connexion of distant ones, that our stock of knowlege is increased, and that useful arts and sciences are advanced.

It is fit, before I leave this subject, to take notice of one manifest mistake in the rules of syllogism, viz. that no syllogistical reasoning can be right and conclusive, but what has, at least, one general proposition in it. As if we could not reason about particulars. Whereas, in truth, the immediate object of all our reasoning is nothing but particulars. Every man's reasoning is only about the ideas existing in his own mind, which are truly, every one of them, particular existences; and our reasoning about other things, is only as they correspond with those our particular ideas.

Reason, though of a very large extent, fails us in several instances: as, 1. where our ideas fail: 2. it is often at a loss, because of the obscurity, confusion, or imperfection of the ideas it is employed about. Thus having no perfect idea of the least extension of matter, nor of infinity, we are at a loss about the divisibility of matter. 3. Our reason is often at a stand, because it perceives not those ideas which would serve to show the certain or probable agreement or disagreement of any two other ideas. 4. Our reason is often engaged in absurdities and difficulties, by proceeding on false principles, which being followed, lead men into contradictions to themselves, and inconsistency in their own thoughts. 5. Dubious words and uncertain signs often puzzle men's reason, and bring them to a nonplus.

Though the deducing one proposition from another be a great part of reason, and that which it is usually employed about; yet the principal act of ratiocination is the finding the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, one with another, by the intervention of a third. As a man, by a yard, finds two houses to be of the same length, which could not be brought to

gether to measure their equality by juxtaposition. Words have their consequences as the signs of such ideas; and things agree, and disagree, as really they are: but we observe it only by our ideas.

In reasoning, men ordinarily use four sorts of argu

ments.

The first is to allege the opinions of men, whose parts, learning, eminency, power, or some other cause, has gained a name, and settled their reputation in the common esteem with some kind of authority. This may be called argumentum ad verecundiam.

2. Another way is, to require the adversary to admit what they allege as a proof, or to assign a better. This I call argumentum ad ignorantiam.

A third way, is to press a man with consequences drawn from his own principles or concessions. This is already known under the name of argumentum ad hominem.

4. The using of proofs drawn from any of the foundations of knowlege or probability. This I call argumentum ad judicium. This alone, of all the four, brings true instruction with it, and advances us in our way to knowlege. For, 1. it argues not another man's opinion to be right, because I, out of respect, or any other consideration but that of conviction, will not contradict him. 2. It proves not another man to be in the right way, nor that I ought to take the same with him, because I know not a better. 3. Nor does it follow, that another man is in the right way, because he has shown me that I am in the wrong. This may dispose me perhaps for the reception of truth, but helps me not to it; that must come from proofs and arguments, and light arising from the nature of things themselves; not from my shamefacedness, ig

norance, or error.

By what has been said of reason, we may be able to make some guess at the distinction of things, into those that are according to, above, and contrary to

reason. 1. According to reason, are such propositions, whose truth we can discover by examining and tracing those ideas we have from sensation and reflection, and by natural deduction find to be true or probable. 2. Above reason, are such propositions, whose truth or probability we cannot by reason derive from those principles. 3. Contrary to reason, are such propositions as are inconsistent with, or irreconcilable to, our clear and distinct ideas. Thus the existence of one God is according to reason: the existence of more than one God, contrary to reason: the resurrection of the body after death, above reason. Above reason may be also taken in a double sense, viz. above probability, or, above certainty. In that large sense also, contrary to reason, is, I suppose, sometimes taken.

There is another use of the word reason, wherein it is opposed to faith; which, though authorised by common use, yet is it in itself a very improper way of speaking for faith is nothing but a firm assent of the mind; which if it be regulated as is our duty, cannot be afforded to any thing but on good reason, and so cannot be opposite to it. He that believes without having any reason for believing, may be in love with his own fancies; but neither seeks truth as he ought, nor pays the obedience due to his Maker, who would have him use those discerning faculties he has given him, to keep him out of mistake and error. But since reason and faith are by some men opposed, we will so consider them in the following chapter.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Of Faith and Reason, and their distinct Provinces.

Reason, as contradistinguished to faith, I take to be the discovery of the certainty or probability of such propositions or truths which the mind arrives at by

deductions made from such ideas, which it has got by the use of its natural faculties, viz. by sensation or reflection.

Faith, on the other side, is the assent to any proposition, on the credit of the proposer, as coming immediately from God; which we call revelation: concerning which we must observe,

1. That no man inspired by God can by any revelation communicate to others any new simple ideas, which they had not before from sensation or reflection: because words, by their immediate operation on us, cannot cause other ideas, but of their natural sounds, and as signs of latent ideas they can only recall to our thoughts those ideas, which to us they have been wont to be signs of; but cannot introduce any new, and formerly unknown simple ideas. The same holds in all other signs, which cannot signify to us things, of which we have never before had any idea at all. For our simple ideas we must depend wholly on our natural faculties, and can by no means receive them from traditional revelation; I say traditional, in distinction to original revelation. By the one, I mean that impression which is made immediately by God on the mind of any man, to which we cannot set any bounds. And by the other, those impressions delivered over to others in words, and the ordinary ways of conveying our conceptions one to another.

2. I say, that the same truths may be discovered by revelation which are discoverable to us by reason; but in such there is little need or use of revelation; God having furnished us with natural means to arrive at the knowlege of them and truths discovered by our natural faculties are more certain than when conveyed to us by traditional revelation. For the knowlege we have, that this revelation came at first from God, can never be so sure as the knowlege we have from the clear and distinct perception of the agreement and disagreement of our own ideas. This also

holds in matters of fact, knowable by our senses: as the history of the deluge is conveyed to us by writings, which had their original from revelation; and yet nobody, I think, will say he has as certain and clear knowlege of the flood, as Noah that saw it, or that he himself would have had, had he then been alive and seen it. For he has no greater assurance than that of his senses, that it is writ in the book, supposed to be writ by Moses inspired. But he has not so great an assurance that Moses writ that book, as if he had seen Moses write it; so that the assurance of its being a revelation is still less than the assurance of his senses.

Revelation cannot be admitted against the clear evidence of reason. For since no evidence of our faculties, by which we receive such a revelation, can exceed, if equal, the certainty of our intuitive knowlege; we can never receive for a truth any thing that is directly contrary to our clear and distinct knowlege. Thus the ideas of one body and one place do so clearly agree, that we can never assent to a proposition that affirms the same body to be in two distinct places at once, however it should pretend to the authority of a divine revelation: since the evidence, 1. that we deceive not ourselves in ascribing it to God, 2. that we understand it right, can never be so great as the evidence of our own intuitive knowlege, whereby we discern it impossible for the same body to be in two places at once.

In propositions, therefore, contrary to our distinct and clear ideas, it will be in vain to urge them as matters of faith. For faith can never convince us of any thing that contradicts our knowlege; because, though faith be founded on the testimony of God, who cannot lie, yet we cannot have an assurance of the truth of its being a divine revelation, greater than our knowlege. For if the mind of man can never have a clearer evidence of any thing to be a divine revelation, than it has of the principles of its own rea

Locke.

Ꮓ