strations of Number the most precise. Names or marks are paticularly necessary to number, its modes being only combinations of units, which have no variety for which reason people whose language is scanty, and accommodated only to a simple life, have no distinct ideas of large numbers, but express them by shewing their fingers, or the hair of their heads. Number measures every thing capable of measurement: our idea of infinity, when applied to expansion and duration, seems not ng else but the repeated addition of parts of each without limit; whence the ideas of Eternity and Immens y.

CHAP. XVII.

OF INFINITY.

FINITE and infinite seem to me to be considered by the mind as the moeds of quantity, and primarily to be attributed to those things which are capable of increase or diminution; such are our ideas of space, duration, and number. God, indeed, is incomprehensibly infinite; we apply this idea primarily to his duration and ubiquity; and figuratively to his pow er, wisdom, goodness, and other attributes, which are properly inexhaustible and incomprehensible; we having no other idea of them, than that they will always exceed our utmost thoughts.

E

Obvious portions of extension affecting our senses give us the idea of finite. Our capacity to add together in thought any lengths of space gives us the idea of infinity. It is quite a different consideration whether the mind has the idea of such a boundless space actually existing; since our ideas are not always proof of the existence of things: but space being considered either as the extension of body, or as existing by itself without matter, the mind can never conceive an end to it.

By adding in our minds any lengths of duration, we get the idea of Eternity: but it is quite a different thing, whether the duration of any real being has been eternal.-It may be asked, why we do not attribute infinity to other ideas as well as those of space and duration? I answer; all those ideas which are considered as having parts, and capable of increase by addition, give the idea of infinity; but to the perfectest idea I have of white, I cannot add the idea of whiter; and to add the idea of a less degree of whiteness is only to diminish the idea.

It seems to me not an insignificant subtilty to distinguish between, infinity of space, and space infinite:-for our idea of infinity is an endless, progressive idea; but our idea of any quantity being necessarily determinate at the time, (for be it as great as it will, it can be no greater than it is,) to add infinity to it, is to adjust a standing measure to a growing bulk, and to suppose the mind to have a view of those re

peated ideas of space which an endless repetition can never totally represent; which involves a plain contradiction. Our idea of infinity being properly only the negation of an end, and consisting in a supposed endless progression, any idea of space, number, duration, however great, (being positive,) is contrary to the idea of infinity.

Number is not generally thought infinite, though duration and extension are: for in number, we consider ourselves as at one end, as it were, of a line extending indeterminately forwards: but we consider =duration as a line extending both ways, the present time dividing the part past from the part future: and in space, we consider ourselves, as it were, in the centre, with its parts extending indeterminately from us on all sides.

In any bulk of matter our thoughts can never arrive at the utmost divisibility; but this is like the indefinite division of an unit into fractions, not the infinite addition of units.

The notion of an Eternal wise Being, who had no beginning, is, I think, unavoidable by every thinking man, who examines his own or any other existence. Some think that they have an idea of Eternity, though not of Infinite Space: owing, I imagine, to this; that they think it necessary to admit some eternal Being, but apparently absurd to suppose body infinite; whence they forwardly conclude against infinite Space.

CHAP. XVIII.

OF OTHER SIMPLE MODES.

To slide, tumble, creep, dance, &c. are words which give us immediately distinct ideas; which are only different modifications of motion.-Modes of motion answer those of extension: swift and slow, are ideas of motion, whose measures are composed of the distances of time and space put together: so they are complex ideas, comprehending time and space with motion.

Every articulate word is a different modification of sound: sounds modified by the composition of diversity of notes of different length make the complex idea of tune.-Modes of colour are very various; but being seldom considered apart from figure, as in painting, weaving, &c. they are commonly made up of ideas of divers kinds, as, beauty, rainbow, &c.-We / have very few names for compounded tastes, and smells; they must therefore be left to experience.-In general those simple modes, which are considered but as different degrees of the same simple idea, have no distinct names: either because men wanted measures nicely to distinguish them, or because the knowledge of them would not be of general use.

The reason I suppose to have been this;-The great concernment of men being with men, the knowledge of men, and their actions, and ways of signifying them, were most necessary; therefore ideas of actions were nicely modified, and our complex ideas of them received names, in order that we might record, and discourse of them without circumlocution.

That this is so, we may observe in many arts, where for the sake of a short way to express their thoughts, those concerned in them have invented words for complex ideas, which are unintelligible to most men of the same language.

CHAP. XIX.

OF THE MODES OF THINKING.

THINKING is the first of its actions which the mind contemplates. It perceives many modifications in it and thence receives distinct ideas. The perception accompanying an impression made on the body by an external object, being distinct from all other modifications of thinking, is called sensation:-The same idea recurring without an impression on the external sensory by the same object, is called remem