The Last of the Objections

80. What if we give up the Cause of material Substance and assert, that Matter is an unknown Somewhat, neither Substance nor Accident, Spirit nor Idea, inert, thoughtless, indivisible, immoveable, unextended, existing in no Place?

You say that whatever may be urged against Substance or Occasion, or any other positive or relative Notion of Matter, hath no place at all, so long as this negative Definition of Matter is adhered to. I answer, you may, if so it shall seem good, use the word Matter in the same Sense, that other Men use nothing, and so make those Terms convertible in your Style.

For after all, this is what appears to me to be the Result of that Definition, the Parts whereof when I consider with Attention, either collectively, or separate from each other, I do not find that there is any kind of Effect or Impression made on my Mind, different from what is excited by the Term Nothing.

81. You will reply perhaps, that in the foresaid Definition is included, what doth sufficiently distinguish it from nothing, the positive, abstract Idea of Quiddity, Entity, or Existence.

I own indeed, that those who pretend to the Faculty of framing abstract general Ideas, do talk as if they had such an Idea, which is, say they, the most abstract and general Notion of all, that is to me the most incomprehensible of all others. That there are a great variety of Spirits of different Orders and Capacities, whose Faculties, both in Number and Extent, are far exceeding those the Author of my Being has bestowed on me, I see no reason to deny. And for me to pretend to determine by my own few, stinted, narrow Inlets of Perception, what Ideas the inexhaustible Power of the Supreme Spirit may imprint upon them, were certainly the utmost Folly and Presumption.

Since there may be, for ought that I know, innumerable sorts of Ideas or Sensations, as different from one another, and from all that I have perceived, as Colours are from Sounds. But how ready soever I may be, to acknowledge the Scantiness of my Comprehension, with regard to the endless variety of Spirits and Ideas, that might possibly exist, yet for any one to pretend to a Notion of Entity or Existence, abstracted from Spirit and Idea, from perceived and being perceived, is, I suspect, a downright repugnancy and trifling with Words. It remains that we consider the Objections, which may possibly be made on the part of Religion.

82. Some there are who think, that though the Arguments for the real Existence of Bodies, which are drawn from Reason, be allowed not to amount to Demonstration, yet the Holy Scriptures are so clear in the Point, as will sufficiently convince every good Christian, that Bodies do really exist, and are something more than mere Ideas; there being in Holy Writ innumerable Facts related, which evidently suppose the reality of Timber, and Stone, Mountains, and Rivers, and Cities, and humane Bodies.

To which I answer, that no sort of Writings whatever, sacred or profane, which use those and the like Words in the vulgar Acceptation, or so as to have a meaning in them, are in danger of having their Truth called in question by our Doctrine.

That all those Things do really exist, that there are Bodies, even corporeal Substances, when taken in the vulgar Sense, has been shewn to be agreeable to our Principles: And the difference betwixt Things and Ideas, Realities and Chimeras, has been distinctly explained *. And I do not think, that either what Philosophers call Matter, or the Existence of Objects without the Mind, is any where mentioned in Scripture.

83. Again, whether there be, or be not external Things, it is agreed on all hands, that the proper Use of Words, is the marking our Conceptions, or Things only as they are known and perceived by us; whence it plainly follows, that in the Tenets we have laid down, there is nothing inconsistent with the right Use and Significancy of Language, and that Discourse of what kind soever, so far as it is intelligible, remains undisturbed. But all this seems so manifest, from what hath been set forth in the Premises, that it is needless to insist any farther on it.

84. But it will be urged, that Miracles do, at least, lose much of their Stress and Import by our Principles. What must we think of Moses’s Rod, was it not really turned into a Serpent, or was there only a Change of Ideas in the Minds of the Spectators? And can it be supposed, that our Saviour did no more at the Marriage-Feast in Cana, than impose on the Sight, and Smell, and Taste of the Guests, so as to create in them the Appearance or Idea only of Wine?

The same may be said of all other Miracles: Which, in consequence of the foregoing Principles, must be looked upon only as so many Cheats, or Illusions of Fancy.

To this I reply, that the Rod was changed into a real Serpent, and the Water into real Wine. That this doth not, in the least, contradict what I have elsewhere said, will be evident from Sect. 34, and 35. But this Business of Real and Imaginary hath been already so plainly and fully explained, and so often referred to, and the Difficulties about it are so easily answered from what hath gone before, that it were an Affront to the Reader’s Understanding, to resume the Explication of it in this place.

I shall only observe, that if at Table all who were present should see, and smell, and taste, and drink Wine, and find the effects of it, with me there could be no doubt of its Reality. So that, at Bottom, the Scruple concerning real Miracles hath no place at all on ours, but only on the received Principles, and consequently maketh rather for, than against what hath been said.

85. Having done with the Objections, which I endeavoured to propose in the clearest Light, and gave them all the Force and Weight I could, we proceed in the next place to take a view of our Tenets in their Consequences. Some of these appear at first Sight, as that several difficult and obscure Questions, on which abundance of Speculation hath been thrown away, are intirely banished from Philosophy. Whether corporeal Substance can think? Whether * Sect. XXIX, XXX, XXXIII, XXXVI, &c.

Matter be infinitely divisible? And how it operates on Spirit? these and like Inquiries have given infinite Amusement to Philosophers in all Ages. But depending on the Existence of Matter, they have no longer any place on our Principles. Many other Advantages there are, as well with regard to Religion as the Sciences, which it is easy for any one to deduce from what hath been premised. But this will appear more plainly in the Sequel. LXXXVI.

From the Principles we have laid down, it follows, humane Knowledge may naturally be reduced to two Heads, that of Ideas, and that of Spirits. Of each of these I shall treat in order.

And first as to Ideas or unthinking Things, our Knowledge of these hath been very much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very dangerous Errors, by supposing a twofold Existence of the Objects of Sense, the one intelligible, or in the Mind, the other real and without the Mind: Whereby unthinking Things are thought to have a natural Subsistence of their own, distinct from being perceived by Spirits.

This which, if I mistake not, hath been shewn to be a most groundless and absurd Notion, is the very Root of Scepticism; for so long as Men thought that real Things subsisted without the Mind, and that their Knowledge was only so far forth real as it was conformable to real Things, it follows, they could not be certain they had any real Knowledge at all.

For how can it be known, that the Things which are perceived, are conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the Mind?