BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

Of Knowlege in general.

SINCE the mind hath no immediate object of thought but its own ideas, it is evident that our knowlege is only conversant about them. Knowlege seems to me to consist in the perception of the connexion and agreement, or disagreement and repugnancy of any of our ideas for when we know that white is not black, what do we else but perceive that these two ideas do not agree? And when we know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones, what do we more but perceive their equality to two right ones?1

The placing of certainty, as Mr. Locke does, in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, the bishop of Worcester suspects may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith which he has endeavored to defend: to which Mr. Locke answers: Since your lordship hath not, as I remember, shown, or gone about to show, how this proposition, viz. that certainty consists in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, is opposite or inconsistent with that article of faith which your lordship has endeavored to defend ; it is plain, it is but your lordship's fear, that it may be of dangerous consequence to it, which, as I humbly conceive, is no proof that it is any way inconsistent with that article.

Nobody, I think, can blame your lordship, or any one else, for being concerned for any article of the Christian faith; but if that concern (as it may, and as we know it has done) makes any one apprehend danger where no danger is, are we, therefore, to give up and condemn any proposition, because any one, though of the first rank and magnitude, fears it may be of dangerous consequence to any truth of religion, without showing that it is so! If such fears be the measures whereby to judge of truth and falsehood, the affirming that there are antipodes would be still a he resy; and the doctrine of the motion of the earth must be rejected, as overthrowing the truth of the Scripture; for of that

To understand this more distinctly, we may reduce it to four sorts:-1. identity, or diversity; 2. relation ;

dangerous consequence it has been apprehended to be, by many learned and pious divines, out of their great concern for religion. And yet, notwithstanding those great apprehensions of what dangerous consequence it might be, it is now universally received by learned men, as an undoubted truth; and writ for by some, whose belief of the Scripture is not at all questioned; and particularly, very lately, by a divine of the Church of England, with great strength of reason, in his wonderfully ingenious New Theory of the Earth.

The reason your lordship gives of your fears, that it may be of such dangerous consequence to that article of faith which your lordship endeavors to defend, though it occur in more places than one, is only this, viz. That it is made use of by ill men to do mischief, i. e. to oppose that article of faith which your lordship hath endeavored to defend. But, my lord, if it be a reason to lay by any thing as bad, because it is, or may be, used to an ill purpose, I know not what will be innocent enough to be kept. Arms, which were made for our defence, are sometimes made use of to do mischief; and yet they are not thought of dangerous consequence for all that. Nobody lays by his sword and pistols, or thinks them of such dangerous consequence as to be neglected or thrown away, because robbers, and the worst of men, sometimes make use of them to take away honest men's lives or goods. And the reason is, because they were designed, and will serve, to preserve them. And who knows but this may be the present case? If your lordship thinks, that placing of certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, be to be rejected as false, because you apprehend it may be of dangerous consequence to that article of faith; on the other side, perhaps others, with me, may think it a defence against error, and so (as being of good use) to be received and adhered to.

'I would not, my lord, be hereby thought to set up my own, or any one's judgment against your lordship's. But I have said this only to show, whilst the argument lies for or against the truth of any proposition, barely in an imagination that it may be of consequence to the supporting or overthrowing of any remote truth; it will be impossible, that way, to determine of the truth or falsehood of that proposition. For imagination will be set up against imagination, and the stronger probably will be against your lordship; the strongest imaginations being usually in the weakest heads. The only way, in this case, to put it past doubt, is to show the inconsistency of the two propositions; and then it will be seen, that one overthrows the other; the true, the false

one.

Your lordship says, indeed, this is a new method of certainty. I will not say so myself, for fear of deserving a second reproof from your lordship, for being too forward to assume to myself the honor of being an original. But this, I think, gives

3. co-existence, or necessary connexion; 4. real existence.

1. It is the first act of the mind to perceive its ideas,

me occasion, and will excuse me from being thought impertinent, if I ask your lordship whether there be any other, or older, method of certainty, and what it is? For if there be no other, nor older than this, either this was always the method of certainty, and so mine is no new one; or else the world is obliged to me for this new one, after having been so long in the want of so necessary a thing as a method of certainty. If there be an older, I am sure your lordship cannot but know it; your condemning mine as new, as well as your thorough insight into antiquity, cannot but satisfy every body that you do. And therefore to set the world right in a thing of that great concernment, and to overthrow mine, and thereby prevent the dangerous consequence there is in my having unreasonably started it, will not, I humbly conceive, misbecome your lordship's care of that article you have endeavored to defend, nor the good-will you bear to truth in general. For I will be answerable for myself, that I shall; and I think I may be for all others, that they all will give off the placing of certainty in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, if your lordship will be pleased to show that it lies in any thing else.

But truly, not to ascribe to myself an invention of what has been as old as knowlege is in the world, I must own I am not guilty of what your lordship is pleased to call starting new methods of certainty. Knowlege, ever since there has been any in the world, has consisted in one particular action in the mind; and so, I conceive, will continue to do to the end of it. And to start new methods of knowlege, or certainty (for they are to me the same thing), i. e. to find out and propose new methods of attaining knowlege, either with more ease and quickness, or in things yet unknown, is what I think nobody could blame; but this is not that which your lordship here means, by new methods of certainty. Your lordship, I think, means by it, the placing of certainty in something, wherein either it does not consist, or else wherein it was not placed before now; if this be to be called a new method of certainty. As to the latter of these, I shall know whether I am guilty or no, when your lordship will do me the favor to tell me wherein it was placed before; which your lordship knows I professed myself ignorant of, when I writ my book, and so I am still. But if starting new methods of certainty be the placing of certainty in something wherein it does not consist; whether I have done that or no, I must appeal to the experience of mankind.

There are several actions of men's minds, that they are conscious to themselves of performing, as willing, believing, know ing, &c. which they have so particular a sense of, that they can distinguish them one from another; or else they could not say,

and to know each what it is, and to perceive that one is not another. Without this there could be no knowlege, reasoning, imagination, or distinct thoughts at all.

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 have met with, had, in their writings, particularly set down wherein the act of knowing precisely consisted.

To this reflection on 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, on 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 persuaded against their senses. Knowlege is an internal perception of their minds; and if, when they reflect on it, they find that 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 impossible 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 consists; much less can any one be in danger to be misled into error, by any such new, and to every one visibly, senseless project. Can it be supposed, that any one could start a new method of seeing, and persuade men thereby, that they do not see what they do see? Is it to be feared that any one can cast such a mist over their eyes, that they should not know when they see, and so be led out of their way by it?

;

'Knowlege, I find in myself, and I conceive in others, consists 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 so in others or no, must be determined by their own experience, reflecting on 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 so as to avoid obscurity and confusion. If they are constantly used in the same and a known sense, every one has the liberty to please himself in his terms; there lies neither truth, nor error, nor science, in that: though those that take them for things, and not for what they are, bare arbitrary signs of our ideas, make a great deal ado often about

This the mind does without labor and deduction, but at first view, by its natural power of perception and distinction. A man infallibly knows, as soon as ever

them; as if some greater matter lay in the use of this or that sound. All that I know, or can imagine, of difference about them, is that those words are always best, whose significations are best known in the sense they are used; and so are least apt to breed confusion.

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 knowlege, without doing me the favor to give me a better: for it is only about my definition of knowlege, 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 knowlege, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be called knowlege; as your lordship could not but observe in the 18th section of chap. iv. of my 4th book, which you have quoted.

'My definition of knowlege stands thus: Knowlege 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 consequence 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 set aside this definition of knowlege by giving us a better, and this danger is over. But your lordship chooses rather to have a controversy with my book for having it in it, and to put me on the defence of it; for which I must acknowlege myself obliged to your lordship for affording me so 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 says, it may be of dangerous consequence to that article of Christian faith which you have endeavored to defend. Though the laws of disputing allow bare denial as a sufficient answer to sayings, without any offer of a proof; yet, my lord, to show how willing I am to give your lordship all satisfac tion, in what you apprehend may be of dangerous consequence in my book, as to that article, I shall not stand still sullenly, and put your lordship on the difficulty of showing wherein that danger lies; but shall, on the other side, endeavor to show your lordship that that definition of mine, whether true or false, right or wrong, can be of no dangerous consequence to that article of faith. The reason which I shall offer for it is this, because it can be of no consequence 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 con