether of others or our 
 own, is annexed to stimulate us in the pursuit of her. And this approbation 
 resting sometimes upon a phantom assuming her likeness, nothing can 
 better cure the delusion than to examine what fruits we may expect to 
 gather from the conduct we follow. Therefore it is mischievous to fix our 
 eye too strongly upon the beauties of virtue, or more than necessary to keep 
 up our spirit in running her courses vigorously ; because it will be rather 
 apt to engender pride and vanity, than to promote her interests. 
 
 Hence we may account for the peculiarities of the Stoics, who, placing 
 the goodness of virtue solely in her intrinsic laudableness, became the most 
 presumptuous and arrogant of mortals, and entertained the most whimsical
 
 634 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 notions of virtue that ever were invented. But the expression so current 
 among 1 them of virtue being her own reward, which relates to the self-ap- 
 probation she constantly draws after her, might show that approbation is 
 not the thing which first makes her recommendable ; for reward, in the 
 nature of it, is something annexed arbitrarily to gain our estimation to a 
 procedure which had a value before, grounded upon some other bottom. 
 
 Nor can I find the Stoics less romantic upon the article of happiness than 
 the Epicureans ; which latter placed it wholly in sensitive pleasure, and in- 
 sisted that the wise man might make any sensation pleasant merely by 
 willing it : so that when roasting in Phalaris's bull, he had nothing else to 
 do than cry out, How delightful is this warmth to my senses ! and the pain 
 would instantly vanish. But the Stoic utterly despises pleasure and pain, 
 as having no existence, unless in the opinion of fools and madmen ; and 
 places his happiness in the amiableness of rectitude. What then has he to 
 do when thrust into the burning bull ? Only to cry in like manner, How 
 delightfully lovely is rectitude, whose charms I now possess ! for I certainly 
 act right in staying here, because I cannot get out. 
 
 13. Now if we turn to the administration of affairs in this world by the 
 government of Providence, we shall find there are rewards annexed to several 
 courses of proceeding. Health is the natural reward of temperance, plenty 
 of industry, content of humility, hope of piety. Men often find profits 
 when they least expected it, arising visibly from their having acted right : 
 and whoso casteth his bread upon the waters shall sometimes find it again 
 after many days. It cannot be denied that these things prove an encou- 
 ragement to well doing ; and it can as little be denied that the provisions 
 of heaven are made with a view to those effects we see them produce. And 
 perhaps most of the good things we enjoy may be intended to work the 
 effect of rewards, by leading into practices and dispositions of mind, whose 
 uses extend to distant regions and times, whither we cannot trace them ; 
 and so given primarily for our future benefit, rather than our present en- 
 joyment. Yet we may esteem the latter consideration likewise to have a 
 share in the provision ; for it is not incongruous for bounty to join in the 
 same work with justice. Or if the latter must take her course, since there 
 are two roads by which she may pass, to turn her upon the flowery turf of 
 reward, rather than the rocky-pointed causey of punishment. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the distribution of reward, as 
 well as punishment, is very unequal in this world : and that of equal good 
 deeds, as well as equal offences, some meet with their desert, while others 
 pass unnoticed. But this need not prove a stumbling-block : for justice 
 having always a respect to future expedience, will' neither reward nor 
 punish, unless where necessary for example sake. If she were to do other- 
 wise she would overthrow her own purpose. For did the adequate reward 
 constantly attend every good deed, virtue must lose her essence and become 
 self-interest : because the eye fixing always upon the profit, satisfaction and 
 desire could not be translated to the conduct obtaining it. Man indeed 
 must follow his rules of justice implicitly or else he would lose his way, 
 because he seldom stands in a situation to discern the reasons of them : but 
 whenever he can proceed upon discretion, he apportions his rewards accord- 
 ing to the services he expects resulting from them, not according to the 
 intrinsic goodness of the deed ; as we have seen already in the instances 
 produced a little while ago. 
 
 14. Divines have always made the unequal distribution of rewards and 
 punishments a proof of a future life, that there may be room for justice to
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 635 
 
 settle the accounts she leaves unfinished here. Now it must needs be owned 
 that the view of justice we have exhibited deprives them the benefit of that 
 argument in the manner they handle it. For justice respecting only ex- 
 ample, when she has made her distribution sufficient to restrain offence 
 within proper bounds, and nourish virtue to the proper degree of maturity, 
 has executed her task ; nor has anything further to do with the balancing of 
 accounts. Yet they need not be angry with me too hastily, for when we 
 come to confer notes together, provided we do it in the amicable calmness 
 of Christian charity, the difference will be found merely nominal, not real. 
 For the distinction I make between the Attributes of Equity and Justice, I 
 believe is a new one ; the latter being currently understood as a general 
 term, comprehending them both. So that I may hope to satisfy my com- 
 plainants, only by changing my style without changing my sentiments : for 
 I have employed a whole Chapter to show that justice, taken in this com- 
 prehensive latitude, requires a balancing of accounts in some future form of 
 Bjjng ; and that with greater exactness and more universal equality, than I 
 fear some of them will forgive me for. 
 
 But if they would examine distributive justice apart, it would puzzle 
 them to make out any demand upon that ; for though God will not punish 
 unless for offence, yet nobody can deny him a right to pardon where there 
 has been offence : therefore if I suffer no more than my deserts, I have no 
 injury done me, although the like should be remitted to another, nor would 
 it do me any service to have him receive them in another life. As to 
 reward, the most orthodox can hardly lay claim to that upon the score of 
 justice, for when we have done our best, we are still unprofitable servants : 
 therefore it is of pure unmerited bounty that God gives any reward at all, 
 and if he withhold it from me, shall my eye be evil because he is good 
 and gracious to another ? or what damage does his being so gracious do 
 me, for which I should be entitled to receive amends in another life ? 
 
 Nevertheless the unequal distribution of good and evil upon earth has 
 been constantly thought evidence of a future account, by all religious and 
 considerate persons ; which shows plainly that the persuasion of a divine 
 equity is more generally entertained and more strongly rivetted in men's 
 minds than they themselves are aware of : or than they care to own, when 
 they would set up a title to peculiar privileges, or justify their contempt of 
 inferior creatures, or their detestation of heretics and of their delinquent 
 brethren. And this general consent I may take as no small confirmation 
 of what has been delivered in former Chapters : for I am never so well sa- 
 tisfied with my own thoughts as when I find them coincide with those of 
 other people. 
 
 Thus our future expectations rest upon the goodness and equity, not the 
 justice of God : his goodness affording the prospect of much greater pro- 
 portion of good than evil in the universe, and his equity ensuring us our 
 particular share of it. Nor does this lessen their strength, for so our hopes 
 be well grounded, it is no matter whether they stand upon one Attribute or 
 another : or rather they will stand firmer and securer when placed upon their 
 proper solid foundation, than upon one that with fair examination may be 
 found hollow and unstable. 
 
 15. But though distributive justice alone cannot ensure us any future 
 fruits of our well or evil doing here, yet it may lead into a train of conse- 
 quences that may bring us to the expectation of them. For since provision 
 has been made for deterring from vice and inviting to virtue, we cannot 
 doubt but there are some important uses for which so much care has been
 
 $36 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 taken : and since we find the dispositions of mind generated by these 
 provisions often tend little or nothing to the advantage of mankind, or im- 
 proving the accommodations of life, we can as little doubt they yield more 
 plentiful fruits elsewhere. Then reflecting on our own individuality and 
 unperishable nature, together with our two primary properties of percep- 
 tivity and activity, whereby we shall remain for ever capable of good and 
 evil ; and contemplating the divine wisdom which does nothing in vain : we 
 cannot suppose our existence and faculties given us for no purpose, but that 
 we shall have an interest in the provisions made for future uses. But what 
 likelier uses can we imagine of the dispositions contracted in our present 
 course, than to fit ourselves for that we are to run hereafter ? And how 
 can we imagine ourselves fitted for any particular course, after being totally 
 disunited from all corporeal mixture ? 
 
 But men deceive themselves, as we have observed formerly, in their dis- 
 tinctions between body and mind, for want of making their separation 
 clean, but taking some part of the former into their idea of the latter : and 
 so place the talents, the genius, the habits, and stores of knowledge, in the 
 mind itself. Whereas we have found upon a careful examination in the 
 course of these inquiries, that our perceptions are according to the state of 
 our judgment or fancy, being nothing else than the discernment of objects, 
 expedient or pleasing or striking to our notice. But the mind or purely 
 spiritual part, being an individual, has no parts, one whereof might discern 
 the other, yet the object discerned must be distinct from that which dis- 
 cerns : so that what she discerns can be neither herself nor part of her, nor 
 anything contained in her, but something corporeal presenting different 
 objects according as diversely moved or modified. Thus we have no 
 ground in experience, nor any reasoning we can draw from thence, to con- 
 clude that the mind can receive any habit or quality or alteration from what 
 passes with us in life : nor that there is any essential and intrinsic difference 
 between one mind and another. Therefore if there be a difference between 
 departed souls, it must arise from some remains of their material organiza- 
 tion carried with them. 
 
 Far be it from me to deny, that it lies in the power of God to confer good 
 or evil by his own immediate act : but far be it from any other to deny, 
 that it lies also in his power to do it by certain "stated laws of nature ; for 
 nature with her whole host of second causes, take direction in their every 
 movement from his word. Nor can we plead authority to determine the 
 point; for that only tells us he will deal differently with' the good and with 
 the wicked, but tells not the manner otherwise than by figurative descrip- 
 tions, to make sensible to our imagination so much as it imports us to know 
 concerning the event : which whether produced directly by the hand of 
 God, or brought to pass by the ministry of second causes, is equally his 
 dealing. So the former manner is mere hypothesis, supported by no posi- 
 tive proof, but the latter stands confirmed by experience of his usual manner 
 of dealing here below : where we see all events brought about by the opera- 
 tion of nature, or chance, or free agents. And for the supernatural works 
 recorded, they appear to have been performed for manifestation of his power 
 to dull and stiff-necked mortals : n6r can we suppose them employed out of 
 necessity, for want of other means in his hand to have accomplished his 
 purposes. 
 
 16. Thus if we examine all our stores of experience, we shall find no 
 evidence of a variation of power or quality or character among minds ; nor 
 that anv one of them i c ot capable of perceptions received, and using cor-
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 637 
 
 poreal instruments employed, by any other ; nor yet that their union with 
 body must be necessary and perpetual. For though we know of no percep- 
 tions unless received by impression from matter, yet matter may serve their 
 uses by occasional application without a vital conjunction. From whence it 
 appears there is no ground in natural reason to imagine, that if ever they 
 get wholly disengaged from all corporeal mixtures, there shall be any dif- 
 ference of condition among them, either in respect of their endowments, or 
 their enjoyments, or their offices : unless as they may employ themselves to 
 assist occasionally in particular services for carrying on the general good. 
 
 There is no doubt but God can make a difference to what degree he 
 pleases : but what evidence is there that he will ? or what can we conceive 
 that should incline him to do so ? Not bounty, for that extends to all 
 alike, being no respecter of persons. Nor resentment, for he harbours none. 
 Nor damage sustained, for he can receive none, neither hath any defeated 
 his Will. Nor yet justice, for that respects not the past as its ultimate point 
 of view, but aims in all her measures at working alterations of habit and 
 disposition ; which have no place in naked spirit, being seated in that part 
 of our material composition vulgarly made a part of the mind. Or if there 
 be a communication of perceptions and mutual intercourse between spirits, 
 what should induce them to behave variously to one another ? What resent- 
 ment or favour can there be, where there is no passion ? What dislike or 
 partiality among brethren, where there is no diversity of character ? all 
 children of the same father, between whom there is no claim of primogeni- 
 ture, nor division of separate portions, but all tenants in common of the 
 same inexhaustible estate. 
 
 Now if anybody shall still insist that there is an essential and character- 
 istic difference between mind and mind, because there may be so for any- 
 thing that we can demonstrate to the contrary : or that God deals arbitra- 
 rily with his creatures, having his elect and his reprobates, because he has 
 full power and authority to deal with them as he pleases : or that a commu- 
 nication between spirits cannot subsist, because we cannot try the experi- 
 ment to ascertain it : or that there cannot be sense, intelligence, activity, and 
 enjoyment, in a body too minute to touch our senses, because we cannot 
 produce an instance of any such thing : I shall beg leave to put him in 
 mind, that it is he who builds upon hypothesis and negative proofs, not I. 
 For I endeavour to take experience for my guide, while I can have her 
 assistance ; and with respect to things invisible, where she fails me, or 
 teaches that they must be different from the scenes she exhibits, I tiy to 
 build my conceptions upon the best ideas I can form of the divine Attri- 
 butes, and the proceedings of Providence lying within my observation, 
 as the surest and only stable ground I have to rest them upon in these 
 matters. 
 
 17. From all that has been observed it seems a natural conclusion, that 
 the difference of condition between particular persons shall subsist no longer 
 than while enclosed in some material composition : arid that we shall not 
 get quite clear of all corporeal integuments upon dissolution of this gross 
 body : because provision is made in this life for uses that could not take 
 place without them. How many various stages we have to pass through, or 
 how long our continuance among matter is to last, we have no ground even 
 of conjecture to ascertain. But since all these things lie under the disposal 
 of wisdom, and goodness, and equity, we may rest assured that, wherever 
 our lot be cast, it will be such as shall conduce most to the general good, 
 wherein we shall share our due proportion : that whatever pain or trouble or
 
 638 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 inconvenience shall befall us, will be no more than the exigencies of public 
 service require : and that all the comfort and enjoyment shall be afforded 
 and tenderness shown us, that the nature of our occupation will admit. 
 Nor can we suppose otherwise than that, how fine composition soever our 
 future bodies may consist of, we shall still be no more than sensitive -ra- 
 tional animals : and while enclosed within any corporeal integument, although 
 our faculties may be larger and our sight more piercing than now, still we 
 shall want that full discernment of the general interest, and ardency of de- 
 sire towards it, sufficient to actuate us in all parts of our conduct ; there- 
 fore shall need nearer and more striking incitements to keep us in the pur- 
 suit of it. 
 
 Hence it may be presumed the province of justice extends throughout all 
 the stages of animal life : but though we can find no use for her proceed- 
 ing to settle accounts of former behaviour unless we knew the transactions 
 of this life were remembered exactly in the next, yet the provisions of nature 
 seem to indicate, that the same event shall follow as if there were an im- 
 partial and rigorous reckoning. For the habits and acquisitions we get 
 here, being preparatives to fit us for our several functions hereafter, though 
 we leave the habits and acquisitions themselves behind, and enter into our 
 new Being a blank paper, yet they must have worked such an alteration in 
 our texture and constitution, as shall give us an aptness to renew the old 
 courses by which we first acquired them. So that the wicked will carry 
 with him an obduracy of temper, productive of actions obnoxious to severer 
 punishments than any executed upon him here : and the righteous a pliancy 
 of nature obedient to the command of reason, which will lead him to merit 
 more glorious rewards than he ever earned here. And the degree of either 
 will correspond exactly to the course of life they have respectively followed 
 in their present state. Nor do I see anything that should hinder, but that 
 the obduracy may have grown so strong in some, as to render them inca- 
 pable of being touched unless by the extremity of suffering : so that they 
 will continue always objects of vengeance, and always serve as an example 
 and warning to the rest of their compatriots. 
 
 18. Nor do there want reasons to persuade us that the pleasures and 
 pains of the next world will be much intenser than any we have experienced 
 in this, if we carefully examine what experience affords us concerning the 
 process whereby they are brought upon us here. When a man receives a 
 blow with a stick across his shoulders, the stick strikes only upon his 
 clothes, they propagate the blow to the skin, the skin to his nerves, and 
 the nerves to his sensory ; which last alone gives him perception of the 
 smart, all the rest being no more than channels conveying a mechanical 
 impulse to one another. Had he had no clothes on, the stick would have hurt 
 him more upon his naked back, and had his skin been stripped off by a blister, 
 he must have felt severer smart from a blow upon the raw flesh : nor is it 
 an unreasonable consequence, that if the like stroke could be made upon 
 any nearer channel, it would create a more pungent anguish. For we 
 receive all our perceptions from the action of the sensory or mental organi- 
 zation : whatever stages the impulse of objects passes through, there is no 
 perception until it puts this in play. From whence it may be presumed that 
 whenever this shall be laid bare to the stroke of things external, it must 
 take a far stronger impulse therefrom, than while enwrapped within the 
 load of clothes composing this mortal body. And with respect to our 
 acuteness of discernment, we stand much in the situation of a man at the 
 further end of a long range of rooms, divided from each other by sash
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 639 
 
 doors : who seeing nothing of objects without doors unless through a dozen 
 glasses, cannot expect to have so distinct or clear a view of them as when 
 presented to his naked eye. 
 
 Nor is it an objection that ideas of reflection, operating immediately upon 
 the mental organs, and wherein they alone are supposed to be concerned, 
 are less strong and vivid than those of sensation : for when I think of a 
 person just gone out of the room, I cannot paint so lively a picture of his 
 features upon my fancy, as while he stood before me. But this is not always 
 the case : for sometimes a grievous smart, or violent terror, will occur after- 
 wards to the mind more powerfully than it did upon the sensation. Be- 
 sides that we find our sensitive pleasures and pains increased by the con- 
 comitant reflection attending them : insomuch that some have denied pain 
 to be an evil, unless made so by opinion, which is the work of reflection ; 
 nor can it be denied that many pains do not touch us, so long as we can 
 keep our reflection intent on something else. 
 
 But though ideas of sensation, when recalled to the thought, were con- 
 stantly, without exception, fainter than upon their first entrance by the 
 senses, yet these are only copies of impressions made by external objects, 
 and it is no wonder the copy should fall short of the original. Therefore 
 let us make the comparison with ideas of reflection, strictly so called, be- 
 ing not materials imparted from without ; but new productions worked from 
 them in the mind, such as our judgments, passions, and persuasions : and 
 \ve shall sometimes find them rising to so high a pitch as to overpower the 
 action of our senses. A strong fit of desperation, or resentment, or love, 
 or jealousy will make men despise pains and labours, and the most terrify- 
 ing objects standing in their way : and a violent affliction stupefies the 
 mind against pains and pleasures and the notice of everything around her. 
 Since then our mental organization can affect us so vehemently without aid 
 of the senses, and when laid open to external objects, without grosser 
 covering to intervene, is likely to receive more vigorous impulses : we may 
 expect a much quicker sensibility and stronger perceptions, when receiving 
 them by that alone, without other channel beyond. Wherefore it is of greater 
 importance to make good provision for the health and constitution of our 
 future bodies, than of our present. 
 
 19. How intense the sufferings of another life may be, there is nobody 
 can pretend to guess : for experience furnishes no rule to measure them by, 
 nor can we gather anything concerning things unseen unless from the Attri- 
 butes. But our idea of goodness, which alone can set bounds to the neces- 
 sity of justice, is so imperfect that it fails us upon this occasion. We know 
 that God is good and will do nothing inconsistent with goodness : but what 
 is or is not inconsistent therewith, we have no certain measure to ascertain. 
 For the permission of evil forcing us to acknowledge some mixture of it com- 
 patible with this Attribute, we know not where to stop in our estimation of the 
 quantity. Reason indeed may convince us that every evil is inflicted as a 
 necessary means to bring forth some greater good, yet this leaves us still in 
 the dark : for we know neither the precise quantity of good, nor proportion 
 of one to the other, so can find no rule of admeasurement to compute either 
 the sum or the degree of evil necessary to answer the services of the uni- 
 verse. The enjoyments of this world exceed the troubles and vexations to 
 so visible a degree, that the most miserable wretches upon earth still set a 
 value upon life : nor does death cease to be the king of terrors, even to 
 such as have no apprehension of anvthing to corne after. And those few 
 who destroy themselves^ do it rather to escape from some present pressing
 
 640 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 uneasiness, than upon a fair computation of the good and evil they might 
 expect. Nor could Epicurus, who was no favourer of Providence, avoid 
 setting down among his list of observations, That pain, if long, was light : 
 if grievous, short. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged there are evils in life, shocking to 
 human nature in the contemplation, horrid to think, how horrible to feel ! 
 racking pains of rheumatism and stone, and all that long catalogue of diseases 
 described in Milton's lazar house ; terrors and lingering destructions under 
 the ruins of earthquakes ; painful perishings by fire ; tearings of ravenous 
 beasts ; stings of venomous serpents ; miserable exits upon the bite of a 
 mad dog ; fractures, dislocations or inward bruises, by wars or accidents. 
 What barbarities do not savage nations exercise upon their enemies ! 
 What tortures and piecemeal executions have not been practised by tyrants 
 and persecutors ! Or what can the wit of man invent more devilish than 
 the ingenious cruelties of a popish inquisition ! 
 
 Nor are there less terrible roads in the journeys through life than in the 
 passage out of it. The distresses of extreme poverty, hunger, nakedness, 
 cold and scorching heat, the mischiefs of vice and debauchery ; the fatal 
 errors of folly and inconsiderateness ; the sufferings of bodily infirmity 
 and constitutional disease ; the vexations of injury, oppression, and ingrati- 
 tude ; the desolations of war and invasion ; the pressure of afflictions, 
 losses, and ruin ; the miseries of shipwreck and comfortless lengths of time 
 passed on desolate shores, or in an open boat, without covering, or pro- 
 visions, or respite from labour ; the wretchedness of slavery, where the 
 unhappy negro, perhaps a king in his own country, is thrown into a stink- 
 ing hold, kept upon rotten pease besmeared over with tallow grease, and 
 then delivered up to the inhuman Spaniard, who works him beyond his 
 strength, and every now and then fells him to the ground with a hatchet, 
 to show his power by way of entertainment to his visitors. 
 
 When such as do not think the negro worth their concern because his 
 skin is black, he cannot talk English, and never was christened, it would 
 avail little to put them in mind of the miseries among the brute creation ; 
 whom nature has not only subjected to the hard services, severe usage and 
 wanton cruelties of man, but has likewise instructed them to worry, destroy 
 and torment one another. The cat plays with the mouse, cheats him con- 
 tinually with pretences of letting him escape, pats him when fainting to 
 make him exert himself, a long while before she devours him. The water- 
 snake pursues the shrieking frog through all his turnings, till she gets his 
 head into her mouth, then swallows him by slow degrees into her stomach, 
 where he lies digesting for some days before he dies. The spider has a 
 long struggle to entangle the fly, till at last he wraps her up close in his 
 web, and sits at leisure sucking out her vitals. The beetle, whose charac- 
 teristic is stupidity and unwieldiness of limbs, beats himself down against a 
 tree, or overturns himself in crawling, and lies sprawling upon his back ; 
 until the little tit-mouse comes, pecks a hole in his side, scoops out his 
 entrails, and leaves the hollow carcass to crawl about alive. 
 
 But to return to those of our own species with whom we daily converse 
 and for whom we have a consideration : they have their private troubles 
 and anxieties, more than they discover to us, for nobody knows where the 
 shoe pinches so well as he that wears it. When men appear together in a 
 company, they put on a cheerfulness upon their countenance, but who knows 
 what grinding disquietude they have at home ? Unnatural parents, faith- 
 less wives, disobedient children, ungrateful friends, deceitful patrons, ap-
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 641 
 
 proach of ruin in their fortunes, disappointment of schemes they had set 
 their hearts upon, resentment of cutting affronts, animosities against per- 
 sons they cannot hurt, slights of the world upon their supposed merit. Add 
 to this the terrors of complexional fear and superstition : apprehensions of 
 fires or robbers, dread of the small-pox or infectious airs, frights of appa- 
 ritions, prognostics and dreams, doubts about predestination, desperations 
 of a future state, aridities arid despondencies of Methodism, misgivings of 
 Free-thinking. We may laugh at these grievances as fantastical, but how 
 fantastical soever in their causes, they are real in their effects ; nor are 
 the pains of disorders in the mind less pungent than of those in the body, 
 or of afflictions and disasters coming from external causes ; and perhaps if 
 we could look into the hearts of mankind, we should see them suffer more 
 from imaginary evils than from real. 
 
 Thus we see by experience how great a weight and variety of evils are 
 consistent with infinite goodness : and may gather from thence how strong 
 must be that necessity which could introduce them into a plan contrived in 
 mercy and loving kindness. Yet as we know not the grounds of this ne- 
 cessity, we cannot tell how much stronger it may prevail in other stages of 
 our existence : nor to what acuter sensations, more grievous distempers of 
 mind, and more tormenting delusions, our naked organizations may be 
 liable. So that although we should not think an elementary fire, or a cor- 
 poreal worm, reconcileable with our philosophical notions, there may well be 
 punishments, if not similar in kind, yet equal in degree, to the scorchings of 
 unextinguishable flames and gnawings of the never dying worm. Therefore 
 notwithstanding God be good and gracious, there are terrors of the Lord 
 alarming enough, if justly apprehended, to excite our contrivance and in- 
 dustry in providing for the health and good condition of our future bodies : 
 that when reduced to them, we may not want activity and disposition to 
 steer safe from the purlieus of vengeance, and keep under protection of the 
 wide spreading wings of mercy. 
 
 But there is an art and discretion to be used in the application of those 
 terrors ; for if we dwell upon them only in our retirements, they will generate 
 nothing but a dismal and unavailing affright. Therefore it behoves us to 
 inculcate them then upon our minds in such colours and figures, as may rise 
 readily again in seasons of action and attacks of temptation, and may then 
 be most affecting to our imagination upon a single glance. For I have all 
 along maintained, that use and expedience is the point to be driven at, as 
 well in the conducting of our thoughts as of our outward behaviour. 
 
 20. Neither can anybody tell precisely of what kind the enjoyments of 
 another life shall consist : but those who go about to paint them by figura- 
 tive representations seem not always to have chosen such as are proper to 
 strike upon the imagination. They tell us the righteous shall live exempt 
 from all pain, labour, hardship, oppression, infirmity, or disappointment, and 
 all tears shall be wiped from their eyes. So far it is well : but this is only 
 a negative happiness, such as may be found in annihilation : but what actual 
 enjoyment are they to have ? Why, they shall sing psalms all day long 
 and every day. This may be vast pleasure, for aught I know, to a mind 
 rightly tuned, but as our minds are strung at present, I believe there is 
 scarce anybody who would not be tired of singing psalms before half the day 
 was out, or after having sung out the whole week would have much stomach 
 to sing again on Sunday. 
 
 But then they shall sit in white robes, with crowns on their heads and 
 
 VOL. i. 2 T
 
 642 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 all be kings. This may weigh much with such as are fond of fine clothes, 
 and would he prodigiously delighted to hear themselves called, Your Ma- 
 jesty : but if we are all to be kings, where are your subjects ? Oh ! the 
 toils of government would be troublesome : but we shall be called to the 
 bench to sit as assessors in judging the wicked, and triumph over all our 
 enemies. This may have charms with the Methodists and others of an ill- 
 natured religion : but for my part I should esteem the condemnation of 
 malefactors a burden rather than an amusement ; I never sign a mittimus 
 to the house of correction, but had much rather it were done by somebody 
 else ; and if I had any enemies I think I should not wish to insult and tri- 
 umph over them, or if I did take vengeance upon them, should do it as a 
 matter of necessity not of gratification. Besides, all this will furnish em- 
 ployment only for the day of judgment : when that day is ended, there will 
 be nothing further to do. 
 
 Well, but their enjoyment of the beatific vision will not cease. I can 
 imagine there may be an extreme delight in the full and clear display of the 
 divine Attributes, particularly that of goodness : for I have experienced a 
 proportionable degree of satisfaction in" the contemplation, so far as I have 
 been able to comprehend them. But this is only in my retirements, when 
 I can bring my thoughts to a proper pitch by long and careful meditation : 
 when I go abroad into the world upon my common transactions, I do not 
 find this idea attend me in full vigour and complexion ; and believe those 
 who want incitements most will be scarce feebly touched with the hope of 
 seeing God as he is. Besides, as I have powers of action as well as of re- 
 flection, I cannot readily conceive that in a state of bliss one of them should 
 remain useless, nor how enjoyment can be complete which rests in specu- 
 lation alone. In short, all propounded to us in the common harangues 
 upon this subject, seems to be no more than an Epicurean heaven, a mo- 
 nastic happiness, an undisturbed pious idleness. 
 
 But give me for my incitements, a life of activity and business ; a con- 
 stant succession of purposes worthy a reasonable creature's pursuit ; un- 
 wearied vigour of mind ; instruments obedient to command ; exemption 
 from passion, which might lead me astray : unsatiating desires of the noble 
 arid generous kind; clearness of judgment to secure me against mistake or 
 disappointment ; company of persons ready to assist me with their lights 
 and their helping hand, so that we may join together with perfect harmony 
 in that best of services, the exercise of universal charity, in administering 
 the laws of God and executing his commands. And if I have therewith a 
 largeness of understanding, these occupations need not hinder but that, 
 while busied in them, I may feast upon the contemplation of whatever glo- 
 rious objects shall be afforded me, either in the works of nature or the 
 Author and contriver of them. 
 
 Some Religions propound rewards alluring enough to human sense : a 
 Mahometan paradise may suit very well with Asiatic luxury : but then 
 such incitements are worse than none, as being mischievous to practise. 
 For as one is naturally inclined to inure one's self to the way of living one 
 expects to follow, they are better calculated to lead into the road of destruc- 
 tion than of happiness. Nor are our modern enthusiasts less blameable in flat- 
 tering their mob with the privilege of insulting and ill using their betters : 
 for of the two, a man is not drawn so far aside from the spirit of piety by 
 the thought of possessing a Seraglio of beautiful wenches, as of having a Lord 
 or a Bishop bound hand and foot for him to kick and cuff about as he 
 pleases.
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 643 
 
 Therefore in the figures employed to describe the things unseen, care 
 should be taken to admit nothing gross or sensual, vindictive or spiteful : 
 but the business is to employ such as may be possible, innocent, and invit- 
 ing. This is what I have attempted in three Chapters of the Vehicular 
 and Mundane states and of the Vision : endeavouring to exhibit a scene ot 
 things possible, so as nobody can certainly disprove them ; innocent, so 
 as to contain nothing offensive to good manners or charity ; and inviting, 
 so as to present striking images that may dwell upon the imagination. And 
 I have so far succeeded, that upon reading them to a very sensible man, his 
 remark at the end was, Well, I wish all this may be true. Now this was 
 what I intended, and if my Readers shall be ready to say too, Well, I wish 
 all this may be true, my purpose is answered. I do not desire them to be- 
 lieve it true, they may use their judgment or pleasure upon this point ; 
 but meant only to present them with an encouraging prospect they can hold 
 in their eye : and they may find solid and substantial reasons elsewhere to 
 convince them, and if they take the due method for attaining it, they shall 
 enter upon a scene of things which will be as well or better for them than 
 if all this were true. 
 
 21. As to the punishments commonly described, they are alarming enough 
 to human nature : perpetual burnings, inconsolable remorse, continual tor- 
 menting by devils, incessant quarrels and mutual outrages amongst the 
 damned. To which are added, for taking stronger hold upon the imagina- 
 tion, the ideas of darkness, bowlings, scourges, pincers, claws, horns, and 
 cloven feet. But these things operate strongest upon the phlegmatic, the 
 weakly and the low spirited, who want encouragements rather than ter- 
 rors : which are more apt to dismay and stupefy than rouse them up to ac- 
 tivity, and therefore are most plentifully laid on by Popish priests and leaders 
 among sectaries, who have their private ends to answer by the dismay. 
 
 Nor is it always safe to follow the best authorities too closely, for a man 
 may do very wrong by imitating another who has done very right : 
 wherefore human nature, manners, and sentiments must be considered, and 
 regard had to particular times and countries, congregations and persons. 
 The Jews, and primitive Christians derived from them or incorporated 
 among them, seem to have been a serious solemn generation, accustomed 
 to a pinguid, turgid style, as Tully calls the Asiatic rhetoric, abounding in 
 extravagant metaphors, far-fetched illusions, hard-featured images, myste- 
 rious and enigmatical allegories, requiring painful attention to understand or 
 misunderstand them. Their tempers were soured by oppression and public 
 contempt : for it is not in human nature to preserve an easiness and be- 
 nignity of mind under continual opposition and indignities ; therefore they 
 could see no reward inviting which had not a mixture of retaliation and 
 triumph, nor was the bliss of heaven complete without the satisfaction of 
 beholding their persecutors swallowed up in the devouring flames of hell. 
 And being inured to look for something of latent importance in words 
 and syllables, might be trusted with any figures, without hazard of 
 turning them into ridicule, for which they had no inclination nor promptitude 
 
 But we moderns living in ease and plenty, for the most part better fed 
 than taught, affect the lively and amusing rather than the pompous and 
 the perplexing : instead of labouring to find mysteries in everything, we 
 divert ourselves with turning everything into jest ; and have gotten the knack 
 of making a trifle of whatever would naturally be most affecting to the imagi- 
 nation. And because our forefathers multiplied words until they confounded 
 
 x2
 
 644 DIVINE JUSTICE. 
 
 themselves, we ar., so afraid of falling into their dulness that we place 
 reason in smartness of expression, and expect to have every difficult point 
 decided in a single sentence. Those to whom terrors would be most ser- 
 viceable, being persons of strong spirits, sanguine complexions, and hardy 
 constitutions, able to bear a bang or a burn without flinching, are little 
 touched with bodily pains : and being generally of unlucky dispositions, 
 they delight in broils and squabbles, finding themselves able to make their 
 party good whatever adversary they have to cope with, and being used to 
 abuse others and receive abuse themselves, care not what company they 
 fall into. By foisting in the word Little, they can reduce any pain to a 
 bearable size ; for what signifies a little scorching or a little flogging ? and 
 by familiarizing themselves to the term Damnation, they can wear away all 
 meaning belonging to it, so that it becomes a harmless sound, like the chirp- 
 ing of a sparrow. Then for the worm of conscience, they have provided an 
 effectual remedy against him, for they have seared up his mouth with a hot 
 iron that he cannot bite. And the sooty countenance, horns, and cloven 
 feet of Satan, make him the odder figure ; so he passes for an arch comical 
 droll, that hates to be confined by rules, and plays any mischievous tricks 
 for fun and merriment : therefore he and his imps bear a part in our panto- 
 mimes, and we can -sit an hour together to divert ourselves with their sur- 
 prising cunning and feats of dexterity. 
 
 22. But if we could once catch those people in a sober mood, and pre- 
 vail on them to lay aside for a moment their all-healing epithet Little, they 
 might then learn to see a difference between the sharpest pains they have 
 experienced, and the violence of unquenchable flames ; between temporary 
 squabbles they can laugh at when over, and endless contests with a supe- 
 rior adversary who will leave them no respite nor inclination for laughing. 
 And if they have a thought of the divine power, in whose hand all the 
 sources of good and evil lie, they must see that, besides outward hurts and 
 injuries they may be tormented with inward pains of stone, or joint-racking 
 rheums, or other excruciating distempers ; with intolerable thirsts, insa- 
 tiable cravings, the horrors of melancholy, and all dreadful disorders of 
 mind. Nor are they sure of carrying with them that hardiness of consti- 
 tution they so much depend upon : for they must leave their solid bones, 
 their tough-strung muscles, their strong-bounding blood, that vigorous flow 
 of animal spirits, the support of their present bravery, to perish in the 
 grave ; and may be born into new life with the fearful weakness of a woman 
 or helpless tenderness of a child, apt to be terrified at a word, or shudde* 
 at a shadow, and unable to bear the scratch of a needle. 
 
 But if they be so immersed in sensitive ideas of what they see and feel, 
 that they cannot conceive themselves ever to become different creatures from 
 what they are ; let us suppose, for argument's sake, they shall preserve the 
 same sturdy constitution and temper they possess at present ; and as they 
 have little notion of God, we may talk to them more intelligibly of the Devil. 
 Perhaps they may have been.- taught by some of those who are singly wiser 
 than convocations and synods, that there is no such species of Beings in 
 nature : but this will avail them little, for they may have met or heard of 
 characters among the human species excellently well qualified for the office 
 of a tormentor ; and it will not much mend the matter, if they be put into 
 the hands of a savage Canadian, a barbarous Algerine, or unrelenting 
 Spanish inquisitor bred up in the science of torturing and taking cruelty for 
 his ruling principle ol action. 
 
 But whatever race the Arch-fiend be descended from, thev must not ex-
 
 DIVINE JUSTICE. 64a 
 
 pect to find him the frolic gamesome droll they have seen upon Covent 
 Garden theatre : but a solemn melancholy tormentor loving mischief for 
 mischief's sake, going to work with deliberate malice, inveterate rancour, 
 and insatiable cruelty. Nor will he show them fair play in boxing, but 
 take all cowardly advantages, not letting them get up when fallen, nor giving 
 them time to breathe when fainting, but calling in his imps to hold their 
 arms while he pommels them. And if he have horns or cloven hoofs, they 
 are not for the oddity of his figure, but to punch their eyes or mouths or 
 other tender parts. 
 
 And even supposing what cannot well be supposed, that they are so stout 
 as to value all this no more than a flea bite, he will then take some other 
 course with them : for he is a devilish cunning fellow, knows how to find 
 every one's weak side, and what will plague them effectually. Therefore if 
 he perceives them insensible of pain, he will not throw away his brimstone 
 and his scourges upon them, but take some other method that shall make 
 them heartily sick of his company. He will tantalize them with scenes of 
 exquisite viands and delicious liquors, frothing in the pot or sparkling in 
 the glass, raise intolerable thirsts and cravings, and not suffer them to touch 
 a drop or a morsel. With a whirl of his Faustus wand, he will conjure up 
 a bevy of buxom lasses, to tempt them with all lascivious allurements, and 
 cram them with apples from the tree of knowledge, which shall raise desire 
 to its utmost pitch of burning fury, but take especial care that it shall meet 
 with no gratification. He will lay in their way treasures of gold and jewels 
 carried by helpless children, whom they go to murder for the booty ; theii 
 arm shall wither up, so that they may strike and strike again without ef- 
 fect. He will represent the Deity as an angry revengeful tyrant, resolved 
 to have his Will upon them for trifling offences ; foreshow them the parti- 
 cular sufferings it is his Will to inflict, and how themselves are continually 
 made instrumental to bring on those sufferings ; whereby he will raise a 
 worm of resentment, vexation, and despair, whose bite is severer than that 
 of conscience they had stifled. If he finds them of delicate tempers, he will 
 plunge them into filth and ordure : if courtly, he will consort them among 
 savages and Hottentots : if musical, he will din their ears all day long 
 with shrieks and howlings, scratching of knives upon one another, and the 
 crash of broken beams : if proud, he will force them to servile drudgeries, 
 under command of persons they despised, and to receive insults, contemp- 
 tuous language, and cutting reproaches. Or if they have antipathies 
 against particular animals or things, he will accordingly tie them round 
 with knots of vipers, wrap them up in webs for a prey to monstrous spiders, 
 shut them close among enormous toads or cats, or stuff their mouths with 
 carrion or rotten cheese. 
 
 I do not recommend these last images to be used in assemblies, because 
 what might affect one man strongly, might appear a joke to others who 
 have not the same antipathy. But there is no man without some distates 
 and aversions- he cannot think on without horror . let him then figure to 
 himself the situation he should most vehemently dislike, and he may be 
 assured there are punishments in nature which would afflict him as sorely. 
 But there is no doubt they will be sharp enough to overcome his obduracy 
 at last : therefore he had better get rid of it while he can upon cheaper 
 terms, for the more inveterate it grows, the severer remedies will be requi- 
 site. Or if they be applied just below the measure sufficient for working a 
 cure, this will be an increase of vengeance, by prolonging the continuance 
 of that evil disposition whose removal would render punishment needless.
 
 CHAP, XXX. 
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 IF the doctrine of equality maintained in the foregoing Chapters shall 
 appear a novel and heterodox opinion, I hope the candid Reader will do me 
 the justice to believe, it was not upon that account I offered it to his con- 
 sideration. For I have constantly professed, and I think have all along 
 preserved, a tenderness for prevailing sentiments ; and though, in the exer- 
 cise of that sober freedom which is the natural right of every thinking man, 
 I may have departed from them for awhile, it has been only to return again 
 into the beaten road, and to take what seemed to me the surest method of 
 arriving at the practical conclusions commonly drawn from them. Nor am 
 I so fond of novelty, or the credit of making discoveries that have escaped 
 others, as to purchase it at the expense of Religion or good manners. If I 
 have any desire of reputation, it is that arising from the character of a dis- 
 creet and well-applied industry in the service of mankind. Therefore, not- 
 withstanding this equality appears to me to follow as demonstratively as any 
 conclusion we can draw concerning things invisible, from experience of 
 human nature acting constantly upon motives suggested, from the universal 
 dominion of Providence, governing even free-will by means of those mo- 
 tives, and from the unlimited mercy and bounty of God, extending over all 
 his creatures without partiality or arbitrary proceeding, which I hope will 
 b% counted orthodox tenets : nevertheless, I should have kept it concealed 
 within myself, for fear of disgusting the weakly righteous, whether great 
 scholars or illiterate, if I had not found it a necessary foundation, and, in- 
 deed, the only one I could discern by the light of reason, whereon to place 
 that general interest from whence I apprehend may be deduced the prac- 
 tical rules of life, as well those relating to religion as to morality or common 
 prudence. 
 
 For how much soever we may flatter ourselves with the notion of noble 
 and generous innate principles, there always lies Self at bottom in every- 
 thing we do ; and all men constantly pursue their own happiness, though by 
 very various ways. One places it in distant good, another in present plea- 
 sure, another in riches, or title, or superiority, or humour, or self-approba- 
 tion ; but whatever, whether real or fantastical, each man apprehends for 
 the present most satisfactory to him, that is the object to which he directs 
 his powers. Therefore if we could touch this universal spring of action, by 
 showing clearly to every one's apprehension that his private interest stands 
 connected with the general, nothing could more effectually inspire men with 
 a hearty zeal for promoting one another's benefit, or help to rectify their 
 sentiments of virtue. Because the Generality consisting of individuals, 
 whatever proves beneficial to any one is an addition of good among the 
 Whole; and because every genuine virtue tends to procure benefit to the 
 whole, or a part of it, or some individual containeu therein, without more 
 endamaging any other ; and whatever does not do so, either immediately of 
 remotely, ib no virtue, but may be pronounced spurious. Yet it must by 
 owned, our equality, which we have laboured to cultivate in hopes of bearing 
 such excellent fruits, has one inconvenience attending it : that it is incom- 
 patible with an absolute perpetuity of punishment. 13 ut as this may by
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. G47 
 
 thought of pernicious tendency, by taking; off the discouragement against 
 evil-doing, a consequence I should be very sorry to have given a handle 
 for drawing, I have appropriated this Chapter to obviate the mischief, by 
 showing that nothing before contained can be justly construed to lessen the 
 discouragement. 
 
 2. But before I enter upon this task, I shall take the liberty to observe 
 an objection that lies against the perpetuity of punishment, in the pheno- 
 mena whereof we have experience. Justice, in the received idea of it, re- 
 quires an exact distribution according to the character of every individual. 
 It is not enough that reward be given to the good, and punishment to the 
 wicked, but the proportion of each must be measured out among the persons 
 of either class, according to their respective degree of goodness or badness. 
 Accordingly we are taught to expect a difference, not only between the 
 good and the bad, but between the good and the better, the bad and the 
 worse : for that the righteous shall rise above one another, as one star dif- 
 fereth from another star in glory ; and of disobedient servants, he that 
 offendeth much shall be beaten with many stripes, and he that offendeth 
 little, with fewer stripes. Since, then, there is an exact proportion ob- 
 served, corresponding with every little variation among individuals, and 
 the difference between everlasting bliss and everlasting misery is immense, 
 it follows that there must be the like immense difference of character be- 
 tween the good and the wicked ; for else the rule of justice would be vio 
 lated. But this we do not find true in experience : for there are all grada- 
 tions of character, falling by imperceptible degrees from the most perfect 
 man that ever lived down to the most abandoned villain. 
 
 It may be said we cannot penetrate into the secrets of the heart, nor 
 discern all the depravity lurking there. This I acknowledge we cannot do 
 with any exactness, yet there are none of us who do not undertake to pro- 
 nounce some persons righteous and others wicked : so that we can make a 
 judgment where the case is glaring, though we cannot always do it criti- 
 cally. Therefore it would be no wonder if we were only puzzled in com- 
 paring two good men, to determine which was the best, or two bad men, 
 which was the worst : but we are often egregiously deceived in our opinion 
 of good and bad, taking the one for the other, nor can we pronounce upon 
 many persons we know to which class they belong ; that is, we cannot dis- 
 tinguish between characters as wide asunder as heaven is from hell. For 
 the smallest portion of eternal happiness is infinitely preferable to the 
 mildest of eternal sufferings ; and the step from the topmost summit of hell 
 to the lowest seat in heaven infinitely greater than from thence to the seat 
 immediately above, or, perhaps I might say, to any seat reserved for human 
 soul. Nor would it much mend the matter if we were to suppose a purga- 
 tory ; for any finite punishment followed by endless bliss is still infinitely 
 more desirable than endless torment. 
 
 Thus there is an exact proportion of justice between the individuals of 
 either class, but between the two classes there lies an immeasurable gap ; 
 which would destroy all proportion, unless there be the like immeasurable 
 gap somewhere among the characters of mankind, which we may presume 
 must be so obvious as to strike every eye ; so that none could ever fail in 
 distinguishing the classes, however they might mistake in the particular 
 centuries under each. Nor does the fallibility of human judgment con- 
 cerning the real character of particular persons remove our objection : for I 
 defy any man to draw, much more any two men to agree in drawing, the 
 character of a sinner, whether real or fictitious, who. if he were ever so little
 
 648 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 better, would be admitted to a portion in eternal glory ; or of a righteous 
 person, who, if he were one degree less righteous, would become a sinner 
 reserved to eternal sufferings. Besides, as the best among us have their 
 failings, and we are all sinners, for there is none that doeth good, no, not 
 one, there cannot be that vast difference between the most opposite charac- 
 ters upon earth, between the greatest of sinners and the least, as is sup- 
 posed to be made in the recompenses respectively allotted them. 
 
 3. And those who place salvation in faith alone remain liable to the same 
 difficulty : for a saving faith must be right, and it must be strong : but there 
 are degrees of rectitude and of strength in faith, as well as any other virtue. 
 Will any man assert that every little ei ror in matters of belief, and every 
 falling short of the invincible confidence of a tortured martyr, shall exclude 
 from heaven : or every faint and inconsiderate assent to the orthodox faith 
 secure a place in it ? Thus there are degrees of faith and infidelity as well 
 as of morality and immorality. Yet how have doctors differed upon the 
 articles of faith ? what endless disputes have they carried on in settling the 
 list of fundamentals ? And one of the most sensible among them, Chilling- 
 worth, has shown that fundamentals are relative ; that article being such to 
 one man which is not so to another, according to their several lights and 
 capacities. And I think it very happy for the world this matter was never 
 settled ; because if men knew what was just enough to carry them to heaven, 
 they would not do a stitch more than absolutely necessary : whereas being 
 left in uncertainty they must use all their diligence, for fear a part of it 
 should not be sufficient to make them safe. 
 
 But supposing the articles settled, there would still continue the like un- 
 certainty with respect to the strength of persuasion in them, requisite to 
 make a saving faith. How many pious Christians labour under cruel anx- 
 ieties upon this head ? They receive all the doctrines of their Church 
 without reserve, so their doubt is not upon the rectitude but the liveliness of 
 their faith. If they go to the Protestant Vicar or Popish Confessor, the 
 latter may give them absolution upon their paying for it, or the former tell 
 them they want no absolution upon this account : but neither can instruct 
 them how to know at all times, when they have proved deficient and when 
 not. For who can assign the just measure of assent that distinguishes 
 between a dead and a lively faith ? or mark out the exact line of separation 
 between the believer and the infidel ? so that whoso passes it, enters the 
 state of salvation ; and whoso falls a hair's breadth short, remains a child 
 of perdition. Which yet, if we regard the distribution made by justice 
 between the two, ought to be, not a mathematical line, but a spacious 
 gulph, like that which separated Dives from Abraham. 
 
 But it is said that justice has no concern ia this part of the distribution : 
 for all have sinned and all become obnoxious to her never-ending severity, 
 until mercy interposed to rescue a certain number. What, then, are not 
 all the Attributes infinite ? Is the arm of mercy shorter or weaker than 
 that of justice ? Or does our God, as was fabled of the heathen Jupiter, 
 distribute his mercies out of a gaugeable tun, which when empty, he must 
 stop at the next man standing close to him who last received invaluable 
 treasures therefrom ? No, but justice is a debt, therefore requires an exact 
 apportionment to the desert of every particular person : whereas mercy is 
 matter of mere favour, therefore subject to no rules ; for God may extend 
 his favours as far as he pleases and stop where he pleases, and consequently 
 by the interposition of his free mercy, may throw an immeasurable gap 
 between persons whom justice would have treated nearly alike. I ?hall not
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 649 
 
 deny he may do so, for who can hinder him ? but if it be inferred from 
 thence alone, that he does do so, this is building upon hypothesis ; for what 
 may be, may as well not be : nor have we reason to conclude for either 
 branch of the disjunction unless we can find something in our idea of the 
 Attributes to cast the balance between two things equally possible. 
 
 Therefore nothing can be gathered from what he may do, until it be 
 known in what sense the word is understood : for it has been shown in 
 CHAP. XXVI. that May, Can, and Possible, are equivocal terms, as re- 
 lating either to power or contingency. In the former sense it is certain 
 God may show mercy to whom he will, and withhold it from whom he 
 will. This nobody doubts : for we are all in his hands, and he has full 
 right and authority to deal with us as he pleases. But so he may distribute 
 justice too without rule or measure : for who shall withstand his power ? 
 what restraint or obligation hangs over him ? or who shall say to him, Why 
 dost thou this ? If then we say he cannot deal unjustly by his creatures, 
 we found the assertion upon our idea of his nature, inclining him to govern 
 invariably with perfect righteousness : and what we say, amounts to no 
 more than an assurance that he never will. 
 
 Now let us apply the expression the same way to mercy, and we shall 
 find it hard to comprehend that he may show infinite mercy to whom he 
 pleases, and withhold every spark of it from whom he pleases, without any 
 other rule or reason than his own mere pleasure. For mercy is as much in 
 his nature as justice, nor is one less infinite than the other is perfect : 
 neither does he proceed arbitrarily in either, -but both are guided by the 
 rules of infinite wisdom. Therefore mercy never tires in dispensing her in- 
 exhaustible treasures, nor ever stops when come to a certain point of delin- 
 quency, until wisdom represents that the offender could not be spared with- 
 out damage to the creation : and then it would be mischief, not mercy, to 
 pass the line of separation. Thus we find the sinner who wants the jus. 
 measure of righteousness or saving faith, is doomed to everlasting flames, 
 while another but little better is rewarded with everlasting bliss : not be- 
 cause God has not mercy enough to save both, but because it is expedient 
 that one should perish for the benefit of the creation. 
 
 Can we then persuade ourselves that the common father of all should so 
 severely sacrifice some of his children to the good of the rest, without re- 
 serving to himself a time wherein his mercy may make a compensation ? 
 Or what rule of reason will permit that the heaviest burdens of public 
 service should lie for ever upon the same persons ? Nor does there want 
 an argument that they do not, taken from facts within the reach of our ob- 
 servation ; which are, the daily departure of persons dying in their sins. 
 For where any collection or number receive a continual increase, it is a pre- 
 sumptive evidence of their having continually a proportionable discharge. 
 To what purpose then are fresh additions made, unless to supply fresh 
 vacancies, where the number is already full ? as we must conclude it always 
 to have been ever since there were creatures existent. For can we conceive 
 that God would permit the requisite examples of suffering ever to be want- 
 ing in the universe ? or that he will permit them ever to abound more than 
 wanting? or what ground have we to imagine a greater quantity of evil ne- 
 cessary now than was two thousand years ago ? What then shall we say to 
 those countless multitudes that your pious Christians assert have been cast into 
 everlasting flames in that time ? Have they all perished gratis, without any 
 benefit to the world, which might have done as well without their punish- 
 ment, having samples enow of it before ? Is it not more natural to con-
 
 650 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 elude they go to occupy the places of others, who from time to time have 
 obtained their deliverance ? Thus we see the doctrine of endless punish- 
 ment has no foundation in human reason, and we must have recourse to 
 the inspired writings for proofs to support it : if such proofs are there to be 
 found, which I shall offer some reasons to question. 
 
 4. If I were to imitate some of our profound doctors, who run to the 
 original text for a word wherein they may find a sense unthought of before, 
 to support their particular opinions : I might insist that the term translated 
 Everlasting ought to be preserved untranslated, as a kind of technical term 
 and called Aionian. I might then lay down that as the age of man contains 
 that space of time passing between his birth and his death, so the Aion, or 
 greater age, contains the whole length of his journey through matter. 
 Therefore Aionian punishment is a state of suffering to last from his death 
 until he shall get wholly clear of all corporeal organization. I might ob- 
 serve likewise it is remarkable that in speaking of God, whose eternity 
 everybody must allow to be absolute, it is said that he shall endure, not 
 simply to the Aion, that is, for ever, but to the Aion of Aions, that is, for 
 ever and ever : which marks a visible difference between the duration of 
 punishment and absolute eternity. 
 
 But I am not fond of this kind of argumentation, which is better cal- 
 culated to stop an adversary's mouth than to convince him. I hold it more 
 expedient to consider fairly what are the ideas intended to be conveyed by 
 the expressions in the text. Now we are told the gospel was preached to 
 the poor, that is, the ignorant and unrefined, therefore is best expounded 
 in the sense wherein such would naturally understand it : nor are we war- 
 ranted to look for scholastic or philosophical notions in anything contained 
 there. Mankind in the earliest stages, of which we know little more than 
 what stands recorded in the books of Moses, seem to have had no notion of 
 any thing beyond this world : therefore the rewards and punishments pro- 
 posed to them were all of the temporal kind, or at most such as related to 
 their posterity and the remembrance of their names here upon earth. I 
 shall not deny that some thinking persons did very early entertain an 
 opinion of a life to come, and by degrees introduced it among the vulgar. 
 But in the latter at least it amounted to no more than a persuasion that the 
 soul should survive the body, without considering for how long continuance, 
 yet without setting any limitation to it or thinking of anything beyond ; 
 wherefore they applied to it the epithet Everlasting. And so in common 
 discourse we speak of an immense desert, a boundless ocean, and endless 
 prospect ; because neither the eye nor the imagination can find an end : 
 and we talk of a man purchasing an estate to him and his heirs forever ; 
 not that we believe the earth, or the lands whereinto it is apportioned, 
 eternal : but because no limitation is set to the possession. 
 
 In these cases we are something like those Indians of whom it is said 
 they can count no further than twenty, and for all higher numbers point to 
 the hairs of their head : so if you were to tell them of a flock of a hundred 
 sheep you can only point to the hairs : if of a thousand, it is the same ; or 
 if you talk of the immensity of space or infinitude of time, still you can do 
 no more than refer to the hairs. In like manner we use the term Forever 
 to express every length of time whereto we set no measure, nor consider any 
 thing beyond. Nor is it denied the Scripture sometimes employs this term 
 for durations which cannot be supposed endless, and if it employs the same 
 for such as are so, it is because none other of higher import was to found 
 in common language : therefore this being an equivocal term, requires
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 651 
 
 something else to determine which way it is to be understood upon every 
 particular occasion. 
 
 It has been alleged indeed that there is this something else : because the 
 continuance of punishment is expressed in the same tenor of language with 
 that of the reward promised the righteous, which everybody allows to be 
 endless. But why everybody should allow this, I do not know ; unless for 
 want of distinguishing that the blessings of God are of two sorts : those 
 which are given as a reward of obedience, and those which are given of his 
 pure unmerited bounty, without regard to anything past, but flowing di- 
 rectly from infinite goodness. The bliss ol the final state I have all along 
 supposed eternal in the utmost extent of the word : which it may well be, 
 notwithstanding a few excursions into mortality, that make little gaps, or 
 rather imperceptible crevices in it, but do not limit its duration. Just as 
 if a man were promised immortality and perpetual happiness here upon 
 earth, he would not think it a falsification of the prophecy that he lost a part 
 of every night in sleep, or passed an uneasy day once in twenty years. Now 
 this bliss is the free gift and sole effect of bounty, extending to all alike, 
 and requiring none other qualification than the capacity of receiving it. But 
 it is the Aionian life and Aionian death, to continue during the journey 
 through matter, that makes the conditions of men different, and depends 
 upon their behaviour here below. Therefore this Aionian difference of con- 
 ditions was all needful to be inculcated for serving the purposes of Religion 
 and morality : and this the vulgar would naturally understand of an un- 
 limited duration, the utmost extent of their ideas, beyond which they would 
 not think of looking for anything further. 
 
 For the distinction between a time whereto the thought can set no bounds 
 and an absolute eternity, between the words Indefinite and Infinite, attempted 
 in our Chapter on the divisibility of matter, were the refinements of modern 
 ages ; wherein men have dived deeper into the abyss of thought than their 
 forefathers could do, by improving upon their labours. Now it would have 
 done mischief to the vulgar to have perplexed them with these subtilties, 
 which therefore are left open to the decision of human reason : nor would it 
 have done service to anybody to have decided them ; because reason, with 
 all her refinements, cannot lessen the discouragement there lies against evil 
 doing. As I shall now endeavour to manifest, by resuming the main pur- 
 pose of this Chapter, from which I have hitherto digressed. 
 
 5. Whoever will take pains in practising the method recommended at the 
 close of the last Chapter, by figuring to himself a situation he should most 
 vehemently dislike ; whether of scorching flames, cruel scourgings, slavish 
 drudgeries, ghastly spectres, dreadful casualties, inward pains, nauseous dis- 
 eases, intolerable thirsts, cutting affronts, contemptuous insults, incessant 
 vexations, or whatever else he finds most shocking to his thought, and from 
 thence taking his estimation of future punishments, which however different 
 in kind, we have given reasons to show, will exceed them in degree ; may 
 presently see that nothing in this world can make it worth his while to incur 
 them. For let him compute all the pleasures of vice and folly that the 
 longest life, with the most uninterrupted success, and his most sanguine 
 hopes can promise him, and he will find the utmost amount of them immea- 
 surably outweighed by an extremity of torment, though it were to last no 
 longer than for a twelvemonth : and yet he must not expect to come off for 
 so short a reckoning. 
 
 If he flatter himself that he shall become familiarized to his sufferings by 
 long durance until they lose their anguish ; because the like sometimes
 
 652 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 happens here ; this is a vain imagination which he has no ground to build 
 upon. Pain and labour abate of their grievousness here; because our bodilv 
 organs abate of their sensibility by frequent use, as our flesh becomes cal- 
 lous by continual pressing : but we do not find the like relief in disorders 
 of the mind, unless those whereon the body has an immediate influence. 
 Time may cure them by introducing other habits giving imagination a con- 
 trary turn, but can never cure an old habit merely by wearing it out. Boys 
 begin to want money as soon as they know the use of it, and this want grows 
 with their years ; so that covetousness is observed to be the predominant 
 vice of old age. Those who have given way to anger and resentment in 
 their youth, grow more touchy and revengeful tlie longer they live. And 
 though carnal concupiscence take rise from the body, yet when the infection 
 has been suffered to catch strong hold on the mental organization, it conti- 
 nues to plague the old lecher with the cravings and filthiness of debauchery, 
 after he is past all capacity of the pleasures. Insomuch that Plato and many 
 others have supposed the punishment of the wicked to consist of such insa- 
 tiable desires as cannot find gratification for want of the corporeal instru- 
 ments left behind. However this be, we have no reason, from anything 
 within our own experience, but to think whatever pains or inconveniences 
 arise from a disorder or infirmity in our mental organization, when disjoined 
 from the body, shall continue so long as the mind continues in that Aion, or 
 form of Being, and so shall be properly an Aionian punishment. 
 
 6. How long this continuance may be, there is nobody can undertake to 
 determine : for we have no light from the Attributes, because we know not 
 what limitation must ,be set to evil to bring it consistent with infinite good- 
 ness. It seems not unlikely, what some have imagined before, that the mind 
 does not get clear of all corporeal mixture ever the sooner for obtaining a 
 quick discharge from her present habitation ; but there is a certain length 
 of passage assigned her through matter. Wherefore, as a man who is to 
 perform a journey in a certain time, if he makes his first stage very short, 
 must travel so many more miles the next ; so if she stays but a little while 
 in this life, she must abide so much the longer in that which is to follow, 
 that the sum of both added together may complete the appointed length. 
 Upon this supposition we must conclude that every man's Aion exceeds the 
 difference between the age at which he died, and that of the oldest man who 
 ever lived : I say, exceeds, because there must have been an Aion reserved 
 for the longest liver, both of the righteous and of the wicked, wherein they 
 might receive the respective recompense of their deeds. Now if we can take 
 Moses' word, the human body was built originally to stand near a thousand 
 years : so that all the deaths appearing upon our present bills of mortality 
 must be counted hasty and premature ; nor can we, such men as live in 
 these degenerate days, expect a shorter Aion than that space of time. 
 
 But since it is not the fashion with everybody to take Moses' word, let 
 us argue with them, by parity of reason, from facts obvious to their expe- 
 rience, whose word it may be hoped they will take. The acorn lies ripen- 
 ing in the tree a part only of the summer, but the oak to grow from thence 
 may last for ages. The embryo animal grows in the dam a few weeks or 
 a few months, but comes from thence to live for years. The child is 
 formed and fashioned in three quarters of a year, but when born may hold 
 out to fourscore or a hundred. Thus we see that state, whether of animal 
 or vegetative life, which nature employs as the introduction to another, 
 bears a small proportion to the date of that whereto it is introductory. 
 Hut it has been shown upon several former occasions, that our present lite is
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 653 
 
 preparatory to the next ; that the mental organization, vulgarly called the 
 rational soul, lies like a foetus within us, continually forming and fashion- 
 ing by our behaviour and the occurrences befalling us here ; from whence it 
 may he presumed that all this provision is not made for effects of a short 
 continuance, but the state for which we are preparing shall exceed our pre- 
 sent in as high proportion as our date of life, barring accidents, would have 
 exceeded our time of gestation in the womb : which will extend the Aion 
 far beyond the thousand years before assumed. 
 
 7. Let us suppose then we could know for certain that the duration of 
 future punishment were precisely one thousand years : what encouragement 
 could this give to the sinner ? Is not this length far greater than that of 
 any enjoyment he can expect to get by sinning ? Let him consider what it 
 is to pass a day, a week, a month, in exquisite tortures, and he will soon 
 find a less time than that we have specified sufficient to discourage him 
 effectually from running the hazard. Suppose a wicked man talked to by 
 the Parson of the parish, who terrifies him with the dread of everlasting 
 flames, into the resolution of amendment. You come in afterwards and 
 bid him not mind the parson, for you know better than all of them put 
 together, and can assure him there is no such thing as everlasting flames. 
 Ay ! says the man, I am heartily glad of that, for then I may take my 
 pleasure without fear of an after-reckoning. No, no, you say, I cannot en- 
 gage for so much neither ; you must expect to smart, but it will be but for 
 a while, only a thousand years and all will be well again. What comfort 
 could this give him ? Must it not rather damp his spirits, and the naming 
 so vast a length increase his terrors more than the limitation to that term 
 abate them ? 
 
 For both choice and evidence have their certain weight to render them 
 complete : while below this pitch, you may increase them by adding to the 
 weights ; but when once arrived at it, all further addition is superfluous. 
 For in moral arithmetic, as observed before under the article of pleasure, 
 the same rules do not hold good as in the common ; nor does two and two 
 always make four. If I hear an unlikely fact related by somebody I know 
 little of, I shall not heed him much : if another confirms what he said, I 
 may begin to doubt : two or three more agreeing in the same story may 
 make me think it probable : but if twenty persons of approved honour and 
 veracity assert it upon their own knowledge, I should give an unreserved 
 assent : nor could I do more though a hundred of the same character were 
 to come in. So were a man offered a long life of pleasure for a month's 
 future sufferings, perhaps he might be stout enough to accept the condition : 
 were they increased to a year, he might hesitate : but were they multiplied to 
 a thousand years, he could not delay his choice a moment, if he had any 
 consideration at all. Where demonstration will not convince, nor things 
 beyond all comparison determine the choice, it proves an insensibility in 
 the mind which no further outward application can cure. If those who hear 
 not Moses and the Prophets would not believe though one rose from the dead; 
 neither would he that is not touched with a thousand years of severest 
 punishment, be moved with an eternity. For it is plain the present wholly 
 engrosses his imagination : he has no regard for the future : and you may 
 as well make a blind man see by lighting up more candles, or a mortified 
 limb, that has utterly lost its sensation, feel by laying on more stripes, as 
 affect him by any future sufferings whatsoever. 
 
 Therefore since a mind that has any feeling of futurity will be filled with 
 as much terror by the length above specified as it is capable of receiving,
 
 654 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 you cannot lessen the discouragement by paring off what lies beyond : and 
 one that has no sense of anything further than this present life, will not be 
 affected by all you can say concerning an Hereafter ; so you cannot lessen 
 the discouragement where there was none. Besides, for a man to pretend he 
 should have paid a due regard to his future state if I had not persuaded him 
 it was finite, would be contradicting himself in the same breath : for why 
 does he make nothing of a limited term, unless because he conceives it fifty 
 or threescore years distant ? How absurd then is it to tell me he sets no 
 value upon a reversion after threescore years, yet should value one extremely 
 after a thousand years ? He that makes this excuse either is not in earnest 
 or deceives himself egregiously, and only catches hold of a specious argu- 
 ment to cover his thorough attachment to present pleasures. 
 
 8. Nevertheless, if any think a longer duration will work more upon 
 men's minds, let them please to remember that though I have offered con- 
 siderations to make it probable the punishment will continue so long, I have 
 not offered a single one to prove it will continue no longer. It may be 
 rather inferred from the second argument I have employed, drawn from the 
 analogy of seeds and embryos, that the length ought to be extended much 
 further : for if you fix the life of man at seventy years, that term will be 
 the mean proportion between the time of his gestation in the womb, and 
 his Aion : then seek that proportion by the Rule of Three, and you will find 
 that as nine months are to seventy years, so are seventy years to six thou- 
 sand five hundred thirty-three years and four months. But I do not pretend 
 to ascertain this matter by arithmetical calculations, nor indeed to set any 
 certain limitation whatever thereto ; all 1 can say with assurance is this, 
 that it will be for so long as to answer the purpose intended by it : if a 
 thousand years will not do, it shall be for ten thousand : if ten thousand 
 will not do, it shall be for a hundred thousand'. Be sure the unrepenting 
 sinner shall suffer long enough to make it strikingly clear to the dullest appre- 
 hension and most stony heart, that he has made a foolish and a fatal bargain. 
 And as it may be presumed one intention is to overcome his obduracy, if 
 ever he shall be permitted to deliver himself, it must be by the same self- 
 denial by which he might have escaped his punishment ; therefore he had 
 better practise them voluntarily now, than stay till compelled to it by ex- 
 tremity of tortures. 
 
 After all that has been suggested, if any considerate person should hap- 
 pen to come into my notion upon this article, I think he could not be in- 
 duced thereby to become a whit the less careful of his future concerns : and 
 for the inconsiderate, they are not likely to meddle with my speculations. 
 But if any of them should be hurt, it may be attributed to the common 
 practice of expatiating with all the powers of Oratory upon the word Eter- 
 nal : which carries a tacit implication, that if punishment were not eternal, 
 it would not be worth minding. This seems to be inuring men never to 
 stir unless upon the strongest inducement : perhaps it might be more expe- 
 dient to bring them into a habit of answering the gentlest call of judgment. 
 It has been remarked that a trader never grows rich who despises little 
 gains : and it might as justly be said, that a man never grows happy or pru- 
 dent who despises little advantages, although large enough to be visible. 
 The mind has been often compared to a fine balance, and we know the ex- 
 cellence of a balance lies in its turning with a hair : so the excellence of 
 judgment lies in discerning the minutest difference ; and the excellence 
 of disposition, in pursuing measures readily upon view of the slightest pre- 
 ference.
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 655 
 
 Yet every innovation, even of a word, in the received form of doctrine, 
 though not affecting the main purpose of Religion, that of making men 
 better, is looked upon as dangerous ; and I cannot help owning, with 
 reason. Because the bulk of mankind, too lazy to think for themselves, 
 take what they do take, upon the credit of their teachers ; and if they find 
 that credit shaken in any single instance, very hastily infer that everything 
 else taught them was mere invention or mistake. Therefore to avoid giving 
 a handle whereby such pernicious consequence might be drawn, I shall pro- 
 ceed to make out, that the punishments of a future life may still be eternal. 
 I doubt not this will be thought a contradiction to that equality I have been 
 labouring to establish : but before men pronounce things contradictory, let 
 them be sure they have a clear and adequate notion of the terms whereby 
 they are expressed. 
 
 9. What else is eternity besides an infinite length of time ? and this we 
 may think we have a clear apprehension of because we know what we say 
 when we use the epithet Infinite ; but the consequence does not follow ; for 
 though we have a clear idea of infinity, we have none of an infinite quan- 
 tity. I need not be at the pains to prove this paradox too, Mr. Locke 
 having done it before me : for he tells us the idea of infinity is that of being 
 able to add perpetually without ever coming to an end. So that the infini- 
 tude of a quantity is its exceeding all our methods of computation, a cir- 
 cumstance we can easily comprehend belonging to it : but what does so ex- 
 ceed them cannot be the object of our comprehension, because whatever 
 number we can clearly conceive, we might express exactly by figures ; 
 therefore it is no rule that there can be nothing beyond what is infinite, nor 
 that all infinite must be equal. To the Indians mentioned some time ago, 
 who could count no further than twenty, number twenty-one must be infi- 
 nite, so must fifty, so must a hundred, and a thousand : yet we who can 
 count further, know these are different numbers, which may be subtracted 
 from one another and still leave what to those savages shall remain infinite, 
 expressible only by the hairs of their head. Much the same it is with our- 
 selves, we can run prodigious lengths with our millions and billions and 
 trillions, but we cannot run on for ever : our powers of numeration have 
 their certain bounds, which whatever surpasses, so that we might add and 
 add without end yet without ever reaching it, we call infinite ; nor have we 
 any other name for all quantities surpassing our utmost numeration. So 
 because we call them all by one name, we suppose them all the same thing. 
 Yet there may be great varieties among them, and they may contain one 
 another many times over without our being able to find a difference between 
 them ; for they rank under the class of incomprehensibles, concerning 
 which we can form no clear or adequate conception. 
 
 But I am gotten into the wilds of abstraction, and shall be better under- 
 stood by recurring to cases where we may have sensible objects to assist us. 
 Draw two lines across one another at right angles ; describe circles as many 
 as you please, upon the point of intersection, whose centres lie behind each 
 other upon one of the lines ; then turn the central foot of your compass to 
 the opposite side of the same line, and draw the like number of circles re- 
 spectively equal to the former, all touching in the same point. Now ma- 
 thematicians will tell you that the external angles between all the circles, 
 and those made by the transverse line with them all, are infinitely small ; 
 that the same transverse or tangential line cut the angle between each pair 
 of equal circles into two halves ; and the angle between the two least
 
 656 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 circles contains all the rest as parts of a whole. So you see here is one in- 
 finite which contains many others within it, each of them divisible into two 
 infinites a piece. 
 
 Lay down a shilling upon the table, and there lies rji infinite space di- 
 rectly over it ; for all the Solar and Stellar vortices, all the vast expanse 
 containing the visible universe, if squeezed into the diameter of the shilling, 
 would not fill up the cylinder ; they could raise it only to a determinate 
 height computable by the rules of arithmetic. Place another shilling close 
 to the former, and there stands the like infinite space over that too. Draw 
 a line across the two shillings through their point of contact and produce 
 it in imagination as far as you can to the right hand ; as it passes along it 
 will continually cut superficies capable of containing other shillings, each 
 having the like cylinder over it : but as you can never find an end of your 
 line, you must conclude there runs an infinite row of columns on the 
 right side of your shillings. So here we have the square of infinitude, that 
 is, an infinite number of infinite spaces. You may likewise imagine another 
 row running side by side beyond the former, another beyond that, and so 
 on without limitation : which gives you an infinite number of rows, or the 
 cube of infinitude. Then we may consider that there hangs the like cylin- 
 der under each shilling as rises above it ; that the line might be produced 
 on the left hand as well as on the right : and rows run along on the hither 
 side of the first row as endlessly as on the further side : so that we have 
 double infinities, quadruple squares, and octuple cubes of infinitude ; and all 
 these together compose the immensity of space, which we can express by no 
 higher term than still to call it infinite. 
 
 With respect to infinite time, or eternity, we cannot find squares and 
 cubes there ; yet every common eye may see that it consists of two eterni- 
 ties, that which is past and that which is still to come : the one continually 
 receiving addition, yet without increase of quantity, the other continually 
 perishing, yet without diminution, by the successive efflux of years and 
 ages. This cannot happen in finite periods, where the part behind con- 
 stantly gathers ground in proportion upon the part before : Methusaleh at 
 the age of thirty, was ten years older and had ten less to live than at the 
 age of twenty : but who will say God is older now than in the beginning, 
 when the earth was without form and void ? or that either he, or the 
 human soul, has less time to exist now, than at the instant when he called 
 her forth into Being ? 
 
 Thus we see that infinites elude all our rules of arithmetic ; if we add, 
 multiply, square or cube, we cannot increase them : if we subtract, divide, 
 extract the square or cube root, we cannot diminish them. Whatever we 
 do, we can make no change from what they were before ; for in every pro- 
 cess where one quantity is infinite, what other soever we may work it with, 
 still the sum, remainder, product, and quotient will always be infinite. But 
 the Divine mathematician proceeds not by our arithmetic : he wants not 
 comprehension to grasp the immensity of space, nor line of intelligence to 
 measure the abyss of eternity. He sees distinctly what varieties of infinites 
 lie contained within one another, and what proportion each bears to other. 
 Nor can we take upon us to deny that he may know there have been many 
 eternities already past, and many still reserved in the bosom of futurity ; 
 whereof he may assign one for the distribution of rewards and punishments, 
 leaving ample room beyond for restoring equality by provisions made to 
 bring the balance even between his particular creatures. If we cannot
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 657 
 
 comprehend this, tell me what there is we can comprehend upon the ar- 
 ticle of Infinites ; and then I shall admit our non-comprehension a proof of 
 the thing not being so. 
 
 And yet I think we may gather some illustration of this matter from a 
 case put upon the two eternities whereof we have an idea. Nobody can 
 deny that God has had the power of creating from everlasting, nor that, 
 whatever has been done, he might have exercised that power from everlast- 
 ing : therefore there might have been creatures who had existed eternally. 
 Suppose then there were two men, one of whom had passed an eternity in 
 a certain degree of uneasiness, the other in an equal degree of enjoyment ; 
 and both were called to judgment to show cause why there should not be a 
 change of conditions between them, to be never altered again. I doubt 
 not the former would be ready enough to allege the equity of the ex- 
 change ; for that it was but reasonable that he who had been holden from 
 all eternity in a state worse than nonentity, should be allotted a like con- 
 tinuance in state as much better ; and if he prevailed, would think himself 
 made amends for the unbeginning suffering he had endured, by the end- 
 less enjoyment he expected. Hence it appears an idea may be framed in 
 speculation, of the weight-: hanging eternally on one side, yet the balance 
 being brought even, and an equality subsisting if computed throughout 
 the whole extent of existence. 
 
 10. Yet whatever limits be really set to the duration of future punish- 
 ment, it will be the same to ^he sinner at his entrance upon it as if there 
 were none : for if not endless it will be hopeless. For the future can affect 
 us no otherwise than by our knowledge or idea of it : whatever good or 
 evil fortune is to befall me to-morrow, whatever end shall then be put to my 
 pleasures or afflictions will give me neither joy nor sorrow, while I have no 
 suspicion of it. A man cast into a loathsome dungeon, or put on board a 
 ship to be sent into banishment, while lamenting that he shall never see the 
 light again, or his friends and country again, can receive no comfort from 
 the Prince having resolved to revoke his doom, unless he be told it. In 
 like manner, when the wicked lies engulphed in the dreadful abyss of dark- 
 ness, what consolation can he receive from a deliverance, however near, 
 whereof he can have no knowledge ? Does he think to retain his present 
 sanguine expectations ? They sprung from his partiality to sensual plea- 
 sures, flattering him with the belief of whatever might prove an encourage- 
 ment to follow them ; therefore must necessarily vanish together with the 
 root whereout they grew. Or even supposing them founded on clearest 
 and calmest reasonings, is he sure of carrying with him his present ideas, or 
 the remembrance of anything he has discovered here ? Or what room will 
 there be for clear and calm reasoning in the midst of tortures ? Or will 
 not the Devils and his companions in misery, have cunning enough to frame 
 crafty sophisms, that shall overthrow all his reasonings, and confound his 
 understanding ? If they see souls delivered every day, be sure they will 
 let him know nothing of the matter ; but urge all their topics, and use all 
 their artifices, to aggravate his despair. And as men are here too apt to 
 murmur against God, and charge him foolishly, when things go very much 
 amiss with them, so the reprobate, who as such must have a perverse turn 
 of mind, when fallen under the weight of divine vengeance, will behold in 
 God a cruel oppressor, a furious, irresistible monster, having no spark of 
 mercy in his nature, and as incapable of relenting as time is of running 
 backwards. 
 
 VOL. i. 2 v
 
 658 ^ DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 And here we may observe by the way, of how great importance it is to 
 form our notions of the divine Attributes aright, and found them upon 
 solid and consistent reason : they will then remain unshaken in all changes 
 of situation, and stand the test of adversity, to be our comfort when we 
 need it most. Whereas if we natter ourselves with an injudicious and ill- 
 grounded idea of justice, and goodness, and indulgence, because it suits our 
 present convenience, we shall see it wrested out of our hands some time or 
 other, and then that will become an object of horror and despondency, which 
 we used to look upon as our protection and license to take our pleasures 
 without scruple. 
 
 11. As I should be very sorry to have my speculations do hurt to any- 
 body, I shall not content myself with removing objections against them, but 
 likewise endeavour to guard against every vain imagination that I can con- 
 ceive might arise in men's minds from anything before offered, and might 
 have a bad influence upon their conduct. Perhaps some, who are ready to 
 catch hold of any pretence to justify them in following their own inclina- 
 tions, may allege that, since the periods and the several stages contained in 
 them are fixed by divine appointment, they need not trouble themselves to 
 be careful of their conduct ; for whatever they do, they must run the course 
 assigned them, and cannot alter what has been appointed by the Will of 
 Heaven. Or possibly some, too selfishly righteous, may be backward in re- 
 claiming others whom they see travelling the road of destruction, because, 
 since there are suffering states which must be borne by somebody, they will 
 be glad to find others ready to undertake them, as rendering their own 
 chance of escaping the stronger. But there would be no room for these 
 surmises if it were remembered that I have all along disclaimed a fatality, 
 compulsorily and unalterably fixing events dependent upon human agency ; 
 and that there being a secret Will makes no alteration in the justness and 
 expedience of our measures, that Will being constantly fulfilled by the free 
 choice of our own Wills in matters lying under our power, which remain as 
 much the proper object of our deliberation and industry, as if there were no 
 foreknowledge or pre-appointment concerning them. 
 
 Yet the ideas of precausation and fatality, of certainty and necessity, are 
 so strongly rivetted together in men's minds by custom, that it is not easy 
 to keep them asunder, when once disjoined, without repeated efforts, and 
 placing things in various lights, one of which may chance to succeed where 
 the others have failed. Wherefore it may not be amiss to make one more 
 attempt for breaking the association ; though what I have to offer will be 
 little else in substance than what I have offered before. The appointment 
 of all events, both great and small, being made no otherwise than by the 
 provision of adequate causes to bring them forth, the most important and 
 momentous will fall under the same rules with the most familiar and trifling. 
 Let us consider then how the case stands with respect to the common trans- 
 actions of life. If I have friends to dine with me to-morrow, and have 
 settled my bill of fare of things I know are to be had in the house, or the 
 yard, or the market, I may look upon the appearance of the dishes upon my 
 table as a certain event comprised in the list of appointments, because I 
 know all the causes are ready at hand requisite to produce it ; and it was 
 certain seven years ago, though I did not know it then, nor could anybody 
 have foretold it. Nevertheless, how is it unalterable, but that how strongly 
 soever I have resolved to have a turkey, it is still in my power to exchange 
 it for a goose ? What compulsion was I under either in making my deter- 
 mination, or in keeping it ? Wherein does it render my cares unnecessary
 
 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 659 
 
 in giving orders to my servants for providing and preparing the meats ? 
 Or what alteration does the opinion of a pre-appointment make, so much as 
 of a lettuce in the sallad, or a garnish upon the dish ? 
 
 Perhaps I design to buy a horse for my riding, but have not any parti- 
 cular one iii my eye : I know there are enow to be had in town, and the 
 jockeys will cheat one egregiously ; yet I am resolved to deal with them as 
 well as I can. This, too, stands upon the roll of appointments ; for there 
 are causes in being, dependent in a chain upon the operations of the First, 
 which will direct me to one certain purchase : though I know not what will 
 be the issue, yet I know it will depend partly upon my own management. 
 Therefore what have I else to do than take the best care and get the best 
 advice I can in the matter ? And what could I do better if all things lay 
 under the disposal of Chance, and there were neither order nor government 
 in the universe ? 
 
 So every man's future state, whether of reward or punishment, depends 
 upon his tenor of behaviour in life, and the provision of causes influencing 
 him to hold it. He cannot indeed foresee the issue with absolute certainty, 
 because he cannot certainly know what trials he may be put to, nor examine 
 all the recesses of his own heart, to see precisely what degrees of strength 
 or weakness lie latent there ; yet so far as he can discern these, he may 
 rise to a proportionable degree of assurance ; and for what uncertainties re- 
 main, he may know that a constant application of his judgment, and vigi- 
 lance, and industry, will diminish the hazard and add to his security. And 
 what better could he augurate, or more effectual could he do, supposing 
 God himself did not know what would become of him, or had made no ap- 
 pointment concerning him ? 
 
 Then for the quantity of evil being ascertained, we may argue by the like 
 parity of reason between greater evils and smaller. All the troubles, mis- 
 fortunes, and disappointments of this world, are owing to a concurrence of 
 circumstances and particular causes deriving their efficacy from the First : 
 nor when he began the chain, can we suppose him ignorant or thoughtless 
 of every minute effect that would ensue from his operation, even to the 
 falling of a sparrow to the ground, or the shedding of a hair upon our heads. 
 Neither can we imagine him so ill a contriver as not to have provided for 
 as many of those casualties as were necessary for his wise and gracious pur- 
 poses, or so regardless of his creatures as to permit a single one more to 
 happen than were so necessary : for he ordains all things by number, 
 weight, and measure. 
 
 Therefore we must conclude there is a certain number of bruises, broken 
 bones, fires, losses, vexations and other sinister accidents, appointed to be- 
 fall on earth. But what rule of conduct can we gather from hence, since 
 we know not the number ? For this belongs to the secret Will, which is 
 no guide of our proceedings. Shall I foolishly run down a precipice, where 
 it is a hundred to one but I fall and hurt myself grievously, because all 
 things are appointed in number, weight, and measure ? If I knew that I 
 must have one tumble in my life and no more, I might as well take it now 
 as another time : or if I knew that some one, and but one, out of twenty 
 of us, must have a tumble, it might be thought a fit of romantic generosity 
 to venture my own neck to save the rest. But by what rule of logic can 
 you prove, that I shall hurt myself ever the more or less hereafter for my 
 falling now ? or that it shall any ways affect the good or bad fortune of 
 other people ? 
 
 2u2
 
 660 DURATION OF PUNISHMENT. 
 
 What disasters hang over us from causes out of our power, cannot 
 be altered by anything \ve do ; and "what we may either bring upon our- 
 selves or avoid, depends upon the causes suited to produce it, which in this 
 case are our own actions. Here then we have it in our option to determine 
 what shall be the appointed event lying in the secret Will : to add or sub- 
 tract one among the number of disasters requisite, because we have the 
 causes of it under command. Therefore if I can escape an impending dan- 
 .ger by my care and good management, I shall look upon it as a clear gain, 
 equally with those who hold the reality and dominion of chance : for the 
 advantage is visible, but the damage to ensue I cannot discover upon any 
 of my principles. In like manner the future states of men depend, not 
 upon a fatality, but upon the natural causes, to wit, their respective man- 
 ners of behaviour here upon earth : and the number of either sort upon the 
 number of persons who shall choose either course of life. Therefore he 
 that saves himself or his neighbour from destruction, is so far from hurting 
 anybody, that he does a signal service to the universe ; by making one fewer 
 suffering state requisite therein, than there would have been had he omitted 
 his endeavours. 
 
 12. Now to conclude this whole article of equality, I hope nobody will 
 take offence merely upon account of its novelty : for however novel it may 
 be, it hurts none of the old tenets and precepts that have been employed to 
 keep the world in order ; nor lessens the expedience of being careful of our 
 conduct in a single point. It leaves justice to proceed as before in the dis- 
 tribution of reward and punishment according to every man's deserts : par- 
 ticular care has been taken to provide against every notion that might be 
 engrafted upon it, of dangerous consequence either to Religion or good 
 morals : it has been applied as persuasive to that humility and lowliness of 
 mind, so strongly inculcated in our Sacred Writings : and as an encourage- 
 ment, drawn from the fund of natural reason, to that unreserved and uni- 
 versal charity which is the grand precept both of sound philosophy and 
 revealed Religion. 
 
 If it be said these doctrines are sufficiently recommended already upon 
 the authority of the sacred oracles and interpretations of them by the Church, 
 and that to lead men into another course of evidence would only be drawing- 
 aside their attention from a surer guidance : I shall answer, that those who 
 are so happy as to follow steadily this sure guidance, and find it supply all 
 their uses, and satisfy every difficulty arising in their minds, will do well to 
 adhere to it still, without heeding my speculations, as being not intended 
 for them. But it has happened somehow, whether by an unlucky constitu- 
 tion of mind or a faulty education, or bad company, or injudicious manage- 
 ment of some preachers, or absurdities engrafted by crafty pretenders to 
 sanctity, that this surest guidance does not obtain the reserved credit with 
 everybody. Is it not then acting agreeably to Christian charity, and the 
 example of him who became all things to all men, if by any means he might 
 gain some, to address these people in the way they will listen to, and 
 attempt leading them into the same points whereto their proper guide would 
 nave conducted them, though by a different road wherein they may be pre- 
 vailed upon to travel. And if they will be pleased to consider maturely 
 what has been here suggested from experience and reason, together with 
 what further their own thoughts may suggest, concerning the nature of the 
 mind acting constantly upon motives, the dependence of effects upon causes, 
 the universal government of Providence, the dispassionate and impartial na- 
 ture of God : it seems to me as if they could not fail of seeing a solid
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 661 
 
 foundation for this equality, and inferring from thence that there is no in- 
 trinsic excellence of one man above another, nor other than was the gift of 
 Heaven; and that there is a mutual connection of interests among the 
 several members, as well of the creation as of every community contained 
 in it, so that whoever procures any good for his neighbour, does in effect 
 procure it for himself. 
 
 Should I be thought in some places to have run on too finespun argu- 
 mentations, or in others drawn too strong-coloured figures, for anybody's 
 liking : let him be good-natured enough to suppose, that were we to dis- 
 course over this subject in private, and he would let me know his taste, I 
 should endeavour to conform myself thereto. But as I know not who may 
 deign to cast an eye upon my labours, I must accommodate them the best I 
 can to different tastes, and provide against all attacks, as well of the subtle 
 miner as the open assailant. If he be already intimately persuaded of the 
 general interest being his own upon any other grounds whatever, he has my 
 consent to think no more of the equality ; which I urged with none other 
 aim than to work this persuasion. But whether self-interest be the real 
 foundation of all our rules of conduct or not, it has certainly a powerful in- 
 fluence upon our motions : therefore it must be no small service to Religion 
 and virtue, to set this spring so as that it may assist in their operations. 
 This is the point I have been driving at, and if we both agree in the same 
 point, we need not quarrel about the different ways whereby we arrived 
 at it : but may go on amicably the remainder of our journey, consult- 
 ing together, as often as there may be occasion, upon the most effectual 
 methods of pursuing what we have agreed to be the truest road to our 
 own interest. 
 
 CHAP XXXI. 
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 IN order to understand the title of this Chapter, we may recohect that 
 of Chapter XXXVI. [p. 267, Vol. I. of this edition], which was entitled the 
 Limitation of Virtue I doubt not as many good people as have had patience 
 to go through the argument pursued there, have condemned me for limitingher 
 within shamefully narrow bounds : it is well if they were quieted for a while 
 by the hint dropped in the two closing- Sections, of what I am now going to 
 do ; which is to restore her to her ancient splendour, and the full glory she 
 merits by her most arduous trials and most noble sacrifices. If they still 
 blame me for leaving her so long under a cloud, let it be alleged in my 
 excuse, that I could not clear up her rights sooner, having not gotten 
 together the materials requisite for that purpose. If they urge that I 
 ought to have prepared all my materials before I proceeded to build upon 
 them : they may please to consider that my case is different from that of 
 the divines. They are to make the proper use of an old science : I to lay 
 the foundation of a new one. 
 
 For though Religion and morality be an ancient science, yet it has been 
 placed upon so many various bottoms, the main supports of it made to bear 
 so differently upon one another, and the whole fabric so disfigured with 
 the additions of injudicious or ill-designing workmen, that it seemed no 
 blameable attempt to reconstruct the whole afresh from the very ground : 
 not with design to make alterations in the chambers or apartments, but to
 
 662 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 dispose them upon a more consistent plan, and render the passages of 
 communication less intricate and abrupt between them. In prosecution 01 
 this scheme I could take nothing for known or acknowledged, but must work 
 my way step by step as I could, and deduce my principles anew from the 
 materials furnished by common experience. But it is the general and 
 allowed practice of those who trace other sciences from the beginning, to 
 build what they can upon some of their first principles considered alone, 
 before they proceed to collect other principles ; though they know well 
 enough their building will not stand in all its parts when these latter come 
 to be employed likewise. 
 
 Your professors of natural philosophy do so in their lectures upon the five 
 mechanical powers : if you go to apply their rules to common use you will 
 not find them answer : but why ? Because there is a roughness in all your 
 instruments, that will hinder their operation in the manner you was taught 
 to expect. This the professor was not ignorant of, but would not burden 
 you with too many things at once, judging it expedient to instruct you 
 thoroughly in all that his engines would perform supposing them perfectly 
 smooth ; and reserve for other lectures to examine the nature of friction, 
 and what alteration that will make according to the degrees of it. Or if 
 he be to read upon gravitation, he will tell you that falling bodies pass 
 through spaces in their descent bearing a duplicate ratio to the times of 
 their descending : that projectiles move in a regular parabola, forming 
 exactly the same angle in their fall to the plane of the horizon, with which 
 they were thrown up. Try the truth of this theory with a stone or what- 
 ever comes next to hand, and you will find it prove defective : but he will 
 afterwards explain to you how, and in what proportion, this must neces- 
 sarily happen from the resistance of air. 
 
 Now the foundation which seemed to me the first to be laid, as the only 
 sure and stable one whereon the building I had taken in hand could be 
 erected, was the knowledge of ourselves and of our own nature. For it 
 has been asked, how can a man love God whom he hath not seen, if he 
 hate his brother whom he hath seen : so by parity of reason it might be 
 asked, what can a man know of God or things invisible, which he cannot 
 see, who knows nothing of himself, his own manner of acting and thinking, 
 or operation of the things wherewith he i3 daily conversant ? For the ideas 
 we can frame of God are none other than what we gather by analogy 
 from something found among ourselves : and Religion being designed for 
 the uses of man, cannot be so explained nor applied as to serve his uses, 
 without a knowledge of human nature. The want of this reflection, I am 
 apt to think, has given rise to those involuntary errors which have been 
 fallen into in the expositions and interpretations of it : as to the designed 
 perversions, they were made by men who had studied human nature but 
 too well, and served their own ends upon its weaknesses. So that in this 
 respect the children of this world, the sons of ambition and avarice, have 
 proved wiser than the children of light : because the latter chose to remain 
 always children, confining themselves to the tenets and abstractions taught 
 them in their schools, without extending their observation to other things 
 requisite to complete the perfect manhood of knowledge. 
 
 Such then being my principal foundation, it behoved me to work it well, 
 before I proceeded to mark out any other ground, which would only interrupt 
 our progress by dividing our attention : and having gathered what obser- 
 vations I could make upon the motions of the mind, and the manner wherein 
 she stands affected by the common occurrences of life, I conceived it not
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 663 
 
 inexpedient to try what scheme of conduct might be constructed upon this 
 narrow basis alone. Induced thereto partly by what we often hear asserted 
 from the pulpit, That if we regard the happiness of this life only, still the 
 good will be found greatly to have the advantage over the wicked : which, 
 though agreeing with my own sentiments, I resolved to give it a full and 
 fair examination. Accordingly I pursued a train of consequences naturally 
 resulting from the premises then in hand, whereby I found that virtue 
 might be raised to a flourishing height, though planted upon none other 
 ground than a due regard to our temporal happiness. And I flatter myself 
 the divines will not think their assertion at all invalidated by what has 
 been there done : for it has been made appear, that while we have a 
 prospect of years to come, and which of us does not persuade himself he 
 has such a prospect? the surest road to a happy life lies through the 
 practice of virtue. 
 
 But if I have failed in supporting her interests to the end, they need not 
 be offended with me for an event, which, rightly considered, terminates 
 more in their favour than if I had succeeded ; for there is not a word of 
 God or another world to be found in the first Volume: therefore the doc- 
 trine there contained may be called the religion of an Atheist ; at least such 
 unless I have been somewhere faulty in my deductions, as an Atheist might 
 subscribe to. Now had it been possible to have framed a complete system 
 of behaviour upon Atheistical principles, it must have lessened the recom- 
 mendation of Theology : which might then have been regarded as a matter 
 fit only to amuse the curious in their leisure hours ; but of no avail in prac- 
 tice nor making any alteration in the duties of life. 
 
 2. Having apologized for my limitation of virtue, I may with better grace 
 desire the like caution may be observed in perusing several other parts of 
 my work : and that men will not be scandalized at anything they find 
 in a single passage or a few pages detached from the rest, nor until they 
 see what uses will be afterwards made of it. For the laws of philosophical 
 disquisitions and of sermons are very different : the latter being addressed 
 to the populace, whose inattention seldom permits them to carry away 
 more than a few separate scraps, care must be taken to deliver nothing that 
 is not perfectly innocent to the tenderest digestion. The preacher must not 
 dislike our physicians, who often mingle antimony, mercury, solanum, opium, 
 and other poisonous drugs in their prescriptions : because mankind is so 
 perverse, they will be sure to pick up the poison and leave the correcting 
 ingredients behind ; if not to swallow it, at least to throw in his face, or 
 bespatter his character. 
 
 But the former are addressed to the studious, who can follow a train of 
 reasoning throughout, and distinguish between what is asserted as a certain 
 truth, or only as a necessary consequence from the argument at present in 
 hand. They will* not be like the politely learned, reading only to shine in 
 conversation : whose aversion to trouble makes them expect to have all 
 difficulties cleared up in a single page, or a whole system explained while 
 one sits prattling over a dish of tea. These are unreasonable expectations 
 which I am sure I cannot, and believe no man alive can, undertake to 
 answer. Therefore must beg leave to except against the procedure of all, 
 who shall cite a passage or two, or give an abstract of some Chapter, and 
 then with a confident air ask the gay circle around them, what they must 
 think of that ; as also against the judgment of any who shall pass it without 
 hearing me through, or without having cognizance of the cause whereon 
 they pronounce.
 
 664 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 3. Had I been withholden by the awe of these partial examiners and 
 hasty judges from concluding my last book in the manner I did, I could not 
 have made it so apparent as I think it must be to every one who considers 
 the arguments urged there, of how necessary importance Religion is, not 
 only for keeping the vulgar and the giddy in order, but likewise for the re- 
 fined and the deep-thinking. The glittering hopes and formidable terrors 
 of another life might still have been thought useful to play off as engines, 
 upon those who consulted only their passions, and had no further concern 
 than for present pleasures : but wholly needless for such as had discernment 
 enough to see, that a decent and orderly behaviour was the proper way to 
 attain serenity of mind, health of body, prosperity and security among 
 mankind. 
 
 Nor indeed can it be denied there have been those who have passed 
 through life very comfortably and even with applause, without looking at 
 anything beyond. Epicurus, the grand apostle of infidelity, stands recorded 
 in history for his exemplary sobriety and friendliness. Atticus appears to 
 have been the most prudent man among the Romans in his time, and to 
 have possessed a large share even of Christian charity, doing service to all 
 without distinction or mixture of party zeal, which then ran at the highest. 
 And for the politicians of ancient days, many of whom proved excellent 
 legislators and governors, it is pretty certain they did not believe in their 
 country religion, nor does it appear what other religion or philosophy most 
 of them had. 
 
 But we cannot conclude upon the tendency of principles from the prac- 
 tice of single persons ; for no man can wrap himself up so entirely in his 
 own notions, as not to take a tincture from others among whom he con- 
 verses. For having from his childhood been used to hear the virtues con- 
 stantly spoken of with honour, he will insensibly imbibe an esteem of them 
 without knowing why : for though I cannot allow them innate, they are 
 perhaps generally the growth of custom, our second nature. But were there 
 a nation of Atheists, I apprehend they could not flourish long : for though 
 they might find it expedient to bring up their children in sentiments of 
 honour and probity, yet the thinking persons among them would quickly see 
 so far into human nature as to discover that each man's own happiness is the 
 proper foundation whereon all his schemes of conduct are to be ultimately 
 placed ; that honour, justice, public spirit, benevolence and the like, are but 
 props employed to strengthen the superstructure, where the visible connec- 
 tion with its original basis is wanting ; that the fame of their names, after 
 themselves have fallen into annihilation, is no object deserving their regard. 
 Therefore upon finding themselves approach near their end, when by their 
 long experience they are become most capable of contriving for the public, 
 they will be most careless of her interests. Nay. it is well if they stay so 
 long before they find occasions happen wherein they will persuade them- 
 selves they may serve their private ends without ever being discovered, 
 though to great damage of others or of the community : in which cases they 
 will be sure to prefer their own advantage, whereby things must soon run 
 to decay and min. Therefore it is incumbent upon every state to discourage 
 the beginnings of infidelity, by all means consistent with humanity and the 
 just rights of civil liberty. 
 
 4. And perhaps the world might still go on better, if 'the politicians of 
 all countries would, as I hope those of our own already do, extend their 
 views beyond this scene of sublunary affairs, and consider themselves as 
 citizens of the universe. That they would not lay out their whole sagacity
 
 RE- ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 665 
 
 upon the methods of bringing their schemes to bear, but bestow a little 
 of it uj on the schemes themselves ; examining why they esteem power, 
 credit, honour, riches, desirable at all : and if they can find none other Why 
 than to make them happy, whether it becomes persons of their extensive 
 understandings to think no further than the happiness to be had during the 
 twenty or thirty years of their continuance in splendour here. I do not ex- 
 pect they will suffer themselves to be guided in their opinions by authority, 
 nor put aside from their aims by the general estimation, nor does it behove 
 them so to do : but then let them be sure they did not take any of them up 
 upon the estimation of others, and those not of the soundest judgment, only 
 because they were always told from their childhood by their nurse or their 
 mother or everybody else they met with, how fine a thing it was to be great. 
 For it becomes persons of their extraordinary abilities to judge for them- 
 selves, to cast aside youthful prejudices, to draw a plan of life upon the solid 
 ground of reason, and go to the bottom of things for their foundation. 
 
 But because this is a science of itself, which those who are busied in other 
 occupations may want leisure to pursue minutely ; I have attempted in this 
 second Volume to trace a train of consequences from the contemplation of 
 nature, which any one may judge of without aid of tradition or received 
 tenets : whereby it appears that the universe lies under one completely re- 
 gulated policy ; that the properties of bodies, the powers of animals, the 
 talents of men, and all other provisions, are made with regard to the whole ; 
 that the good of each particular depends upon the good of all : and whoever 
 adds to the happiness of another, adds thereby to his own. From hence it 
 follows that honesty is the best policy, and an unreserved attachment to the 
 public benefit, the surest road to self-interest : and since persons whose 
 judgment far exceeds others, have reason to prize the approbation of that 
 above all popular applause, that the most noble sacrifice they can make, and 
 for which they may most deservedly applaud themselves is, when they have 
 preferred the public good before their own private interests, or whatever 
 they had set their hearts upon most strongly. 
 
 5. Therefore now we may do ample justice to Regulus, whom we left 
 under a sentence of folly for throwing away life with all its enjoyments for 
 a phantom of honour. For he may allege that he had not a fair trial be- 
 fore, his principal evidence being out of the way, which having since col- 
 lected in the course of his second book, he moves for a rehearing. For he 
 will now plead that it was not a fantastic joy in the transports of rectitude, 
 nor the stoical rhodomontade of a day spent in virtue containing more enjoy- 
 ment than an age of bodily delights, nor is his inability to bear a life of 
 general odium and contempt, had his duty so required, which fixed him in 
 his resolution : but the prudence of the thing upon a full and calm delibe- 
 ration. Because he considered himself as a citizen of the universe, whose 
 interests are promoted and maintained by the particular members contribut- 
 ing their endeavours towards increasing the quantity of happiness, wherever 
 possible, among others with whom they have connection and intercourse. 
 
 He saw that his business lay with his fellow-creatures of the same species, 
 among whom a strict attachment to faith and honour was the principal bul- 
 wark of order and happiness, that a shameful conduct in his present con- 
 flict would tend to make a general weakening of this attachment, which 
 might introduce disorders, rapines, violences, and injuries among multi- 
 tudes, to far greater amount than his temporary tortures ; that if he behaved 
 manfully, he should set a glorious example, which might occasion prosperi- 
 ties to be gained to his country and all belonging to her, overbalancing the
 
 666 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 weight of his sufferings, especially when alleviated by the balmy conscious- 
 ness of acting right. He was persuaded likewise, that all the good a man 
 does, stands placed to his account, to be repaid him in full value when it 
 will be most useful to him : so that whoever works for another, works for 
 himself ; and by working for numbers, earns more than he could possibly 
 do by working for himself alone. Therefore he acted like a thrifty merchant, 
 who scruples not to advance considerable sums, and even to exhaust his cof- 
 fers, for gaining a large profit to the common stock in partnership. Upon 
 these allegations, supported by the testimony of far- sigh ted philosophy and 
 confirmed in the material parts by heaven-born Religion, I doubt not the 
 jury will acquit him with flying colours, and the judge grant him a copy of 
 the record, to make his proper use of, whenever he might be impeached or 
 slandered hereafter. 
 
 6. It is not unlikely here that somebody may put me in mind of Saint 
 Evremont, who attempted to write a tragedy, wherein Hippolitus was to be 
 the principal character, but had not gone on far before he found his hero 
 dwindled insensibly into a very Monsieur Saint Evremont, having the French- 
 man's sentiments, making his reflections, and talking exactly in the same 
 strain. And then ask me by what authority of history I prove that Regulus 
 had any notion of the vehicles, the Aions, the balancing periods, the all- 
 space-filling Mundane soul, the unessential nature of justice, her generation 
 from expedience, the purchase of estates by unavoidable or virtuous suffer- 
 ing, the general partnership and universal bank of Ned Search. To this 
 question I shall reply that it is not my business to make critical remarks upon 
 history, nor have I anything to do with the person of Regulus, nor to pene- 
 trate the real motives of his conduct. He stands with me as an ideal cha- 
 racter, the representative of all persons who might come into his situation : 
 and I was to show that prudential motives of true self-interest might be sug- 
 gested to them, upon solid and substantial reasons, for acting in the manner 
 he did. 
 
 Yet it is not necessary that whoever practises the like firmness of beha- 
 viour should be led into it by just the same train of reasoning as I have 
 drawn out : for I am not so narrow-minded as to pronounce everything no 
 more than a shining sin, which does not proceed precisely from the princi- 
 ples appearing truest to me. It is enough we have shown the action to be 
 prudent, and whoever performs it as being right, deserves our approbation, 
 though he may not discern wherein the prudence of it consists. Had it 
 indeed been undertaken out of vanity, resentment, fondness of fame or any 
 other selfish motive, though being beneficial to the universe, the performer 
 might have shared the fruits in common with others ; yet this would have 
 been an accidental benefit, nor would he have merited reward or commenda- 
 tion : but must have stood in the case of that Roman Master of the horse, 
 who being strictly enjoined to avoid a battle during his Dictator's absence, 
 nevertheless attacked the enemy and gained a complete victory ; for which 
 the Dictator on his return gave him the honours usually conferred on a con- 
 queror, and then punished him severely for his disobedience. But he who 
 practises a self denial, or goes through a painful or perilous undertaking, 
 which is beneficial, because esteeming it his duty, or recommended by all 
 persons of approved judgment, or dictated by the moral sense, or upon any 
 other of those motives comprehended under the name of conscience ; does, 
 besides the accidental benefit he knows nothing of, bring himself within the 
 verge of justice, and the stream of those rewards she distributes to 
 well-doing.
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 667 
 
 7. For it is not to be expected that every one should trace the rectitude 
 of his measures quite up to the fountain head. Some persons have not the 
 talents, most conditions of life do not afford the leisure, nor do some ages 
 or countries furnish the lights, necessary for that purpose. But God gives 
 to every man the talents, the opportunities, the lights, sufficient for the 
 work whereto he calls him : it is the creature's business to answer the call, 
 whether coming by the voice of his own reason, or the general recom- 
 mendation of the judicious, or the admonitions of his moral sense, or 
 whatever other channel of conveyance his best judgment shall satisfy him 
 brings it genuine. For by following steadily the best guidance he can get 
 against the opposition of passion, danger, pain, and affliction, he shall be- 
 come an object of the Divine favour. And for such as can discern what 
 courses of conduct are most extensively beneficial, they will act prudently by 
 leading others into them by such methods as they can, whether of persua- 
 sion or exhortation or example or applause ; which last we have already seen 
 is there most deservedly belonging where it be most usefully applied. 
 For in so doing, they not only procure a general advantage, but place 
 themselves and those they prevail upon within reach of that arm of justice 
 wherewith she distributes her rewards. 
 
 Nor need they despise those expedients for their own private use ; for 
 no man, how much soever he may see in his closet, can carry the whole 
 chart of it abroad with him when he enters upon action : therefore it 
 behoves him to nourish up vigorous moral senses, and fix a strong appro- 
 bation upon proper objects, to direct and actuate him upon every particular 
 occasion ; and what he does by their instigation will answer all purposes as 
 effectually as if he could have run his eye along the whole line of expedi- 
 ence. And, after all, though one man may look further than another, there 
 is none so piercing sighted as to see to the very end of the line : for it has 
 been shown before, that the effect of our actions extends to distant times 
 and regions, far beyond the reach of mortal ken. So that the wisest man 
 can proceed only by rule and guidance, not by knowledge : taking the ex- 
 pedience of his conduct to the welfare of mankind, as an evidence of its being 
 expedient to the visible world. 
 
 8. But the necessity of rules and principles for our direction gives rise to 
 a new species of prudence, which could not have had Being, were we capable 
 of taking all our measures upon a full knowledge of their expedience : for 
 it is not enough to consider the usefulness of an action, but we must like- 
 wise take into account how far it may either confirm or weaken the influ- 
 ence of some wholesome rule ; because more good or harm may be done 
 that way than by any direct consequences of the thing we do. For there is 
 a degree of sacredness belonging to all rules, proportionable to their im- 
 portance and the authority whereon they rest, which must not be violated 
 without very cogent and evident cause. Yet on the other hand, since no 
 rule is without exception, there may be too strict an adherence to them, 
 especially when some one becomes predominant, so as to work a disregard 
 of all the rest : which is the case with your sectaries and very violent people 
 of all denominations, who are so terrified at the barking dogs of Scylla that 
 they run headlong upon Charibdis. Therefore this necessity we have been 
 speaking of, does not supersede the use of private judgment, which may 
 find employment enough in comparing rules and principles, in choosing 
 whose guidance we shall trust to, in understanding the directions and ap- 
 plying them to particular occasions. 
 
 For it is not enough to follow the best authority without some caution
 
 668 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 had of the channels through which it passes, because these have been 
 known sometimes totally to change the quality of the stream. It is re- 
 ported of him who boasted of being the oldest and I trow the wisest king 
 in Europe, that upon somebody humbly representing to him that he could 
 not alter the laws without Parliament, Prithee ! man, says he : do not I 
 make the judges ? Then I make the law. So there have been interpreters 
 who have made the law, and the Gospel, and philosophy, and right reason, 
 to be just what they pleased. Therefore it behoves us to be circumspect, 
 not depending upon zeal alone without discretion, nor imitating the Papists, 
 who if they get rid of so much money in what they call charity, no matter 
 how applied, esteem it a sure draught on St. Peter : but though there be 
 an universal Bank, unless we take the best care we can in our ability and 
 the circumstances of the situation, that what we throw in be real sterling 
 Good, it will make no figure upon our account. Yet no man need disturb 
 himself for unavoidable errors or misguidings ; but may trust the wisdom 
 of Providence to bring good profit out of his foolishness. 
 
 9. But though invincible ignorance will justify an error, hastiness and 
 passion will not : for there are religious passions as well as sensual and 
 worldly, and the former are more dangerous than the latter by how much 
 the best things corrupted become the worst. The most noble enterprises 
 have been achieved by a sedate and steady courage, not by a boisterous im- 
 petuosity. Especially when such sacrifices as that of Regulus are to be 
 made, it requires the greatest calmness of judgment to examine and weigh 
 all the motives for offering it. For life, health, ease, and fortune, are not 
 to be thrown away lightly nor wantonly ; they are the blessings of Heaven, 
 well deserving our value and care to preserve them, nor is it justifiable to 
 part with them unless on very weighty considerations ; because the larger 
 the price is to be paid, the more needful it becomes to examine well the 
 value of the purchase and security of the title. Wherefore there is a due 
 caution to be had in seeing that we have a warrant for what we undertake : 
 because else, after putting ourselves to vast expense of toil and trouble, we 
 may earn nothing beside reproof for having omitted a task we might have 
 performed more easily. 
 
 When young people first acquire a liking to virtue, the fire of their blood 
 sometimes lights up an ambition of attempting the most arduous exercises, 
 and gaining the topmost summit of it at once. But let them remember 
 how they were led by degrees into the learning or profession they have 
 knowledge of, being taught the rudiments completely first, and instructed 
 in the lower branches before they were permitted to assist in the grand 
 performances of art : in like manner let them study the duties of life lying 
 every day in their way, and make themselves perfect in the common virtues, 
 before they undertake the shining. But this knight-errant humour of 
 seeking adventures and perilous encounters, quickly subsides, unless where 
 fomented by enthusiasts with their incessant rantings ; whereby they fright 
 or teaze their followers into painful austerities, dangerous abstinences, tedi- 
 ous and fatiguing devotions, no ways conducive to make them more useful 
 in their stations. Which is just as absurd as if a tailor or a shoemaker 
 should live in a boat upon the salt water, to inure himself to the hardships 
 of a sea voyage : or lie out whole nights in a ditch by way of using himself 
 to a campaign or a siege, to neither of which services he is ever likely to be 
 called. For Providence appoints to every man his station in this world : it 
 is his business to consider what are the duties of it, and furnish himself 
 with such,-"U9l : vr^tions as mav carry, him through those duties completely;
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 669 
 
 because this will carry him surest to all the happiness within his power to 
 attain. 
 
 For even if faith be the saving principle, yet no man can have solid 
 grounds to believe that he has a saving faith, otherwise than by the fruits 
 it bears : so that good works are either the one thing needful, or the sole 
 evidence of'that which is so. But good works are such only as may prove 
 good for something, or from whence good may redound to mankind : and 
 those are the best which tend to the most beneficial consequences in our 
 power "to produce, or in our skill to contrive. But whenever duty calls, 
 provided all possible care and consideration be taken to know its voice, no 
 man need fear that he shall be a loser by answering the call, whatever hard 
 service or costly sacrifice he be put to : for if the fruits of his labour hang 
 too remote to touch his notice, they will be brought nearer by the reward 
 annexed to the performance. 
 
 10. Thus have I brought matters at last to an issue that I hope will 
 scandalize nobody : and this may atone for the liberties taken in arriving 
 at it by an unusual road ; for there is a Latin proverb which says, the end 
 crowns the work. If I have seemed to deviate sometimes into the paths of 
 freethinking, the orthodox know well there are persons who have an utter 
 aversion against travelling in the beaten track : then they cannot take it 
 amiss that, by mingling amongst travellers, I have attempted to bring some 
 into the very point whereto they would lead them. Nor can the latter 
 charge me with playing booty, or practising artifices upon them : for they 
 may see I have proceeded all along with an unawed freedom, doing my 
 utmost to cast all prejudices aside, and take every step in the way my best 
 judgment should direct. I did indeed suspect at setting out that the roads 
 of reason and Religion, rightly pursued, would conduct to the same end. 
 For if God has given us any commands, as he has no ends of his own to 
 answer by them, they must have been given for our benefit : therefore we 
 are taught they all terminate in two principal aims : to bring us into a 
 hearty desire of one another's happiness equally with our own, and to in- 
 spire us with such just sentiments of himself as conduce most to our 
 happiness. 
 
 And though reason, whose office lies not in giving us an ultimate end of 
 action, but in contriving the surest methods of attaining that suggested by 
 appetite, can set out upon none other bottom than our own interest : yet 
 we have seen how self-interest leads into disinterestedness, into an unre- 
 served attachment to the general good, and into a constant dependence upon 
 Providence ; because were that away, we could find no certain cause of all 
 we see happen around us ; and if we lose sight of goodness, or esteem any- 
 thing left to chance, the success of our best endeavours will be uncertain, 
 and our hopes become like castles in the air. So that whether we use the 
 daylight or the candle of the Lord, provided we can keep our eyes clear from 
 the films of passion and prejudice, we shall find objects presented in the same 
 shapes and the same colours, though not always with equal lustre. 
 
 1 1 . This consideration may rescue philosophy from the imputation she 
 has lain under with some righteous persons of being dangerous to Religion 
 and piety : it was not uncommon for whoever professed to pursue the light 
 of nature to be presently suspected of unsoundness in his principles, of a 
 secret design to undermine the belief of a Providence, if not that fundamental 
 article of all religion, the Being of a God. Nor can it be denied there have 
 been grounds for such suspicion : at least, we must acknowledge that those 
 who had such evil designs have proceeded by undertaking to explain all
 
 670 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 phenomena around us by the powers of nature, and attempting to confine 
 the attention of mankind to them alone. But the state of natural philo- 
 sophy is not the same now as formerly : it is become an innocent, inoffen- 
 sive science, an useful minister in the temple of the Lord. In ancient 
 times, nature was esteemed an original source of Being, distinct from the 
 Almighty ; matter was thought possessed of an existence which he never 
 gave it, and even the elements to have their differences and qualities inde- 
 pendent on him ; the only province left him being that of gathering them 
 into forms and assortments, in order to generate thereby such habitable 
 earths, and plants, and animals, as they were respectively capable of pro- 
 ducing. And though these notions have been since exploded, God being 
 generally acknowledged the Creator as well as Maker of all things visible 
 and invisible ; yet there still remains an opinion with many of an abstract, 
 eternal, uncreated nature of things, which controls the measures and directs 
 the wisdom of God, as well in the exercises of his creative power as in the 
 administration of sublunary affairs. Thus, while there were two First 
 Causes supposed to have a joint share in the production of all events, it is 
 no wonder that such as were zealous for the glory of God looked with a 
 jealous eye upon every attempt to extend the province of nature, as being 
 an encroachment upon the Divine prerogative, and a certain mark of dis- 
 loyalty. 
 
 But I have endeavoured to exhibit nature in another aspect, not as an 
 original cause, but an establishment of the Almighty : her abstract as well 
 as sensible essences receiving their permanency, and her courses their sta- 
 bility, from the covenant or immutable Will of God ; her substances, both 
 material and spiritual, together with their primary as well as secondary qua- 
 lities, their applications to one another, their mutual affections, all effects 
 and events resulting therefrom, deriving primarily from' none other source 
 than the power, the wisdom, the goodness, -the equity, and good pleasure of 
 their Maker : and the chain of second -causes producing them, being planned 
 out with certain foreknowledge and exact intention of every particular it 
 should bring forth. Therefore I may hope to stand absolved from all sus- 
 picion of impiety, nor need I scruple the hazard of adding too largely to 
 nature, for by giving to her I take nothing from God : because nature is the 
 work of God, her acts are his acts, her productions his gifts, her everv ope- 
 ration, as well necessary as fortuitous, an execution of his Will, t have 
 no where denied that he may sometimes act immediately without the inter- 
 vention of second causes, or to alter their courses ; on the contrary, have 
 offered arguments in support of that opinion. Yet this does not hinder, but 
 that we may strive to account for everything we can by natural causes, and 
 retain an averseness against multiplying interpositions : as believing that, 
 whenever made, they are made solely for manifestation of the Divine power 
 to intelligent creatures, not from a necessity to correct errors in the first 
 design, which were unforeseen, or could not be provided against. Where- 
 fore it may be presumed they happen very rarely, and then are so striking, 
 that all endeavours to avoid them will but convince us the more strongly of 
 a divine operation. 
 
 12. Neither was the study of human nature regarded with a more fa- 
 vourable eye than that of the external : for there being a great deal of ma- 
 chinery in the human composition, those who applied to a close examination 
 into the structure and workings of that were apt to think too slightly of the 
 spiritual part ; insomuch that it was a current saying within these two 
 hundred years, Wherever you see three physicians, you see two Atheists,
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 671 
 
 But I do not apprehend them in the same sentiments now : I have dipped 
 into some of their works to gather from thence materials suitable to my own 
 science, and they appear to me as orthodox as any other class of people 
 among us ; nor do I seem at a loss to account for the change. The zeal 
 of the spiritualists urged them to ascribe more to the spiritual part than be- 
 longed to it singly : this could not escape the observation of such whose 
 studies had brought them intimately acquainted with the body. They saw 
 that understanding might sometimes be restored to madmen by medicine : 
 they knew their drugs and chymical preparations had a powerful effect upon 
 the imagination, so as to warm with sanguine hope, or chill with melan- 
 choly and despondency : they found that a delicacy of texture in the fibres 
 of the brain, a briskness of circulation, a purity of the circulating juices, gave 
 birth to the natural talents, and a predominancy in some one of the principal 
 humours, distinguished the characters of men : that an unnatural pressure, 
 or a little heterogeneous mixture in the medullary substance within the 
 head, disabled the soul from exercising her functions ; and that in general 
 the tenor and colour of our thoughts depended very much upon the present 
 disposition of the body. From hence they thought it demonstrable that 
 powers had been ascribed to the soul which really resided in the body, and 
 might be tempted too hastily to conclude that she had none at all belonging 
 to her, but that thought itself, with all its varieties, were nothing more 
 than a lucky configuration and diversity of motions in matter. 
 
 But this temptation is now removed, for an exacter scrutiny into the 
 properties of matter and motion has now convinced the world, that no as- 
 sortment of corporeal particles, how nicely soever arranged, can form an 
 intelligent Being. And the conviction is so general and so strong, that a 
 late noble writer, whose ruling passion, after ambition had been torn from 
 him, being that of running down the clergy, and everything they taught, he 
 would, in mere spite to them, have been an Atheist if he could, and did 
 bring himself to be a thorough corporealist, ridiculing the doctrine of spiri- 
 tual substance with the vile pun of calling it the pneumatic philosophy ; yet 
 could never bring himself to believe sense and understanding a necessary 
 result from the human machinery ; but, taking hold of an expression dropped 
 by Mr. Locke, insisted that the faculty of thinking was annexed by Almighty 
 Power to the system of matter contained in our several compositions. 
 
 Thus the indiscretion of zealots has hurt the credit of the spiritual soul, 
 by claiming more for her than was her due : and her interests are best sup- 
 ported by examining fairly what is her lawful property, and distinguishing 
 it from those powers which he derives by conjunction with her partner the 
 body. Under this apprehension I set out in my first Chapter with observ- 
 ing that there are faculties of the mind and faculties of the man. I have 
 since proceeded to show that percipience, rationality, cogitation, study, and 
 all species of thought, are faculties of the compound : the mind, or purely 
 spiritual part, having only a capacity of receiving such perceptions as shall 
 from time to time be excited in her, but what perceptions shall be so ex- 
 cited depends entirely upon the action of corporeal substance wherewith she 
 stands vitally united. Now the action and qualities of the corporeal agent 
 must result from the position or arrangement and motion of the component 
 particles whereof it consists : so that the thoughts and perceptions of the 
 mind follow precisely according to the position and motion of the material 
 corpuscles affecting her ; yet are they her own thoughts and perceptions, 
 never having place in the matter which produced them. 
 
 The case here seems something similar to that of letters in a book ; a
 
 672 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 printer with the very same types can run ye off a bible, a Virgil, Newton's 
 Optics, Lisle's Husbandry, Joe Miller's Jests, or Rochester's Poems. Those 
 books will raise very different sentiments in the mind ; and the ideas of him 
 that opens them follow precisely according to the position of the four-and- 
 twenty letters in the page before him. Nevertheless the sentiments and 
 perceptions are in the mind alone : the books themselves as they lie closed 
 upon the shelves, have neither piety nor poetry nor philosophy nor ribaldry 
 nor other sentiment belonging to them, nor can they produce any under- 
 standing or apprehension without a reader. In like manner the colours of 
 bodies are holden to depend upon the pores in their surfaces, and their 
 shapes upon the order and disposition of their parts ; so that you have the 
 sight of red or blue, of round or square, according to the texture of pores 
 or situation of parts in the objects you successively look upon : yet all the 
 colours and figures in the world shut up by themselves, can never produce 
 a sense of vision without an eye to behold them. 
 
 Thus let the corporealists insist as strongly as they please that the cha- 
 racters and thoughts of men result from their machinery and organization, 
 we have a ready answer, that such result could not take place unless 
 there were a perceptive spirit to receive the action of the machine : and 
 for anybody to imagine otherwise would be as absurd as to suppose that a 
 bible might raise a sentiment of Religion without a reader to peruse it, 
 or the grass a sensation of green without an eye to discern it. Then as 
 the mind has an activity too, by which we can turn to any page or object 
 within her reach, fitted to exhibit particular ideas and appearances before 
 her, and likewise some command over her mental organs to put them upon 
 exciting particular trains of thought and meditation : there is no less room 
 for prudence and good management in the exercise of this power than if, 
 as formerly apprehended, she performed her cogitative functions wholly 
 retired within herself, without aid of any material instrument whatever. 
 
 13. There are some particulars not usually taken notice of, which I 
 have been led to consider in my inquiry into the nature of the mind : 
 as substance, individuality, an extent of presence, and the co-existence or 
 contiguity of agent and patient in all immediate action. It is the fashion 
 to pass over such subjects slightly as matters of mere curiosity and 
 wanton speculation, to be remembered no further than for entertaining 
 the company in conversation with the peculiar notions of such an author, 
 without caring whether there is any truth in them or no. But I humbly 
 conceive them to be matters of some moment : therefore wish they might 
 be maturely weighed and ruminated upon by persons who have a ta- 
 lent that way. For I am not so confident of my own decisions as to desire 
 they should be taken upon trust : I had rather every one would satisfy 
 himself by the careful exercise of his own understanding, and discover any 
 latent fallacy that may have escaped my penetration. To me it seems no 
 trifling discovery to know that wt are real substances, not merely qualities, 
 either necessarily resulting from certain systems of organized matter, or an- 
 nexed thereto by the arbitrary Will of our Maker. For our being sub- 
 stances seems the strongest evidence that can be had from natural reason, 
 of our perpetual duration : because substances can never be destroyed by 
 any operation of second causes, whereas secondary qualities resulting from 
 composition cannot survive the dissolution of their compounds, and a quality 
 annexed miraculously to some system must be presumed to cease as soon 
 as the system. is broken up. Then if the mind be substance it must be an 
 individual : because if it were not, it would be a system of so many distinct
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 673 
 
 substances as the parts it contains, and the perceptive and active faculties 
 would be resulting or annexed qualities belonging to the system. 
 
 But the mind being a true individual, not consisting of parts whose va- 
 rious disposition among one another might produce a change of form or 
 quality, must be always the same in herself that she ever was. And this in- 
 dividuality of the mind will help us to a clearer and steadier idea of person- 
 ality, the identity of person constantly accompanying that of the perceptive 
 individual : for though we vulgarly apprehend our whole human composi- 
 tion to be ourselves, and the body continually changes both in form and 
 substance from the cradle to the grave, yet we esteem ourselves the same 
 person all along ; and whatever composition of quite different substance, 
 size, and make, it may please God to cast us into in some future stage of our 
 existence, while it serves for organs of perception and instruments of action 
 to the same individual, we shall apprehend it to be our own persons. Nor, 
 provided we remember our present state and know that we have been for 
 some time disunited, shall doubt of its being a resurrection of the same 
 body ; as likewise its aptness of organization to serve for higher uses of in- 
 telligence and activity, will denominate it a spiritual body, in contradistinc- 
 tion to our present, which is styled the natural or carnal. Add further that 
 this individuality affords a strong presumption of our intrinsic equality, be- 
 cause all the difference of powers, faculties, understanding, and character, 
 we know of among perceptive Beings, results from the compounds whereof 
 they are respectively made ingredients, or the changes worked in them by 
 the action of external objects : and every one is capable of exchanging con- 
 ditions with every other, upon being vitally united to the same material 
 organization and furnished with the same provision of externals. 
 
 The sphere of presence occupied by the mind, and contiguity in immediate 
 action, depend upon one another : and here it will be proper to consider 
 whether, in the most distant operation, there must not be a contact or co- 
 existence in the same place, of the several media as they transmit the 
 action ; or whether the Postulatum I have assumed may be denied, to wit, 
 that nothing can act or be acted upon while there is the least hair-breadth 
 distance intervening, unless there be some medium passing between them, 
 and then the medium must be contiguous to the agent on receiving, and to 
 the patient on transmitting the impulse. A tower twenty miles off may 
 strike a sensation upon us ; but then the rays must fall upon the tower and 
 be reflected from thence to our eyes, stopping at the retina : the vibrations 
 they excite there are propagated along the optic nerves to some corpuscles 
 lying within, or contiguous to, the mind herself, from whose immediate 
 action alone she receives her sensation. But since we receive sensations 
 from more corpuscles together than can possibly come in contact with a 
 mathematical point, it seems to follow demonstrably that the mind exists or 
 is toti-present throughout a distinguishable portion of space, large enough 
 for all those corpuscles to enter or stand round. Then, as the perceptions 
 of the mind depend solely upon the action and modification of these corpuscles, 
 it will be worth while to consider whether the like action and modification 
 may not be produced by other objects than those fitted to strike upon our 
 present gross corporeal organs, and shorter channels than those employed in 
 our animal machinery : or nature may not have other ways of exciting 
 perceptions in us than those we now experience. 
 
 14. As to the hypotheses, I never propounded them for articles of faith, 
 therefore am under no temptation to think the less favourably of anybody 
 VOL, i. 2 x
 
 674 RE- ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 for rejecting them ; they are intended only to illustrate the possibility of a 
 mutual relation between things seen and unseen, to the imaginations of such 
 persons who are not thoroughly reconciled to the idea of heavy bodies like 
 our own, of fleeting shadows, of winged angels and an eternity of psalm - 
 singing, which have been so successfully employed upon the many as to 
 render any other representation needless for common use ; and who have 
 so full a persuasion of the divine wisdom and entire command over all the 
 powers of nature, as to believe that the sentences of the last judgment may 
 be executed, reward and punishment administered, by certain stated laws 
 established for governing the operation of second causes. Nevertheless, I 
 must confess myself fond enough to fancy those hypotheses not confined to 
 "bare possibility, nor without a considerable degree of probability too : but 
 then I would desire not to be mistaken in the grounds which this probability 
 is built upon. I do not pretend to prove the reality of the little foetus, 
 forming and fashioning within us, by any experience of my own : I never 
 felt it move nor had other sensible evidence of its existence, for I have not 
 the knack of inward feelings, like the Methodists and the Quakers, though 
 perhaps I have passed as many hours in silence and retirement within 
 myself as either of them. Tims much, indeed, I think appears from the 
 lectures of anatomists, that the last action of the machine traceable by 
 their science, that is, the inner ends of our nerves, stretch over a much 
 larger compass than the sphere of the mind's presence can be supposed to 
 extend to : from whence it necessarily follows there must be some fine ma- 
 terial organization, minuter than all the contrivances of anatomy can dis- 
 cover, between the nerves and the mind, for transmitting their action 
 onwards to her. And constant experience of our habits, our passions, 
 inclinations, tastes, and various ways of thinking contracted by custom may 
 convince us that our daily actions, discourses, and thoughts, have an effect 
 upon the most internal part of our composition, so as to work a permanent 
 change of form and disposition there. 
 
 But whether this organization be drawn out in such an ethereal cobweb 
 as represented in the Chapter on the Vehicles, or whether upon death it 
 shall detach from the nerves and fly off together with the spiritual inhabitant 
 enclosed therein, or shall still continue diversely disposed in make and 
 texture, according to what has passed with it during life, I do not under- 
 take to decide by any branch of physiology : what I have offered upon those 
 points I give only as hypotheses, whose probability must rest entirely upon 
 guch evidence as can be drawn in its favour from that sole fountain whence 
 \ve can gather any conclusion concerning things unseen, namely, our idea 
 of the divine Attributes and Administration of affairs throughout the moral 
 world. But it being a generally received tenet that this life is a prepara- 
 tion for the next, the soul of the wicked going forth in a condition utterly 
 unfit for heaven, so as that if admitted there, it could find no relish in the 
 joys of the place ; one cannot easily imagine how this could be the case, 
 unless the soul, were understood of an organized compound which might 
 receive alteration by the habits contracted upon earth. For if there be an 
 intrinsic difference among individuals, it must have been made in them at 
 their creation, and continue in them so long as they continue in being : 
 because a perceptive individual is capable of no change in form or quality, 
 or other alteration than that momentary one of successive perceptions 
 excited by the action of objects upon it. The same reason, joined to the 
 belief that a good man may fall from his goodness and the wicked sincerely 
 repent, will evince that the virtues and vices reside in the organization, not
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 675 
 
 in the individual : and that the perceptive spirit of a reprobate is as fit 
 to animate a glorified body, if divine justice could permit it entrance 
 therein, as that of the most exemplary Christian. 
 
 The supposition of a Mundane Soul seems to fill imagination with the 
 highest idea it can contain of the divine power and magnificence, leaving 
 no part in the boundless empire uninhabited : to connect the whole host of 
 material and spiritual Beings under one all-comprehensive polity : to suggest 
 uses for the most distant bodies discoverable, and minutest particles con- 
 ceivable : and best to reconcile the existence of evil with our notions of 
 infinite goodness, by reducing it to a scarce perceptible proportion in com- 
 parison with the vast profusion of happiness abounding everywhere. All 
 this I think might carry the force of demonstration, if it were not for one 
 weak link in the chain, which is, that the plan of universal government 
 must be executed by methods which we are capable of laying down upon the 
 chart of our imagination : but I am so sensible of the narrowness of our 
 faculties that I cannot lay any stress upon this assumption. Nevertheless, 
 we are encouraged upon the best authorities to frame such ideas of the 
 things unseen as we can imagine : and the good effects resulting from the 
 hypotheses may plead excuse for a favourable propensity towards them. 
 For if any man should happen to entertain a strong persuasion of their 
 being real truths, it must give him a grand opinion of the lot of his exist- 
 ence ; abate his fondness for the paltry pleasures of this world ; make him 
 sensible of the intrinsic equality between fellow-creatures and mutual 
 connexion of interests among them, that strongest cement of union and 
 firmest support of universal hearty charity. 
 
 15. These consequences may serve for my apology with such as might 
 charge me with drawing off men's attention from the light of the Gospel, 
 by fixing it upon that of nature : for an endeavour to profit by the one 
 does by no means imply a slight of the other, because both, rightly pursued, 
 will for the most part conduct to the same points. 1 have introduced 
 several texts in the course of my progress, to show the conformity of their 
 dictates with the decisions of human reason : and the conclusions of the last 
 section, which appear resulting from the main tenor of my design, are 
 strongly inculcated in the sacred Scriptures. If that of intrinsic equality 
 be thought otherwise at first sight, yet upon mature consideration it will 
 be found to follow necessarily from that which I take to be a favourite doc- 
 trine of Scripture, namely, that it is God who giveth us both to will and to 
 do : and whether he give them by his second causes of formation in the 
 womb, of education, good examples and conversation, or by supernatural 
 grace, all these lie under his absolute disposal and were settled by his eter- 
 nal purpose before the foundation of the world. So that we are nothing in 
 ourselves, no better one than another ; our faith, our holiness, our zeal to 
 good works end our virtues, being not originally our own, nor created with 
 us, but derived solely from his bounty : and he could as easily have given 
 them to Judas or Simon Magus as to John or Paul. 
 
 The study of nature is so far from being a mark of hostile disposition to 
 the sacred records, that we cannot receive the full benefit from them, nor 
 even enter into their true spirit without it : they must have some inter 
 preter, and if human reason be not employed, passion, or prejudice, or 
 vanity, or peculiarity, or whimsy, or private interest, will intrude into the 
 office, and what wild work they can make stands sufficiently manifested by 
 fatal experience. There is scarce an absurdity that has not been proved by 
 
 2x2
 
 676 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 the Gospel. Papal tyranny stood upon the donation of the keys to Peter : 
 the cruelties of persecution were authorized by the order, compel them to 
 come in : the Romish legends, the rantings of methodism, Barclay's apology 
 for the Quakers, the dreams of the Moravians, the treatises of all sectaries, 
 appear thick stuck with texts : even Mahomet could find a prophecy of him- 
 self in the Comforter, who was to come and show us all things. Every one 
 of these pretend that theirs is the genuine sense and all other interpretations 
 a perversion of Scripture : but what likelier method can be taken for decid- 
 ing among them, than by comparing them with that other code which God 
 has written in legible characters upon his works ? which comparison can- 
 not be made without a careful, attentive perusal and competent knowledge 
 of both. 
 
 The professed design of the whole Jewish and Christian dispensation was 
 to restore Man to that perfection of his nature wherein he was created : 
 therefore the doctrines, the precepts, the examples, the institutions recorded 
 there, must be regarded as the materia medica proper for a distempered 
 constitution. For the commands of God are not arbitrary : he has made 
 nothing our duty by his authority, which he had not before made our in- 
 terest, by the circumstances of that nature, whereof he has permitted us to 
 partake. Hence his rules of government for the brutes are often contrary 
 to those enjoined to Man, because their natures are so : to the former he 
 has said by his laws of instinct, Thou shalt do murder, Thou shalt commit 
 adultery ; so the wolf makes it his business to worry the harmless sheep, 
 the pike is taught to prey upon his own species, the bull has commerce with 
 his mother, his sisters, and his daughters, he breaks fence into a neighbour- 
 ing farm, to drive away a weaker bull and seize upon his seraglio. But 
 these practices must introduce continual disorder and confusion among men, 
 and lose them the most valuable benefits of society : yet some might not 
 see those consequences in particular instances, and more would be so intent 
 upon present gratification as not to mind consequences at all. Therefore, 
 God has issued his commands to Man, saying, Thou shalt do no murder, 
 Thou shalt not commit adultery, and enforced them with rewards and punish- 
 ments for a remedy against the shortsightedness and weakness of human 
 nature : that they may serve as an instruction to the prudent to warn him 
 of an evil tendency he did not discern, and a powerful restraint upon the 
 sensual to withhold him from running into mischiefs he would not have 
 heeded at a distance. 
 
 Nor yet does it suffice that we have a complete dispensary of remedies 
 without knowing how to apply them in particular cases : and for gaining 
 the art of making proper application it behoves the physician to study, not 
 only the materia medica, but likewise the constitution, the disorders inci- 
 dent thereto, the present habit of body in the patient, and in what condition 
 of solids and humours a soundness of health consists. Now in the science 
 of medicine respecting the mind, our foundation must be taken from ihi 
 sensitivo-rational constitution of Man, by contemplation of which it will 
 presently occur, that the perfection of our nature lies in an entire subjection 
 of the sensitive faculties to the rational : it will then appear upon due con- 
 sideration of the matter, that the rational faculty constantly prompts to pur- 
 sue the general or greater good, in all actions which may anywise aftect 
 another person or number of persons ; and though many of our actions 
 concern nobody beside ourselves, yet even here it will recommend our own 
 general good, in preference to any particular pleasure that stands at present 
 uppermost in the fancy. : '- 4
 
 RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. C,7 
 
 This then is the perfect soundness of health and ought to be made the 
 ultimate intention of all applications, namely, to have the inferior faculties 
 so well disciplined as that they may stand always ready to assist the superior 
 in a steady prosecution of that aim, the attainment of greater good prefer- 
 ably to the less. It will be requisite further to examine what particular 
 disorders of the mind upon any occasion prevent the due subordination of her 
 powers, to which of them the remedies prescribed are respectively applicable, 
 what is their natural efficacy, and in what manner they operate : talcing our 
 measures from the nature of the medicine and nature of the distemper, not 
 looking for an ideal abstract goodness or secret virtue transferable from the 
 one to the other, nor supernatural powers annexed arbitrarily by the Will of 
 God. Whereby we shall best learn how to administer the proper quantity 
 and vary the several species according to the circumstances of the case : 
 escaping the extravagance of zealots who think to do everything with one 
 recipe, which like Tar water, is to cure all maladies and can never be poured 
 down in too copious draughts. 
 
 1 6. But this general good for the- most part lies too remote to be seen 
 distinctly at a single glance, and the paths leading to it are too intricate 
 and too much involved among one another for us to discern which is the 
 properest to be pursued upon every present occasion : for our own subse- 
 quent actions, those of other people, and the uncertain workings of exter- 
 nal causes, will often interfere to change the effect of those we undertake, 
 and render that inexpedient which appears eligible to our present apprehen- 
 sion. Therefore to make the wilderness practicable there must be passages 
 worked out, particular rules and directions framed, by which a common 
 man may find his way in every situation wherein he happens to stand ; and 
 under-aims branched out conducting to the principal, which must be varied 
 from time to time, according to the variation of circumstances occurring. 
 For the greater good is sometimes attained by a close attention to ourselves 
 and our private advantages, to making provision for the body as well as 
 the mind, to advertisements and pleasures for the recreation of both, to 
 rivalship, contention, and artifice, to opposition, censure, and punishment o 
 such as would bring damage upon ourselves or our neighbours. 
 
 But pleasures cannot be well enjoyed, not contention and opposition car- 
 ried on successfully, without a thorough, engagement to the objects before 
 us : for if the mind be drawn off by contemplation of distant prospects 
 and consequences, she never can exert her efforts sufficiently to compass 
 the business in hand. Now this occasional attachment to private emolu- 
 ment, to divertisement, and present pleasure, to the means of disappoint- 
 ing, displeasing and hurting other persons, has a tendency to draw men 
 from their principal aim ; induces many, who see the necessity of such at- 
 tachment, to think a steady pursuit of the general good a romantic, imprac- 
 ticable scheme ; and raises the greatest difficulties to a scholar in the science 
 of morality. Which difficulties must be removed, and the grounds laid down 
 whereupon the general interest requires that we should turn our back upon 
 it for a while, before a system can be stricken out that shall be practical or 
 fit for common use : that shall neither mislead the serious into a plan of 
 life utterly unfit for the world, nor the sanguine into an aversion against 
 virtue as debarring them from all innocent enjoyment and the prosecution 
 of their allowable desires. 
 
 This is what I do not pretend to have done, as being too much for one* 
 undertaking. My address is made to the few, and my aim extends no 
 further than to suggest a clue by help whereof a performance, intended fur
 
 678 -RE-ENLARGEMENT OF VIRTUE. 
 
 the many, may be better calculated to answer its purpose. Which it seems 
 likeliest to be when the operator abstains from the ideal world of abstract 
 unsubstantial Beings, essential rectitude in rules, intrinsic goodness, holi- 
 ness or merit in opinions or practices, and secret energies passing from 
 things external into the mind itself; whereby Religion and philosophy 
 have sometimes been made a mystery throughout, a tissue of unmeaning 
 words filling the ear and raising whirlwinds in the imagination, but never 
 touching the understanding, or turned into systems of occult quality and 
 magic : but when instead of taking this rout, he bends his whole thoughts 
 to examine everything by its natural tendency to the greater good, so as to 
 explain when and why it is better that a man should turn the right cheek 
 to him that has smitten the left, deny himself innocent pleasures, forego 
 his private advantages, hazard his life, his health, and all his valuables, for 
 the sake of other persons ; and when it is more for the general good that 
 he should follow his pleasures or profit, take care of his health, his family, 
 his estate, oppose or rival, thwart, censure, or punish ; for if none of these 
 things were ever done by the virtuous, how would the world be the better 
 as human nature stands circumstanced at present ? or if he cannot explain 
 these points to every capacity, yet let him take care to understand them 
 himself, and recommend nothing to another which he cannot explain the 
 reasons of to his own satisfaction. 
 
 Therefore as I have not been able to run these profitable lengths, I can- 
 not boast of great services to the public : but shall found my contentment 
 upon the hope that my labours may prove the remote occasion of more ex- 
 tensive good being done to my compatriots, or perphaps to mankind in 
 general. 
 
 SND OF VOL. I.
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed.
 
 A 000 085 244 2 
 
 tfe.