pendent, is under an obligation to obey the Supreme and Infinite, as he is certain to find, that three, four and feven, are lefs than fifteen, if he will confider and compute thofe numbers; nor can he be furer in a clear morning that the fun is rifen, if he will but open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths, being never fo certain, never fo clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties, as he should, to inform himself about them.

CHAP. XIV.

OF JUDGMENT.

§ 1. Our Knowledge being short, we want fomething

elje.

HE understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for fpeculation, but alfo for the con duct of his life, man would be at a great lofs, if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty of true knowledge; for that being very short and fcanty, as we have feen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of the actions of his life perfectly at a ftand, had he nothing to guide him in the abfence of clear and certain knowledge. He that will not eat till he has demonftration that it will nourish him, he that will not ftir till he infallibly knows the business he goes about will fucceed, will have little elfe to do but fit ftill and perish.

$2. What ufe to be made of this twilight State. THEREFORE, as God has fet fome things in broad daylight, as he has given us fome certain knowledge, though limited to a few things in comparison, probably as a tafte of what intellectual creatures are capable of, to excite in us a defire and endeavour after a better ftate, fo in the greatest part of our concernment, he has afforded us only the twilight, as I may fo fay, of probability, fuicable, I prefume, to that state of mediocrity and probatione fhip he has been pleafed to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and prefumption,

we might by every day's experience be made fenfible of our fhort-fightedness and liableness to error; the fenfe whereof might be a conftant admonition to us to spend the days of this our pilgrimage with industry and care, in the fearch and fellowing of that way which might lead us to a state of greater perfection; it being highly rational to think, even were revelation filent in the cafe, that as men employ thofe talents God has given them here, they fhall accordingly receive their rewards at the close of the day, when their fun fhall set, and night shall put an end to their labours.

§ 3. Judgment supplies the want of Knowledge. THE faculty which God has given man to fupply the want of clear and certain knowledge, in cafes where that cannot be had, is judgment, whereby the mind takes its ideas to agree or difagree, or, which is the fame, any propofition to be true or falfe, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs. The mind fometimes exercises this judgment out of neceflity, where demonftrative proofs, and certain knowledge are not to be had; and fometimes out of lazinefs, unfkilfulness, or hafte, even where demonftrative and certain proofs are to be had. Men often ftay not warily to examine the agreement or difagreement of two ideas, which they are defirous or concerned to know, but, either incapable of fuch attention as is requifite in a long train of gradations, or impatient of delay, lightly caft their eyes on, or wholly país by the proofs; and fo, without making out the demonftration, determine of the agreement or difagreement of two ideas, as it were by a view of them as they are at a distance, and take it to be the one or the other as feems most likely to them upon fuch a loofe furvey. This faculty of the mind, when it is exercifed immediately about things, is called judgment; when about truths delivered in words, is most commonly called affent or diffent; which being the moft ufual way wherein the mind has occafion to employ this faculty, I fhall under thefe terms treat of it, as least liable in our language to equivocation.

4. Fudgment is the prefuming things to be fo, without perceiving it.

THUS the mind has two faculties, converfant about truth and falfehood.

First, Knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives, and is undoubtedly fatisfied of the agreement or disagreement of any ideas.

Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas together, or leparating them from one another in the mind, when their certain agreement or difagreement is not perceived, but prefumed to be fo; which is as the word imports, taken to be fo, before it certainly appears. And if it fo unites, or feparates them, as in reality things are, it is right judgment.

CHAP. XV.

OF PROBABILITY.

1. Probability is the appearance of Agreement upon fallible Proofs.

S demonftration is the fhowing the agreement or

A difagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of

one or more proofs, which have a conftant, immutable, and vifible connection one with another; fo probability is nothing but the appearance of fuch an agreement or difagreement by the intervention of proofs whofe connection is not conftant and immutable, or at least is not perceived to be fo, but is, or appears for the most part to be fo, and is enough to induce the mind to judge the propofition to be true or falfe, rather than the contrary. For example: In the demonftration of it, a man perceives the certain immutable connection there is of equality between the three angles of a triangle, and those intermediate ones which are made use of to fhow their equality to two right ones; and fo by an intuitive knowledge of the agreement or difagreement of the intermediate ideas in each step of the progrefs, the whole feries is continued with an evidence, which clearly fhows the agreement or difagreement of those three angles in equality to two right ones; and thus he has certain know

ledge that it is fo. But another man, who never took the pains to obferve the demonstration, hearing a mathematician, a man of credit, affirm the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right ones, affents to it, i. e. receives it for true; in which cafe the foundation of his affent is the probability of the thing, the proof being fuch as for the most part carries truth with it, the man on whose testimony he receives it, not being wont to affirm any thing contrary to, or befides his knowledge, especially in matters of this kind. So that that which caufes his affent to this propofition, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, that which makes him take thefe ideas to agree, without knowing them to do fo, is the wonted veracity of the speaker in other cafes, or his fuppofed veracity in this.

§ 2. It is to fupply the want of Knowledge. OUR knowledge, as has been fhown, being very nar row, and we not happy enough to find certain truth in every thing which we have occafion to confider, most of the propofitions we think, reafon, difcourfe, nay, act upon, are fuch as we cannot have undoubted knowledge of their truth; yet fome of them border fo near upon certainty, that we make no doubt at all about them, but affent to them as firmly, and act, according to that affent, as refolutely as if they were infallibly demonftrated, and that our knowledge of them was perfect and certain. But there being degrees herein from the very neighbourhood of certainty and demonstration, quite down to improbability and unlikeness, even to the confines of impoffibility; and alfo degrees of affent from full affurance and confidence, quite down to conjecture, doubt, and diftruft; I fhall come now (having, as I think, found out the bounds of human knowledge and certainty), in the next place, to confider the feveral degrees and grounds of probability, and affent or faith.

§3. Being that which makes us prefume things to be true before we know them to be fo.

PROBABILITY is likelinefs to be true, the very notation of the word fignifying fuch a propofition, for which there be arguments or proofs, to make it pafs or be re

ceived for true. The entertainment the mind gives this fort of propofitions, is called belief, affent, or opinion, which is the admitting or receiving any propofition for true, upon arguments or proofs that are found to perfuade us to receive it as true, without certain knowledge that it is fo. And herein lies the difference between probability, and certainty, faith and knowledge, that in all the parts of knowledge there is intuition; each immediate idea, each step has its vifible and certain connection; in belief, not fo. That which makes me believe, is fomething extraneous to the thing I believe; fomething not evidently joined on both fides to, and so not manifeftly fhowing the agreement or difagreement of thofe ideas that are under confideration.

§ 4. The Grounds of Probability are two; Conformity with our own Experience, or the Teftimony of others experienced.

PROBABILITY then, being to fupply the defect of our knowledge, and to guide us where that fails, is always converfant about propofitions, whereof we have no certainty, but only fome inducements to receive them for true. The grounds of it are, in fhort, these two following:

First, The conformity of any thing with our own knowledge, obfervation, and experience.

Secondly, The teftimony of others, vouching their obfervation and experience. In the teftimony of others is to be confidered, 1. The number. 2. The integrity. 3. The skill of the witneffes. 4. The defign of the author, where it is a teftimony out of a book cited. 5. The confiftency of the parts, and circumftances of the relation. 6. Contrary teftimonies.

§ 5. In this all the Agreements pro and con, ought to be examined before we come to a judgment. PROBABILITY wanting that intuitive evidence, which infallibly determines the understanding, and produces certain knowledge, the mind, if it would proceed rationally,

ht to examine all the grounds of probability, and fee how the make more or lefs, for or against any propofition, before it affents to or diffents from it; and upon a.dus.