CHAP. XIII.

SOME FARTHER CONSIDERATIONS CONCERNING OUR KNOWLEDGE.

OUR

Our Knowledge partly necessary, partly voluntary. UR knowledge, as in other things, fo in this, has a great conformity with our fight, that it is neither wholly neceffary, nor wholly voluntary. If our knowledge were altogether neceffary, all mens knowledge would not only be alike, but every man would know all that is knowable and if it were wholly voluntary, fome men fo little regard or value it, that they would have extreme little, or none at all. Men that have fenfes cannot choose but receive fome ideas by them; and if they have memory, they cannot but retain fome of them; and if they have any diftinguishing faculty, cannot but perceive the agreement or difagreement of fome of them one with another; as he that has eyes, if he will open them by day, cannot but fee fome objects, and perceive a dif ference in them. But though a man, with his eyes open in the light, cannot but fee, yet there be certain objects, which he may choose whether he will turn his eyes to; there may be in his reach a book containing pictures and difcourfes, capable to delight or inftruct him, which yet he may never have the will to open, never take the pains to look into.

§ 2. The Application voluntary; but we know as things are, not as we pleafe.

THERE is also another thing in a man's power, and that is, though he turns his eyes fometimes towards an object, yet he may choose whether he will curioufly furvey it, and with an intent application endeavour to observe accurately all that is visible in it. But yet what he does fee, he cannot fee other wife than he does. It depends nor on his will to fee that black which appears yellow; nor to perfuade himself, that what actually fealds him, feels cold. The earth will not appear painted with flowers, nor the fields covered with verdure, whenever he has a mind to it in the cold winter, he cannot help seeing it white VOL. III.

G

146 Confiderations concerning our Knowledge. Book IV. and hoary, if he will look abroad. Juft thus is it with our understanding; all that is voluntary in our knowledge, is the employing or with-holding any of our faculties from this or that fort of objects, and a more or less accurate survey of them: but they being employed, our will hath no power to determine the knowledge of the mind one way or other; that is done only by the objects themfelves, as far as they are clearly difcovered. And therefore, as far as mens fenfes are converfant about external objects, the mind cannot but receive thofe ideas which are prefented by them, and be informed of the existence of things without and fo far as mens thoughts converfe with their own determined ideas, they cannot but in some measure obferve the agreement and difagreement that is to be found amongst some of them, which is fo far knowledge and if they have names for those ideas which they have thus confidered, they must needs be affured of the truth of thofe propofitions which exprefs that agreement or difagreement they perceive in them, and be undoubtedly convinced of thofe truths. For what a man fees, he cannot but fee; and what he perceives, he cannot but know that he perceives.

3. Inftance-In Numbers.

THUS he that has got the ideas of numbers, and hath taken the pains to compare one, two and three, to fix, cannot choose but know that they are equal: he that hath got the idea of a triangle, and found the ways to measure its angles, and their magnitudes, is certain that its three angles are equal to two right ones, and can as little doubt of that, as of this truth, that it is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be.

In Natural Religion.

He also that hath the idea of an intelligent, but frail and weak being, made by and depending on another, who is eternal, omnipotent, perfectly wife and good, will as certainly know that man is to honour, fear and obey GOD, as that the fun fhines when he fees it. For if he hath but the ideas of two fuch beings in his mind, and will turn his thoughts that way, and confider them, he will as certainly find that the inferior, finite and de

pendent, is under an obligation to obey the Supreme and Infinite, as he is certain to find, that three, four and feven, are lefs than fifteen, if he will confider and compute those numbers; nor can he be furer in a clear morning that the fun is risen, if he will but open his eyes, and turn them that way. But yet these truths, being never so certain, never fo clear, he may be ignorant of either, or all of them, who will never take the pains to employ his faculties, as he should, to inform himself about them.

§ I.

THE

CHAP. XIV.

OF JUDGMENT.

Our Knowledge being fhort, we want something

elfe.

HE understanding faculties being given to man, not barely for fpeculation, but alfo for the conduct of his life, man would be at a great loss, if he had nothing to direct him but what has the certainty of true knowledge; for that being very fhort and fcanty, as we have seen, he would be often utterly in the dark, and in most of the actions of his life perfectly at a stand, had he nothing to guide him in the absence of clear and certain knowledge. He that will not eat till he has demonftration that it will nourish him, he that will not ftir till he infallibly knows the buftness he goes about will fucceed, will have little elfe to do but fit ftill and perish.

§ 2. What ufe to be made of this twilight State. THEREFORE, as God has fet fome things in broad daylight, as he has given us fome certain knowledge, though limited to a few things in comparison, probably as a taste of what intellectual creatures are capable of, to excite in us a defire and endeavour after a better state, so in the greatest part of our concernment, he has afforded us only the twilight, as I may fo fay, of probability, fuitable, I prefume, to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleafed to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and prefumption,

we might by every day's experience be made fenfible of our fhort-fightedness and liableness to error; the fense whereof might be a constant admonition to us to fpend the days of this our pilgrimage with induftry and care, in the fearch and following of that way which might lead us to a state of greater perfection; it being highly rational to think, even were revelation filent in the cafe, that as men employ thofe talents God has given them here, they fhall accordingly receive their rewards at the clofe of the day, when their fun shall set, and night shall put an end to their labours.

§ 3. Judgment fupplies the want of Knowledge. THE faculty which God has given man to fupply the want of clear and certain knowledge, in cafes where that cannot be had, is judgment, whereby the mind takes its ideas to agree or difagree, or, which is the same, any propofition to be true or falfe, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in the proofs. The mind fome-; times exercises this judgment out of necessity, where demonftrative proofs, and certain knowledge are not to be had; and fometimes out of laziness, unskilfulness, or hafte, even where demonftrative and certain proofs are to be had. Men often ftay not warily to examine the agreement or difagreement of two ideas, which they are defirous or concerned to know, but, either incapable of fuch attention as is requifite in a long train of gradations, or impatient of delay, lightly caft their eyes on, or wholly pafs by the proofs; and fo, without making out the demonftration, determine of the agreement or difagreement of two ideas, as it were by a view of them as they are at a distance, and take it to be the one or the other as feems most likely to them upon fuch a loose furvey. This faculty of the mind, when it is exercised immediately about things, is called judgment; when about truths delivered in words, is most commonly called affent or diffent; which being the moft ufual way wherein the mind has occafion to employ this faculty, I fhall under these terms treat of it, as least liable in our language to equivocation,

§ 4. Fudgment is the prefuming things to be fo, without perceiving it.

THUS the mind has two faculties, converfant about truth and falfehood.

First, Knowledge, whereby it certainly perceives, and is undoubtedly fatisfied of the agreement or difagreement of any ideas.

Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas together, or feparating them from one another in the mind, when their certain agreement or difagreement is not perceived, but prefumed to be fo; which is as the word. imports, taken to be fo, before it certainly appears. And if it fo unites, or feparates them, as in reality things are, it is right judgment.

CHAP. XV.

OF PROBABILITY.

§ 1. Probability is the appearance of Agreement upon fallible Proofs.

AS

S demonftration is the fhowing the agreement or difagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of one or more proofs, which have a conftant, immutable, and visible connection one with another; fo probability is nothing but the appearance of fuch an agreement or difagreement by the intervention of proofs whofe connection is not conftant and immutable, or at least is not. perceived to be fo, but is, or appears for the moft part to be fo, and is enough to induce the mind to judge the propofition to be true or falfe, rather than the contrary. For example: In the demonftration of it, a man perceives the certain immutable connection there is of equality between the three angles of a triangle, and those intermediate ones which are made ufe of to fhow their equality to two right ones; and fo by an intuitive knowledge of the agreement or difagreement of the intermediate ideas in each step of the progrefs, the whole feries is continued with an evidence, which clearly fhows the agreement or disagreement of those three angles in equa lity to two right ones; and thus he has certain know