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solved by one of seven, or seventy years old, whether a man, being a creature consisting of soul and body, be the same man when his body is changed? Whether Euphorbus and Pythagoras, having had the same soul, were the same men, though they lived several ages asunder? Nay, whether the cock too, which had the same soul, were not the same with both of them? Whereby, perhaps, it will appear, that our idea of sameness is not so settled and clear, as to deserve to be thought innate in us. For if those innate ideas are not clear and distinct, so as to be universally known, and naturally agreed on, they cannot be subjects of universal and undoubted truths; but will be the unavoidable occasion of perpetual uncertainty. For, I suppose, every one's idea of identity will not be the same that Pythagoras, and others of his followers have: And which then shall be true? Which innate? Or are there two different ideas of identity, both innate?

§. 5. Nor let any one think, that the questions I have here proposed about the identity of man, are bare empty speculations; which if they were, would be enough to show, that there was in the understandings of men no innate idea of identity. He that shall, with a little attention, reflect on the resurrection, and consider that divine justice will bring to judgment, at the last day, the very same persons, to be happy or miserable in the other, who did well or ill in this life; will find it perhaps not easy to resolve with himself, what makes the same man, or wherein identity consists; and will not be forward to think he, and every one, even children themselves, have naturally a clear idea of it.

Whole and §. 6. Let us examine that principle of mapart not in thematicks, viz. " that the whole is bigger nate ideas. than a part." This, I take it, is reckoned amongst innate principles. I am sure it has as good a title as any to be thought so; which yet nobody can think it to be, when he considers the ideas it comprehends in it," whole and part," are perfectly relative: but the positive ideas, to which they properly and immediately belong, are extension and number, of which alone whole and part are relations. So that if whole

and part are innate ideas, extension and number must be so too; it being impossible to have an idea of a relation, without having any at all of the thing to which it belongs, and in which it is founded. Now whether the minds of men have naturally imprinted on them the ideas of extension and number, I leave to be considered by those, who are the patrons of innate principles.

§. 7. "That God is to be worshipped," Idea of wor is, without doubt, as great a truth as any ship not incan enter into the mind of man, and de-nate. serves the first place amongst all practical principles. But yet it can by no means be thought innate, unless the ideas of God and worship are innate. That the idea the term worship stands for, is not in the understanding of children, and a character stamped on the mind in its first original, I think, will be easily granted, by any one that considers how few there be, amongst grown men, who have a clear and distinct notion of it. And, I suppose, there cannot be any thing more ridicu lous, than to say that children have this practical principle innate," that God is to be worshipped ;" and yet, that they know not what that worship of God is, which is their duty. But to pass by this:

§. 8. If any idea can be imagined innate, Idea of God the idea of God may, of all others, for many not innate. reasons be thought so; since it is hard to

conceive, how there should be innate moral principles, without an innate idea of a Deity: without a notion of a law-maker, it is impossible to have a notion of a law, and an obligation to observe it. Besides the atheists, taken notice of amongst the ancients, and left branded upon the records of history, hath not navigation discovered, in these later ages, whole nations at the bay of Soldania (a), in Brazil (6), in Boranday (c), and in the Caribbee islands, &c. amongst whom there was to be found no notion of a God, no religion? Nicholaus del Techo in literis, ex Paraquaria de Čaaiguarum conver

(a) Roe apud Thevenot, p. 2. (c) Martiniere 1.

Terry and.

(b) Jo. de Lery, c. 16. Ovington #82

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sione, has these words (d): "Reperi eam gentem nul"lum nomen habere, quod Deum & hominis animam significet, nulla sacra habet, nulla idola." These are instances of nations where uncultivated nature has been left to itself, without the help of letters, and discipline, and the improvements of arts and sciences. But there are others to be found, who have enjoyed these in a very great measure; who yet, for want of a due application of their thoughts this way, want the idea and knowledge of God. It will, I doubt not, be a surprize to others, as it was to me, to find the Siamites of this number. But for this, let them consult the king of France's late envoy thither (e), who gives no better account of the Chinese themselves (f). And if we will not believe La Loubere, the missionaries of China, even the Jesuits themselves, the great encomiasts of the Chinese, do all to a man agree, and will convince us that the sect of the literati, or learned, keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party there, are all of them atheists. Vid. Navarette, in the collection of voyages, vol. the first, and Historia cultus Sinensium. And perhaps if we should, with attention, mind the lives and discourses of people not so far off, we should have too much reason to fear, that many in more civilized countries have no very strong and clear impressions of a deity upon their minds; and that the complaints of atheism, made from the pulpit, are not without reason. And though only some profligate wretches own it too bare-facedly now; yet perhaps we should hear more than we do of it from others, did not the fear of the magistrate's sword, or their neighbour's censure, tie up people's tongues: which, were the apprehensions of punishment or shame taken away, would as openly proclaim their atheism, as their lives do (g).

(d) Relatio triplex de rebus Indicis Caaiguarum 43. (e) La Loubere du Royaume de Siam, t. 1. c. 9. sect. 15, & c. 20, sect. 22, & c. 22. sect. 6. (ƒ) Ib. t. 1. c. 20. sect. 4, & c. 23.

(g) On this reasoning of the author against innate ideas, great blame hath been laid: because it seems to invalidate an argument commonly used to prove the being of a God, viz. universal consent: To which our

§. 9. But had all mankind, every where, a notion of a God (whereof yet history tells us the contrary) it would not from thence follow, that the idea of him was innate. For though no nation were to be found without a name, and some few dark notions of him: yet that would not prove them to be natural impressions on the mind, any more than the names of fire, or the sun, heat, or number, do prove the ideas they stand for to be innate: because the names of those things, and the ideas of them, are so universally received and known amongst mankind. Nor, on the contrary, is the want

author* answers, I think that the universal consent of mankind, as to the being of a God, amounts to thus much, that the vastly greater majority of mankind have in all ages of the world actually believed a God; that the majority of the remaining part have not actually disbelieved it; and consequently those who have actually opposed the belief of a God, have truly been very few. So that comparing those that have actually disbelieved, with those who have actually believed a God, their number is so inconsiderable, that in respect of this incomparably greater majority, of those who have owned the belief of a God, it may be said to be the univeral consent of mankind.

This is all the universal consent which truth or matter of fact will allow; and therefore all that can be made use of to prove a God. But if any one would extend it farther, and speak deceitfully for God; if this universality should be urged in a strict sense, not for much the majority, but for a general consent of every one, even to a man, in all ages and countries; this would make it either no argument, or a perfectly useless and unnecessary one. For if any one deny a God, such a universality of consent is destroyed; and if nobody does deny a God, what need of arguments to convince atheists ?

I would crave leave to ask your lordship, were there ever in the world any atheists or no? If there were not, what need is there of raising a question about the being of a God, when nobody questions it? What need of provisional arguments against a fault, from which mankind are so wholly free, and which, by an universal consent, they may be presumed to be secure from? If you say (as I doubt not but you will) that there have been atheists in the world, then your lordship's universal consent reduces itself to only a great majority; and then make that majority as great as you will, what I have said in the place quoted by your lordship, leaves it in its full force; and I have not said one word that does in the least invalidate this argument for a God. The argument I was upon there, was to shew, that the idea of God was not innate; and to my purpose it was sufficient, if there were but a less number found in the world, who had no idea of God, than your lordship will allow there have been

* In his third letter to the bishop of Worcester.

of such a name, or the absence of such a notion out of men's minds, any argument against the being of a God; any more than it would be a proof that there was no load-stone in the world, because a great part of mankind had neither a notion of any such thing, nor a name for it; or be any show of argument to prove, that there are no distinct and various species of angels, or intelligent beings above us, because we have no ideas of such distinct species, or names for them: for men being furnished with words, by the common language of their own countries, can scarce avoid having some

of professed atheists; for whatsoever is innate, must be universal in the strictest sense. One exception is a sufficient proof against it. So that all that I said, and which was quite to another purpose, did not at all tend, nor can be made use of, to invalidate the argument for a Deity, grounded on such an universal consent, as your lordship, and all that build on it, must own; which is only a very disproportioned majority; such an universal consent my argument there neither affirms nor requires to be less than you will be pleased to allow it. Your lordship therefore might, without any prejudice to those declarations of good will and favour you have for the author of the "Essay of Human Uuderstanding," have spared the mentioning his quoting authors that are in print, for matters of fact to quite another purpose, as going about to invalidate the argument for a Deity, from the universal consent of mankind;" since he leaves that universal consent as entire and as large as you yourself do, or can own, or suppose it. But here I have no reason to be sorry that your lordship has given me this occasion for the vindication of this passage of my book; if there should be any one besides your lordship, who should so far mistake it, as to think it in the least invalidates the argument for a God, from the universal consent of mankind.

But because you question the credibility of those authors I have quoted, which you say were very ill chosen I will crave leave to say, that he whom I relied on for his testimony concerning the Hottentots of Soldania, was no less a man than an ambassador from the king of England to the Great Mogul: of whose relation, monsieur Thevenot, no ill judge in the case, had so great an esteem, that he was at the pains to translate into French, and publish it in his (which is counted no injudicious) collection of travels. But to intercede with your lordship, for a little more favourable allowance of credit to sir Thomas Roe's relation; Coore, an inhabitant of the country, who could speak English, assured Mr. Terry*, that they of Soldania had no God. But if he too have the ill luck to find no credit with you, I hope you will be a little more favourable to a divine of the church of England, now living, and admit of his testimony in confirmation of sir Thomas Roe's. This worthy gentleman, in the relation of his voyage to Surat, printed but two years since, speak

* Terry's Voyage, p. 17, 23.

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