§ 4. 1. Of identity or diversity.

FIRST, AS to the first sort of agreement or disagreement, viz. identity or diversity. It is the first act of the mind, when it has

There are feveral actions of men's minds, that they are confcious to themfelves of performing, as willing, believing, knowing, &c. which they have fo particular sense of, that they can distinguish them one from another; or else they could not fay, when they willed, when they believed, and when they knew any thing. But though these actions were different enough from one another, not to be confounded by those who spoke of them, yet nobody, that I had met with, had, in their writings, particularly fet down wherein the act of knowing precisely confifted.

To this reflection upon the actions of my own mind the subject of my Essay concerning Human Understanding naturally led me; wherein if I have done any thing new, it has been to describe to others, more particularly than had been done before, what it is their minds do when they perform that action which they call knowing; and if, upon examination, they observe I have given a true account of that action of their minds in all the parts of it, I suppose it will be in vain to dispute against what they find and feel in themselves. And if I have not told them right and exactly what they find and feel in themselves, when their minds perform the act of knowing, what I have said will be all in vain; men will not be perfuaded against their fenfes. Knowledge is an internal perception of their minds; and if, when they reflect on it, they find it is not what I have said it is, my groundless conceit will not be hearkened to, but be exploded by every body, and die of itself: and nobody need to be at any pains to drive it out of the world. So impoffible is it to find out, or start new methods of certainty, or to have them received, if any one places it in any thing, but in that wherein it really confifts: much lefs can any one be in danger to be misled into error, by any fuch new, and to every one visibly fenfeless project. Can it be supposed, that any one could start a new method of seeing, and perfuade men thereby, that they do not fee what they do fee? Is it to be feared, that any one can cast such a mist over their eyes, that they should not know when they fee, and fo be led out of their way by it?

Knowledge, I find in myself, and I conceive in others, confists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of the immediate objects of the mind in thinking, which I call ideas: but whether it does fo in others or no, must be determined by their own experience, reflecting upon the action of their mind in knowing; for that I cannot alter, nor, I think, they themselves. But whether they will call those immediate objects of their minds in thinking ideas or no, is perfectly in their own choice. If they dislike that name, they may call them notions or conceptions, or how they please; it matters not, if they use them fo as to avoid obfcurity and confufion. If they are conftantly used in the same and a known sense, every one has the liberty to please himself in his terms; there pies neither truth, nor error, nor science, in that; though those that take them for things, and not for what they are, bare arbitrary figns of our ideas, make a great deal ado often about them; as if some great matter lay in the use of this

any sentiments or ideas at all, to perceive its ideas; and so far as it perceives them, to know each what it is, and thereby also to or that found. All that I know, or can imagine of difference about them, is, that those words are always best, whofe fignifications are best known in the fense they are used; and fo are least apt to breed confufion.

My lord, your lordship hath been pleased to find fault with my use of the new term, ideas, without telling me a better name for the immediate objects of the mind in thinking. Your lordship also has been pleased to find fault with my definition of knowledge, without doing me the favor to give me a better. For it is only about my definition of knowledge that all this stir concerning certainty is made. For, with me, to know and to be certain, is the same thing; what I know, that I am certain of; and what I am certain of, that I know. What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes Thort of certainty, I think cannot be called knowledge; as your lordship could not but observe in the 18th section of chap. 4. of my 4th book, which you have quoted.

My definition of knowledge stands thus: “knowledge seems to me to be nothing but the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas." This definition your lordship dislikes, and apprehends it may be of dangerous confequence as to that article of Christian faith which your lordship hath endeavored to defend. For this there is a very easy remedy: it is but for your lordship to fet afide this definition of knowledge by giving us a better, and this danger is over. But your lordship chooses rather to have a controverfy with my book for having it in it, and to put me upon the defence of it; for which I must acknowledge myself obliged to your lordship for affording me fo much of your time, and for allowing me the honor of conversing so much with one so far above me in all respects.

Your lordship fays, it may be of dangerous confequence to that article of christian faith which you have endeavored to defend. Though the laws of dif puting allow bare denial as a fufficient answer to sayings, without any offer of a proof: yet, my lord, to show how willing I am to give your lordship all satis. faction, in what you apprehend may be of dangerous confequence in my book, as to that article, 1 fhall not stand still fullenly, and put your lordship upon the difficulty of showing wherein that danger lies; but shall on the other fide, endeavor to show your lordship that that definition of mine, whether true or false, right or wrong, can be of no dangerous confequence to that article of faith. The reason which I fhall offer for it, is this: because it can be of no confequence to it at all.

That which your lordship is afraid it may be dangerous to, is an article of faith: that which your lordship labors and is concerned for, is the certainty of faith. Now, my lord, I humbly conceive the certainty of faith, if your lordship thinks fit to call it fo, has nothing to do with the certainty of knowledge. As to talk of the certainty of faith, seems all one to me, as to talk of the knowledge of believing, a way of speaking not easy to me to understand.

Place knowledge in what you will; start what new methods of certainty you please, that are apt to leave men's minds more doubtful than before; place VOL. II. :

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perceive their difference, and that one is not another. This is so absolutely necessary, that without it there could be no knowledge, no reasoning, no imagination, no distinct thoughts at all. By this the mind clearly and infallibly perceives each idea to agree with itself, and to be what it is; and all distinct ideas to disagree, i. e. the one not to be the other; and this it does without pains, labor, or deduction; but at first view, by its natural power of perception and distinction. And though men of art have reduced this inte those general rules, What is, is; and it is impossible for the same thing to be, and not to be; for ready application in all cases, wherein there may be occasion to reflect on it; yet it is certain, that the first exercise of this faculty is about particular ideas. A man infallibly knows, as soon as ever he has them in his mind,

certainty on fuch ground as will leave little or no knowledge in the world: (for these are the arguments your lordship uses against my definition of knowledge) this shakes not at all, nor in the leaft concerns the afsurance of faith; that is quite diftinct from it, neither stands nor falls with knowledge.

Faith ftands by itself, and upon grounds of its own; nor can be removed from them, and placed on those of knowledge. Their grounds are so far from being the fame, or having any thing common, that when it is brought to certainty, faith is destroyed; it is knowledge then, and faith no longer.

With what affurance foever of believing, I affent to any article of faith, fo that I steadfastly venture my all upon it, it is ftill but believing. Bring it to certainty, and it ceases to be faith. I believe that Jefus Chrift was crucified, dead, and buried, rose again the third day from the dead, and ascended into heaven: let now fuch methods of knowledge or certainty be started, as leave men's minds more doubtful than before; let the grounds of knowledge be refolved into what any one pleases, it touches not my faith; the foundation of that ftands as fure as before, and cannot be at all fhaken by it; and one may as well say, that any thing that weakens the fight, or casts a mist before the eyes, endangers the hearing; as that any thing which alters the nature of knowledge (if that could be done) should be of dangerous consequence to an article of faith. Whether then I am or am not mistaken, in the placing certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas; whether this account of knowledge be true or false, enlarges or straitens the bounds of it more than it should; faith still stands upon its own basis, which is not at all altered by it; and every article of that has just the same unmoved foundation, and the very fame credibility, that it had before. So that, my lord, whatever I have said about certainty, and how much foever I may be out in it, if I am mistaken, your lordship has no reason to apprehend any danger to any article of faith from thence; every one of them stands upon the fame bottom it did before, out of the reach of what belongs to knowledge and certainty. And thus much of my way of certainty by ideas; which, I hope, will satisfy your lordship how far it is from being dangerous to any article of the Christian faith whatsoever.

that the ideas he calls white and round, are the very ideas they are, and that they are not other ideas which he calls red or square. Nor can any maxim or proposition in the world make him know it clearer or surer than he did before, and without any such general rule. This then is the first agreement or disagreement, which the mind perceives in its ideas; which it always perceives at first sight and if there ever happen any doubt about it, it will always be found to be about the names, and not the ideas themselves, whose identity and diversity will always be perceived, as soon and as clearly as the ideas themselves are, nor can it possi、 bly be otherwise.

§ 5. 2. Relative.

SECONDLY, The next sort of agreement or disagreement the mind perceives in any of its ideas, may, I think, be called relative, and is nothing but the perception of the relation between any two ideas, of what kind soever, whether substances, modes, or any other. For since all distinct ideas must eternally be known not to be the same, and so be universally and constantly denied one of another, there could be no room for any positive knowledge at all, if we could not perceive any relation between our ideas, and find out the agreement or disagreement they have one with another, in several ways the mind takes of comparing them.

§ 6. 3. Of co-existence.

THIRDLY, The third sort of agreement, or disagreement, to be found in our ideas, which the perception of the mind is employed about, is co-existence, or noncoexistence in the same subject; and this belongs particularly to substances. Thus, when we pronounce concerning gold that it is fixed, our knowledge of this truth amounts to no more but this, that fixedness, or a power to remain in the fire unconsumed, is an idea that always accompanies and is joined with that particular sort of yellowness, weight, fusibility, malleableness, and solubility in aqua regia, which make our complex idea, signified by the word gold.

§7. 4. Of real existence.

FOURTHLY, The fourth and last sort is that of actual, real existence agreeing to any idea. Within these four sorts of agreement or disagreement, is, I suppose, contained all the knowledge we have, or are capable of: for all the inquiries that we can make concerning any of our ideas, all that we know or can affirm concerning any of them, is, That it is, or is not, the same with some other; that it does, or does not, always co-exist with some other

idea in the same subject; that it has this or that relation to some other idea; or that it has a real existence without the mind. Thus blue is not yellow, is of identity: two triangles upon equal bases between two parallels are equal, is of relation: iron is susceptible of magnetical impressions is of co-existence: God is, is of real existence. Though identity and co-existence are truly nothing but relations, yet they are so peculiar ways of agreement or disagreement of our ideas, that they deserve well to be considered as distinct heads, and not under relation in general; since they are so different grounds of affirmation and negation, as will easily appear to any one, who will but reflect on what is said in several places of this essay. I should now proceed to examine the several degrees of our knowledge, but that it is necessary first to consider the different acceptations of the word knowledge.

§ 8. Knowledge actual or habituai.

THERE are several ways wherein the mind is possessed of truth, each of which is called knowledge.

1. There is actual knowledge, which is the present view the mind has of the agreement or disagreement of any of its ideas, or of the relation they have one to another.

2. A man is said to know any proposition, which having been once laid before his thoughts, he evidently perceived the agree ment or disagreement of the ideas whereof it consists; and so lodged it in his memory, that whenever that proposition comes a gain to be reflected on, he, without doubt or hesitation, embraces the right side, assents to, and is certain of the truth of it. This, I think, one may call habitual knowledge: and thus a man may be said to know all those truths which are lodged in his memory, by a foregoing clear and full perception, whereof the mind is assured past doubt, as often as it has occasion to reflect on them. For our finite understandings being able to think clearly and distinctly but on one thing at once, if men had no knowledge of any more than what they actually thought on, they would all be very ignorant; and he that knew most would know but one truth, that being all he was able to think on at one time.

§ 9. Habitual knowledge twofold. Or habitual knowledge, there are also, vulgarly speaking, two de. grees:

First, The one is of such truths laid up in the memory, as whenever they occur to the mind, it actually perceives the relation is be tween those ideas. And this is in all those truths, whereof we have