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the difference of a right angle: solid extension is the primary attribute or difference of matter: consciousness, or at least a power of thinking, is the difference or primary attribute of a spirit*: and to fear and love God is the primary attribute of a pious man.

A secondary essential mode is any other attribute of a thing, which is not of primary consideration; this is called a property. Sometimes indeed it goes towards making up the essence, especially of a complex being, so far as we are acquainted with it: sometimes it depends upon, aud follows from the essence of it: so volubility, or aptness to roll, is the property of a bowl, and is derived from its roundness. Mobility and figure, or shape, are properties of matter; and it is the property of a pious man to love his neighbour.

An accidental mode, or an accident, is such a mode as is not necessary to the being of a thing: for the subject may be without it, and yet remain of the same nature that it was before; or it is that mode which may be separated or abolished from its subject; so smoothness or roughness, blackness or whiteness, motion or rest, are the accidents of a bowl; for these may be all changed, and yet the body remain a bowl still. Learning, justice, folly, sickness, health, are the accidents of a man; motion, squareness, or any particular shape or size, are the accidents of a body; yet shape and size in general are essential modes of it; for a body must have some size and shape, nor can it be without them; so hope, fear, wishing, assenting, and doubting, are accidents of the mind, though thinking in general seems to be essential to it.

Here observe, that the name of accident has been oftentimes given by the old Peripatetic philosophers to all modes, whether essential or accidental; but the moderns confine this word accident to the sense in which I have described it.

Here it should be noted also, that though the word property be limited sometimes in logical treatises to the secondary essential mode, yet it is used in common language to signify these four sorts of

See the preceding note.

medes, of which some are essential, and some accidental.

(1.) Such as belong to every subject of that kind, but not only to those subjects. So yellow colour and ductility are properties of gold; they belong to all gold; but not only to gold, for saffron is also yellow, and lead is ductile.

(2.) Such as belong only to one kind of subject, but not to every subject of that kind. So learning, reading, and writing, are properties of human nature; they belong only to man, but not to all men.

(3.) Such as belong to every subject of one kind, and only to them, but not always. So speech or language is a property of man, for it belongs to all men, and to men only; but men are not always speaking.

(4.) Such as belong to every subject of one kind, and to them only and always. So shape and divisibility are properties of body: so omniscience and omnipotence are properties of the divine nature; for in this sense properties and attributes are the same; and, except in logical treatises, there is scarce any distinction made between them. These are called propria quarto modo in the schools, or properties of the fourth sort.

Note. Where there is any one property or essential attribute so superior to the rest, that it appears plainly that all the rest are derived from it, and such as is sufficient to give a full distinction of that subject from all other subjects, this attribute or property is called the essential difference, as is before declared; and we commonly say the essence of the thing consists in it: so the essence of matter in general seems to consist in solidity, or solid extension. But, for the most part, we are so much at a loss in finding out the intimate essence of particular natural bodies, that we are forced to distinguish the essential difference of mest things by a combination of properties. So a sparrow is a bird which has such coloured feathers, and such a particular size, shape, and motion. So wormwood is an herb which has such a leaf of such a colour and shape, and taste, and such a root and stalk. So beasts and fishes, minerals, me

tals, and works of art, sometimes as well as of nature, are distinguished by such a collection of properties.

SECT. IV.-The farther Divisions of Mode.

II. The second division of modes is into absolute aud relative. An absolute mode is that which belongs to its subject, without respect to any other beings whatsoever; but a relative mode is derived from the regard that one being has to others. So roundness and smoothness are the absolute modes of a bowl; for if there were nothing else existing in the whole creation, a bowl might be round and smooth; but greatness and smallness are relative modes; for the very ideas of them are derived merely from the comparison of one being with others. A bowl of four inches diameter is very great compared with one of an inch and a half; but it is very small in comparison to another bowl, whose diameter is eighteen or twenty inches. Motion is the absolute mode of a body, but swiftness or slowness are relative ideas; for the motion of a bowl on a bowling-green is swift, when compared with a snail; and it is slow when compared with a cannon bullet.

These relative modes are largely treated of by some logical and metaphysical writers, under the name of relation; and these relations themselves are farther subdivided into such as arise from the nature of things, and such as arise merely from the operation of our mind. One sort are called real relations, the other mental; so the likeness of one egg to another is a real relation, because it arises from the real nature of things; for whether there was any man or mind to conceive it or no, one egg would be like another; but when we consider an egg as a noun substantive in grammar, or as signified by the letters e, g, g, these are mental relations, and derive their very nature from the mind of man. These sort of relations are called by the schools entia rationis, or second notions, which have no real being but by the operations of the mind.

III. The third division of mode shews us they are either intrinsical or extrinsical. Intrinsical modes are

conceived to be in the subject or substance, as when we say a globe is round, or swift, rolling, or at rest; or when we say a man is tall or learned, these are intrinsic modes; but extrinsic modes are such as arise from something that is not in the substance or subject itself; but it is a manner of being which some substances attain, by reason of something that is external or foreign to the subject; as, this globe lies within two yards of the wall; or, this man is beloved or hated. Note. Such sort of modes as this last example are called external denominations.

IV. There is a fourth division much akin to this, whereby modes are said to be inherent or adherent; that is, proper or improper. Adherent or improper modes arising from the joining of some accidental substance to the chief subject, which yet may be separated from it; so when a bowl is wet, or a boy is cloathed, these are adherent modes; for the water and the cloaths are distinct substances, which adhere to the bowl or to the boy; but when we say the bowl is swift or round, when we say the boy is strong or witty, these are proper or inherent modes, for they have a sort of in being in the substance itself, and do not arise from the addition of any other substance to it.

V. Action and passion are modes or manners which belong to substances, and should not entirely be omitted here. When a smith with a hammer strikes a piece of iron, the hammer and the smith are both agents or subjects of action; the one is the prime or supreme, the other the subordinate; the iron is the patient, or the subject of passion, in a philosophical sense, because it receives the operation of the agent; though this sense of the words passion and patient differs much from the vulgar meaning of them*.

VI. The sixth division of modes may be into physical, that is, natural, civil, moral, and supernatural. So when we consider the apostle Paul, who was a little

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Agent signifies the doer, patient the sufferer; action is doing, passion is suffering. Agent and action have retained their original and philosophical sense, though patient and passion have acquired a very different meaning in comm language.

man, a Roman by the privilege of his birth, a man of virtue or honesty, and an inspired apostle; his low stature is a physical mode, his being a Roman is a civil privilege, his honesty is a moral consideration, and his being inspired is supernatural.

VII. Modes belong either to body or to spirit, or to both. Modes of body belong only to matter or to corporeal beings; and these are shape, size, situation, or place, &c. Modes of spirit belong to mind; such are knowledge, assent, dissent, doubting, reasoning, &c. Modes which belong to both have been sometimes called mixed modes, or human modes; for these are only found in human nature, which is compounded both of body and spirit; such are sensation, imagination, passion, &c. in all which there is a concurrence of the operations both of mind and body, that is, of animal and intellectual nature.

But the modes of body may be yet farther distinguished. Some of them are primary modes or qualities, for they belong to bodies considered in themselves, whether there were any man to take notice of them. or no; such are these before mentioned, viz. shape, size, situation, &c. Secondary qualities or modes, are such ideas as we ascribe to bodies on account of the various impressions which are made ou the senses of men by them, and these are called sensible qualities, which are very numerous; such are all colours, as red, green, blue, &c.; such are all sounds, as sharp, shrill, loud, hoarse; all tastes, as sweet, bitter, sour; all smells, whether pleasant, offensive, or indifferent; and all tactile qualities, or such as affect the touch or feeling, viz. heat, cold, &c. These are properly called secondary qualities; for though we are ready to conceive them as existing in the very bodies themselves which affect our senses, yet true philosophy has most undeniably proved, that all these are really various ideas or perceptions excited in human nature by the different impressions that bodies make upon our senses by their primary modes, that is, by means of their different shape, size, motion, and position of those little invisible parts that compose them. Thence it follows, that a secondary

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