I. NOT-BEING is confidered as excluding all fubftance, and then all modes are alfo neceffarily excluded, and this we call pure nullity, or mere nothing.

This nothing is taken either in a vulgar or a philofophical fenfe; fo we fay there is nothing in the cup, in a vulgar fenfe, when we mean there is no liquor in it; but we cannot say there is nothing in the cup, in a ftrict philofophical fenfe, while there is air in it, and perhaps a million of rays of light are there.

II. NOT-BEING, as it has relation to modes or manners of being, may be confidered either as a mere negation, or as a privation.

A negation is the abfence of that which does not naturally belong to the thing we are fpeaking of, or which has no right, obligation, or neceffity to be prefent with it; as when we fay a ftone is inanimate, or blind, or deaf, that is, it has no life, nor fight, nor hearing; nor when we fay a carpenter or a fisherman is unlearned, these are mere negations.

But a privation is the abfence of what does naturally belong to the thing we are speaking of, or which ought to be prefent with it, as when a man or a horfe is deaf, or blind, or dead, or if a physician or a divine be unlearned, these are called privations; fo the finfulness of any human action is faid to be a privation; for fin is that want of conformity to the law of God, which ought to be found in every action of man.

Note. THERE are fome writers who make all fort of relative modes or relations, as well as all external denominations, to be mere creatures of the mind, and entia rationis, and then they rank them alfo under the general head of not-beings; but it is my opinion, that whatsoever may be determined concerning mere mental relations and external denominations, which feem to have fomething lefs of entity or being in them, yet there are many real relations which ought not to be reduced to fo low a clafs; fuch are the fituation of bodies, their mutual diftances, their particular propertions and measures, the notions of fatherhood, brotherhood, fonship, &c. all which are relative ideas. The

very effence of virtue or holiness confifts in the conformity of our actions to the rule of right reafon, or the law of God; the nature and effence of fincerity is the conformity of our words and actions to our thoughts, all which are but mere relations; and I think we must not reduce fuch pofitive beings as piety, virtue, and truth, to the rank of non-entities, which have nothing real in them, though fin (or rather the finfulness of an action) may be properly called a not-being, for it is a want of piety and virtue. This is the moft ufual, and perhaps the jufteft, way of reprefenting thefe matters.

CHAP. III.

OF THE SEVERAL SORTS OF PERCEPTIONS OR IDEAS.

DEAS may be divided with regard to their original, their nature, their objects, and their qualities.

THE

SECT. I.

Of fenfible, fpiritual, and abstracted Ideas.

HERE has been a great controverfy about the origin of ideas, viz. Whether any of our ideas are innate or no, that is, born with us, and naturally belonging to our minds? Mr Locke utterly denies it; others as pofitively affirm it: Now, though this controverfy may be compromifed, by allowing that there is a fenfe, wherein our firft ideas of fome things may be faid to be innate, (as I have fhewn in fome remarks on Mr Locke's effay, which have lain long by me), yet it does not belong to this place and bufinefs to have that point debated at large, nor will it hinder our pursuit of the prefent work to pass it over in filence.

D

There is fufficient ground to fay, that all our ideas, with regard to their original, may be divided into three forts, viz. Senfible, fpiritual, and abftracted ideas.

I. SENSIBLE or corporeal ideas are derived originally from our fenfes, and from the communication which the foul has with the animal body in this prefent state; fuch are the notions we frame of all colours, founds, taftes, figures, or fhapes and motions: for our senses being converfant about particular fenfible objects become the occafions of feveral diftinct conceptions in the mind; and thus we come by the ideas of yellow, white, heat, cold, foft, hard, bitter, fweet, and all those which we call fenfible qualities. All the ideas which we have of body, and the fensible modes and properties that belong to it, seem to be derived from fenfation.

And howfoever these may be treasured up in the memory, and by the work of fancy may be increased, diminifhed, compounded, divided, and diverfified, (which we are ready to call our invention), yet they all derive their firft nature and being from fomething that has been let into our minds by one or other of our fenfes If I think of a golden mountain, or a sea of liquid fire, yet the single ideas of fea, fire, mountain, and gold came into my thoughts at first by fenfation; the mind has only compounded them.

II. *SPIRITUAL or intellectual ideas are those which we gain by reflecting on the nature and actions of our own fouls, and turning our thoughts within ourselves, and obferving what is tranfacted in our own minds. Such are the ideas we have of thought, affent, diffent, judging, reafon, knowledge, underftanding, will, love, fear, hope.

By fenfation the foul contemplates things (as it were) out of itself, and gains corporeal reprefentations or fenfible ideas; by reflection the feul contemplates itself, and things within itself, and by this means it gains fpiritual ideas, or reprefentations of things intellectual.

Here it may be noted, though the first original of

*Here the word Spiritual is used in a mere natural, and not in a religious fenfe.

thefe two forts of ideas, viz. Sensible and spiritual, may be entirely owing to these two principles, fenfation and reflection, yet the recollection and fresh excitation of them may be owning to a thousand other occafions and Occurrences of life. We could never inform a man who was born blind or deaf what we mean by the words yellow, blue, red, or by the words loud or fhrill, nor convey any juft ideas of these things to his mind, by all the powers of language, unless he has experienced thofe fenfations of found and colour; nor could we ever gain the ideas of thought, judgment, reafon, doubting, hoping, &c. by all the words that man could invent, without turning our thoughts inward upon the actions of our own fouls. Yet when we once have attained thefe ideas by fenfation and reflection, they may be excited afresh by the ufe of names, words, figns, or by any thing elfe that has been connected with them in our thoughts; for when two or more ideas have been affociated together, whether it be by cuftom, or accident, or defign, the one presently brings the other to mind.

III. BESIDES these two which we have named, there is a third fort of ideas, which are commonly called abftracted ideas, becaufe though the original ground or occafion of them may be fenfation, or reflection, or both, yet thefe ideas are framed by another act of the mind, which we ufually call abstraction. Now the word abstraction fignifies a withdrawing fome parts of an idea from other parts of it, by which means fuch abftracted ideas are formed, as neither reprefent any thing corporeal or fpiritual, that is, any thing peculiar or proper to mind or body. Now these are of two

kinds.

Some of these abstracted ideas are the most abfolute general, and univerfal conceptions of things confidered in themselves, without refpect to others, fuch as entity or being, and not-being, effence, exiftence, act, power, fubftance, mode, accident, &c.

The other fort of abftracted ideas is relative, as when we compare feveral things together, and confider merely the relations of one thing to another, entirely drop

ping the fubject of those relations, whether they be corporeal or fpiritual; fuch are our ideas of caufe, effect, likeness, unlikeness, fubject, object, indentity, or famenefs, and contrariety, order, and other things which are treated of in ontology.

Most of the terms of art in feveral fciences may be ranked under this head of abstracted ideas, as noun, pronoun, verb, in grammar, and the feveral particles of fpeech, as wherefore, therefore, when, how, although, how foever, &c. So connections, tranfitions, fimilitudes, tropes, and their various forms in rhetoric.

The abitracted ideas, whether abfolute or relative, cannot fo properly be faid to derive their immediate, complete, and diftinct original, either from fenfation or reflection, (1.) because the nature and the actions both of body and fpirit give us occafion to frame exactly the fame ideas of effence, mode, caufe, effect, likeness, contrariety, &c. Therefore thefe cannot be called either fenfible or fpiritual ideas, for they are not exact reprefentations either of the peculiar qualities or actions of fpirit or body, but feem to be a distinct kind of idea framed in the mind, to represent our most general conceptions of things, or their relations to one another, without any regard to their natures, whether they be corporeal or fpiritual. And, (2.) the fame general ideas of caufe and effect, likenefs, &c. may be transferred to a thousand other kinds of being, whether bodily or fpiritual, befides thofe from whence we first derived them: even those abstracted ideas, which might be firft occafioned by bodies, may be as properly afterward attributed to fpirit.

Now, though Mr Locke fuppofes fenfation and reflection to be the only two fprings of all ideas, and these two are fufficient to furnish our minds with all that rich variety of ideas which we have; yet abftraction is certainly a different act of the mind, whence thefe abftracted ideas have their original; though perhaps fenfation or reflection may furnifh us with all the first objects and occafions whence thefe abftracted ideas are excited and derived. Nor in this fenfe and view of things can I think Mr Locke himself would deny my