Introduction

1. PHILOSOPHY is the study of Wisdom and Truth.

Those who have spent most Time and Pains in it should:

• enjoy a greater calm and serenity of Mind
• enjoy a greater clearness and evidence of Knowledge
• be less disturbed with Doubts and Difficulties than other Men.

Yet it is the Illiterate Bulk of Mankind who are governed by the Dictates of Nature that are easy and undisturbed.

They complain not of any want of Evidence in their Senses, and are out of all danger of becoming Sceptics.

But no sooner do we depart from Sense and Instinct to follow the Light of a Superior Principle, to reason, meditate, and reflect on the Nature of Things, but a thousand Scruples spring up in our Minds, concerning those Things which before we seemed fully to comprehend.

Prejudices and Errors of Sense do from all Parts discover themselves to our view; and endeavouring to correct these by Reason we are insensibly drawn into uncouth Paradoxes, Difficulties, and Inconsistencies, which multiply and grow upon us as we advance in Speculation; till at length, having wander’d through many intricate Mazes, we find our selves just where we were, or, which is worse, sit down in a forlorn Scepticism.

2. The cause of this is thought to be the Obscurity of things, or the natural Weakness and Imperfection of our Understandings.

It is said that:

• we have a few Faculties
• our Faculties are designed by Nature for the Support and Comfort of Life, and not to penetrate into the inward Essence and Constitution of Things.

The Mind of Man is Finite. This is why it run into Absurdities and Contradictions when it treats of Things which partake of Infinity; out of which it is impossible it should ever extricate it self, it being of the nature of Infinite not to be comprehended by that which is Finite.

3. But perhaps we may be too partial to our selves in placing the Fault originally in our Faculties, and not rather in the wrong use we make of them.

It is a hard thing to suppose, that right Deductions from true Principles should ever end in Consequences which cannot be maintained or made consistent.

We should believe that God has dealt more bountifully with the Sons of Men, than to give them a strong desire for that Knowledge, which he had placed quite out of their reach.

This were not agreeable to the wonted, indulgent Methods of Providence, which, whatever Appetites it may have implanted in the Creatures, doth usually furnish them with such means as, if rightly made use of, will not fail to satisfy them.

Most of those Difficulties blocked the way to Knowledge are entirely owing to our selves.

We had raised a dust, and then complained that we could not see.

4. My Purpose is to discover what those Principles are, which have introduced all that Doubtfulness and Uncertainty, those Absurdities and Contradictions into the several Sects of Philosophy; insomuch that the Wisest Men have thought our Ignorance incurable, conceiving it to arise from the natural dulness and limitation of our Faculties.

And surely it is a Work well deserving our Pains, to make a strict inquiry concerning the first Principles of Humane Knowledge, to sift and examine them on all sides: especially since there may be some Grounds to suspect that those Lets and Difficulties, which stay and embarass the Mind in its search after Truth, do not spring from any Darkness and Intricacy in the Objects, or natural Defect in the Understanding, so much as from false Principles which have been insisted on, and might have been avoided.

5. How difficult and discouraging soever this Attempt may seem, when I consider how many great and extraordinary Men have gone before me in the same Designs: Yet I am not without some Hopes, upon the Consideration that the largest Views are not always the Clearest, and that he who is Short-sighted will be obliged to draw the Object nearer, and may, perhaps, by a close and narrow Survey discern that which had escaped far better Eyes.

6. In order to prepare the Mind of the Reader for the easier conceiving what follows, it is proper to premise somewhat, by way of Introduction, concerning the Nature and Abuse of Language.

The main cause of errors in philosophy is the opinion that the Mind hath a power of framing Abstract Ideas or Notions of Things.

The Writings and Disputes of Philosophers are mostly on abstract Ideas.

7. It is agreed on all hands, that the Qualities or Modes of things never really exist each of them by it self, and separated from all others.

Instead, they are mixed and blended together, several in the same Object.

But we are told, the Mind being able to consider each Quality singly, or abstracted from those other Qualities with which it is united, does by that means frame to it self abstract Ideas.

For example, there is perceived by Sight an Object extended, coloured, and moved: This mix’d or compound Idea the mind resolving into its Simple, constituent Parts, and viewing each by it self, exclusive of the rest, does frame the abstract Ideas of Extension, Colour, and Motion.

Not that it is possible for Colour or Motion to exist without Extension: but only that the Mind can frame to it self by Abstraction the Idea of Colour exclusive of Extension, and of Motion exclusive of both Colour and Extension.

8. The Mind having observed that in the particular Extensions perceiv’d by Sense, there is something common and alike in all, and some other things peculiar, as this or that Figure or Magnitude, which distinguish them one from another; it considers apart or singles out by it self that which is common, making thereof a most abstract Idea of Extension, which is neither Line, Surface, nor Solid, nor has any Figure or Magnitude but is an Idea intirely prescinded from all these. So likewise the Mind by leaving out of the particular Colours perceived by Sense, that which distinguishes them one from another, and retaining that only which is common to all, makes an Idea of Colour in abstract which is neither Red, nor Blue, nor White, nor any other determinate Colour.

And in like manner by considering Motion abstractedly not only from the Body moved, but likewise from the Figure it describes, and all particular Directions and Velocities, the abstract Idea of Motion is framed; which equally corresponds to all particular Motions whatsoever that may be perceived by Sense.