11. Ideas of Subftances have their Archetypes
without us.

THIRDLY, There is another fort of complex ideas, which
being referred to archetypes without us, may differ
from them, and fo our knowledge about them may
come short of being real. Such are our ideas of
substances, which confisting of a collection of fimple
ideas, fuppofed taken from the works of nature, may
yet vary from them by having more or different ideas
united in them, than are to be found united in things
themselves; from whence it comes to pafs, that they
may, and often do fail of being exactly conformable to
things themselves.

§ 12. So far as they agree with those, so far our Knowledge concerning them is real.

I SAY then, that to have ideas of fubftances, which, by being conformable to things, may afford us real knowledge, it is not enough, as in modes, to put together fuch ideas as have no inconfiftence, though they did never before fo exift; v. g. the ideas of facrilege or perjury, &c. were as real and true ideas before, as after the existence of any fuch fact. But our ideas of fubftances being fuppofed copies, and referred to archetypes without us, muft ftill be taken from fomething that does or has exifted; they must not confift of ideas put together at the pleasure of our thoughts, without any real pattern they were taken from, though we can perceive no inconfiftence in fuch a combination. The reafon whereof is, because we, knowing not what real conftitution it is of fubftances whereon our fimple ideas depend, and which really is the cause of the strict union of some of them one with another, and the exclufion of others; there are very few of them that we can be fure are or are not inconfiftent in nature, any farther than experience and fenfible obfervation reach. Herein therefore is founded the reality of our knowledge concerning fubftances, that all our complex ideas of them must be such, and fuch only, as are made up of fuch fimple ones as have been discovered to coexist in nature. And our ideas being thus true,

though not perhaps very exact copies, are yet the fubjects of real (as far as we have any) knowledge of them; which (as has been already shown) will not be found to reach very far; but fo far as it does, it will still be real knowledge. Whatever ideas we have, the agreement we find they have with others, will still be knowledge. If those ideas be abstract, it will be general knowledge; but to make it real concerning subftances, the ideas must be taken from the real existence of things. Whatever fimple ideas have been found to co-exist in any fubftance, these we may with confidence join together again, and fo make abstract ideas of subftances; for whatever have once had an union in nature, may be united again.

13. In our inquiries about Subftances, we must confider Ideas, and not confine our Thoughts to Names or Species fuppofed fet out by Names. THIS, if we rightly confider, and confine not our thoughts and abstract ideas to names, as if there were, or could be no other forts of things than what known names had already determined, and as it were set out, we should think of things with greater freedom and lefs confufion than perhaps we do. It would poffibly be thought a bold paradox, if not a very dangerous falfehood, if I fhould fay, that fome changelings, who have lived forty years together without any appearance of reafon, are fomething between a man and a beaft; which prejudice is founded upon nothing else but a falfe fuppofition, that these two names, man and beast, ftand for diftinct fpecies, fo fet out by real esfences, that there can come no other fpecies between them; whereas, if we will abstract from those names, and the suppofition of such specific effences made by nature, wherein all things of the fame denominations did exactly and equally partake; if we would not fancy that there were a certain number of these effences, wherein all things, as in moulds, were caft and formed, we should find that the idea of the shape, motion, and life of a man without reafon, is as much a distinct idea, and makes as much a distinct fort of things from

Book IV. man and beast, as the idea of the fhape of an afs with reason, would be different from either that of man or beaft, and be a species of an animal between or diftinct from both.

$ 14. Objection against a Changeling being fomething between a Man and Beaft, anfwered. HERE every body will be ready to afk, If changelings may be fuppofed fomething between man and beast, pray what are they? I answer, Changelings; which is as good a word to fignify fomething different from the fignification of man or beaft, as the names man and beast are to have fignifications different one from the other. This, well confidered, would resolve this matter, and fhow my meaning without any more ado: But I am not fo unacquainted with the zeal of fome men, which enables them to fpin confequences, and to fee religion threatened whenever any one ventures to quit their forms of fpeaking, as not to foresee what names fuch a propofition as this is like to be charged with; and without doubt it will be afked, If changelings are fomething between man and beaft, what will become of them in the other world? To which I answer, 1. It concerns me not to know or inquire. To their own mafter they ftand or fall. It will make their state neither better nor worse, whether we determine any thing of it or no. They are in the hands of a faithful Creator and a bountiful Father, who difpofes not of his creatures according to our narrow thoughts or opinions, nor diftinguishes them according to names and fpecies of our contrivance. And we that know fo little of this prefent world we are in, may, I think, content ourselves without being peremptory in defining the different ftates which creatures fhall come into when they go off this stage. It may fuffice us, that he hath made known to all thofe who are capable of inftruction, difcourfe and reafoning, that they fhall come to an account, and receive according to what they have done in this body.

$15.

BUT, fecondly, I answer, The force of thefe mens quef

tion, (viz. will you deprive changelings of a future ftate?) is founded on one of these two fuppofitions, which are both falfe? The firft is, that all things that have the outward shape and appearance of a man must neceffarily be defigned to an immortal future being after this life: Or, fecondly, that whatever is of human birth must be fo. Take away these imaginations, and fuch questions will be groundlefs and ridiculous. I defire then those who think there is no more but an accidental difference between themselves and changelings, the effence in both being exactly the fame, to confider whether they can imagine immortality annexed to any outward shape of the body; the very propofing it, is, I fuppofe, enough to make them dif own it. No one yet, that ever I heard of, how much foever immerfed in matter, allowed that excellency to any figure of the grofs fenfible outward parts, as to affirm eternal life due to it, or a neceffary confequence of it; or that any mass of matter fhould, after its diffolution here, be again restored hercafter to an everlafting state of fenfe, perception, and knowledge, only because it was moulded into this or that figure, and had fuch a particular frame of its vifible parts. Such an opinion as this, placing immortality in a certain fuperficial figure, turns out of doors all confideration of foul or spirit, upon whose account alone fome corporeal beings have hitherto been concluded immortal, and others not. This is to attribute more to the outfide than infide of things; to place the excellency of a man more in the external shape of his body, than internal perfections of his foul; which is but little better than to annex'the great and inestimable advantage of immortality and life everlafting, which he has above other material beings; to annex it, I fay, to the cut of his beard, or the fashion of his coat. For this or that outward make of our bodies no more carries with.. it the hopes of an eternal duration, than the fashion of a man's fuit gives him reasonable grounds to imagine. it will never wear out, or that it will make him immortal. It will perhaps be faid, that nobody thinks

that the shape makes any thing immortal, but it is the fhape is the fign of a rational foul within, which is immortal. I wonder who made it the fign of any fuch thing; for barely faying it will not make it so; it would require fome proofs to perfuade one of it. No figure that I know speaks any fuch language; for it may as rationally be concluded, that the dead body of a man, wherein there is to be found no more appearance or action of life than there is in a ftatue, has yet nevertheless a living foul in it, because of its hape, as that there is a rational foul in a changeling, because he has the outfide of a rational creature, when his actions carry far lefs marks of reason with them, in the whole courfe of his life, than what are to be found in many a beast.

§ 16. Monfers.

BUT it is the iffue of rational parents, and must therefore be concluded to have a rational foul. I know not by what logic you must fo conclude. I am fure this is a conclufion that men no where allow of; for if they did, they would not make bold, as every where they do, to destroy ill-formed and mishaped productions. Ay, but these are monsters. Let them be fo; what will your driveling, unintelligent, untractable, changeling be? Shall a defect in the body make a monfter, a defect in the mind (the far more noble, and in the common phrase, the far more effential part) not? Shall the want of a nose or a neck make a monster, and put fuch iffue out of the rank of men; the want of reafon and understanding not? This is to bring all back again to what was exploded juft now; this is to place all in the fhape, and to take the measure of a man only by his outfide. To fhow that, according to the ordinary way of reasoning in this matter, people do lay the whole ftrefs on the figure, and refolve the whole effence of the fpecies of man (as they make it) into the outward fhape, how unreafonable foever it be, and how much foever they difown it, we need but trace their thoughts and practice a little farther, and then it will plainly appear. The well-shaped