peration of the Intellect. We are not furnished with any Innate Ideas of things material or immaterial; nor are we endued with a Faculty or Difpofition of forming Purely Intellectual Ideas or Conceptions independent of all Senfation: Much lefs has the human Soul a Power of raising up to itself Ideas out of Nothing, which is a kind of Creation; or of attaining any First Principles exclufive of all Illation or confequential Deduction from Ideas of Material Objects; without which the Mind of Man, during its Union with the Body, could never have arrived even to a Consciousness of its own Operations or Existence.

DAILY Experience fhews us that as far as Perfons are from their firft Infancy deprived of any of their Senfes, they are fo far imperfect in their Intellectuals. What a vaft degree of Knowledge do we find cut off together with that one Sense of Hearing? Take away the Sight likewife, and then confider how limited and confin'd the Operations of the Intellect muft be? If after this you remove from a Man all Taste and Smelling, and if he hath no Ideas left for the Mind to work upon but thofe of his Feeling; how far would he differ from the fenfitive Plant? The Mind in such case would not be able to infer the bare Existence of any thing external to it but what was Felt; and if it were poffible for the Man to have Animal Life without Feeling, he would be as utterly

void of Knowledge as one in a Swoon or Apoplectick Fit.

Now this is fo far from being a just reason to think the Soul of Man Material, that it is an Argument of the quite Contrary. For let us reftore that Man to all his Senfes again, in the greatest degree of Acuteness he is capable of, infomuch that he shall have his Imagination furnished with the Ideas of all Senfible Objects; yet you have not reftored him to any use of his Reafon and Understanding; not even to that of a Simple View or Apprehension of those Ideas. With refpect to the fimple Perception of Mere Senfe he is ftill upon the fame Level with Brutes; he is altogether Passive; he retains all the Signatures and Impreffions of outward Objects, but in the very Order only in which they are stamped; without Tranfpofing or Altering, Dividing or Compounding, or even Comparing them one with another: And they would always continue so in the Imagination, if there were not a Principle Above Matter, firft to contemplate or view them; and then to work up thofe rude and grofs Materials into a great Variety of curious Arts and Sciences.

CHAP.

TH

CHA P. II.

Ideas of Senfation.

HE First step therefore made towards Knowledge is Antecedent to any Operation of the Pure Mind, and without any Concurrence of the Intellect; and that is, the Attainment of Ideas, or fome Likeness and Representation of external Objects which may remain in their Abfence; and (fince all Senfation is of Particulars only, and Succeffively of one Object after another) which may bring them all together, as it were into one Place, for the more convenient View and Obfervation of the Mind. Whether this is perform'd by any actual Impreffion of the Object upon the Organ of Sensation; or by fome Operation of the Senfe upon the Object? And whether the Idea is always an Emblem of the Real True Nature of the Object; or of its external Appearance alone; or only Occafion'd by it? are Questions perhaps never to be Thoroughly decided; and therefore we leave them to be for ever debated by the Curious. These feveral Remarks following, which are within the Compass of our Knowledge, are more material to be obferved.

1. THAT these Ideas of Sensation are all Simple Perceptions, and of Particulars only; which

is evident enough with respect to Four of our Senfes; and will appear to be fo likewife of the Sight, if it is confidered that tho' the Eye can take in a Confused Prospect of a great Variety of Objects at Once, yet it can take a Diftinct View of them no otherwise than Succeffively one after another: And tho' the fame external Object may make Impreffions upon More of our Senfes than one at the fame time, yet Each of those Impreffions are of a Different kind, and each a Simple Idea in itself; tho' the Mind may afterwards put them together to make up one Compound Idea of that Object.

2. THAT this simple Perception of Objects by their Ideas, which is common to us with Brutes, is to be well diftinguished from the fimple Apprehenfion of those Ideas by the Intellect after they are lodged in the Imagination; which is an Operation never to be performed by mere Matter, without the Concurrence of an immaterial Principle.

3. THAT these fimple Ideas of Sensation only are, in the ftrict and truly proper Sence of the Word, to be called Ideas; and that tho' this Term may improperly be extended to fignify any of Thefe confider'd in Conjunction with the Operations of the Mind upon them, yet it then ferves only to darken the Subject and confound the Understanding.

4. THAT

4. THAT thefe are the Original Materials and Ground-work of all our Knowledge. And if any one hath a Doubt whether they are so, let him inftance in fome one Simple original Idea, which we are not beholden to the Senfes for; one that the Intellect can call altogether its own; and which it acquired intirely Independent of them. The very Idea of Existence, which is the moft direct and immediate one we have with refpect to Immaterial Beings, is from the Senfes; in the Knowledge of which the Intellect proceeds thus: As from the Exiftence of one thing Material actualy perceived, I infer the poffible and even probable Existence of other things Material which were never the Objects of any of my Senfes; fo from the known Exiftence of things Material I draw this Confequence, That other things may and must exift which are Not Matter. Were it not for our Actual fenfible Perception of Bodily Subftance, we should not know what it was to have a Being, nor could we be confcious of even our Own Existence.

So likewife all the Idea or Notion we have of Power, is from the Operations we observe in things purely Material one upon another; or from the Operation of the Mind upon its Ideas, and its voluntary moving of the Body: And therefore because we can have no Proper Notion or Direct Idea of the Power of Creation,