plication of a certain degree of heat; we call the fimple idea of heat, in relation to fluidity in wax, the cause of it, and fluidity the effect. So alfo, finding that the fubitance of wood, which is a certain collection of fimple ideas fo called, by the application of fire is turned into another fubftance called aflies; i. e. another complex idea, confifting of a collection of fimple ideas, quite different from that complex idea which we call wood; we confider fire, in relation to ashes, as caufe, and the afhes as effect. So that, whatever is confidered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular fimple idea, or collection of fimple ideas, whether fubftance or mode, which did not before exift, hath thereby in our minds the relation of a caufe, and fo is denominated by us.

§2. Creation, Generation, making Alteration. HAVING thus, from what our fenfes are able to difcover in the operation of bodies on one another, got the notion of caufe and effect, viz. that a caufe is that which makes any other thing, either fimple idea, fubftance or mode, begin to be; and an effect is that which had its beginning from fome other thing: the mind finds no great difficulty to diftinguish the feveral originals of things into two forts.

First, When the thing is wholly made new, fo that no part thereof did ever exist before; as when a new particle of matter doth begin to exift, in rerum natura, which had before no being, and this we call creation.

Secondly, When a thing is made up of particles, which did all of them before exift, but that very thing fo conftituted of pre-existing particles, which, confidered altogether, make up fuch a collection of fimple ideas, as had not any exiflence before, as this man, this egg, rofe or cherry, &c. And this when referred to a fubftance, produced in the ordinary courfe of nature by an internal principle, but fet on work by, and received from, some external agent or caufe, and working by infenfible ways, which we perceive not, we call generation: when the caufe is extrinfical, and the effect produced by a fenfible feparation, or juxta-pofition of difcernible parts,

we call it making and fuch are all artificial things. When any fimple idea is produced, which was not in that fubject before, we call it alteration. Thus, a man is generated, a picture made, and either of them altered, when any new fenfible quality or simple idea is produced in either of them, which was not there before; and the things thus made to exist, which were not there before, are effects and thofe things, which operated to the existence, caufes. In which, and all other cafes, we may obferve, that the notion of caufe and effect, has its rife from ideas, received by fenfation or reflection; and that this relation, how comprehenfive foever, terminates at laft in them. For to have the idea, of caufe and effect, it fuffices to confider any fimple idea, or subftance, as beginning to exift by the operation of fome other, without knowing the manner of that operation.

3. Relations of Time.

TIME and place are alfo the foundations of very large relations, and all finite beings at least are concerned in them. But having already fhown, in another place, how we get these ideas, it may fuffice here to intimate, that most of the denominations of things, received from time, are only relations. Thus, when any one fays, that Queen Elizabeth lived fixty-nine, and reigned forty-five years, thefe words import only the relation of that duration to fome other, and mean no more than this, that the duration of her existence was equal to fixty-nine, and the duration of her government to forty-five annual revolutions of the fun; and fo are all words answering, how long. Again, William the Conqueror invaded England about the year 1066, which means this; that taking the duration from our Saviour's time till now, for one entire great length of time, it shows at what distance this invafion was from the two extremes and fo do all words of time, answering to the question, when, which fhow only the distance of any point of time, from the period of a longer dura tion, from which we measure, and to which we there by confider it as related.

man is

§ 4.

THERE are yet, befides those, other words of time that ordinarily are thought to stand for positive ideas, which yet will, when confidered, be found to be relative, fuch as are young, old, &c. which include and intimate the relation any thing has to a certain length of duration, whereof we have the idea in our minds. Thus, having fettled in our thoughts the idea of the ordinary duration of a man to be feventy years, when we fay a young, we mean that his age is yet but a small part of that which ufually men attain to and when we denominate him old, we mean that his duration is run out almoft to the end of that which men do not ufually exceed. And fo it is but comparing the particular age, or duration of this or that man, to the idea of that duration which we have in our minds, as ordinarily belonging to that fort of animals: which is plain, in the application of these names to other things; for a man is called young at twenty years, and very young at feven years old: but yet a horfe we call old at twenty, and a dog at feven years: because, in each of these, we compare their age to different ideas of duration, which are fettled in our minds, as belonging to these feveral forts of animals, in the ordinary courfe of nature. But the fun and ftars, though they have outlasted feveral generations of men, we call not old, because we do not know what period God hath fet to that fort of beings. This term, belonging properly to those things which we can obferve, in the ordinary courfe of things by a natural decay, to come to an end in a certain period of time; and fo have in our minds, as it were, a standard to which we can compare the feveral parts of their duration; and, by the relation they bear thereunto, call them young or old which we cannot therefore do to a ruby or a diamond, things whofe ufual periods

we know not.

5. Relations of Place and Extenfion. THE relation alfo that things have to one another in their places and diftances, is very obvious to obferve; as above, below, a mile diftant from Charing-crofs in

England, and in London. But as in duration, fo in extenfion and bulk, there are some ideas that are relative, which we fignify by names that are thought pofitive ; as great and little are truly relations. For here also having, by obfervation, fettled in our minds the ideas of the bigness of several species of things, from those we have been most accustomed to, we make them, as it were, the standards whereby to denominate the bulk of others. Thus, we call a great apple, fuch a one as is bigger than the ordinary fort of those we have been ufed to; and a little horfe, fuch a one as comes not up to the fize of that idea, which we have in our minds, to belong ordinarily to horfes and that will be a greathorse to a Welfhman, which is but a little one to a Fleming; the two having, from the different breed of their countries, taken several fized ideas, to which they compare, and in relation to which they denominate their great and their little.

:

§ 6. Abfolute Terms often fand for Relations. So likewife weak and frong are but relative denominations of power, compared to fome ideas we have, at that time, of greater or lefs power. Thus, when we say a weak man, we mean one that has not so much strength or power to move, as ufually men have, or ufually those of his fize have; which is a comparing his ftrength to the idea we have of the usual strength of men, or men of fuch a fize. The like, when we fay the creatures are all weak things; weak, there, is but a relative term, fignifying the difproportion there is in the power of GOD and the creatures. And fo abundance of words, in ordinary fpeech, ftand only for relations (and perhaps the greatest part) which at first fight feem to have no fuch fignification: v. g. the fhip has neceffary ftores. Neceffary and flores are both relative words; one having a relation to the accomplishing the voyage intended, and the other to future ufe. All which relations, how they are confined to, and terminate in, ideas derived from fenfation and reflection, is too obvious to need any explication.

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CHAP. XXVII.

OF INDENTITY AND DIVERSITY.

1. Wherein Identity confifls.

NOTHER occafion the mind often takes of comparing, is the very being of things; when confidering any thing as exifting at any determined time and place, we compare it with itself existing at another time, and thereon form the ideas of indentity and diverfity. When we fee any thing to be in any place in any inftant of time, we are fure (be it what it will) that it is that very thing, and not another, which at that fame time exiits in another place, how like and undistinguishable foever it may be in all other refpects and in this confifts identity, when the ideas it is attributed to, vary not at all from what they were that moment wherein we confider their former existence, and to which we compare the prefent. For we never finding nor conceiving it poffible, that two things of the fame kind fhould exift in the fame place at the fame time, we rightly conclude, that whatever exifts any where at any time, excludes all of the fame kind, and is there itself alone. When therefore we demand, whether any thing be the fame or no: it refers ways to fomething that existed such a time in such a place, which it was certain at that inftant was the fame with itself, and no other. From whence it follows, that one thing cannot have two beginnings of existence, nor two things one beginning; it being impoffible for two things of the fame kind to.. be or exift in the fame inftant, in the very fame place, or one and the fame thing in different places. That therefore that had one beginning, is the fame thing; and that which had a different beginning in time and place from that, is not the fame, but diverfe. That which has made the difficulty about this relation, has been the little care and attention used in having precife notions of the things to which it is attributed.

VOL. II.

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