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fenfible Object, however chang'd, is always extended, m veable, confifting of folid, distinct and divifible pars.

NOTES.

VI

The Parts or Periods of this common Duration we call Time; and every thing which is commenfurate to them is meafured by it, and faid to exift in it, after the fame manner as was observ'd before of Space.

Mix'd Modes and Relations are combinations of Ideas of different kinds voluntarily put together and connected by their names. Such as Goodnfs, Gratitude; Identity Nec fity, &c. These are apparently the work of the Mind, and though many of them have a real foundation in Nature, and may be found by obfervation in the concrete, yet they are generally got before from information or invention, abtracted from particu lar Subjects, and lodg'd in the mind with general names annex'd to them, according as the circumftances of perfons and conveniencies of Life require. See Locke, B. III. C. iii.

I have been the longer on this fubject of Abstract Ideas, fince the nature of 'em feems to be but little understood, otherwise we should never hear of our Ideas of Infinity, of Space, Duration, Number, &c. requiring an external Ideatum or objective reality; of their being real Attributes and neceffarily inferring the Existence of fome immenfe and eternal Being;

whereas all univerfals, or abstract Ideas, fuch as thefe evidently are, (See Dr.Clarke's Anfwer) to the 4th letter exift under that formality no where but in the Mind, neither have they any other foundation, nor can they be a proof of any thing, befide that power which the mind has to form them.

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If the nature of Mix'd Modes and Relations were fufficiently attended to, I believe it would not be afferted that our Ideas of perfect Goodness, Wisdom, Power, &c. are all inadequate and only negative, that all our knowledge of thefe Perfections is improper, indirect, and only analogical, that the whole kind, nature, Effence and Idea of them is entirely different when applied to God from what it is when predicated of his Creatures. Whereas thefe being arbitrary combinations of Ideas made without regard to any particular Subject in which they may inhere, They are evidently their own Archetypes and therefore cannot but be adequate and pofitive: They are what they are immutably and univerfally; their Natures and Effences must be the fame wherever they are found, or to whatsoever subject we apply them, fo long as the fame number of Ideas are included under the fame word; and nothing more is requifite than that the Ideas thus put together be

B 4

con

That this VI. Not that this is a Definition, or Idea (2.) Definition of Matter, any more than the former was of Subdoes not fance, but that hereby we are acquainted with its reach the prefence, and diftinguish it from every other thing; matter, but as we know a Man by his Countenance, and other onlyfhews Circumftances: Nor is it neceffary that these should be applicable to all Subftance, at all times, and to that alone: For it is enough if for this particular Time and occafion we know the peculiar Substance

Idea of

us the

Markto diftinguish

it by.

NOTES.

we

confiflent to make all our knowledge concerning them, real, proper, direct, adequate and univerjal. See Locke, B. IV. C. iv. 9. 5, 6, &c.

I fhall trouble the Reader no farther on this Head than only to obferve that the method of forming general Ideas (which our Author had advanced in his first Note, and which is still used by the Author of Procedure, &c.) by making the Idea of one Individual stand for the whole Species, must be wrong on this very account, viz. that according to the foremention'd fcheme Universals, fuch as Animal or Matter would have a real Exiftence in the fame precife manner in which we confider them; whereas under fuch precifions they are confeffedly the creatures of our own Minds and exift no where elfe. We have nothing at all to do therefore with Analogy in forming abftract Ideas, we can never come at them by fubftituting one particu lar for the reft; but on the contrary must conceive them by removing all particularities of Exifience and leaving only what remains in common, as explain'd above. See Locke, B. III. C. iii. 9. 7, 8, 9. or Watts's Logic, Part. I. C. iii. §. 3. or the words Abraction and General in Chambers's Dictionary.

(2.) Our Author confines this word Idea to the fenfe in which it was first used by Plato, viz. as an Image or Representation of the fuppofed Effences of things; in which fense it was attributed peculiarly to God, who was faid to perceive things immediately by their Effences, whereas we only know them by certain Marks or Characters, or by Analogy.

Our Author had endeavoured to explain this in his Note upon the place; but we apprehend it to be much better explain'd. and more conveniently applied by Mr. Locke, who makes the word Idea ftand for every thing about which the Mind is converfant, or which can be the object of Perception, Thought or Understanding: In which large fenfe we have an Idea of Matter or Body as well as of Substance, or of Space.

we are talking of by them; and fufficiently distinguish it from other things.

ledge of

Space.

VII. It is to be observed farther, that when a How we part of this matter is removed another fucceeds in- come to to its Place, but is not in the fame Place con- the knowfiftent with it. Place therefore feems to be fomething beyond, befide and diftinct from the Matter which it receives. For as from hence that Wax was fucceffively capable of different forms, figures, colours and changes, it appears that fomething is in it befide, and different from all thefe, which we call the Matter of the Wax: So in like manner. from hence that the fame Place or Space receives more and different Bodies and Particles of matter fucceffively, but cannot admit more than one at the fame time, it will appear that Place or Space, is as diftinct from Matter or Body, as Wax is from the Colours fucceffively receiv'd, and does not depend on them any more than Wax does on any particular Form.

VIII. If therefore we fet afide, or annihilate What it is. Matter, whatsoever ftill remains will all belong to the nature of Space; as in the former cafe when we had set aside the Properties of Wax, that which belong'd to the Matter or fubftance of it remained. If you ask what that is? I answer, firft Local Mobility is to be fet afide, for that seems peculiar to Matter. Secondly, an actual feparation of Parts, for what is immoveable cannot be divided. Thirdly, Impenetrability, or Solidity; for that fuppofes Motion, and is neceffary to the Production of it. It remains therefore that Space (as we conceive it) be fomething extended, immoveable, capable of receiving or containing Matter, and penetrable by it. Though therefore we have not a Definition or Idea of Space, properly fo call'd; yet we can hereby fufficiently diftinguish it from

These

viz. of

every other thing, and may reafon about it as much as we have occafion.

IX. These three conceptions, namely, of fenfithreeCon-ble Qualities (viz. Motion, &c.) of Matter and ceptions, Space, feem to be the chief of those which we fenfible have from without, and fo natural to us that there Qualities is no reasonable Man but perceives them in him(v. g. Mo- felf. There are fome who deny that Space is any tion, &c.) of Matter thing diftinct from Matter, nor is it much to our and Space, purpose whether it be or no: Yet we cannot withfeem to be out offering Violence to our Understandings, deny the chief but that the conception of Space is diftinct from the conception of Matter. (3.)

of those

that are external.

NOTES.

SECT.

(3) Though fo much noife has been made about Space, (which Leibnitz juftly calls an Idol of fome modern Engli Men) and fo great use made of it in demonftrating the divine Attributes, in a way which fome ftile a Priori; yet, I am forc'd to confefs that I cannot poffibly frame any other Notion of it, than either, first, as the mere negation or absence of Matter, or fecondly, as the extenfion of Body confider'd abstractly, or feparate from any particular Body; or thirdly, as a Subject or Subftratum of that fame extenfion in abftracto, for which laft Notion, See N. 9.

Now according to the first Suppofition we may indeed have a pofitive Idea of it, as well as of Silence, Darkness, and many other Privations; as Mr. Locke has fully proved that we have, and fhewn the Reafon of it. B. II. C. viii. §. 4. But to argue from fuch an Idea of Space, that Space itself is fomething external, and has a real existence, feems altogether as good Senfe as to fay, that because we have a different Idea of Darkness from that of Light; of filence from that of found; of the absence of any thing, from that of its Prefence; therefore Darkness, &c. muft be fomething pofitive and different from Light, &c. and have as real an Existence as Light has, And to deny that we have any pofitive Idea, or, which is the very fame, any Idea at all, of the Privations above-mention'd (For every Idea, as it is a perception of the Mind, muft neceffarily be pofitive, though it arife from what Mr. Locke calls a privative Caufe.) to deny, I fay, that we have these Ideas, will be to deny Experience and contradict common Sense. There are therefore

SE C T. 11.

1

Of the Enquiry after the First Caufe.

I. Supposing these three, viz. Motion,

NOTES.

-

Matter, An caand quiry concerning

Motion,

Matter,

whether

they exit

of them

felves.

Ideas, and fimple ones too, which have nothing ad extra cor- andSpace; refpondent to them, no proper Ideatum, Archetype, or objective reality, and I don't fee why that of Space may not be reckon'd one of them: To fay that Space must have exillence, because it has fome properties, for inftance, Penetrability, or a capacity of receiving Body, feems to me the fame as to urge that darkness must be something because it has the power or property of receiving Light; Silence the property of admitting Sound; and Abfnce the property of being fupply'd by Prefence, i. e. to affign abfolute Negations, and fuch as by the fame way of reafoning may be apply'd to nothing, and then call them pofitive properties; and fo infer that the Chimera thus cloathed must needs be something. Setting afide the names of its other pretended properties (which names alfo are as merely negative as the fuppofed properties to which they belong) those that attribute extenfion to space feem not to attend to the true notion of that Property, which, as the Schoolmen define it (and let them who like not this definition try to give us a better) is to have partes extra partes, and as fuch, i. e. as including parts (which parts, as they differ in fituation from each other, may have things predicated of fome of them different from thofe which can be predicated of others) it appears plainly inconfiftent with their own Idea of what they call fimple, uniform, indivifible space, and is applicable to Body only. And to attribute Extenfion or parts to space, according to the first notion of it laid down by us, will be the fame as to talk of the extenfion or parts of Absence, of Privation, or of mere Nothing. Laftly, to ask if Space under the fecond Notion of that word, i. e. as Extenfion in the Abstract, be extended or have parts, is apparently abfurd; it is the fame with that noted Question of the Man, who being told that to have Riches was to be rich, ask'd if Riches then themselves were Rich? Well, then, according to the firft Suppofition, Space will be mere non entity, or nothing, i. e. nothing can be affirm'd, but every thing denied of it: According to the fecond, it will be only an abftract Idea form'd in the mind from a property peculiar to matter, which property abstracted in Idea cannot itfelf admit of

and

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